Tag Archives: UK

September 28, 2014 · 22:29

Sane Sex and Time management

Sometimes life throws you a bone. In my case it was a little more about timing. The Guardian was nice enough to release a new article based upon the Observer sex survey 2014. The ‘main’ article (at http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/sep/28/british-sex-survey-2014-nation-lost-sexual-swagger) gives us all the nice percentages, yet what was the base. Nice that in some cases it states ‘all man’, yet is this 50,500 or 5000, and in a population of 68 million, how reliable is all this? Considering that we find 1052 UK adults at the end is also cause for alarm, because even with top quality weighting, a UK based approach with a raw file containing less than 5000 cases should not even be considered (in my humble opinion). Let’s be clear, this is not an attack, just me phrasing a few questions. I had the most fun with the infidelity chart, where they state that 83% has never been unfaithful, now consider the source (at http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/jan/28/divorce-rates-marriage-ons#data), if you take a look at the data set, there is a [tab] called ‘Cause of divorce’, by the way, consider that the UK has a massive divorce group and in some years the reason for infidelity is well over 43%, so how about them numbers now?

I knew a guy (don’t we all), who told me, a man has either been unfaithful, or at some point he will be. So far his prediction has always held up.

So, has the UK lost its sexual ‘swagger’, or are we not looking in the right way?

That is off course part of the issue. Is it an honesty issue?

I am not stating to know that part. I am very willing to assume that the data has issues (in regards to this topic there always tends to be issues). But this is not about the statistics; this is about the article by Tim Adams (at http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/sep/28/-sp-not-tonight-darling-why-britain-having-less-sex). The headline ‘Not tonight, darling: why is Britain having less sex?’ flashed in front of my eyes and I got curious, especially when the subtitle states: “should we blame the rise of internet porn or the spread of gender equality?” A lamer reason could not be found? You see, I have the following issues:

Quote: “The greater the husband’s share of masculine chores, the greater his wife’s reported sexual satisfaction“. So is this the case of the milkman always coming twice or should we revisit an article that the Guardian published on June 8th (at http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/08/police-fear-rise-domestic-violence-world-cup)? These numbers quite literally scared me to death. They state “The most detailed research into the links between the football World Cup and domestic abuse rates has revealed that in one force area in England and Wales, violent incidents increased by 38% when England lost – but also rose by 26% when they won“, so now consider whether the masculine chores are reasons for and ‘her’ way to not get hurt.

I will state here that my premise is on a very very slippery slope. One should never combine two statistics from different sources. It is like comparing apples with pears, yet an increase of 38% sounds massive, especially when we consider the information from http://www.womensaid.org.uk/, where in one presentation, we see the link to ‘Walby and Allen (2004)‘ who found that 54% of UK rapes are committed by a woman’s current or former partner. Again, I am comparing different statistics, which is EXTREMELY unreliable, yet overall, it brings questions to the two articles overall. Yet Tim Adams makes several interesting observations, and I put this one at the very top “In our work-obsessed, time-poor culture, it would seem that regular sex is one of the ‘luxuries’ that we are prepared to dispense with“, which makes perfect sense, as we relive the statistic where people in UK (in London particularly) end up working 6 days a week, whilst only getting paid for 5, we see a trend of exhaustion. To get by, to pay the bills, we all (gender equally) we tend to have ZERO energy left at the end of the ride, so whilst the bosses are taking us for a ride, most of us tend to not get any intimate kind of a ride any day soon, possible with exception of those in charge, getting by through living in a less premium place.

Then we get the following statement: “in an attempt to be gender-neutral, we may have become gender-neutered”. Not sure if I can agree. I always saw my partners as equals and that never stopped either of us, yet the days where I worked from before sun up until way past sun down, my only desire was to imitate a sawmill and commence deforestation through snoring from Friday evening until Sunday morning. Yet the article also had a few jewels to snigger at in regards to manage my lousy sense of humour. When seeing “Is the digital commodification of sex ruining the real thing on a wider scale?“, my initial thought was, that if it fits into a USB port, then we can safely say that the need for chemical augmentation has truly arrived, yet, all humour aside (even my bad one), I always learned (read: experienced) that great sex came from communication. So, is communication not better achieved through gender equality and by both learning, does it not get better for both? Hence, how can the internet help? Let’s remember that many ‘educational’ online places are nothing less than a figment of many imaginations. It’s almost like the one place where you pay to have digital sex, only to receive a message from the ‘lady’ after payment: “not now dear, I have a headache!” There goes your $x, when a simple drink with a real person would have given you a decent drink and possibly some actual information, likely at a fraction of whatever $x was.

Perhaps I am oversimplifying matters again! Silly me!

There is one more part that I want to respond to “The sexual revolutionaries of the 1960’s and 70’s, you imagine, would be profoundly shocked by the responses to the question of whether it is possible to be in a happy relationship without sex featuring at all. Just about two-thirds of British adults apparently believe that such a relationship is perfectly feasible“. I have absolutely no idea how that part is even possible, until you consider the next part. “In 2003, the UK edition of Elle magazine featured an article warning women about the potential hazards of spending too much time with their gay male friends. Entitled “Help! I’m a Gay Man Trapped in a Woman’s Body”, the title parodies a discourse of transgender by juxtaposing a woman’s body against a supposedly gay male interior. The article problematizes the amount of time some women spend with gay male friends, suggesting this causes them to become more like gay men and to consequently become unattractive to heterosexual men, thus diverting them from the normative path of heterosexuality“. This comes from: ‘Shepperd, D., Coyle, A., & Hegarty, P. (2010). Discourses of friendship between heterosexual women and gay men: Mythical norms and an absence of desire.’

I have heard this before on more than one occasion. The ‘younger’ lady wants to be cool, be with suave men and as she sets herself up to be that desirable woman looking her best, being with the gay man looking fabulous, she is now in a stage where she is either considered Lesbian, unavailable or a tease. So, these single women are now at times complaining how they are approaching 32 with no serious man in sight. You see, that was the trade off! So these women are possibly fighting their biological alarm clock system (just coining a phrase), whilst they lose out on ‘life’ as they hoped it. At times going to bars with a few same minded girls, looking for that Brad Pitt, or Bad Boy look alike, with the suave look of their gay male friends, or looking like the model from ‘Gieves and Hawkes’. Good Luck! Which now gives us the ‘what is important in a relationship’, when 1% is about money, whilst seeing how women seem to classify ‘prospective’ options (there will always be exceptions), it gives me pause to question the reliability of that percentage.

The article is however still a good read. It is funny, witty and well written, I just have an issue with some of the thoughts, but then don’t we all?

