Tag Archives: UK

May 7, 2016 · 22:45

Slaves of a different nature

The sci-fi fan sees in his/her mind a woman, all green, preferably close to naked growing lust in their mind. It is the Orion Slave girl fantasy. This comes from a TV-series that is half a century old. In that universe created by Gene Roddenberry these green ladies were introduced in the original pilot of the Star Trek series in the episode ‘the Cage’, there they were depicted in a sexual context. This is not that kind of slave. Neither is it the kind that is forced to create products through prisons or work camps where they make license plates, or set up governmental mailings. Neither are they children under 18, forced into some kind of servitude. No, these are not one of the 5 forms that the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center is illuminating, this is a sixth kind.

It is the kind of servitude that was once a calling, once a choice of life, which governments and insurers alike have been putting under pressure beyond any normal acceptance of labour. That part has been ignored for too long. People all believing in the wealth that a doctors and lawyers income brings. Later in a career that might have some level of truth when you ignore the elements on the other side of the scale. The fact that someone in IT will surpass the income of those graduates from the very beginning is often ignored. When I see some of my friends in health care, I see friends who are exhausted 70% of the time, some working in excess of 14 hours a day. So when I read ‘Nearly 60% of Scottish GPs plan to leave or cut their hours‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/28/nearly-60-of-scottish-gps-plan-to-leave-or-cut-their-hours), I am not overly surprised.

We all claim that we are against slavery and injustice, yet the governments on a global scale are seeing their health systems collapse and as such, hiding behind the false image of all doctors are wealthy, they have been cutting into the incomes of doctors and stretching the hours they have to make. Underfunding practices and making them work ungodly hours. What we see in Scotland is only the beginning. In the Netherlands we saw in 2014 that GP’s would work around 60 hours per FTA (Full Time Equivalent), making that 13 hours per day, whilst IT staff would get more for a mere 40-45 hours a week, 9 hours a day at the most.

So in all this, whilst health care workers availability are at an all-time low, we see the quote: “26% planned to leave general practice in the next five years“, so one out of four is stopping whilst one in 6 patients will at current pressure not receive the minimum level of care which will now get close to another 1.5 out of 6. This gives us 33% to 50% of the patients in a tough spot. One foot in the grave will get a whole new meaning soon enough when that comes to pass. Certain elements of these changes are already visible in France and the Netherlands, the United Kingdom is in a harsher place than the Netherlands, but I cannot confirm how France is set. Outside of the large cities the information tends to be sketchy and cannot completely be relied upon (read: my knowledge of French sucks big time). Sweden is heading towards a new economic crises on more than one side. Healthcare is one (but less visible), the issue that is visible is the economic drain that the refugees are causing, well over 100,000 have no place and no matter how obliging Sweden is. The refugees are confronted with language issues and a skill set problem. The latter one can partially be adjusted, the first one can be overcome by the refugees who truly want this, but it takes time, which is one side Sweden is having less of. Sweden is trying to recruit doctors in many ways and their approach might work, but it will work slowly and it will cost the Swedish government a fortune. The reason for focussing on Sweden is because for the most, Sweden is a social success. Sweden has made social changes that the nation accepted (including paying a lot more tax than there neighbouring nations). The refugees are changing this, a social system can only survive in balance, the refugees arrived in such massive amounts that the system cannot cope. The total refugees that recently arrived have surpassed the size of the Swedish city of Västerås, which by the way is not the smallest of places. With the banking in disarray and Sweden missing sales marks gives additional problems for Sweden and healthcare will feel the brunt as doctors are now moving to other non-Swedish shores. Sweden illuminates the required need for the UK, a need that the UK is unable to adopt at present. In addition, the approach that Jeremy Hunt is taking will not help any.

When we see the British Telecom News page, we see “But in a letter to the BMA’s junior doctor committee chairman, Dr Johann Malawana, Mr Hunt said: “It is not now possible to change or delay the introduction of this contract without creating unacceptable disruption for the NHS.””

As I see it, my response would be ‘Yes, Mr Hunt!‘ you had alternatives but you chose to ignore them. Focussed on a system that had collapsed, focussing on the approach of slavery, you saw in your school years the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, yet as we see the words from the English poet William Cowper (1785) as he wrote:

We have no slaves at home – Then why abroad?
Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free.
They touch our country, and their shackles fall.
That’s noble, and bespeaks a nation proud.
And jealous of the blessing. Spread it then,
And let it circulate through every vein.

 

Bankers are overprotected whilst being vultures, for not being held accountable for the mess they created (as it was not illegal), whilst at the same speed, junior doctors are reset with contracts that amounts to becoming an involuntary slave labour force. This to the degree that doctors are packing their cases and moving to Australia and other Commonwealth nations that will take them and with the shortage the world at large has, for them moving to Nassau and live by the beach with a small practice would be preferred to a city job with a mortgage they cannot pay off and working 60 hours a week. Jeremy Hunt dropped the ball. He did not do this intentionally. He was given a bad hand from the start, yet in all this instead of going on the same way, the NHS needed another direction entirely, that part was never really investigated.

For me, with whatever I have left?

If I had to go into healthcare, I would try for Radiologist position in Essex or something like that. I still have 15 years in me. For now, I have a nice idea for Google to grow their revenue by 3.5 billion dollars over the next 5 years, and gradually more after that and for £25M post taxation it is all theirs! For now, I am considering to do some teaching in Italy in the future. Teaching English in Catholic Public Schools near the Vatican. You see, this crazy merry go round we have in Europe now will collapse, there is no viable way to stop that at present as I personally see it. We must focus on what comes after. That part is now gaining visibility as we see the US President (read: Mr Lame Duck Obama) is quoted in Forbes “President Obama’s Implicit Message To Taxpayers: ‘I Own You’“. My response?

‘No, Mr President, you do not. You never did. Like a weakling you stopped taking taxation to a realistic level, you refused to do anything to stop greed. That part was clearly shown at the G-20 in 2013, three years ago. You might actually end up becoming the most useless president in the history of the United States of America‘

That would be my response!

When we look at Forbes (at http://www.forbes.com/sites/johntamny/2016/04/10/president-obamas-implicit-message-to-taxpayers-i-own-you), we see that the Obama treasury stopped one deal, one deal only. This is about a lot more than just that 212 billion dollar deal. You see, this is not about the Panama Papers, this is what they enabled. When we consider the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/may/06/panama-papers-us-launches-crackdown-on-international-tax-evasion), we see that same duckling state “the president will take executive action to close loopholes used by foreigners in the US and call on Congress to pass legislation“, how interesting that it is just about the foreigners, so how much is in Rothschild wealth management directly from foreigners and how much is arranged through American agents?

In addition we have “The Panama Papers underscore the importance of the efforts the United States has taken domestically, and the efforts we have undertaken with our international partners, to address these shared challenges”, which is an empty statement as I see it, because over the next 6 months too little will be done and it will be left to the next person in office. The final quote is “The problem is that a lot of this stuff is legal, not illegal”, which is something we already knew. Yet when we consider the change that could have been brought in 2013, he (read: the Democratic Administration in power) backed off, forcing a watered down version that was close to useless. This is the evidence I see as to the level of uselessness that the USA currently represents. Poverty levels are still at a high and in Europe that number is growing, this is the foundation that allows for the growth of what can be regarded as legal slavery. It is legal because it is governmentally arranged, it is slavery as the medical industry is pushed into a level of servitude of no-choice. In Europe, some are now claiming that the amount of people under the poverty line is now one out of four. That push is a great hammer for Jeremy Hunt to use to push for cheap contracts and ungodly working hours, but in the end, when doctors stop working, there is no NHS to continue to cure people (source: http://www.euractiv.com/section/social-europe-jobs/news/eurostat-one-out-of-four-eu-citizens-at-risk-of-poverty/).

There is no clear solution, but another path needs to be taken. The push from NHS and the deal that people get through what I call ‘deceptive insurances‘ and ‘skewed medicinal solutions‘ is changing the game. It now reflects back towards the change I was willing to make. What if we make hospitals self-sufficient? What if we take the insurance out of the equation and push for a self-sustaining level of hospitals on local foundations? You might think that the given logic forces us to look at Behemoths like the NHS and large medical corporations. I am stating that it is my belief that the medical gravy train is losing too much cargo on route. So it is our need to have a neutral solution. When medical suppliers start pushing on ‘how it will be too expensive that way‘, the people will have to push back. So that means that the UK hospitals start getting supplies from other sources, independent and possibly even non-UK sources. How long until greed driven corporations cave? They only need to fail 2 quarters of forecasting and THEIR nightmare begins! Trust me when I state that a merger making the board of directors over 200 billion means that their margins were really really good and via Ireland they were only getting better.

That is the issue and solving that is a first step in solving the slavery riddle, which is not a riddle, it is a mere puzzle that can and should be solved.

 

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May 5, 2016 · 23:25

Is it just me?

The Guardian had an interesting article yesterday. For me it is interesting because I might not be getting it. You see, in my mind, certain issues are clear as water. Pink is pink and Green is green (avoiding a Black & White issue). So when I read ‘Bill forcing people to prove nationality slammed as discriminatory‘. So when we see the quote “The Conservatives want to give police and immigration officers the power to order people who have been arrested to state their nationality and require those believed to be foreign nationals to produce their nationality documents, such as a passport. Failure to do so within 72 hours would become a criminal offence under the policing and crime bill currently going through parliament“, I saw no issue, or perhaps better stated, not a large one. The question initially is how far does ‘such as a passport’ go?

Not everyone has a passport, or the means to quickly get one. So ‘such as’ should allow for a little bit of leniency. So when I saw the defence “But concerns have been raised by civil liberties groups, as well as some immigration and policing experts, that people will be targeted because of how they look, their accent and their skin colour“. Is that all they have? The UK has a fluctuating amount of immigrants. The numbers tend to be around the 750K, which gives us that 1.1% is in the UK illegally, impacting the British way of life. Something needs to be done and by far the illegal part is not from Sweden, the Netherlands or Ireland, but from Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia. So how are accent, colour and skin tones not valid reasons?

This is not about discrimination, this is about finding illegal visitors.

In my view, going from “Sara Ogilvie, policy officer at Liberty, the civil rights organisation, said: “The only grounds on which police could decide someone might not be British are their appearance and their accent, so the very basis of this policy is discrimination“, I would state that Sara Ogilvie has lost the plot. Ideology in a time where nations go bankrupt because of overprotection against those who do not respect or abide by law, how can those laws be just? How can this work? The reason why the UK is willing to dump the Human Rights Act because it has become an anchor that protects the transgressors and blocks the victims as well as the prosecutors. How are Civil Rights valid, when they are used by criminals and transgressors to secure their activities?

The second quote “The government aims to remove as many foreign national offenders (FNOs) as quickly as possible to their home countries, to protect the public, to reduce costs and to free up spaces in prison” is equally damning, but now towards the government. You see, the part “Foreign nationals comprise 12% of the prison population in England and Wales“. The issue here becomes less about the FNO’s, it becomes the issue of establishing his real identity. Still, the quote “successful identification is particularly difficult where an individual is not carrying a document at the time of arrest” remains true and the additional quote “Making it a criminal offence for a person arrested to fail to produce a passport on demand or state a nationality is unnecessary, heavy handed and carries its own risks. A police officer need only suspect a person is not a British citizen to demand a passport” remains in opposition. Why is there such an opposition against identifying one’s self? I am not against a right of privacy, is it however such a stretch to require to identify one’s self to be able to hide behind this right of privacy?

I am taking intentionally this chicken and the egg view for a very simple reason, the law applies to the established population, a British one!

Now, I am aware that my approach is equally flawed to some extent. Yet to some extent the overprotection of the populous has impacted that the bulk of criminals are better protected than the rest or the victims. The Huffington Post stated it in an interesting way in the headline “‘Human Rights Have Become Dirty Words’: Lord Anthony Lester On The Five Things We Should Fight For“, which is close to the heart of the matter, Human Rights have become dirty words, that is not an imagination, in equal measure we ignore one bit, you see Lord Lester writes in his new book ‘Five Ideas To Fight For’, the need to fight for human rights, equality, free speech, privacy and rule of law. I do not disagree with Lord Lester, yet the fact that these elements have proven in the past to be more protective to the criminals and transgressors than the population at large as well as the victims of criminals and transgressors remains a fact too. Legislators have done too little to protect victims at large and hid behind what is a legal act of humanity and not on the rule of law to protect victims.

Lord Lester has additional info (at http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/human-rights-act-lord-lester_uk_571f9574e4b06bf544e0ce6f), the article states: “Lester does not believe the public share the media’s loathing of the HRA. As a Lib Dem member of the Bill of Rights Commission, he took part in two public consultations, travelling across the country to hold seminars, conferences and debates“, I personally believe that this is not correct. As the British way of life was decimated, the quality of life has been drained to below the minimum, there are plenty who are abandoning several Acts if that changes things for them. The press is part of the problem as they have been ‘illuminating’ events for maximum effect, drama and circulation by not truly informing people. That applies to well over 90% of all papers.

So where is the solution?

To protect Human Rights, to protect a humane way of life requires legislation to be adjusted to set forth and set on the first need, the victims, under a rule of law where victims and not transgressors are set in a first light. The Human Rights Acts became folly when it set the victims and criminals on the same level, with equal rights. That level was the first folly to undo a century of growth. The HRA is only the first step. Turkey is throwing fuel on the fire in several ways. Now that the EU has buckled like a wet tissue, we get ‘EU conditionally backs visa-free travel for Turkey, unveils asylum changes’, which ABC released yesterday. The first quote that will unleash hell is “The European Commission also unveiled an overhaul of its asylum system under which member states that refuse to take a quota of refugees will be fined“, this implies that self-governing is no longer an option, or only an option at a price. A forced ruling that could bankrupt anyone. An initial layer of protection could be to reinstate capital punishment. That gives governments the options that those who transgress beyond acceptable levels are put to death or incarcerated for all time. That is the part that these Human Rights Activists refuse to accept. The need for accountability in Bankers and Beggars alike, Residents and Refugees held to one account!

In my view, my personal opinion, I reckon that this act should be decently enough to push the British population to a level where we see a stronger push towards Brexit. The quote “Turkey has threatened to tear up the March agreement to take back asylum who cross the Aegean Sea to Greece if the EU fails to keep its promise to allow Turks to travel without visas to the Schengen area by the end of June” completes the deal. A nation that with the population of 78 million has a GDP that is at least 10% less than the Netherlands who achieves the same with a population 78% smaller. I will ignore the corruption and criminal indexes, places where Turkey does not score well, what is more important is the dangers that Turkey represents. The Greek refugee pressures due to corruption or utter inability of the Turkish government to stop refugees and smugglers. A nation bordering Iran, Iraq and Syria. That is the nation who is receiving free passage into Europe, whilst it has shown to be untrustworthy on several occasions?

 

If would amount to giving the European presidency to the Norwegian Hel, daughter of Loki, which in light of the flaccid politicians on a near global scale seems such a well-adjusted truth. In all fairness if this comes to blows than Norway would be one of the few nations left in Europe, for how long is an entirely different question.

So how wrong is my view?

I will forever work from a setting where I am wrong, for the mere reason that not digging and critically opposing my own view is the only way to find a balanced conclusion. You see, the BBC reported that ‘EU referendum: Turkey joining EU ‘not remotely on cards’, says PM‘ is not incorrect, yet when refugees are combined with millions of Turks start looking for a ‘better’ solution and the Turks get the legal run of the land? How many infrastructures will collapse within mere months? That fear is clearly over illuminated, including by me. I do not believe I am instilling fear, but instilling reality (don’t we all claim that same thing?).

Consider the parts I mentioned. Not just now, but over the past few months. Europe has failed the UK and other nations for a convoluted image that has no bearing on reality, whilst the coffers that would support any life resembling this have been drained by people who will walk away from that Europe and await until this generation rips itself apart, Which does not seem to be too realistic a view, I will immediately admit to that, yet as we see how ‘taxable’ dollars move away, whilst politicians remain unable to change anything, other than emotional posturing. How much taxation has been collected?

The Mossack Fonseca case has shown the following, in the Times of Malta we see “The Times of Malta is informed that Adrian Hernan Dixon Sanchez, who has been in Malta since the opening of Mossack’s representative office in May 2013, tendered his resignation last week. He was immediately replaced by two other directors, Juergen Mossack Herzog and Ramon Fonseca Mora – both residing in Panama“, in addition we see that over the last month the people seem taken aback, some quit, some moved on, but there are no actions coming any day soon. You see all the emotional posturing sounds nice, but so far NO ONE reported on any crimes, there is no evidence and due to the hack, most ‘evidence’ would end up being non admissible. All that press coverage wasted on an issue that is unlikely to go anywhere. We see quotes like ‘what you need to know‘ and ‘Mossack Fonseca was a hack waiting to happen’, all emotion, too little facts. Even the way the hack was done remains a mystery. We see more links to Sony and how Cyber threats are a thing of today, yet in all this, such precision is either from the inside or requires hardware only large governments can access. This is not a conspiracy theory, this is fact. You see, the other option is that Mossack Fonseca became reckless. Reckless on a multibillion dollar environment. I will let you decide! Just consider Greece and the near 2100 wealthy people who siphoned billions away from Greece. In those 3 years, how many taxable billions came back to lighten the load of Greece?  A nation only weeks away from the next debt crises. I will admit that the last one has additional pressures from Refugees, but clearly there are no solutions in sight, with or without refugees!

Why is this last part added?

You see, whatever humane path is to be trodden, it will require massive funds, funds that are nowhere available to be taxed. Corporations played the politicians so that legislation never happened. Now most governments have no funds to deal with even the smallest required refugee option. That is at the core of the problem and many people are seeing the rains come, this fuels Brexit. In that same light the UK could end up dropping the Human Rights Act. There is enough doubt on whether it will truly happen, but overall the Human Rights Advocates remain ideological in an age where pragmatism is called for. I believe that to be a massive reason for the swing we are seeing.

I could be wrong and it could just be me!

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May 1, 2016 · 20:04

Homerun by UKIP

UKIP scored a home-run and we missed it. Some were watching the game and did not realise the play. Some were watching as the opposing party and hoped that no one else noticed. I did notice, but there was time to let things unfold. I saw what he stated (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buCUlPOsuNg) when he starts around 5:27. Those who watched might have wondered, might have looked and no one reacted. Those who needed to react did not, mainly because they did not comprehend what they just heard. So let’s look at that genie out of the bottle again. Remember, that this was stated in December 2015, we have seen many escalations since then, not in the least, the refugee issues.

  1. 3 billion a year in aid to Turkey without guarantees.
  2. Visa free access by Oct 2016.
  3. Fast track Turkey into EU (97% of that nation is in Asia).
  4. A nation that prefers bombing Kurds than fight ISIS.
  5. A nation that ignores ISIS travelling within its borders.
  6. 8% of Turks support ISIS (source: Pew Institute)
  7. Accuses Turkey of Buying ISIS oil.
  8. It is bordering Syria, Iraq and Iran.

The clear path of blackmail is seen all over the place and the fact that the EU is giving in to blackmail gives us the question, who runs the EU? Is it merely big business holding onto politicians like a puppeteer to a puppet on a string? Is it America holding the collapse of the Dollar and the Euro over the heads of all, making the Bankers push the politicians the way that is most beneficial to greed? Whatever and whomever is holding the strings, we can see that the solution is actually decently easy, when you take America out of the equation.

  1. It is at present 3 billion a year. Yet the one part everyone forgot is that the financial aid to Turkey would increase to 60 billion the moment they become part of the EU. That truth is actually easy to see when we look at point 8. When the EU becomes the border of Syria, Iraq and Iran, as stated. The moment any ISIS, via Turkey, makes one successful hit on Russia, you better believe that after the initial stupidity of Turkey (shooting down a Russian Jet for allegedly being over their airspace for 10 seconds), Russia will not play nice, Turkey would become a direct target, with the Russian fleet in the Black Sea, it is not just Adm. Aleksandr Vitko who is spoiling for a fight with the Turks. When the Turks become part of the EU, the massive lack of Turkish intelligence will soon there after force Europe into a war they have no way of winning.
  2. When we see Canadian Global Research (at http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-isis-oil-trade-with-turkey-documentary-reveals-secret-oil-deals-between-turkey-the-islamic-state/5522560), we see confirmation on statement 2 by Nigel Farage. More important, that is yesterday’s news (quite literally), meaning that certain power players have had this in their hands for MONTHS! The EU has decided to ignore those little titbits, giving additional power to my speculation on how the EU is becoming a mere puppet to greed and the Dollar. The initial source (Russian Today), gives us in addition the quote ““Crossing the Syrian-Turkish border was also very easy. It was like crossing the street,” ISIS member from Saudi Arabia, Muhammed Ahmed Muhammed told RT“. Now this could be Russian propaganda, but the timing fits, when we consider the Turkish actions. So this is a place, where you want to give 78 million threats to European security free passage? Yet when we see news in Al Arabiya that Turkey destroyed 900 ISIS members, we see that the numbers cannot be verified independently, so it is their word against verifiable facts. You should feel free to make that call. In addition we see the quote “Turkey has deported more than 3,300 foreigners suspected of links to militants groups, particularly ISIS militants“, so how were they deported? With weapons and ammunition? When we see the final quote “Turkey, long accused of turning a blind eye to the extremists crossing into Syria, has now taken a larger role in the fight against ISIS, opening a key air base in southern Turkey to the US-led coalition fighting the extremists and reinforcing its border to prevent infiltrations“, which is decently close to where the Russian Jet was shot down, so are the Americans there to keep the Russian of Turkish backs? Even when we consider the implications of ISIS and their threat to Turkey, we see another side (at http://heavy.com/news/2016/04/watch-new-isis-mass-execution-video-is-directed-at-turkey/) WARNING, THIS VIDEO SHOWS EXECUTIONS IN GRAPHICAL DETAIL! It is an ISIS video, even as we consider the fact that the Turkish subtitles, there is no emphases on the fact that the ‘Nazi like rap’ is in German, it mentions how ‘they’ are on route to Europe, there is a likelihood that the video is equally a message towards the sympathisers that might be in Germany, but that is pure speculation on my side. The article raises the following issue in the quote “It is also widely believed that beyond the Islamic State’s appeal to some in Turkey, the Turkish government is playing a “double game” with ISIS. Outwardly opposing the group, while possibly striking oil deals with its leaders“, Farage was raising the issue spot on. How can anyone in the EU consider any alliance with a government that is basically nothing more than a Benedict Arnold with a stronger dislike for Croissants!

Here we pause for a moment. You see, the issue has already been made, several power players must have been very aware of Turkey. There is no way that the intelligence community at large was in the dark on this. Journalists (especially Russian ones) tend not to be that good, which brings additional pressure why the people at large was kept in the dark. Not just those in the UK, but in equal measure the French German and Dutch populations at large have not been made clearly aware of these dangers and the pressures Turkey has been bringing to the table for some time now. I kept Italy out of that list because of additional religious indications.