If there is one side that needs to be illuminated, then it would be (or should be) the issue on how our work lives are ruining our life of passion. Not just because it is wrong (it really really is!), but mainly as there has been several views into the reasoning of mental health, suicide and decreased sexual activity. There is no telling whether the sexual decrease is linked to depression or the other way around, the fact remains that there is a direct correlation between sexual activity and depression as well as between depression and suicide. The question now becomes, is this ‘a view of just two items’, or are we witnessing the beginning of a chain. If we consider mental health as a generic, whether this is enough to turn prostitution into a healthcare job is definitely not on the table, but there is enough data available to take a serious look at these three factors (perhaps that has already been done). There is an additional reason for this. We have been looking and judging the events of domestic abuse and abusive relationships. I wonder whether these instances have been properly investigated for factors of depression. If we know that abusiveness leads to depression, can we ignore the possible danger that depression would lead to an abusive relationship? Consider these dangers as business in general on a global scale is setting us all up to become workaholics. Some scientists have expressed concern that the nature of the couple’s relationship in 50 shades of grey is not BDSM at all, but rather is characteristic of an abusive relationship, my question (as I have not read the book) is: are we not looking through the wrong coloured spectrum?

So is the book a success because some women identify with the abuse and try to identify the issues they face? This is not for me to say (being a guy and all), but it seems that this topic leaves me (and it should leave many) with loads of questions, whilst there is serious doubt on the answers offered through mere percentages. In the end if we compare what we read to what our lives have been like, how much is close to the given largest percentage or to the given mean. Has our lives turned grey or are we facing shades of it? Although, when I hear 50 shades of grey I think ‘Dulux’ or ‘British Paints’, but that might just be me.

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Tagged as 50 shades of grey, A. Coyle, BDSM, British Paints, D. Shepperd, Dulux, gender equality, Gieves and Hawkes, P. Hegarty, the Guardian, Tim Adams, UK, Walby and Allen (2004), womansaid, womensaid.org.uk

September 15, 2014 · 21:31

IKEA politicians hammer changes!

Yes, the issues have come bashing through the walls, or in the case as Julian Assange claims it, though his floor from the apartment below. I feel uncertain what will happen to Sweden. Let me start by adding two sources. One is the Huffington Post (at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/14/sweden-election-results_n_5819612.html); the other is the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/14/sweden-election-feminists-greens-stefan-lofvan-social-democrats).

This is all in response to the initial setting that led to my Blog ‘Memory lane is a freeway‘, from last Saturday (13^th September), which all started with some greed driven piece on something called ‘the sovereign investor‘, which did not make sense and let me indirectly to Natixis, who until then had stayed below my radar.

But why is there such an issue? You see I did not have any issue, just the text “But some political events have the power to destroy economies on a large scale. And Sweden’s vote is one of those moments“, this is at the core of the deception. It is not politicians who are failing, in the case of Sweden, some privatisations took the road of profit at the expense of quality; this had angered a lot of Swedes, which means no more easy profit and no exploitation of the elderly.

“A return to a Social Democratic government, allied with communists on the left, would see corporate profits plunge in Sweden as the state confiscates businesses’ earnings to pay for increased welfare payments“, reads like ‘American’ McCarthy like responses, yet Reuters gives us the clear reason why the Swedes are angry “Voters have been shocked by scandals over privately-run state welfare – including one case where carers at an elderly home were reportedly weighing diapers to safe money – and bankruptcies of privately run schools” (at http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/09/14/uk-sweden-election-idUKKBN0H90XN20140914). So the article by a ‘profit seeker’ called Jeff D. Opdyke, leaves more than just a little to be desired. This is a clear showing on how a small greedy fish is exposing a titanic sized behemoth, whilst leaving all the other people wondering why we are allowing for these absurd levels of exploitation. So, thank you Mr person from Delray Beach, Florida for showing us just how greed and exploitation needs to be halted on nearly every level.

Now, I allow him his viewpoint, I do not agree with it, but that is his right. You see, when you privatise something, which is always good when the government does not have to, we must allow for two things:

If it is profitable others would come quick, or to some extent taxation goes down.
If someone tells us that they can do a better job than the government, all people should demand EVIDENCE on how they expect to do that.

Any of these two parts are nearly always ‘avoided’ in any privatisation, which means that we see a decrease in services or an addition in cost. When someone expects to make a profit from a care centre, you can be certain that the people in the care centre end up being victims. We have privately run places here in Australia, yet they tend to cost in excess of $1,000 a week, the care is truly top notch, now consider that the government gives decent care to the elderly, cheaper and not as amazing as some private spaces, but that is the consequence of government health care. I have been in the arms of government health care in a hospital and I had ZERO complaints (apart from saving my life, these people showed true care and passion for their vocation), so when someone steps in stating ‘I can do it cheaper’ we will see casualties and it is not the people claiming to do it better. I think that the less we say the better. The Guardian had this quote “The decision, which follows four school closures announced by the company in February, came as the Danish private equity group Axcel, which bought the chain in 2008, decided it could no longer continue to cover the company’s losses“, which just shows you how some privatisation aims are not even close to being kept. (at http://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/may/31/free-schools-education) I wonder if Mr Profit Seeker took a look at the data from these places. In that regard, from that same article we learn “Michael Gove is open to the idea of profit-making companies running free schools, an idea expected to be in the Tories’ 2015 election manifesto“, so I hope that Mr Gove (a conservative MP from Surrey Heath) takes a long cold shower to mull things over, because in this climate, the UK can ill afford an education blunder like that.

So, is the Swedish Social Democrat system so bad?

There is no clear answer there, it is a given that the outgoing PM was not a bad person. Fredrik Reinfeldt took what seemed to be the safest route in a dubious economy, largely created by the earlier mentioned capitalists and their financial advisors.

Sweden, one of the most social and caring nations in the history of this planet went from an undisputed first position, to somewhere below the top 10, this in itself might not have been the worst place, but local pride had been given a devastating blow and as such a large change happened last night. Yet, is this road the best? Not sure if I can say yes, as a Christian I state that the road of Buddha (one of balance) is at times not just the safest road, but it seems to me that at present it is the only road many nations should consider. Greed is globally at an all-time high and it can only be countered by illuminating those people under loads of sunshine, whilst holding people accountable for choices and actions. Consider the repose we saw earlier “it could no longer continue to cover the company’s losses“, this implies incompetence, but is that the case? Schools will never be a place of profit. Why do you think that a place like Ashbourne in Kensington (UK) costs well over $11,000 per term? Quality costs in the end and proper teaching is all about quality. So did the Danish private equity group Axcel not crunch the numbers correctly? Was there a profit reason? It seems that this issue is still not dealt with, because equity groups tend to be about profit, what happened to the real estate value of these schools? Who owns them now? All questions, no answers and it seem to me that these matters are not enjoying that much exposure in that regard either. I am not stating that any laws were broken, but when you start ‘funding’ schools, it comes at a cost. The Ashbourne website states “Ashbourne was founded in 1981 by its current Principal and Director Mr Mike Kirby“, I am willing to bet the house (or at least a decent 21 year old single malt) that this took all his energy, dedication and pretty much every moment of his life to get this one place to the point it got (as one of London highest desired schools to get enrolled in). When some investment group gets involved I tend to turn cynical and suspicious (yes, all at the same time).

So, we do not know how the new Swedish government will pan out to be, yet we should all consider that the Swedish way worked through loads of hard times. Personally I think that turning away greed driven players is the best course, so how about me?

Well, I considered teaching English in Italy next year, whether for just a year or two, I do not know. Possibly in a Catholic school, preferably state run. If I get free classes in Italian and Latin out of it and some pocket money, a place to sleep as well as storage fee, I will be happy. I won’t cost anyone anything, I do not take up space and I bring positivity to a place that is not there for a profit, which means that if I am not a pressing cost it is a win-win. So, you the reader, when did you last consider turning that master degree or PhD into a long term social benefit to a school or a worthy cause, even if it is just for a year or two.