You see, the one part that is harder to prove, but has a given on April 8th we got “He told AFP that Turkey still has to fulfil 72 conditions on its side to gain visa-free travel to Europe’s passport-free Schengen zone“, this came from Marc Pierini, visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe. So how far are these 72 conditions? You see, Turkey has so far not shown anything real when it comes with verifiable actions against ISIS, so when I see “Turkey is slated to receive benefits including visa-free travel for its citizens to Europe, promised ‘at the latest’ by June 2016“, whilst a large amount of the 72 conditions are not met, how come that the papers at large are not keeping a keen eye on those 72 conditions and a list of the ones that are met and the ones that are not met, whilst Spain with its own legislation will not make issues any easier as it is within their penal code as it is illegal to forcibly deport and transfer people from EU territory. So will we see something according to the air of ‘Yes, we did not do all the tasks but fuck it! Make us a Eurozone member anyway!‘, because that is the straw that will break the EU’s back. The people at large in many nations will not continue to be in an open border situation under those conditions. So hello Brexit and Goodbye Schengen! I wonder how things will change when the borders fall shut. America had been playing a dangerous game with Greece, but Turkey is one game that will not be tolerated by the European Community at large.

In all this, we have now seen that Nigel Farage has shown in multiple ways why Brexit is the way to go. The brilliant statement by Mark Carney in the House of Lords will not stand as a shield strong enough to counter that, meaning that my conservatives will need to take a massive detour on several fields if they want to hold the centre of parliament regarding Brexit and even then it remains a challenge whether the next administration will remain Conservative. If the quality of life for Britons goes up it would be possible, but it cannot be stated as a given, because too many issues are currently surfacing, many of them directly linked to America and the IMF. In addition to all this, there has been a rising amount of warnings about ISIS hotspots in Turkey, targeting American tourists. This news and the fact on where the events are taking place, implies that either ISIS has a run of the land in Turkey, giving ample evidence to Nigel Farage claim 5, or there is a growing issue with sympathisers and even though there is no clear evidence on the percentage, we should emphasize that even 1% would give ISIS the run of the land in Turkey, at 8% they could be running Turkey soon enough, giving additional reasons to not let Turkey anywhere an EU membership for a long time to come.

Yet in all this, I have to add my side to this. The side that looked at other remaining factors. Factors like the news one week ago where we see in an IMF report “Turkey’s economic growth continues to show resilience despite several shocks. Growth remains based on domestic demand, in turn, supported by accommodative monetary and fiscal policies“, resilience? This place has the GDP of Costa Rica that is nothing to be proud of. In addition, the report (at http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2016/pr16182.htm) shows “To this end, the government has announced an ambitious program of reforms aiming to increase potential growth and reduce external imbalances in the medium term“, with what currency? There are billions pushed into Turkey each year because they could not get their space (read: their nation and their head space) in order. When we look at the stated forecasts by the IMF, we see that Net Exports are set at -0.9% this year, yet after that, Turkey makes a miraculous forecast of suddenly increasing their net export by 0.6% (in 2017), whilst there is no data of any kind that could explain such a massive increase. Now consider a realistic growth and the net exports go towards to -0.6%, which would be awesome for Turkey, it gives other nations the impression that their goods will be bought as Turkey imports more than it exports, but with the sliding exports there will be no cash left to pay for the imports, making this document a larger danger than many realise, it shows how Turkey could become the next Greece (read: not that big a chance, but not impossible). With unemployment going from 10.8 this year to a forecasted 10.5, we see a document that is forecasted at the margins, making things a little more positive than they actually are and we will see the sudden management of bad news in about 6 months. But that is already too late, the influx of Schengen Turks would have commenced, and under those conditions the United Kingdom at large would hope that Brexit becomes a reality, there will be a massive change and suddenly we have to give in, because America could not clean up its act during the last two administrations. It had to do something really stupid thing, like sending a lame duck president to do some scaremongering. In that regard, Ted Cruz is right, even if he is not elected president, the US needs the UK. It needs it for several reasons, economy being a larger one. I like the quote in USA Today last week: ““Instead of standing with our allies President Obama routinely hurls insults at them,” Cruz wrote. He said Obama’s comment was “nothing less than a slap in the face of British self-determination”“, which is at the heart of the matter. It is entirely likely that his analysts have already deserted him whilst trying to get the best after administration job in the commercial industry. In addition to that, we see a lacking side of the press when we try to learn which of the conditions have yet to be met by Turkey. Considering that, according to Turkish officials the Visa Free commitment towards Turkey is now only a month away. Is that not weird too?

Too many Britons are realising that they are being presented a joke, a message with no reality or national future behind it. The EU has taken too much and not reigned in those who should have been dealt with from 2008 onwards. That is at the core of the matter and it will boost the numbers of Nigel Farage, which should have been prevented by my party a long time ago. I wonder why they decided to leave it in the middle, unattended for this long.

 

 

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April 20, 2016 · 18:41

Waffles, the Welsh Sidestepper

On my side, my party (specifically George Osborne) is stating that Brexit would leave UK ‘permanently poorer’, whilst on the other side we see Boris Johnson stating: “‘Its b******s’: Boris Johnson hits out at David Cameron over impact of Brexit on trade and jobs” as given in the Independent.

I stand by my party, but there are questions that need to be asked. Brexit, as well as a bankrupt America has been forever about greed moving, about giving in to banks and financial institutions. When we look at the Panama papers (and the debatable method how they got out in the first place), we see a banking structure that is completely greed driven, whilst we see again and again how the US (Congress, the Senate and the White House) give in to that greed whilst being unable to manage their debts and their budgets. In that same light we see the EEC remaining unaccountable for too long, pushing debts, overspending and non-accountability.

The Conservatives need to realise that scaremongering is no longer a method, yet here, is my usage of scaremongering correct? Are they scaremongering? You see, when we see statements from the PM, the Exchequer and the governor of the bank of England, we need consider the positions they hold. We might all consider the fact that we are being ‘misled’ because of a desperate, clueless and greed driven America, but is that the actual fact here?

I wish I could give you a clear concise and utterly precise answer. That I cannot do. Yet, what can I show you? Let’s take a look at that part!

The first consideration is given in the Independent (at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/its-bs-boris-johnson-hits-out-at-david-cameron-over-impact-of-brexit-on-trade-and-jobs-a6988236.html), where Boris Johnson gave us the following: “Now there is this idea that trade is entirely controlled by governments, that no trade takes place unless governments agree with each other” and “Well, b******s. It’s nothing to do with governments. It’s to do with businesses, people and enterprises deciding they have something to buy or sell“. We can to some clear part agree towards this? America is the best example here. They will sell anything and anyone at the mere drop of a hat (any hat), business is merely the operation of a seller selling its goods. Every corporation needs sales, whether locally or internationally. As the UK is selling, it is also buying, because these two go hand in hand; there is an equilibrium (at least some form of). As long as a nation exports more than it imports it is making a clear profit (whether taxable or not is another matter). This simple truth gives validity and power to the words of Boris Johnson.

The Bank of England gives us the following (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/apr/14/bank-of-england-warns-brexit-could-do-serious-harm-to-uk-economy). We get to see: “extended period of uncertainty about the economic outlook, including about the prospects for export growth. This uncertainty would be likely to push down on demand in the short term,” then we get “A vote to leave could have significant implications for asset prices, in particular the exchange rate. The MPC would have to make careful judgements about the next effects of these potential influences on demand, supply and inflation. Ultimately, monetary policy would be set in order to meet the inflation target, while also ensuring that inflation expectations remained anchored” and finally there is “A Reuters poll this week found that 17 of 26 economists thought a vote for Brexit could prompt the Bank to cut interest rates for the first time since the financial crisis“. First the last one, because it is an easy option. I think that is a reality that the UK would face no matter what. Do you think that Mario Draghi setting negative interest rates would not impact the UK? Do you think that Draghi starting a spending spree, one that monthly exceeds the total fortune of Bill Gates will not be felt (at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-01/draghi-begins-ecb-monthly-bond-spend-exceeding-gates-s-fortune)?

We see in the News that Draghi has a planned total of about 1.74 trillion Euros of purchases in mind. That much debt added on the Eurozone. Who is paying for that? No one in Europe has that kind of cash, so explain to me how this would end well for anyone except the bankers and the financial sector? What will you expect when you send your 13 year old child with your credit card into a mall? Do you think that this teenager (regardless of gender) will come back with only the rashers of bacon, a pair of socks and a yoyo? Perhaps the storekeeper will talk your teenager into the consoles, shoes and lollies. It’s a credit card and the bill does not need to get paid at present. This is the reality the people at large have had enough of.

Now, back to the main line, because neither is lying, but in this first part, does the forecast of the Governor of the Bank of England matter? This situation is already out of hand, getting out seems to be the better of choices as no one is muzzling Mario Draghi, or those behind him trying to make sure that the money is spent. The Irish Times gave us another headline regarding the shopping spree of Mario Draghi: ‘In a world of negative rates borrowers get paid and savers penalised‘, in an age where the golden age group is the largest, the governments at large are using whatever they have saved to damage the elderly even more, whilst the criminals causing the damage are not required to be accountable. You might wonder how I am now labelling a party Criminal.

You see, in the Crimes Act 1900, where we see section 195 Destroying or damaging property. At Section 195(1) we see: “A person who intentionally or recklessly destroys or damages property belonging to another or to that person and another is liable to imprisonment for 5 years“. Seems odd doesn’t it? Yet, this conviction could make for an essential claim form the government as well. You see Austlii gives us “‘Property’ includes every description of real and personal property; money, valuable securities, debts, and legacies; and all deeds and instruments relating to, or evidencing the title or right to any property, or giving a right to recover or receive any money or goods; and includes not only property originally in the possession or under the control of any person, but also any property into or for which the same may have been converted or exchanged, and everything acquired by such conversion or exchange, whether immediately or otherwise“, which means that money and valuable securities, meaning ones retirement coin. In that regard, Draghi is playing with cash he doesn’t have, diminishes money he is not entitled to and the people at large are left with nothing.

Is anyone even surprised that the Brexit group is growing so fast?

So back to the Bank gov. You see, he is talking about forecasts, expected events and non-expected events. This is done as he should, but the silence around irresponsible spending has not been addressed for years now and this has the people scared, panicky and riled up, a really lousy combination if I might say so.

Now we get to the big one. The exchequer giving us “Britain would be “permanently poorer” if voters choose to leave the EU” as well as “The conclusion is clear for Britain’s economy and for families – leaving the EU would be the most extraordinary self-inflicted wound”, you see. I am not convinced. Moreover, I am not convinced that the 6% downturn would not happen. When we see spending into the trillion plus, what shortage would not happen? The question becomes how reliable is the quote “Britain would be worse off, permanently so, and to the tune of £4,300 a year for every household“. So where did he get those numbers from? There is a real risk of an economic contraction, but that risk is already there. I reckon that should the Exchequer want to regain any reliability and trust, than this full calculation with all evidence would be made public for scrutiny. That is massively unlikely to happen. This gives us the problems we currently face. Those who are needed in the trenches do not seem to be correctly informed and going public on those numbers would cause too many searchers for a document that has no longer value after the scaring is done.

Or is that scarring?

You see, this current government is not sitting safely where they are. When we read “It is a well-established doctrine of economic thought that greater openness and interconnectedness boosts the productive potential of our economy. That’s because being an open economy increases competition between our companies, making them more efficient in the face of consumer choice, and creates incentives for business to innovate and to adopt new technologies” we see the initial part of the problem.

What is written is a clear truth, but it does not touch on the issue that resides in all this. The image is given, with in personal mind that we are all accountable and that correct scope in usage is there. Yet the truth is that this required proper taxation laws where corporations can be held accountable. Governments all over (including the UK) have created a labyrinth of shelters leaving them with a mere shadow of a coffer, a government coffer that is empty, giving us the nightmare scenario we all currently face. You see, as I see it, greater openness requires accountability and the law at large has been remaining too short on the facts and yes to the options. Now we see an additional piece from the Guardian where they are explaining that magical number, still it reads like a presentation and not a journalistic piece. It is like the article is mainly the treasury making its case and no critical eye is falling on it. Yet, there is absolutely no indication that any of it is a lie. Yet, the countersign is equally a worry. The article implies that the UK could only exist through the coat tails of the EEC, that is not the image I ever held of the UK, this, not unlike the Panama papers, seem to give off a feeling that there is American orchestration. There is absolutely no evidence of it, but the way it is presented, it implies that high investment only comes from EU connections. I disagree, we only need to see how absurd luxurious and unaffordable sky scrapers come into existence in the UK to see that cash will remain on course towards the UK, the nice thing of an island is that space is finite and London is built to the max of its land size. The cost of irresponsible spending seems to be neglected as well as the paper downplaying the pressure of paying the EU. In equal measure is has (as I personally see it) downplayed the consequences of recessions. Greece has another one now, soon to be followed by Spain. Both France and Italy running high risks of two years of recession, all downplayed. The IMF added the last drop to the bucket. Again embellishing the effects of a Brexit, whilst they attacked Osborne’s austerity path in January 2013 (Olivier Blanchard), 1 year ago to the day Christine Lagarde is now admitting that Osborne’s plan was good as well as the best option.

So neither party seems to be lying, you are merely seeing different cogs of different engines in this entire play whilst you expected to see only one engine. That is no longer the case. What is still equally worrying is that the US is involved in all this. For them to not be involved is just too ludicrous to contemplate. That will be part forever overlooked. You see, the consequence that the Euro will have on the dollar has been trivialised.

This is where we stand, we see that there are no lies, but certain statements aren’t getting the proper back-up from open data. It is the rhythm in all this that we expect an American link to come forward sooner rather than later, for the mere reason that the collapse of the Euro will hit the US dollar like a sledgehammer, one that will spark collapses all over the financial field. This is something we see more and more in publications at present, but the one source I am referring to is the one I predicted on January 30th 2013, over three years ago (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2013/01/30/time-for-another-collapse/), there was no time line of the event, but I had initially (wrongly so) predicted it to be before now. So the entire Euro mess has been going on for 3+ years and again and again we get the unbelievable projection that next year will be better. Can anyone explain to me how that can become a reality when 41 trillion is unaccounted for? (US, Japan, UK, Germany, France and Italy)

Apparently debts are not dealt with, that whilst the top of banking on a near global scale ends up with a bonus exceeding 5 billion dollars (just the bonuses). Where does this money come from and who is getting the invoice on all this? It is that part that is pushing Brexit and Frexit forwards (although the massive reason for Frexit remains to be Brexit).

Waffling, sidestepping, welshing all terms to avoid dealing with the issues that are on our front door and let’s be clear, we all elected those people to do just this. If you didn’t vote you don’t get to complain! Even now, the bulk refuses to deal with anything, especially with the US element in all this. As for the perjury bit, is intentional misleading not the same as lying? It is the intentional part that bothers too many people, which is making Brexit fans as well as UKIP slightly too happy.

The final part

Here we get the final pat as excellently brought by Phillip Inman (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/19/brexit-is-a-risk-to-uk-growth-says-carney). Not that word for word is such an achievement in reporting, but the article gives the part everyone should read. Here we see Marky Mark of the British bank (aka the Governor of the Bank of England) riding in on his shiny leased equestrian solution. Here we see a calm report given at the House of Lords. The important side is not the quotes, it is the way the parts were brought. The quote “Any positive impact of a [sterling] depreciation on activity would need to be set against any net negative impacts [whether on investment, consumption, exports or potential supply] stemming from its underlying cause.” He does not hit the nail with a hammer, he pretty much drives over it with a tank. You see, all he tells us in the article we get, we all understand and accept. The important side here is not what the immediate issue addresses, it is the indirect consequence of the act. A version of what lies beneath. Even if the Pound drops a little extra, that part is not the issue, the interest on a 1.5 trillion debt is the issue, that wave will hold too many people under water for a little too long, creating wrinkle upon wrinkle, each wrinkle drowning a few people with every wave. That part is addressed with the quote: “These are balances of probability, but the likelihood is that it will become more expensive to fund that deficit [if the UK leaves the EU] and, with a shift in the structure of it, it may mean that for a period the UK economy cannot run as large a current account deficit – it means that there would be less activity in the economy, less growth”. This is the brilliant side, because we waited until the Brexit crew was done waffling, we waited until UKIP shouted itself horse and the calm composed voice of Mr Carney now gives in clarity the part we all need to hear.

In perspective against the utter stupidity of the EEC with non-accountability and unregulated overspending, the British people are confronted with the simple fact that moving out of the EU will stop the ability for England to pay its debts (the interest on it). Until the economy improves the UK would go the same way as America with its unsustainable debt. It is by far the first clear element given to keep the UK within the EU for now. I have been on the fence for quite some time, but here is the one fact that matters. The British people by themselves cannot survive by itself to deal with what lies beneath.

It does not take away that the EEC needs to make massive changes, changes it needs to do tomorrow, not next week. Which shows a second part that the voters had forgotten about. You see, both David Cameron and George Osborne have been adamant and fighting to get the debt down, the one part forcing the UK in the EU, is the one element none of the conservatives want to see on the books. They prove that they want the best for England, which also gives more worry about Labour and the path Corbyn is putting the UK on, because in deep debt the UK will never have any options of choice.

So I say: Well presented and well played Mark Carney!

 

 

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April 5, 2016 · 20:34

In anticipation of

Yesterday’s news is glowing like only Plutonium can, it touches, it infects and it spreads. The Panama papers are a hot item, radioactive hot. The only place I skip on judging is Iceland. It was the only European nation that achieved a near utopian standard of living, so the impact from the collapse in 2008 will still enrage its population for a very long time to come. If you doubt this than take a look at Oscar winning movie ‘Inside Job’, the one movie that is the biggest eye opener on economies in the history of documentaries. On the other side we get the biggest joke in UK politics, namely Jeremy Corbyn. His quotes on ‘how only Labour will protect Britain’s families’. Perhaps Mr Corbyn will take a look at his party’s history. How Labour in the age of 1997-2010 achieved absolutely NOTHING in changing the wheel of tax havens. So when Jeremy is voicing his thoughts, he should take a long hard look in the mirror. Any defence or deflection is pointless and absent of values. Both sides have not done their job in stopping tax shelters.

Most important is that no laws seem to have been broken. Yes, we now see that there are a few issues, yet when we see the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/03/mossack-fonsecas-response-to-the-panama-papers), we see: “Finally, the instances you cite in your reporting represent a fraction – less than 1% – of the approximately 300,000 companies that Mossack Fonseca has incorporated in its over 40 years in operation“, that is the actual case in all this. A system that is allegedly 99% correct and above levels, is now under scrutiny, through no less than criminal acts. Now the weirdest case in statistical history. We are looking at 300,000 cases. In the dataset that is well over 2.5 terabyte we see a fact evolving that is now soon becoming an interesting side.

Here begins a level of speculation that you must comprehend, there is little evidence, only suspicions. I hereby warn the reader to not take what follows as given!

One source (fusion) is giving us: “So far, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has only been able to identify 211 people with U.S. addresses who own companies in the data (not all of whom we’ve been able to investigate yet). We don’t know if those 211 people are necessarily U.S. citizens”

Metro gave us this quote: “But weirdly, considering it’s the world’s largest economy, there was nobody from the USA. Is that because America is a beacon of transparent business dealings?“, the second quote is “Stefan Plöchinger, digital editor of German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung which obtained the leaks, shot out this teaser earlier today, saying: ‘Wait. Just look at what’s coming…’” (at http://metro.co.uk/2016/04/04/why-are-there-no-us-people-in-the-panama-papers-5794114).

One side states that more is coming, yet even under these properties even the term ‘there is more to come‘ becomes a highly suspicious consideration.

Now we get to the speculative side. You see, yesterday I made mention on the Libor scandal, yet I did not mention the part I speculated on initially (on April 1st 2013), in an article titled ‘60% confiscated and counting in Cyprus!‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2013/04/01/60-confiscated-and-counting-in-cyprus/), at that time I wrote: “On 30th November 2010 Jullian Assange revealed that the next target of his whistle-blowing website will be a major U.S. bank. The same date a red notice was issued by Interpol. It was around that time that the hunt for Assange intensified by a lot. Perhaps the one bank was just the beginning? If we look back at the issues we know now, then there is a chance that someone made mention of the LIBOR percentage tweaking issue. 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 USA combined) then that difference would be $112T.

I would love to get 1% finder fee of that! It would make me the FIRST Trillionaire in history (not bad for a person only dreaming to be a Law Lord someday)”

It was my speculation that Libor was not limited to the UK. It was my speculation that the US, as it was in such deep debt, that it started to manipulate the total value of trade, creating an 11.2 trillion dollar buffer. Here the danger for them was that the UK could illuminate that and that would have made the US option impossible and it would go bankrupt overnight (I still want that finder’s fee!). It was a speculation, yet founded on some data I saw, the data implies (cannot confirm or prove this), that packages were reset so that they would not falter, even though collapsed mortgages were added to them. See it as a leave one extra in. A repackaged deal where 70% had not yet collapsed sold at bargain price.

So how does this connect to the Panama papers?

Ask yourself a simple question, a firm like Mossack Fonesca would have extensive protection, firewalls and other shapes of protection. When you represent 300,000 firms worth trillions, only an idiot would rely on a laptop running on Windows 98 (a mere exaggeration). These people are not idiots, they are a lot brighter than I ever could be. This now raises the question how that much data got out. This raises the question, is this truly just about tax havens, or is this about a clear message from the US. The message is ‘Do not leave the EU, or else!‘ a message aimed at the UK and at France. Germany is willing to give aid, because for the most Germany does not want anyone to leave the EU. I personally see this step as a desperate act form large players who would not accept any responsibility from acts of immense stupidity. A path that evolved clearly due to inaction regarding Greece.

The fact that US people are not (yet) mentioned is because the US needs its wealthy with extreme desperate shortages. A nation (the USA), who is at present perhaps so close to bankruptcy that it will take desperate acts. So is the USA behind the hack on Mossack Fonesca? There will never be any clear evidence on that. There is no way to prove this one way or another, this is all clear speculation from my side.

Yet, is this so far-fetched? I personally do not think so, especially when we consider the timing. So as the UK tax havens might undergo slimming down, we could suddenly see another batch of US deregulations set for the creation of taxation, wealth building and retrenching. So will this happen? Is my speculation way too wild? I am not certain, you see, even I question myself. I would have had a lot less faith in all this if we would have seen the ‘revelation’ of Americans. That absence is what fuels certain paths of speculation. When we consider the amount of bonuses that many bankers in the US legally got away with gives weight to all this, in a group of 300K people and this group 0.01% currently American is too low and too unbelievable at present. There is of course all the chance that those names have been held back, time will tell!