We all seem to race towards a ‘Return On Investment’ position, whilst those exploiting us will dump any of us in a second if we do not match the spread sheet index factor of profit. Let us all make this world a little better and let the financial system collapse the way it is, when they collapse, our lives will return to the notion that life should be about a roof, a bed (preferably with a passionate woman in my case) and a decent meal. These are all changes that do not require a hammer, and IKEA has all but two of the other components (they do not build houses at present).

There is no real moral here at present, yet if Sweden does pull of a real reorganisation whilst not diving into the deepest depth then Sweden becomes the first nation to ward of Greed and survive in the process, I reckon we should all keep our eyes on Sweden and illuminate any greed driven change, because if they can make it, so can any Commonwealth nation and as such, hope might return to America at some point. Greed driven players and financial institutions might not be doing that well, but I feel an air of certainty that no one else will lose any serious sleep over that part of the equation.

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Tagged as Ashbourne, Australia, Axcel, Catholic, Danmark, Delray Beach, Florida, Fredrik Reinfeldt, Huffington Post, Italian, Italy, Jeff D. Opdyke, Kensington, Latin, Mike Kirby, profit seeker, reuters, Social Democrats, Sweden, the Guardian, UK

August 30, 2014 · 20:20

Is it offensive?

It is Saturday evening and I am about to chase up a different side. It all started with the Guardian article (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/30/angela-lafranchi-who-links-abortion-and-cancer-stars-at-families-congress) and as a non-medical scientist I took great offense to it. Not just that, I found much of the article offensive to some degree. Why you might ask?

Well, that is as ever a fair question. I remain a Christian. I have a Jewish background and the one element (my maternal grandmother) is the one unknown. If she is Jewish, then so am I. My father was a Catholic and I grew up with Catholic links. Yet at some point I turned slightly Anglican. This is all relevant! You see, the Jewish background of my grandfather was kept a secret. I never knew (until 2003), after that I went digging a little and it seemed that my grandfather had a proud heritage, his family, the Lazarus family has links that go back to the pre-Victorian setting of Exeter (UK) going back at least to the mid-18^th century. That is a pretty good achievement, so why keep it a secret?

I grew up being a Catholic boy, but I was never that religious, I had my dark moments and like many youthful man, I so loved my neighbours wife (especially when she was sunbathing) as I was only 17. So, I was pretty much a kid like many others. I turned Anglican, like some others when I learned of the child abuse issues and moreover the way the Catholic Church (in several nations) dealt with it. It made me sick to see such injustice. How does it all link together? Well, there are two sides, the first one is how I react to some information the other is how I want to regard this information.

Part of this article reflects like it is a gathering of loons, which is in part offensive because the average Christian is not a loon, yet they are painted in that corner. It becomes even more offensive when their ‘star’ speaker is Angela Lanfranchi, who links abortions to breast cancer. This is not only wrong; this discredited view should be regarded as psychic assault against Christian women. The American Cancer Society (at http://www.cancer.org/cancer/breastcancer/moreinformation/is-abortion-linked-to-breast-cancer) and several other highly reputable sources all over the world state the following “Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women (aside from skin cancer), and it’s the second leading cancer killer in women. Because it can be a deadly disease, it’s one that many women fear” the information then gives us “A 2013 Danish study of over 25,000 women who had at least one full-term pregnancy found no link between induced abortion and breast cancer risk over 12 years of follow-up” this is just one of many studies, yet enough evidence has been given to give proper claim that this link does not exist, so I wonder why Angela Lanfranchi is currently not being investigated and prosecuted for possible psychic assault, I regard the act of scaring women into a pro-life stance is just plain criminal.

This is the most visible, but not the only part that I found offensive. There was more and this part falls to Fred Nile, leader of the NSW Christian Democrats stating “All this softening up of legislation is because we don’t have committed Christians there“. I disagree, we have plenty of committed Christians, but we also have a separation of state and church. I have nothing against any leader who at times as a Christian has moral stances, which he should be allowed to state. Yet, the vast majority of our population has made certain choices in life and these values have been democratically adopted.

He then speaks of a view “A drug-free society. A pro-life society. No pornography or prostitution. A society with wholesome public entertainment. A God-honouring, Christ-centred Christian nation“, I do not agree with it, I oppose it, but I also refuse to personally attack him for it. He has a right to his view as we all allow for a freedom of speech, but I will address this in a moment.

We agree that there are courts, there is rule of law and there is freedom of religion, so why do we see the quote “Catch the Fire pastor Daniel Nalliah founded the anti-Islamic political party Rise Up Australia and famously blamed the Black Saturday bushfires on Victoria’s abortion laws” laws do not set fires, people do, Islam has a peaceful foundation whilst the Catholic church has eradicated at least 17 civilisations, yet they would state that these 17 civilisations were all led by the devil (an assumption on my side).

The article ends with one of the vilest of proclamations “He said 90% of all the world’s poverty was caused by the breakdown of the family unit“, so who is not in poverty? Would that not be those in their Ivory towers (like New York), how many of them are Christians? How many are Atheists and more important, how many of them have a family? Family breakdown did not cause poverty, yet exploitation and greed caused poverty which led to family breakdowns all over the world.

This is all so offensive because the bulk of the Christians are people like me and many of you readers. We have a firm foundation of rational, so why are the loons always so linked to Christianity?

It seems like a self-answering question but it is not.

In regards to my view of abortions I remain on the fence. Pro-life wants to set it to zero, which is just wrong, but the fact that it is so openly available is also not right. There are cases of rape and incest where a woman does not want it, it should be her right to remove that what was forced upon her. The other side is also not acceptable, the Christian woman who kept the baby, is her right, yet the criminal father cannot rely on any chance to be given citizenship. That is exactly what seems to have happened in the UK, the man as the bleeding heart refugee lawyer won the argument that “his right to family life would be violated if he were removed to Nigeria“; the Strasbourg court seems to have little regards for the victims of violent crimes. Can anyone blame the position of Theresa May and her goal to remove the Human Rights Act?

Yes, this is still all about the Christians!

I personally am all for a drug free society, I am not against a pro-life society, but I feel that 100% pro-life is not acceptable either. So what is wholesome public entertainment? This is shown in the next quote “Without God they get filled with they get filled with pornography or terror or computer games“, well the bulk of all people are not violent, even if they have video games. Many are not in league with terror, yet Christians have annihilated the bulk of all non-Christian civilisations, so how are Christians allowed to exist? As for pornography, or better stated ‘erotic art’, the Catholic Church has founded a whole cadre of them. One of the more renowned masters of the erotic arts is Agostino Carracci, who is also responsible for “The Last Communion of St. Jerome” (not the Botticelli edition). So what would you do? Burn those paintings too?

Perhaps these Christians want to take a look at their own past. In early 1497, a priest named Girolamo Savonarola started a few bonfires, this event would later be known as the bonfires of the vanity. Hundreds upon hundreds of paintings and writings were destroyed as they were regarded sinful and immoral. The only person to go to these lengths lately was Adolf Hitler (Kristallnacht), so yes, that is a group of people we all should relate to (you do understand that this is a sarcastic remark?)

In my view such people of visibility have always used religion and the church to proclaim a new era whilst basically bullying behind scriptures. When we look at Savonarola we see “while Savonarola intervened with the king, the Florentines expelled the ruling Medici and, at the friar’s urging, established a popular republic. Declaring that Florence would be the New Jerusalem, the world centre of Christianity and ‘richer, more powerful, more glorious than ever’“, so a seat for the promise of power, something we have never seen before. That last quote came from ‘Savonarola The Rise and Fall of a Renaissance Prophet‘, which gives us another message of a want-to-be-a-prophet-through-violence.

Yet, this is not the church, this is not Christianity. I have seen it in several ways. The mother and her two daughters working every Friday a morning as a volunteer, doing not just good deeds, but simple acts of goodness that are pivotal in making this a better world. Those who speak in kindness even as junks lash out in verbal abuse. There is much wrong in this world and true Christians try hard to make it a better world. They are not visible as speakers or in a forum. They volunteer for the SES, help with houses in need, they are with organisations like Marine Rescue; they work weekends for the heart foundation and the cancer council. They are not in the limelight, yet they are all true Christians. Some are Anglican, some are Catholics and for the most none have any anti-Islamic sentiments.

So here is my opposition to the entire article, whatever they call a ‘family congress’ seems to be a collection of religious loons. God did not speak there, because this message as we read it is about a military tactic. It read that their approach is about segregation, isolation and extermination. None of these tactics are god’s words, they are the words of man and the power hungry drive behind it. After all this one perfectly valid question remains. Why do they call this a ‘World Congress of Families conference’? Isn’t every family made of the children of other families and are they not made from individuals? If the smallest element in an equation is ignored, how can the formula make sense, or even more, be valid to begin with?

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Tagged as Adolf Hitler, Agostino Carracci, Angela Lanfranchi, anglican, breast cancer, Cancer, Catch the Fire, Catholic Church, catholics, Christian, Christians, church, Daniel Nalliah, Exeter, Girolamo Savonarola, Islam, Kristallnacht, Lazarus, Marine Rescue, pastor Daniel Nalliah, SES, skin cancer, The American Cancer Society, the Guardian, The Last Communion of St. Jerome, Theresa May, UK, World Congress of Families, www.cancer.org

August 27, 2014 · 11:10

Which coin?

This morning I was confronted with my own thoughts of the last few days. I am not stating anything new (at least I hope so). The American issues, the overly visible multi-billion dollar deals and a few other notions. It started earlier this week when I heard that a friend was made redundant. These things happen. It happened to me, it will happen to others too. The issue I had is that for a decent long time we have known that companies for the most are not too bothered with loyalty, for them it is about the bottom dollar, what is interesting is that they tend to DEMAND loyalty to a fault until they cut away the people who loyally served them, in some cases for decades, only to replace them with ignorant junior staff members often costing them less than 50% of whatever they are paying now. This is not new, this had been going on for some time and they do it nice and legal, at times segregating a staff member in a niche position, waiting a year, if that person had been around a long time even two year and then closing down that department, which saves them years of due income in settlements.

Weirdly enough, yesterday’s story about the bankruptcy of America is linked to all that. You see, this entire issue can be reduced to two coins. One coin is the government, on one side we see the view they have of companies and the other side is how companies really are. The second coin is how we see companies and the other side is how companies turn out to be. They are not the same coin, they are an entirely different currency all together!

That is the view the older generation does not seem to comprehend and what the younger generation takes for granted. However, the long term consequence is that companies will end up having the short stick in all this (but about that side more a little later).

Let us take a look at coin number one. The government coin!

Companies, for the most have considered themselves nationalistic, it gives them an identity and also the protection of the government branch should that ever be needed. There is Woolworths, the Australian place to get your Groceries; there is General Motors, an American Company, British Telecom a British company and so on. These are actually the old times, we and with us our governments have had this image. To some extent, an Ambassador still to some degree acts as an intermediary between cooperative businesses to promote trade. So companies get the support of a government enabling them to have easier access to business opportunities. Their importance goes back to the Italian renaissance, more notably when Vittore Carpaccio painted the ‘Legend of Saint Ursula‘ series; they are called Arrival of the Ambassadors, The Departure of the Ambassadors and The Return of the Ambassadors. Ambassadors were the dream of business as they opened doors for trade to commence and increase.

Today this is no longer the case, business has no affiliation to any government when times are good (when times are bad they whine for money and tax breaks), actually they always whine for tax breaks. You see, a company as many can see have only allegiance to their board of directors and the bottom line that they worship in a spread sheet. Today’s corporations are not linked to a nation or a location. Google seems to be the only honest one in that regard. They do not call themselves an American company, but a Global company. Their concept of location is fluid, it shapes to the need of tax relief and where the fastest servers are to acquire the data handed to them by well over a billion people on a daily basis. Yet, this is not about Google! This is about the way business is allowed to be done. In my view it has something to do with spineless politicians (not just in America by the way). As companies were allowed too many degrees of freedom, they opted personal need and gain instead of the greater good. This is not wrong or illegal, yet they use the facilities offered for them with all the freedom, which by the way is as it should be for the most and at the same time these companies syphoned billion through a multitude of tax shelter constructions, all perfectly legal. Did you know that hundreds of millions of people buy their downloads in Ireland?

An option to promote trade has for the better part of almost two decades been used to avoid taxation, not to improve trade and/or long term economic benefits (well they are, but only for the board of directors). The greed economy had been turned against the governments, most not willing to change in fear that they will walk away. This is one of the main reasons why America is basically bankrupt and not just America. Many of the commonwealth nations, amongst them Australia, United Kingdom and Canada who are feeling the effects of people buying online and these governments end up getting $0.00 in any form of taxation whilst the stores are shutting down one by one. HMV and the Virgin Megastores were likely two of the most visible victims of online retail changes, yet the online purchases ended up not having taxation of any kind, which does mean that a nation’s government is losing out.

My initial solution was to make a change that made any online purchase taxable in the land of the buyer, an idea that was never adopted, some thinking they ended up with more perhaps? But all lost out, as the e-Giants remained in tax sheltered nations. Particularly the US and UK missed out on hundreds of millions of tax dollars/pounds.

“Tax administrators face greater difficulties in enforcing tax laws and maintaining their community’s legitimate revenue base when dealing with international rather than domestic transactions, particularly when dealing with a jurisdiction that combines tax haven status with bank secrecy. Increasingly, tax haven regimes with bank secrecy laws in place are accessible to almost anyone with a modem and a computer“, which comes from Mr Carmody, Commissioner of Taxation. It was an Australian Taxation Office Media Release on November 11th 1997. So, this issue has been known for over FIFTEEN YEARS! Who else is late to the party? Well, that would be the United States of America, the United Kingdom, as far as I can tell Canada (not confirmed, due to a lack of knowledge of Canadian tax laws), Australia and this prestigious list goes on for a little while longer. Yes, we were getting played in a most auspicious way by whining, crying small minded board of director members on a global scale.