So beyond the speculation we see the facts, because the facts matter. And the press is massively ignoring the impact that Brexit has, not just on the EU and their Euro, but it is the value of the US Dollar that is equally hit when that currency gets hit with the impact the Euro would expected to receive. President Obama’s nightmare has officially begun, because the impact is likely to impact the US dollar before he stops being an elected official. So tactically there is not the question of Mossack Fonseca and the tax shelters/havens. A tactical question that Bloomberg answered on January 27th 2016 (at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-27/the-world-s-favorite-new-tax-haven-is-the-united-states) where we see ‘Moving money out of the usual offshore secrecy havens and into the U.S. is a brisk new business‘, it is followed with the quote “It is now moving the fortunes of wealthy foreign clients out of offshore havens such as Bermuda, subject to the new international disclosure requirements, and into Rothschild-run trusts in Nevada, which are exempt“, so ask yourself the following question: ‘Are the Panama papers with the details from Mossack Fonseca a mere hack, or is this a coup d’état by big players like Rothschild moving money into the US, forcing the wealth and the powerful in Europe to face the danger that Brexit will soon impact their money and that must not be allowed’.

This last tactic is again speculation, but it is a tactical one, and it is supported by some facts. In that regard this tactic is old, hundreds of years old, because it was Niccolo Machiavelli who stated: “Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception”

I wonder what ‘revelations’ the Panama papers will bring, more important the parts the press will trivialise into the trashcan?

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April 3, 2016 · 14:10

The Medic and the Medici

There are several issues exploding, yes, they are literally exploding in the faces of people all around us, especially in the UK. The first event is ‘Leaked Brexit email claims David Cameron has ‘starved’ NHS‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/01/senior-tories-brexit-vote-leave-attacks-david-cameron-letter-nhs-staff).

This article gives us the following quotes: “David Cameron and Jeremy Hunt must accept responsibility for this – they have starved the NHS of necessary funding for too long.” The claim is more than outlandish, it is for all intent and purposes a clear fabrication. So who is Cleo Watson? What evidence has she produced? These two elements are important. Apart from her short time with the Vote Leave campaign, she is an unknown. This letter is also a clear visible act where both Michael Gove and Boris Johnson need to question their support for this group. Michael Gove gave his reasons clearly and well written in the Independent. Boris Johnson has his business and governing mental experience regarding the link between the UK and the European Union. I am on the fence, yet to some extent I am leaning more and more heavily towards Brexit. Yet I want to do this on the facts that matter, people need to vote based on actual facts. Cleo Watson is just making a joke everyone needs to ignore. This we see when we take the following facts into account:

#1. 2011, NHS pulls the plug on its £11bn IT system, a system abandoned after 9 years of spending and no result.

#2. 2013, The NHS says it has lost millions of pounds in the last year because of the number of patients failing to turn up for appointments.

#3. 2015, The NHS saw the worst performance by A&E departments since records began in 2010, with only 91.4% of patients being seen within the four hour target time.

#4. 2016, Nurse staffing levels, missed vital signs observations and mortality in hospital wards: modelling the consequences and costs of variations in nurse staffing and skill mix.

Now, this is not about laying blame with the NHS, yet serious questions need to be asked. You see, only the arms industry has at times the luxury to blow away 11 billion and not feel the consequences. It’s pretty much the operation expenses of the Patriot Missile system in the US. Oh wait, the UK cannot afford that system, so it selected the Aster which gives more bang for the buck (50 missiles more bang for the buck). It had issues after that in both quality and availability. In addition, a study to be completed in 2017 is costing the NHS half a million.

There are other issues that play, they are all with the NHS; the issue is that these things just happen. Any machine has cogs that aren’t pulling their weight, they are there in case something else goes wrong, or they are in support, or even just idle because the system requires them to be. The response in the Guardian was also direct: “A senior source at the Department of Health hit back by claiming the government had provided an additional £10bn for the NHS and said that “every Conservative MP stood on a manifesto to deliver this package”. They added: “So we expect every Conservative MP to have absolutely nothing to do with this letter”“, which for the moment might sound very correct, but within all this a serious question remains. How could any project go this far out of bounds? In a time when the NHS is not smothered to death, but only a step away from drowning in costs and costings, we must demand a firm hold on expenses. Yet, this goes a lot deeper than just expenses, you see in all this, especially in regards to the squandered £11bn, questions must be asked of the political side, did they interfere, was there interference at all and how did that explode costs? That is an equally important question in this race for comprehension.

So as we see one part nullified from Vote Leave. We are not done, not by a longshot. You see, these matters are tried again and again. This becomes more outspoken when we see ‘Female doctors may be forced to quit over new contract, experts say‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/01/female-doctors-new-contract-medical-royal-colleges). Now, let’s be fair. There was always a small chance that this was the Guardian entering its own April fool’s day article of the year. Yet that part can be ignored when we read: “The MWF is worried that will force female doctors who are mothers to try and find childcare at those times. The new contract could breach junior doctors’ right to a family life under the Human Rights Act“. In addition there is “Dr Roshana Mehdian, one of the leaders of the junior doctors’ campaign against the contract, criticised the DH for saying that women should make “informal childcare arrangements” if they are affected by having to work more antisocial hours“. When we look against “This is ludicrous in the 21st century when childcare costs are spiralling and access to out-of-hours childcare is limited. This discriminates against women, single parents and working couples“, we must ask ourselves ‘Are these doctors on drugs and please can we get some of them?’

You see, there is no denying that the MD’s in this world work really ungodly hours. I do not think it is fair, yet the current system does not have that much margin to work with. In addition, a personal view is that any woman who now goes into medicine, who also wants to be a mother needs to realise that she can do one or the other, not both. Those in the medical and legal industry tend to work an easy 50-60 hours a week. Unless those women have chosen to marry a househusband, that option is gone! All this bickering and especially Dr Roshana Mehdian who not unjustly stated “This is ludicrous” is forgetting that in the old days the man worked, the woman stayed at home. Now, if we accept (and I do), that someone has to be with the kids (to some extent), in an age where a man and a woman can make the same fortune, she must also realise that if she is making the fortune, she needs to realise that Mr Mehdian might be expected to be at home to raise the kids. In a bad analogy I would rephrase this into, you can’t be a hooker and expect to be given the options of a virgin. One excludes the other. And in an age of spiralling childcare costs, the cost of living went up for all. This is not about fairness, this is about reality and realism. Because only labour seems to feed the public the idea that all can have a job, free education is a given and childcare is priced under the tax deduction act, those who believe will not have a life, not have a family and they will not have any money left.

The article calls for another two quotes that have relevance and importance. The first is “The DH analysis, published on Thursday, has intensified the long-running dispute between the profession and ministers over the contract. There is particular unease about its statement that “while there are features of the new contract that impact disproportionately on women, of which some we expect to be advantageous and others disadvantageous, we do not consider that this would amount to indirect discrimination as the impacts can be comfortably justified”“, the second is: “This contract is a huge step forward for achieving fairness for all trainee doctors”, a spokeswoman said. “For the first time, junior doctors will be paid and rewarded solely on the basis of their own hard work and achievement. That is ultimately what employers and the BMA they want and everyone deserves: a level playing field.”

You see, these might seem like two sides of the same coin, but I reckon they are not and this is a lot more of an issue that some might realise. You see, the Guardian and the Independent are both on the same side when we see “the measures would discriminate against single women“, I disagree! From my point of view, being a single parent and in law or medicine is massively stupid and selfish. It is clearly given at the beginning of your career, already in University for some that the immense amount of hours made will equally mean that being a parent (in any other way than the old way is the real story that will not be a reality). I reckon that any person becoming a parent whilst working 50+ hours a week is a bad parent and should not be allowed to be a parent. You can’t have it all and for the most, most of the population knows this to be a truth. Is it possible down the track? That remains to be seen, there is a clarity that unless the economy does not drastically improve the family life for many will be a mere concept that will never become a reality to many couples. Nourishing any act in that direction is self-delusional.

Is it fair?

Of course it is not, but the current economy is not about fairness, in all fairness the previous administrations should not have pushed this government with a 14 hundred billion pound debt, but that happened and until now, no serious acts have been performed to rein in spending and to reign in debt, which is part of all this as well. The full contract can be found at http://www.nhsemployers.org/case-studies-and-resources/2016/03/junior-doctors-terms-and-conditions-of-service. I am not going to bore you with the contract as such, because some of the elements discussed require a person much more versed in contracts than I am. Yet, I feel that it is imperative to mention: “The work schedule for a doctor on a general practice training programme working in a general practice setting should reflect the 2012 COGPED guidance or any successor document on the session split during the average 40-hour week that comprise a minimum full-time contract. Any additional hours of work above 40 must be included in the doctor’s work schedule and linked through to the curriculum, as per those for doctors in hospital settings“, which we see on page 28. This part has a reference to “The doctor’s actual total ‘new contract’ pay at appointment to the first post and subsequently at appointment to each new post under these TCS will be calculated as per the provisions of Schedule 2 of these TCS” I cannot state whether this is fair or unfair. Yet there is one given, there is no mention of gender here. I have seen how Emma Watson gave her speech at the UN (I am completely in support of this), yet when we see equality, for me it means on all fronts. This also implies that you do not get to have a career and be a mother. You see, in that same view, nearly every man worked every day (and sometimes nights) and did not get to be a father, they merely became the provider of the family. We have to accept that, because the rent and the food must be paid for, in that same light women will have to face that too. So, they do not get to complain that as a single mother there are debilitations. So is this what the Department of Health claims to be, a ‘level playing field’, or is there another side? You see, Dr Roshana Mehdian did not convince me of her side with: ‘when childcare costs are spiralling and access to out-of-hours childcare is limited’, in that same light, it took two to tango, so why is the child not with the father? If there is true gender equality that question is fair and valid. Of course, reality tends to be not in equal measure and we would accept that, but in all this when we see the pressures in the medical profession, it makes sense that having an equal weight responsibility means that in the medical and legal profession, having a child will impact your value on that market, merely because your head was not in the game, for 15 hours it was with your own bundle of joy. That premise is valid, it will make massive sense for some to start a family, but in equal measure it means that it will either cost you a family or a career. We have come to the stage that both is no longer an option, especially as a single parent. From my personal viewpoint, raising a child is a career all in itself. Now answer the following question honestly: “How can you have two careers and do right by both?”

An answer not easily given, because it is not an easy question!

What is a matter of concern is that the political parties (on both isles) have taken certain stances, both are debatable and both have had little options and the shortage that was strangled upon these parties is equally a problem. By trying to maintain a medical elite in the UK, the balance shifted. You see, when we consider the Social structure within the United Kingdom as it was, where the upper class included the barristers, judges, dentists and doctors, yet were also in the middle class. We see a shift after WW2, so those who were in the high field tried to keep themselves and their family in that higher echelon, therefor rejecting fiercely a foreign infusion of highly needed talented workforce. After WW2 this became a shift towards a services-dominated economy with additional mass immigration. The medical profession, due to unrealistic standards saw their workforce diminish over the last 10 years giving us the issues we see nowadays. Consider the following response “I wrote my exam on 12 Dec 2015 and got my result 24 Dec 2015. I promptly went online and started the application and 2 days later I got the Pearson Vue testing reference number and booked and paid $280 for the computer based Test of Competency. I could have sat this next week but I chose to sit it on 2 Feb to give myself more time to practise as I can’t afford to fail. So far the process has been really smooth and quick“, another voice was a lot less positive, but there could have been a clear issue of timing involved. Overall the issue remains that by making a transfer of knowledge so hard, especially as some applicants have degrees in Commonwealth nations, it seems to me that some players are trying to dampen the influx of foreign talent, which is just my personal view in all this.

This path could have been smoothened out by the politicians a long time ago, but it seems that schooling and re-schooling nurses does not sound as sexy as a new innovative IT system (which didn’t work anyway). Last I get to that list of 4. The first one is old news now, but 11 billion is a lot to lose and it has to come from somewhere. The second one is one that can be dealt with. If the patient misses two appointments, they can either pay a penalty fee for not cancelling in time. Cancelling an appointment is just a phone call away. If you forgot it, there is a fair assumption that there was not a pressing medical need (I know the ice of that statement is very thin). In all this we must realise that doctors work ungodly hours, so steering clear from giving them additional pressures seems to be a given first. A task at which, as I personally see it, Jeremy Hunt failed miserably at present. The third in my list is the one I would give A&E a pass for. My reasoning is that the skewed scale that A&E works with has not been properly adjusted for growth in patients and stagnating staff numbers. We get these numbers from http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/sn06964.pdf, where we can see in the introduction and the summary that the title ‘Accident and Emergency Statistics‘ is ever so slightly misleading. I wonder what Carl Baker had in mind with this paper and what purpose it serves. It seems to ‘focus’ on the +4 hour people way too much. The one summary number that does matter is ‘There were 4.0 million emergency admissions to hospital via A&E in 2014/15 – up 4.8% on the previous year’, which only paints a partial picture. You see, ‘Chart 2: Annual A&E attendance, England, 2004-2015‘ seems to tell the story, but other ways could have been more explicit to deal with the issue. Over a period of 10 years, the attendance of the minor injury units nearly doubled. Yes it doubled! The major injury unit also rose, but not by a large part, although, from just over 13 million to close to 15 million is still a growth that is not to be ignored. This report ‘writes it off’ as a mere 10%, which still amounts to 1.4 million additions. Yet in all this staffing levels are not addressed at all, leaving this ‘work’ with some uneasy questions. What I like the most is the disclaimer at the end. “This information is provided to Members of Parliament in support of their parliamentary duties. It is a general briefing only and should not be relied on as a substitute for specific advice. The House of Commons or the author(s) shall not be liable for any errors or omissions, or for any loss or damage of any kind arising from its use, and may remove, vary or amend any information at any time without prior notice”

So how does staffing levels in answer to 4 hour waiting times not assist? From this I must question what the Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP had in mind with this writing? From my point of view, a bad paper does not make the NHS look bad, it makes the Secretary of State for Health look bad not less good than he should look, especially as he should be fighting for the plight of the members of the Department of health, a side I have yet to see at present. He has been called a lot worse by many, it seems unproductive to go that way. What is matter of urgency is the fact that the Prime minister needs to ascertain if Mr Hunt is the right person in the right place and if not, he needs to get someone there that will take the side of the doctors and fast, because at present they do have the power to let it all collapse, and woe be onto the administration that is governing when that happens.

 

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March 27, 2016 · 23:00

The excuse from a failed politician

The NHS has been in the news more than once as it is an important issue. It is today’s article in the Guardian that is a much bigger issue than most people will realise. Let’s take a look at the issue. The title ‘NHS would be put under threat by Brexit, says Jeremy Hunt‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/mar/26/nhs-under-threat-from-brexit) is only the beginning.

To show you part of this we need to look at this part by part. The first part is shown at the very beginning “The National Health Service will face budget cuts, falling standards and an exodus of overseas doctors and nurses if the UK leaves the European Union, health secretary Jeremy Hunt has said“, which gets my initial response ‘Let me play the worlds tiniest violin for you Jeremy! Why don’t you consider an alternative job like in a taxi or perhaps become a barber, it’s just a suggestion!‘

Is my response to harsh? In this light, which should always be considered, we need to state the following:

  1. The NHS will always face budget cuts, Brexit is not a factor in that reality. Remember that the NHS works off the UK national budget, which is under pressure to say the least, the EU donation not being the smallest expense in all this.
  2. Failing standards if Brexit happens. This might be the most ludicrous reasoning. Ludicrous because standards are either being met or not and at present from several sources they are not being met, the EU seems to be setting unrealistic high requirements in some cases, requirements that many nations are failing, it should be about British standards, they should be the highest and they should be met, EU be damned (and all that).
  3. An exodus of overseas doctors and nurses when Brexit happens. This could have been an issue, but it was clearly stated in my blog ‘The News shows its limit of English‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/06/22/the-news-shows-its-limit-of-english/), where I showed how both Sky News and the Guardian were basically fucking up and creating unneeded panic. That article called ‘New immigration rules will cost the NHS millions, warns nursing union‘ showed the lack of investigation by both news sources as the UK government had published clearly in section 79E ‘is expected to demonstrate that he is being paid either at or above the appropriate rate for the job, as stated in the Codes of Practice in Appendix J‘, the nurses are clearly mentioned and the expected income as set out in the charter.

As I see it, I had to explain that to the press in my article on June 22nd 2015, so why would Jeremy Hunt state option C? In his defence, some people might be nervous if the UK leaves the EEC, yet a British passport is one of the most revered ones on the planet. So any non-EU medical employee would do a lot to gain that status and the UK government has done its share of keeping these highly qualified people interested in staying in the UK. So tell me, why is Jeremy giving us part C?

He actually gives us a decent answer through “Hunt argues that, with the NHS budget already under huge pressure, funding levels can only be maintained if the British economy remains strong“, it is only partially an acceptable answer as the NHS has been a mess for almost half a decade now, so these issues had been known, even if Brexit is an additional element, the danger of Brexit had been a fact for at least 6 months, that is, the chance of it becoming a reality, so the consequences of diminished economy has been an element for almost a decade. Even as the UK had been fortunate, the dangers of a receding economy have been a danger for the larger extent and when we realise that other EU nations have not been this fortunate, we should see that part in the light of ‘Jeremy hunt has had an economic advantage until now’. Not being ready for that risk is clearly a failing of health secretary Jeremy Hunt (as I personally see it).

After that he then kicks in his own windows when we read “He cites a series of economic surveys, including from the CBI as evidence of the adverse impact of an exit on the UK economy“, the CBI survey, which was an absolute joke, as shown in ‘Is the truth out there?‘ (At https://lawlordtobe.com/2016/03/21/is-the-truth-out-there/), it makes for a decent read and shows how the CBI survey could be seen as another chapter from one of the most famous books in statistics called ‘How to Lie with Statistics‘ by Darrell Huff, a 1954 publications that shows us never to ignore the classics.

The quote: “Hunt suggests that progress the government is making in employing 11,000 extra doctors and 12,000 more nurses will be threatened and warns of the “damage caused by losing some of the 100,000 skilled EU workers who work in our health and social care system”. Some could leave because of uncertainties over visas and residence permits, he suggests“, which again I consider to be a load of (the word starts with a ‘B’ and ends with ‘locks’). There shouldn’t be any uncertainties on visas or residency permits and offering that even as a suggestion makes (again, in my personal opinion), Jeremy Hunt unqualified for his present position. It is his job to create calm and take stress away, not to introduce additional stresses to an area where he already failed, in addition to these points I am raising, personally, as a conservative. I believe that there are questions on Brexit and to be against Brexit might be the party line, but there are too many questions regarding the European Community, there are conservatives who seem to support Brexit. For one there is Lord Chancellor Secretary of State for Justice Michael Gove, who gave his reasons at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-michael-goves-full-statement-on-why-he-is-backing-brexit-a6886221.html, that part is not up for discussion. The only quote in all this is “The EU is an institution rooted in the past and is proving incapable of reforming to meet the big technological, demographic and economic challenges of our time“, which applies to the NHS because it is facing both technological and economic challenges already. The Labour party bungled the option to get part of the technological solution implemented that could have helped the NHS (perhaps you remember the loss of roughly £11.2 billion in NHS IT restructuring).

My issue in all this is that (again, as I personally see it) Jeremy Hunt is not much of a visionary, which means that as expected, he will follow the party line as any governing body needs to adhere to. Yet in all this, scaremongering is the wrong approach. We need to be the enlightened party, the leaders that give rise to inspiration by properly informing the people. The growing problem for the Conservatives is that like Michael Gove, more will see that the EU has stopped being a solution. Many will not be as eloquent as Michael was in his essay, as printed by the Independent. This does not matter if we are united in finding a solution. My big worry is that scaremongering is a dangerous tactic. It is also the wrong one to make for the reason that enlightening the audience creates trust, needlessly scaring them will only drive part of our party towards UKIP (or Labour), a choice that is a lot more dangerous! To govern one must be elected and the view given at present is not that encouraging.

Stephen Dorrell, the former health secretary and ex-chairman of the Commons health select committee gave us this “EU research programmes and single market legislation have greatly strengthened European cooperation in this area with substantial benefits for both healthcare and employment in the UK. It is a simple fact that Brexit would put all this at risk“, which we might see (initially), as a fair enough statement. Yet in my view, the information could be regarded as incomplete (read: speculative view). You see, when we consider Stephen Dorrell, Healthcare and Public Sector Senior Adviser to KPMG in the UK (at https://home.kpmg.com/uk/en/home/contacts/d/stephen-dorrell.html), we need to consider what KPMG could lose, apart from the NHS £1 Billion revenue solution, as one might phrase it. When we re-consider the info the Guardian gave, which is correct in the view that NHS funds will find cutbacks, KPMG has a clear danger that it will reflect on their 10 figure deal, all in pounds and a lot less on medical staff. This gives an additional weight to the view that Stephen Dorrell did not give all the information, because there is a lot more, not on the hands of Stephen Dorrell or in the hands of him mind you, but in the hands of his friends (read: associates), possibly with KPMG who are realising that Brexit will impact their juicy pharmaceutical profits, with a growing chance that India could move more and more into the UK pouch of generic medication and the expenditure cutback solutions they bring. Now, reader be warned, there is a fair bit of speculation here (the part about India), that speculation is partially because I think there are long term solutions here for the Commonwealth at large, partially because it seems to me that I (and the public at large) have had enough of fat cats (especially pharmaceuticals) avoiding taxation to the degree they have whilst selling overpriced solutions, that are being re-patented again and again.

The list of misinformation appears to be growing and I am trying to offer resistance, because my party should be better than that! After all, we aren’t the Labour party!

 

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March 1, 2016 · 07:49

Where we fail again

There is an issue, the issue is in Greece. This issue is not because of the Greeks, it is not because of anything they did. They are just unfortunate to be the second nation on the route of refugees. Here we see failings on multiple levels, none of them are Greek! You see, this is all due to a youngling named Sebastian Kurz (the Austrian Foreign minister). Extremely bluntly stated, as I see it, this man looks like a teenage boy hoping to get his first gob job! From the Deutche Welle (at http://www.dw.com/en/austria-not-waiting-for-a-european-solution/a-19071556), we get “if Greece refused to protect the EU’s external borders and continued to let refugees travel to Europe, and the EU still had no common solution for the problem, Austria had no choice but to deal with the situation on a national level“. In this regard, my still fuming mind goes: “Well Sebastian, once you stop thinking like a teenager and actually start focussing on the elements, you would see that is Turkey and not Greece that has been the problem. That nation, that had no issue shooting down a Jet after an alleged transgression over Turkish airspace for a mere 10 seconds, that nation seems to give clear passage to refugees any way they can, they even get their hands on boats so that they can make it across to Greece, at which point Greece can either let these people drown or let them ashore.” Did you consider that even once?