There is one more side to the first coin (source: http://www.internationaltaxreview.com/Article/3252311/VAT-considerations-for-e-commerce.html). The article subtitles drew me in ‘Nehal Radia considers the VAT implications of e-commerce and how taxpayers can take advantage‘. The article has a few good sides and they are worth reading about, but for me it helps illustrate another side, partially the fact that a view given here is not as I see it to be ‘the correct one’, which by the way, thuy were never debating.

Consider your own financial situation, you the reader. If you have a job, it is more than likely that you have not been getting too many job raises since 2012, yet overall, your rent, your food, your electricity and food bills did go up, in some cases by a sizeable amount. Now consider the quote “According to Forrester Research Inc., US e-commerce spending will increase by 13.4 % to US $262 billion this year, with an expected continuation in growth to $370 billion in 2017. In Western Europe, it is estimated that 2013 e-commerce spending will reach €128 billion ($165.5 billion), up by 14.3% from last year and with expectations of €191 billion ($247 billion) by 2017)“. Really? Do YOU have that much more to spend?

I do not think that this is the case at all, yet, I know Forrester and it is likely that these are indeed the numbers (if they did not make a weighting error). What seems to be happening is that e-Commerce is growing stronger and stronger as this group is avoiding VAT payments more and more, which means that shops are getting shut down as e-Commerce is passing onto you part of the VAT savings. Consider that VAT in the Netherlands is 21% and in Sweden 25%, how can a shop compete when these savings are to some extent passed onto the customer by the e-shop, whilst they can avoid VAT and they do not need a location with rent and electricity. Business views have skewed the market and governments are now losing out massively, whilst their own economy is also suffering under unfair competition practices.

If this is the first coin, I would call this currency ‘slow and asleep at the wheel’.

We are the second coin. Our view has for the most been to work hard, to get the job done and to bring home the bacon. It is a simple view, as we aim to be the ‘return on investment’; we create a comfortable pillow where we rest. Not because we are lazy, or because we do not do our part, but because we know that as long as we get it all done, our boss needs us. He had paid us a decent amount and as we are the cause for more income then we cost, we should all be in a great position. Guess what! We were stupid! Today’s management or better stated, whoever makes the coin decision tends not to be stupid, but to some extent short sighted. You see, he can get the same person in India, or that one person just leaving University, to do almost the same at half the price. Whatever ‘loyalty’ you think your boss has had towards you is no longer there, as we are no longer people we are just part of a spread sheet, as we cost more we get replaced to cost less as to not affect THEIR bottom line, which is usually their profit (read commission). There is of course an issue we should not forget, the economy is still bad, and yes, we have to accept that trimming the fat (the most costly employees) will also happen as some companies are drowning. They are now relying on image, without the revenue to support it. Yet, this is not about that side. The coin is on how we perceive on the company and how the company really is does matter, not how they do business. Is that so?

Is their corporate soul not depending on exactly how they do business?

It is hard to stay on this without getting into the debate on how companies sometimes make hard choices to stay afloat. It is more about the changed spirit of the business soul and how they hope that youthful ignorance might get them these 1-2 deals that keep them going. Yet there is a side which we seem to ignore. It is ‘interpretation’ of business.

Consider the Corporate Image Awards 2014 (something that was brought by the Frontier Consulting Group), a company that is actually an Indonesian company. In their ‘Corporate Image Survey Methodology 2014‘ they actually had a nice twist to this story. They stated for their fourth dimension called ‘attractiveness‘ two parameters, one was called ‘Dream workplace company‘ and the second one was labelled ‘Company with high quality employees‘. Here we see the crux. What is a high quality employee? One that looks dynamic (read 22-25), fast (read slim lined) and get the job done, which reads like within six hours and however many hours of unpaid time they need to finish the job before the deadline, or the veteran can actually get it all done in 6 hours. It is ‘the’ unspoken question that is here and is loudly ignored by those not willing to answer honestly and those who are very unwilling to admit the question, is actually a massive issue. ‘What is a high quality employee?’

I am left with two coins and a question. Are we, both the people and the government too slow to change, or are companies driving us to change in too inhumane ways to protect ‘their’ profit? I feel uncertain to answer it, there are unspoken sides that have not been dealt with and there is the need for greed by board members on a global scale which is yet to be properly scaled back, even in these uncertain financial times.

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Tagged as America, Arrival of the Ambassadors, Australia, Australian Taxation Office Media Release, bottom dollar, BTW, Carmody, Commissioner of Taxation, Corporate Image Awards 2014, Departure of the Ambassadors, Forrester, Frontier Consulting Group, google, government, Ireland, Legend of Saint Ursula, Moms, Nehal Radia, Netherlands, Sweden, Tax Shelters, The Return of the Ambassadors, UK, USA, VAT, Vittore Carpaccio

August 26, 2014 · 12:03

About America, chapter 11

This is a short story; it is not part of a novel where you have seen the first 10 chapters. This is in all seriousness an issue when we consider Code of Laws of the United States, United States Code, number 11 deals with bankruptcy.

So why take my word for this? Why am I right, when every journalist, every economist claims that this is not the case? How diluted am I to think this?

These are all valid question. Now consider the facts. The US treasury (from various sources) had collected in 2013 around 2,700 billion dollars. This seems like a lot, yet the budget as President Obama stipulated in 2012, the budget had spending set to around 3,800 billion dollar, so the US is already 1 trillion short. If we consider the total US debt at 18 trillion, meaning 18,000 billion, then the total debt would need 100% of all taxation for 6 years, an act that is totally unrealistic.

Now take this to your own homestead. I remember that I could never get a loan for a mortgage for more than 4 annual incomes. Now, this is like comparing apples to oranges, but is my train of thought so far out of bounds? It is my view that these seemingly ‘clever’ economists have been rolling their gambling dice in several ways for too long.

Consider the Dow Jones Index. We get fed the line that the economy is good, because 30 companies are doing ‘well’. Ever since the ‘dip’ it took in 2009 to 6547 (at http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/historical/djia1900.html), the Dow has ‘restored’ itself to 16743 (as per now). So, in the time when all was well, before the first economic collapse in 2004, when the Dow was 11722, and until the second collapse in 2008 when the Dow went from 14164 to 6547 in 2009, we now are in a time when many in the US are down on their luck and finances, when many all over the world are feeling the brunt of recession and other financial calamities, the almighty Dow is at 16743.

Is anyone considering the notion on how dislodged the entire Dow Jones concept is in regards to the reality of life?

Consider the following information:

– Amazon is buying Twitch for a billion Dollars in cash (at http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/25/6066509/why-it-makes-sense-for-amazon-to-buy-twitch)

– Roche to buy U.S. biotech firm InterMune for $8.3 billion in cash (at http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/24/us-intermune-roche-idUSKBN0GO0PI20140824)

These are two of several (read dozens) of large shopping sprees, throwing cash around like it is nothing and as these billions come into the other parties’ hands, what taxation ends up getting paid? This is at the heart of the founding issue that should keep our minds busy ‘Is America Bankrupt?’