Where was Austria and a group of other nations to support Greece in dealing with these refugees? Did you consider that Bassie boy? No, as I can see it, you did not. You just held a one day conference with all the trimmings, so that you could show Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia how important you pretend to be, so is that important or impohtent? Greece has a lot to deal with. One article (all from the Guardian) states ‘Up to 70,000 migrants ‘may soon be stranded in Greece’‘, which will trigger the Greek Army, but they are equally impaired to the task. The second one gives us ‘Double crisis deepens despair in Greece’s ‘warehouse of souls’‘ and the third one gives ‘We can’t allow refugee crisis to plunge Greece into chaos, says Merkel‘. All true, all factual and all incomplete!

Only now do we see in the SF Gate (at http://www.sfgate.com/world/article/Turkey-pledges-to-slow-enormous-tide-of-refugees-6859342.php) ‘Turkey pledges to slow enormous tide of refugees‘, where we see “Turkey all but turned a blind eye last year as more than 850,000 people, most of them Syrians, slipped into Greece from Turkey on smugglers’ boats. Now it’s promised the European Union that will change“, can anyone explain why we tolerate the political joke Turkey has become? The nation that had no issues with a Russian Jet is unable to stop Turkish smugglers. Perhaps the Turkish navy is still relying on equipment from WW1? I am just asking!

Yet, Sebastian Kurz has made no allowance for this at all. He is perhaps hoping on an anti-Greek sympathy vote? From all we see, is the fact that not Greek, but Turkey seems to be a massive problem in all this and now the smugglers got their gains, everyone points at Greece. It is unfair, incorrect and lacking justice on many levels. And in this age of humanitarian need, why do we read “In return for trying to stem the flux, Turkey is to receive a $3.3 billion fund to help it deal with the refugee crisis, a much-awaited easing of EU visa restrictions for Turkish citizens and sped-up EU membership talks“, so apart from not doing their jobs, we see that too many events fall on someone else’s job list at the premise that Turkey is getting something out of this for themselves. How is that anything else then a continuation of selfish needs against the backdrop of the EEC? First we could not deal with Greece (the part that was their responsibility), in all this we have the unacceptable acts by Turkey and now we add to that the immature acts by the Austrian Foreign Affairs Minister hiding it away as a mere conference. Now on the other side, there is no doubt that the pressure is on Austria, but blaming Greece for something that has been out of their control is, as I see it is a total sham.

Greece needs to do more, yet that is not possible and equally unacceptable with massive funds from the EEC and IMF. Turkey might have been strategically a better solution, but it has shown from 2001 onwards that it could not be trusted, and an ally that will only stand by others for a price is not an ally, it is a courtesan at best and a mere mercenary at the worst. There is another benefit, with this change, with these registration systems, it could lead to economic options for Greece. These registrations need to happen, which means jobs for the Greek people and data for the other EEC nations. An idea that came to me months ago, it seems such a simple solution that solves a few issues, yet politicians seem to be immune to solutions, they much rather have one day conferences and leave an ally out of it all, whilst ignoring the acts that could have helped the EEC as a whole. Minister of National Defence Panos Kammenos would have a central role in this. Together with Germany they could instigate a new identity card that holds biometric data, a card that could start the changing path of refugees into a slow path to a future, wherever it could be in Europe. The more confirmed identities there are, the better the options become and the pressure over other nations would start to diminish as solutions are created, one step at a time. A mere solution I saw last year, all we now see in the papers is how close to nothing has been achieved. This all escalated a mere moment ago when we got ‘Teargas fired as refugees try to breach Greek-Macedonian border‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/29/teargas-fired-as-refugees-try-to-breach-greece-macedonia-border), the danger is that a mass of people pushed into a corner will do what it needs to survive, and this is close to getting out of hand. In all this Greece now needs to step up to the plate, which they might be willing to do, but if the EEC does not do anything in massive support, the actions will not be realistic. A situation that now develops was clear that it would become unmanageable almost a year ago. How interesting that those relying on ego and presentation will remain in denial until the first casualty comes, right Mr Kurz?

In all this, I do acknowledge that Austria has a problem, it has had one for a while, but the simple story is that those refugees never saw Greece as a Destination, they are aiming for Germany, France and the United Kingdom. That too has been known for a very long time. Which gets me to one part that does fall onto Greece, that is seen in the quote: “Volunteers described scenes of mayhem at passenger terminals in Piraeus and the arrival hall of the former Ellinikon airport in Athens, where up to 4,000 have been housed. “We should have resorted to using the armed forces long ago,” said one. “[But] being [a] left wing [administration], there was hesitation. There were humanitarian values we wanted to uphold.”“. You see, I agree, the army should have been deployed, yet everyone forgets that an army can be deployed for humanitarian purposes. You (in an oversimplified way) replace his rifle for a clipboard and you give him a pink or light green armband (or a white one with a red cross and a red crescent), so that the refugees can see the difference. So that they see that help is no longer a dream but an option.

I apologise for oversimplifying the matter for Austria and its small one day conference, where it remains debatable if anything useful evolved from that expensive event.

 

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February 20, 2016 · 12:25

Omphalos and its syndrome

This syndrome comes from the references of Delphi and the ‘navel of the world’, which is what Delphi was regarded as. Nowadays, we see Omphalos syndrome as the misguided belief that a place of geopolitical power and currency is the most important place in the world.

I believe that to be no longer correct, I believe that it has been ‘converted’ into something slightly more generic. I believe that it should be seen as ‘the misguided believe that its choice of management and achievement of profit are the most important in the world’. Let’s take a look at a few examples.

 

A is for Apple

‘Apple apologises over Error 53 and issues fix for bricked iPhones’ (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/19/error-53-apple-issues-fix-bricked-iphones) shows the first example. The entire error53 mess is a direct example. It goes on to the core that we now see “Apple has released a fix for users affected by “Error 53”, a software issue that rendered useless iPhones that had had their home buttons replaced by third parties“, The initial response “At the time Apple said that Error 53 was a security feature to protect customers” reads like a joke. The mere alternative that was open was that any non-Apple certified method meant the wiping of data would have been enough. It took me 5 minutes to come up with that solution. A mere auto wipe of all data. No we have to read quotes like “Apple has apologised for Error 53 and said customers who paid for an out-of-warranty replacement for their phone should contact AppleCare about reimbursement” as well as “Solving Error 53 does not re-enable Touch ID, as a third-party replacement of the home button could potentially allow unauthorised access to a locked phone by modifying the fingerprint sensor“. It would have been the simplest of solutions to go through the re-enabling system again. All these simple solutions, all because apple wanted to enforce the repairs of their phones to what they consider to be THEIR allowed service repair shops. An application of greed, to maximise profits, not the openness of what was once the Apple OS X through a Unix open source system, but the mere stranglehold of a greed driven corporation. It was brought to light by several articles in the Guardian and an initial customer service based solution comes “after widespread publicity and the Californian tech giant being served with a class action lawsuit over in the US and attention from a competition watchdog in Australia“, I wonder how many IOS people will start considering Android now.

 

E is for Eisai

This event is taking us back a fair bit, around 2000 Eisai came with its Alzheimer’s drug Aricept (donepezil). The fact that profits grow by 100% might not be the biggest thing on the planet. Yes when the LA Times (at http://articles.latimes.com/2012/mar/22/health/la-he-aricept-fda-20120323) reported “FDA officials should not have allowed it, the authors said, because the clinical studies Eisai offered in support of its application did not meet standards the agency itself had laid out“, in addition we see “it failed to yield the improvements that the FDA had set as a condition of approval“, in all this a clear investigation did not take place. It is still allowed, mainly because it is FDA approved. We see in other sources the claims like “Further, the higher dose was not superior on either of the pre-specified secondary outcome measures, which, as the FDA medical reviewer pointed out, argues that the cognitive difference was not meaningful“, which we get from the FDA Center for Drug Evauation and Research. Application number 022568: medical review. Aricept 23 mg tablets. (at www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/nda/2010/022568Orig1s000MedR.pdf), when we consider the source http://www.nhs.uk/news/2015/10October/Pages/Cheap-Alzheimers-drug-may-help-keep-people-out-of-care-homes.aspx, where we get the quote “a year’s worth of donepezil costs around £21 a year, compared with a year’s worth of care home costs – estimated to be between £30,732 and £34,424 a year. If the results of the study were replicated at a population level, this could save the NHS a considerable sum of money“.

This is where we see another version of Omphalos syndrome, “the misguided believe that my version of cost cutting is the best in the world“, at this point, we should investigate the players and consider whether a case for criminal endangerment exists. The fact that sources have shown ‘evidence’ as per 2007 gives rise to a failed system, not just the NHS, but the leeway for pharmaceuticals as, from the given reports failed to yield the improvements that the FDA had set as a condition of approval, making the question why on earth was it approved at all and why are certain diseases used for marketing a cash cow, more important why is the NHS not loudly and outspoken dealing with this? Especially as www.NHS.UK is involved in promoting articles in favour of Aricept (donepezil).

 

I is for Insight Enterprises

This is a side that rests with Omphalos, yet in all this it is in equal measure a situation we must accept. Insight Enterprises did nothing wrong, it made a choice, it’s governing body stated ‘this is the best path, this is the golden solution’, we must accept that any governing body, being it corporate or governmental will be ‘smitten’ with Omphalos Syndrome. So as Microsoft changed the partner program in 2014, Insight Enterprises saw the filling of its corporate coffers trickle down to zero. (at http://www.crn.com/news/channel-programs/300079674/insight-enterprises-absorbs-another-hit-after-microsoft-partner-program-changes.htm). We can debate the mess Insight Enterprises received, the near simple answer is that Microsoft had to change programs, any large corporations will do that. Any program they offer and device tends to be ‘fluidic’ over time. Yet when we see the quote “The changes also affected Microsoft’s Licensing Solution Providers, like Tempe, Ariz.-based Insight, which are the only partners Microsoft allows to sell licensing agreements to large corporations“, which is now showing another side. Does this make Microsoft narcissistically selfish or just plain sociopathic? You see all narcissists are selfish, but not all selfish corporations are narcissistically in nature (which is proven as greed we put the greedy in front of a mirrors), yet in all this, is this a sociopathic side in Microsoft? Well, that is a debate for another day as the entire Omphalos topic would soon get too murky.

 

O is for Omphalos

As shown in the last example, we tend to see Omphalos in a bad light. Which is not all correct either. On the other side we can take Bill Gates and his Omphalosian approach to IT. This got us DOS and later Windows. On the far side of the scale of limiting, there is the view of the truly visionary, but that view needs a start. Here the Omphalos syndrome works in another way. As I see it, we can accuse Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison on that list. Yet, we only did that AFTER they became successful, the not so successful are usually never heard of again.

In this world today, the foundation of ‘the most important place in the world’ is less and less applicable, it becomes a world of solutions, an amalgamation of aggregated values (the European Economic Community being a nice example). Yet the foundation of how to go about it was done in a very Omphalosian way. Especially when we consider the past blogs on how only self-proclaimed departures were the option. Which is exactly where Brexit is now. As Brexit gains momentum we see that the Omphalosian solution was the most dangerous here, it took one of the smallest nations (Greece) to push their non-accountability for the entire EEC to be in turmoil, with now a decent chance of collapsing the EEC as well as the Euro as a coin. Even as the United Kingdom is not on the Euro, France is and a Brexit will soon push for an additional Frexit. In that regard, the Financial Times quoted Florian Philippot who stated “the idea of challenging greater EU integration had become “taboo” in Europe. “The more we talk about it, the more people will vote against it,” he said” (at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/58f9cc98-ce51-11e5-92a1-c5e23ef99c77.html#axzz40fDAW3BL). This is yet another side of Omphalos, actually two sides. The foundation of Omphalos is based on one view, if that view does not evolve or alters as time goes by, that view becomes less and less actual. The view becomes an act of obstruction at best and debilitating at worst.