There are two sides. First there is the Sovereign Default. No matter how you twist or turn it, if a nation cannot pay its debt, it will default and should be seen bankrupt. A good example is Greece. After Europe bailed out a nation with 11 million people, by ‘giving’ it well over 300 billion, it is still complaining. The reality is that it should have been allowed to go under in bankruptcy. Not because I like it, or because I have anything against Greece (in all honesty, Crete is one of the loveliest places I ever saw). The natural cycle of economy has been ‘arranged’ (I would call it mismanaged) into cycles of only good news. You talk to any farmer, they will all tell you that no field can survive on spring and summer alone, nature is all about balance and as we threw away balance, we started to undo our own prosperity.

It is said that a business is stated as ‘insolvent’ when its debts exceed its assets.

Is that not the case here? I have stated in the past that I have reservations about the true value of LIBOR.

If we continue the question: “How much money they need to borrow from their peers to plug any holes in their balance sheets and if they have an excess of available cash, how much they can afford to lend“, which is at the heart of LIBOR (at http://citywire.co.uk/money/qanda-what-is-libor-and-what-did-barclays-do-to-it/a600479), considering that the margins had been played with in the last two years, is the idea that the total valued amount has also been tweaked?

This is all based upon an availability of actual existing Cash. But the entire system is based upon a certain value of assets and goods, as I personally see it, I do not trust that list as it is dependent on the ego of honest bankers, which seems an impossible concept and no one can produce at any given moment an exact list of it. So what value exists in all reality (not in the eager mind of a commission driven banker)?

We now get back to the Dow Jones Index. If we consider the past (when life appeared good) and the now where most of have lost a lot (if not all), then is that index not artificially driven upwards? This is not just my view; several parties, including USA Today (at http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/03/04/federal-reserve–quantitative-easing/1963539/) are showing us a view that shows an economic system that is driven upwards in artificial ways. So we now get a different view. Are all these mergers and multi-billion dollar deals we see regularly now on TV about growth, or about the top of the US industry that seems to leave the sinking ships before the system collapses.

This is at the centre of a few issues, where the US is rallying for ‘support’ whilst not showing one iota of accountability to get its budget under control. The last part is at the heart of the need to call the USA bankrupt (not because I desire it). It will cost many a lot, but is growth not depending on the downfall of others? If we consider that all together we are 100%, does our growth not depend on the need that someone else does less? That intertwining, where we ignore basic foundations that growth is not eternal, we see that there is a consequence to overinflating (yes, this also applies to my ego).

Yet, economists have time and time again stated that there is more here and there (whilst they point to virtual spaces). Now we see the heart of the problem, who has the actual 18 trillion that the US is down for? If we look at the oil links, should USA perhaps mean ‘Unionized Saudi Arabia‘? If we consider the real wealth, are they not the ones holding the oil reserves (one of the big four) and as such, the outstanding debt? I know it is not that simple, it never is, but when we ask a summary of where the debt lies; we will get some clever list from a highly educated economist and some excuse ‘that it is all a lot more complex then it looks‘.

He is not incorrect, but he is also not telling you who hold the 18 trillion the US had been spending in one way or another and as such, the realisation should now be upon you. If America is bankrupt, then what will happen next? Japan will pretty much be permanently out of commission and I reckon the UK will be in very deep waters, but we the Commonwealth must find a way to go it together if we are to survive.

It seems to me that America never realised that lesson, like several others, they all used to max out a credit card in virtual space whilst the actual, supporting currency is not there, so why has America not been declared bankrupt?

I reckon soon enough we will get more and more long winded talks, but in the end no one is sayng anything because those who will be making the speeches are at the heart of what went wrong and no one wants to hold on to that guilt when those left without their house ask them the question ‘where are my savings?‘.

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Tagged as America, citywire.co.uk, Crete, Dow, Dow Jones, Dow Jones Index, economic collapse, Greece, Japan, LIBOR, President Obama, reuters, stockcharts.com, theverge.com, UK, United States Code, US, US taxation, US Treasury, USA, USA today

August 23, 2014 · 11:26

A spooky situation

It is another day and another article from the Guardian graces us. The headline ‘Isis beheading video brings calls for rethink of UK domestic terrorism fight‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/aug/21/james-foley-isis-beheading-uk-counterterrorist-fight-in-crisis), was what called my attention. If ISIS events are now making Twitter change its policy, then I definitely need to take another look at the other articles. Yet, what is the Guardian article actually about? The article goes into several events, but has two parts that do matter. The first one is “The UK government was under pressure to rethink its approach to tackling domestic extremism as security services, led by MI5“, which is only part of an ’emotional sentence’ to rile the public. The second one was “Some 500 Britons are believed to have gone to Syria and Iraq and joined Islamist groups fighting there. Some 200 are estimated to have returned to the UK“, the rest are nice titbits, but the meat is there, now for the funny part. I already highlighted that need and that issue on June 8^th 2013 in my blog ‘Privacy and (fake) fears‘, where I wrote:

They need these abilities to fight the existing and growing threat called ‘the lone wolf terrorist’. These people are guided by sources like ‘Inspire’ magazine, which is created by AQAP (al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula). It is however not that simple. The real lone wolves get their ‘guidance’ remotely from sources most do not know and all that under the eyes of the Intelligence Community. To have a grip on stopping these people, monitoring the internet is essential to keeping us the common people safe.

This is why all these false ‘privacy’ driven issues. I personally still believe that a fair bit is scared to be caught out as they are doing the girl in the office, the neighbour’s wife of have a few dodgy fake investments lined up. Lust and Greed tend to be excellent bringers of worries.

I did like this quote “Former officers from MI6, the UK’s foreign intelligence service, have downplayed the threat to British security, while MI5 and the police have emphasised the threat“. I think they are both right, let me explain. ISIS has other fish to fry, for the most it wants to extent through Jordan into Sinai, when they have three sides pushing Israel and mounting up pressure to Egypt, possible hoping to radicalise the members of the Muslim Brotherhood that are in hiding now. That would be their first interest in setting off the ‘tinderbox of agony’ (sorry, I was playing Diablo 3 last night). So, that proves MI6, but what about MI5? Well, the 200 returned soldiers are still in the UK and it is very likely that part of that group is more in league with the vision of ISIS then the safety and comfort that the UK had offered them as they grew up in the UK. These people can convey messages, set up new ways to deliver news (like trough private channels in a MMORPG game in Facebook or freely downloaded, which is impossible to monitor) and recruit new people who have not left the UK, which would be a disadvantage to MI5. Now it is important to know that this is all speculation on my side. I cannot prove that this is happening, but is it not more likely than not that an extremist would like to propel his ‘rightness’ onto others? In that regards it might be nice to read ‘Avoiding the Traps of Extremism‘ by Samuel López De Victoria, Ph.D (at http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/10/07/avoiding-the-traps-of-extremism/). It is a decent piece, it is easy to read and it gives you a view that many can easily relate to. It also highlights on the dangers why extremism would be too easily brought to the hearts of the younger followers. No matter how much better life is in the UK, people there have had a very hard decade and only now, slowly is there the chance, not the assurance of economic relief. These recruiters are here in the twilight of a recession recruiting those who are at the end of their patience and that is what MI5 can clearly see (and with them a few others).

So they are both right, but there is a third part to this. This is again pure speculation, but from the events, when proven true, we could come to the conclusion that ISIS is playing a different game again. It is almost like someone took a look at American football and we see that they do not have one tactician in charge but two. Almost like offense and defence, but in the case of ISIS it is the daytime war commander for armies and open warfare and a night-time tactician, who is setting up the play for the lone wolf tactics. Perhaps the death of Osama Bin Laden taught them to not leave it all with one man and if that is true, what other changes did they make?

This is where I agree and disagree with Dr Erin Saltman who stated that the best way to identify the lone wolf is that if this person makes a mistake and tells one family member then they might call the police. I reckon that Erin is on the same train I am on. My disagreement is because I think that the chance of that is extremely unlikely and if we want to stop these lone wolves, we need an entirely new playbook, because the current approach is unlikely to work. I still believe that in the end it will be GCHQ that will need to bring forth the innovation that will allow MI5 to complete its mission, because message traffic has forever been the only weak link in any war that required communication.

A few come to mind, but none will be revealed here. Good hunting!

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Tagged as Avoiding the Traps of Extremism, Erin Saltman, GCHQ, ISIS, MI5, MI6, Osama Bin Laden, psychcentral.com, Samuel López De Victoria, the Guardian, UK

August 12, 2014 · 11:24

No Press, No Facebook!

So, another day in the life of you, the reader, me the blogger and us, the victims of big business in a way that neither of us expected.

Why are we in a stage of No Press? Well, I cannot confirm this for the UK, Canada or Europe at large, yet in Australia it started last year, the second week of November.

Most did not ever bother to look at this, but one I found (at http://www.cinemablend.com/games/PS4-Doesn-t-Block-Used-Games-Game-Rentals-60480.html) wrote the following: “A new last minute reputation management troll-rumor has surfaced online in an attempt to curb Sony’s momentum leading up to their big launch later this week“.

This is a hilarious ‘sucking-up-to-Sony’ response! So what actually happened?

In the two weeks before the launch of the PS4, Sony decided to change the terms of service (at https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/legal/software-usage-terms). I gave the information to Channel 7, Channel 9, Channel 10 and the Sydney Morning Herald.

NONE!
I say again NONE of them did anything about it. There was a flaccid message (to follow shortly).

So what is so important?

Sony wanted to start putting in place several issues to enforce DRM and to end certain practices. As the PS4 had not launched yet, they could not be too vocal about it, which meant that those claiming to be journalists had a duty to look into it, especially as these changes affected well over 80 million consumers globally. So either journalists only care about the boobs of Rihanna and on how people prefer fake boobs (of course, the possible silicone in a chest is always more newsworthy then the silicon chip that holds an economy).

So what is the exact issue?

Two points from the terms of agreement

3. You must not lease, rent, sublicense, publish, modify, adapt, or translate any portion of the Software.
1. You must not resell either Disc-based Software or Software Downloads, unless expressly authorised by us and, if the publisher is another company, additionally by the publisher.

I will admit that 6.3 is badly phrased (a big no-no in any term of service agreement), but in this form it specifically targets one area of usage, which where at blockbusters one could rent a game for a week. An interesting try before you buy approach (not debating the validity or invalidity of this).

It is 7.1 that is the big issue, by agreeing to this (if you do not you lose your PSN account and online abilities) you confirm that you will not resell your games or buy second hand games. This was the big killer for Microsoft in the beginning in addition to the fact that this issue hits 80 million consumers. How is this not in EVERY newspaper? Perhaps their bosses where in the act of ‘hustle for advertisement coin’ (whoring seems like such a harsh word here).

When we look at Eurogamer (at http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-11-12-sony-reiterates-you-can-sell-and-share-your-ps4-games), we see the following: “Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida added on Twitter: ‘If you are concerned about our new European TOS, we confirm that you are able to sell or share your disc PS4 products, including in EU.’” This is the flaccid response I referred to. If this is the case, then WHY make it part of the terms of agreement? Because Sony lawyers are perhaps cheap? (They really are not!)

We do not doubt the words of the Sony CEO, yet his word can be changed in a simple board meeting, the terms of service is a legally binding document between the consumer and the corporation offering the device and the service. Why am I the one person explaining this ‘oversight’ to the press?

This is a massive issue! The impact on the software industry would be felt in several countries. The fact is that many shops are in business only because they make a few extra dollars of second hand games. If not, new games would have to rise in price. Also, there is, especially in these economic times a large group depending on cheaper game solutions. A pre-owned game, which is at times at least 50% cheaper than the new alternative is one way for some to play a few games. The simple truth is that many cannot afford a $120 game, more often; their parents also are not in possession of such spending sprees, which makes the pre-owned game market an essential part to cater for a sizeable chunk of these consumers.

The second issue is the one that we see evolving now.

I was confronted with this almost two weeks ago, but something about the list of changes seemed so horrifying that I decided not to upgrade. This is still evolving and there are genuine concerns. Yet, what is the actual truth?

If we look at the Bull (at http://thebull.cbslocal.com/2014/08/07/facebook-crosses-the-line-with-new-facebook-messenger-app/) we see the following:

Facebook can change or alter your connection to the Internet or cell service without telling you.
Facebook can send text messages to your contacts on your behalf.
Facebook can record audio, and take pictures and videos, at any time
Facebook can read your phone’s call log, including info about incoming and outgoing calls
Facebook can read your contact data, including who you call and email and how often
Facebook can read personal profile information stored on your device
Facebook can get a list of accounts known by the phone, or other apps you use, it can connect all your accounts and Intel together.

It is in part the worry I had when I was looking through the rights I had to agree to when installing the Facebook Messenger app, which I decided against. If I lose my messenger history, so be it!

If we consider the Sydney Morning Herald (at http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/smartphone-apps/facebook-is-forcing-messenger-app-on-users-and-they-arent-happy-about-it-20140729-zycfb.html), we see the following quote “CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed during last week’s earnings call that the company eventually wants to monetise Messenger and the app will eventually ‘overlap’ with payments, though, as TechCrunch notes, he acknowledged the company still has a lot of work to do before users will see payments cropping up in the app“. It is fair enough that people will get to pay at some point. At that point people can return to the old Yahoo Messenger, which has forever been free!

My issue here is that there is a lot more visibility here, yet why this is not the lead with every news channel as this affects BILLIONS of people is also a little beyond me.

There is of course the other side. Is what ‘the Bull’ stated true? I am not stating that they were lying, but the android permissions are at times a little out there. This view is actually reinforced by CNBC (at http://www.cnbc.com/id/101911170).

The confusion seems to have stemmed from Android. “The app when you install it, it explains in a list what it needs permission to do, and this is the list that frightened a lot people initially,’ Simons said. ‘That doesn’t mean it sort of willy nilly goes about contacting friends or recording you as you go about your day using your phone camera,’ he added.”

I cannot disagree with this view, yet the truth is that just like with Sony, we agreed on something, we made a binding pact and that what is and that what could be are now intertwined and as such it is not about handholding, it is about clarity! When Big Business forces you the consumer, they will be precise (example: ‘we hereby charge you $11,732.34 to be deposited within the next 10 days‘). Yet when they would like something from you, they hide in ambiguity (example: ‘we can change all your savings into a fortune, deposit all today and the larger returns could be yours quite soon’). So, how large a deposit, how much larger, how soon? These answers would not be forthcoming until AFTER the deposit I reckon.