In the second part, we have forever seen the Omphalos syndrome in its power core on the scope of government (read: Communistic), in that view we forgot that it is corporations with their view on the ‘only’ solution that is now impacting the lives of people in several (read: many) nations. In that same view we see that the old approach to currency is no longer the same. Most values are too dependent on independent views of static organisations and their push for changed industrialisations. How come that the value of a coin is now directly impacted by places like Dow Jones index, Nasdaq, Standards and Poor, the IMF, the ECB and so on? Governments allowed themselves to be directly be valued from what is perceived to be an ‘independent’ side. This is the other part that drives Brexit and other plans to no longer be part of anything. There is a near global consensus that these sources can no longer be trusted. That their view is to some extent ‘Greed Incarnate’.

As I see it, there is no true independence anymore. When we read that Eagle Capital Management Invests $293000 and that J. W. Burns & Company Has $533000 invested in in SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (DIA). When the index itself is invested on, the expectations of improved value must be met, where does that leave us?

 

U is for You!

Even when we see the old and the new versions of the Omphalos syndrome, we need to realise that what once seen as short-sighted and limited is now not so limiting. It remains (as I personally see it) as short-sighted as it ever was (only in the rarest of occasions is it visionary), but now, the impact is no longer limited to one government, now its short-sighted impact is nearly global. It hits parties in many nations and it does not stop there. You see in a governmental approach it is ‘set’ to be what is best for its citizens and in case of the EEC it is what a group of nations see. Now consider the application from corporations that impacts governments on a global scale, offices of standards that impact the dangers to lives on a global scale as it does not enforce its own given values. How can we be aligned to a limiting view that could cost us our lives and our choice of living?

So as you consider ‘the misguided believe that its choice of management and achievement of profit are the most important in the world’ also strongly consider what it will cost you, not now, but down the track.

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February 15, 2016 · 21:33

Is there a doctor on this budget?

The title ‘Is this doctor (and Ukip candidate) right that EU migrants will destroy the NHS?‘ seems inflammatory to say the least, but the reality is actually a lot less appealing. Even when we see today’s article: ‘NHS vows to transform mental health services with extra £1bn a year‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/15/nhs-vows-to-transform-mental-health-services-with-extra-1bn-a-year), the quote “People facing mental health crises will be able to get community care 24 hours a day, seven days a week as part of the biggest transformation of NHS mental health services in England for a generation, to be unveiled on Monday“, that quote now reflects back to the initial NHL article. There we see that Professor Angus Dalgleish is giving us another view: “He says the NHS is on its knees and “could collapse completely” because of immigrants from the EU that we are legally obliged to treat“, so even as the Guardian is hiding behind the identity ‘Pass notes‘, there are issues. The first is the unintelligent trivialisation by ‘Pass notes‘. The quote “Eighteen British hospitals made £42m from people coming here for treatment on 2010” is just too ridiculous to be considered valid. I am not stating that it is a lie, but consider that the NHS budget is set to be around £115b for 2015/2016, that £42m amounts to roughly 0.000365%, so how insignificant is that trivialisation? Especially when we consider that many papers (including the Guardian) reported the NHS to be £1.6b in deficit, so there is an issue already.

Now we get the next step.

From several sources we see that refugees are coming. That is not an accusation, or negativism, it is merely factual that over the next 5 years 20.000 refugees will arrive. Now consider that these people come from actual devastated locations, on a horrendous trip that has lasted years (including their stay in refugee centres) to get to the UK, if only 75% needs mental health care, the UK should be thanking their lucky stars. So that £1bn will not last too long, especially considering the current population is in dire need of mental health in one form or another. So as ‘Pass notes‘ complains the quote “But I expect doctors to be liberal! By which I mean intelligent! By which I mean liberal! We expect much. And sometimes we are disappointed“, which is just the Guardian showing that its own values are not set on intelligence. The NHS itself states: “However, if you are now living in an EEA member state and pay into a state healthcare scheme then you are entitled to apply to that member state for an EHIC. Under EC law, this entitles you free of charge to ‘all medically necessary treatment’ here, which provides a greater coverage than that mentioned above since it includes routine treatment for chronic conditions such as diabetes“, which gives way to the claim that Professor Dalgleish is making. In addition the National Health Service Act 2006, section 83 states that “all reasonable requirements to provide or secure necessary primary medical services for all patients, irrespective of their immigration status, within their areas” must be met, this is a legal duty for the primary care trust as reported by the Primary Care Commission (at https://www.pcc-cic.org.uk/sites/default/files/articles/attachments/pcc_briefing_-_illegal_immigrantsv6.pdf), which now implies that Professor Dalgleish has indeed reported an issue that the Guardian casually trivialises. Yet, we must also ask, what if the Guardian is correct? Well, section 83 of the National Health Service Act 2006, literally states at s83(1) “Each Primary Care Trust must, to the extent that it considers necessary to meet all reasonable requirements, exercise its powers so as to provide primary medical services within its area, or secure their provision within its area“, which bakes the cake on one side. The issue is however not done, it is about to get a lot ‘worse’, because s83(2)(b) gives us: “A Primary Care Trust may (in addition to any other power conferred on it) make such arrangements for their provision (whether within or outside its area) as it considers appropriate, and may in particular make contractual arrangements with any person“, which now gets us two elements:

  • Make contractual arrangements with any person, which also implies that it could be a contract set at £0.00.
  • Arrangements for their provision (whether within or outside its area), which now implies that the Primary medical services can transfer a refugee or illegal immigrant to psychological care and/or specialised mental health clinics.

So ‘Pass notes‘ is not reflecting on the dangers that Professor Dalgleish was trying to illuminate. More important, these issues have been known for some time. Issues on these elements have been illuminated in plenty of publications going back to 2012. There is even more information at http://www.commonwealthfund.org/~/media/Files/Publications/Issue%20Brief/2012/Dec/1650_Gray_hlt_care_undocumented_migrants_intl_brief.pdf, yet overall they tend to give the same reflection, especially when you look at page 3, where the cubic impression titled ‘Exhibit 1. Three Dimensions of Health Care Coverage Policy for Undocumented Migrants‘, gives rise to the massive growth of costs that could be associated with migrant health care (not to mention due to incoming refugees).

So how much valid weight can be given to the statements of Professor Dalgleish? I personally believe that the weight of his statements should be weight on a debatable high level (evidence to follow at the near end). The issue is not just regarding the costing the immigrants and refugees bring, the fact that the Euro systems is wreaking havoc all over the world is an equal concern. I cannot state for certain what will be the best path, what is a given is that trivialisation was never an option.

When we add ‘Jeremy Hunt on the NHS: ‘I think this decade needs to see the quality revolution’‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/feb/15/jeremy-hunt-on-the-nhs-i-think-this-decade-needs-to-see-the-quality-revolution) to the fold, the plot thickens. You see, quality revolution sounds fair and essential, it is in fact at resent likely the least important part. There is a massive shortage of medical professionals, there is a lack of funds and that lack can be sized into the billions. This implies that quality, though nice is nothing compared towards the lack of resources. Which gets us to the Junior Doctor contracts. You see the quote “none of the 152 foundation trust hospitals in England will be obliged to force their junior doctors to accept the deal and can instead offer them better terms“, which gets us back to that massive deficit and more important, what additional pressures will be added onto it?

That is a part which has been known for a while, I voiced it at least 2 years ago and the current investigation that the BBC gave visibility to in January 2016 (at http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-35361908) is still centre in all the issues that will come. You see, without a proper IT system, the NHS will have less and less options to streamline any solution, with that I mean larger operational matters for streamlining. Even as Tavish Scott (Lib Dem Scotland) asked on who got figuratively axed, we got the answer: “The chair of the board is no longer there, the chief executive is no longer there and the chief finance officer“, a very unsatisfactory answer. When we consider “he was not informed of a ‘fundamental flaw’ in the system being delivered for 22 months, adding “other, more junior staff were aware of omissions” in the contract, “but they didn’t tell me”“, we see a systematic shortening of another matter. The fact that junior staff were aware, implies that the documentation was an issue from day 1, in addition, no clear QA protocol was in place. No drilldown teams, from Junior to board member line was in play and overall the system was beyond merely defective. Consider the simple quote: “Mr Turner, who signed the 1,000-page contract for the IT system in March 2012, said he felt “very let down” by a senior colleague, saying they “didn’t advise me at all”“, can anyone explain to me, how such a document does not come with an excerpt chapter by chapter (by members of the NHS) underwriting per chapter how the contract impacts the NHS, the system and their services? A mere SWOT analyses (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) would have made all the difference before signing. A waste of £40-£50 million is more than just a few doctors, the lack of such a solution will give additional worry to the claims Professor Dalgleish made. In light of refugees, illegal immigrants and costings, the lack of oversight will soon pressure resources down further.

This all gives a clear view that a doctor is required to take the pulse of the budget. It is billions in deficit and the drain will only increase. The fact that most parties have not given clear light to several sides is only a first reason why Ukip is gaining momentum. That view goes a little further when we consider “Committee convener Paul Martin said there must have been issues with management if staff did not feel able to come forward“, Scottish Labour has more than just a point, the issue becomes why junior members were not asked directly. Someone had to make an inventory, which means that the step was skipped, or intentionally overlooked. That now gives way to the fact that axing three members is not nearly enough. There is, what could be regarded as an institutional failure within the NHS. Considering that the NHS 24 is only one of several systems that are not on par, or even worse, then never got properly managed is proof further still that the NHS cannot handle too many pressure points at present.

What was wrong from Professor Dalgleish is that ‘EU migrants’ are only one of several straws, each currently heavy enough to separately break the camel’s back (read: NHS), which might be a case that the professor was trying to make, but ‘Pass notes‘ was too busy writing lame non-jokes, whilst the editor of the Guardian remained absent in this matter, which is why its readers are left in the dark (and in the near future untreated too). It was interesting to see that Rochdale Online did give more information through the statement by Louise Bours, UKIP health spokesman and North West MEP.

Here you must ask yourself the question: “Is this all just a storm in a teacup?” Especially as the larger papers ignored the ‘Dalgleish matter’. I myself expect that the statement from Dalgleish is out of context and incomplete. This failing as other elements that are driving the NHS over the cliffs were ignored could have been an option to illuminate why Ukip might not be the answer, yet as we see these levels of trivialisation, people are wondering the why; mainly because no clear explanation is coming forward they start to listen to Ukip more and more. Which is EXACTLY why I wrote the initial view with supporting documentation of a more academic level. So it is not a storm in a teacup, as we can clearly see that the NHS could be seen as close to ‘terminal’, but the factors here are a lot more than just the EU-migrants, what is a given is that unless certain things change, the EU-migrants could be breaking the NHS back, but that is equally a given for a few more factors that are currently in play.

Should any of these elements drive you crazy, then you will be equally out of luck as the BBC reported that finding a mental health spot has become pretty impossible, in that element alone, the £1b might be a great help, but there is a decent chance it will not be enough, because it is not just the beds that are unavailable, services are an equal worry, services that require staff and the refugee pressure will only add to that shortage (which is not the fault of these refugees mind you).

 

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