So where do we stand?

When we consider the issues that have plagued the tech savvy population, like the TPP, Sony, even government spending seems to be missing on the glasses of those ‘considering’ themselves to be Journalists. Another bash of that seems to have missed the larger view in news (at http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/08/05/federal-spending-transparency-money-missing/13485581/).

The first quote is “the data that does exist is wildly inaccurate, according to the Government Accountability Office, which looked at 2012 spending data. Only 2% to 7% of spending data on USASpending.gov is ‘fully consistent with agencies records,’ according to the report“, which makes me wonder who is keeping track of the deficit and how much larger could it be?

The second one is “The Department of Health and Human Services failed to report nearly $544 billion, mostly in direct assistance programs like Medicare. The department admitted that it should have reported aggregate numbers of spending on those programs“, which reads like, if we aggregate numbers, you are less likely to find anything and we can hide it under a total header. Failing to report on half a trillion is a big thing, it is well over $1000 for every resident in America.

So, does that mean that the deficit of the US is a lot larger? That would indeed be news as it would put the US in a peculiar financial position, or better a position they no longer hold. I am not stating that I am right or that I am wrong (both are an option). It seems that the papers and newscasts we get bombarded with every day seem to become more and more selective on what they consider important. One article affecting 80 million (the combined population of Australia and the UK) as well as the new issue which hits over a billion people does not seems to be important. The last news of last week is one that does bear scrutiny, yet to get something from USA Today and not the Guardian or any of the Australian news bringers does pose questions.

The Facebook issue will hit us for some time and it might result in something different. The issue linked to this is whether Android has a registration system that bears scrutiny. Android has its own faults (also not too overly reported on by journalists) and just pointing the finger at Facebook is also not entirely the right thing to do.

There is also the difference on what some will do and what some could do. It is the ambiguity that is slowly getting to more and more people.

So what should the journalists be doing and what should Facebook not be doing?

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Tagged as Canada, CBS, Channel 10, Channel 7, Channel 9, cinemablend, CNBC, DRM, EEC, Europe, Facebook, Japan, Law, legal, Playstation, Rihanna, Shuhei Yoshida, Sony, Sydney Morning Herald, terms of service, the Bull, TPP, UK, USA today

August 1, 2014 · 12:12

Talking the Walk

Yes, today is an interesting day, in a time when we all have a notion of democracy; we must all wonder how much of a democracy is left. You see the freedom of choice and the choice in options means that the freedom given is also an inherent acceptance of accountability? If we make a small sidestep at this point, then I would like to take a step towards the Media Ethics as stated at mediaethicsmagazine.com.

There in the fall of 2008, T.L. Glasser and J.S. Ettema wrote an interesting article called ‘A Philosophy of Accountability for Journalism’, it is a good article to read and well worth reading (at http://www.mediaethicsmagazine.com/index.php/browse-back-issues/135-fall-2008/3639324-a-philosophy-of-accountability-for-journalism).

The initial line, as in any good academic article is right at the beginning, when we read “The problem of ethics in journalism, we want to argue, is not the inability of journalists to know right from wrong but their inability to talk articulately and reflectively about it“. I from the my viewpoint, for the point of view that many has seen as we see the ‘junk’ articles from Murdoch publications hit us is that the point given reads to many of us (roughly 99.32443% of them non-journalists) see the second phrased as “their inability to avoid accountability by speculate on the words of seemingly non-existent sources they will never reveal“.
What we get is gossip, branded as journalism, a speculative piece where no accountability will ever be required. This is for a lot of people at the heart of the need that the Leveson report would address, which is why Journalists in many nations, especially in the UK as a trade that had lost its integrity to many.
This is however not about the article, yet, I am mentioning it as the article is an excellent piece of work and the article actually is to some extent shows the moral compass within all of us. There is however one more quote that I will not go into now, but it has bearing on what comes next “which reminds us that discourse ethics does not involve a marketplace process which aggregates individual interests but a deliberative process which brings into existence common or shared interests“.

This is about today, the first day of a new day of default for Argentina (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/31/argentina-government-defiant-debt-default-axel-kicillof). We seem to have been all about the banks and their evil practices. I know, because I have been one of them. The question becomes, what happens when you accept doing business with a loan shark? I wrote about it in my blog ‘Changing the rules of Democracy‘ on July 27th.

When the IMF wanted to restructure debts in 2003, USA as stated stopped the IMF; I want to know the EXACT reasons why. Perhaps they are valid, perhaps not! I also reflected on the fact that someone went to the Vulture funds and signed a deal. What was that deal exactly and who signed it. You see, Argentina is not blameless here; at some point, there is a knock on the door and at that point, the bailiff will want his coin, which is pretty much what was settled in court.

The Guardian article raises a point through the following quote “Economists at the Washington-based Centre for Economic and Policy Research called on the US Congress to intervene, warning in a letter that Griesa’s decision to uphold the holdout investors claim could cause ‘unnecessary economic damage to the international financial system, as well as to US economic interests’“.

You see, in all fairness, is that acceptable? If a system is brought and evolves devoid of accountability, how can we ever get a better world? I have pressed for accountability on many sides. On the side of Journalism as I embrace the full Leveson report, on the side of the banks as their soulless acts have diminished the value of millions of account holders, yet here in this case, are they not on the morally higher ground? No matter how despicable Vulture funds might be regarded as, these people offered a deal on conditions of risk because no bank wanted them, or in the case of Argentina, as the USA seemingly prevented the IMF offering a deal.
Now, when the deal is due, the client requesting the deal is not willing to make payment. So, as the facts are shown, I have to be (alas) n the side of the vulture fund, who offered the deal. If not, then I myself must abandon the premise of accountability, which is pretty much not an option.
If we accept the implications of communicative rationality in the sphere of moral insight and normative validity as the setting for discourse ethics, then I would like to change it (mold it) into the following statement: “If we accept the implications of agreed contract terms of rationality in the sphere of moral choices and normative acceptance of a loan” then we are getting to the part why I added the Journalism article on accountability for journalism.
This I now link to the quote I mentioned from the Guardian article. This is the cost of doing business! Sometimes you win, sometimes you do not, but to go out in response to change the game, because there is a cost, then we have a new problem. Do not misunderstand me, if there is some kind of a bail-out deal, then that is fine, but it would be understandable if it comes at a cost, more important, it might have been avoided all together if the 2003 IMF deal had gone through, so why was the 2003 deal stopped?

I understand and I do not disagree that the Argentine government is stopping it all and taking the ‘default’ path, yet, that too will come at a cost. Accountability should prevail here too. Is it for the better or for the worst? That is a discussion that is speculated upon, but for now it is one that comes without a clear answer. So, I cannot, without clearly more evidence to agree with cabinet chief minister Jorge Capitanich here. You see, who signed for this all in 2003? It is the inherent consequence of governing. The bill is pushed forward, it is a dangerous game that the US is currently excelling at and so if you wonder on why I care about another deal for 1.5 billion dollars, it is mainly because this paves the way for America when it defaults on their 18,000 billion loans, then what?

When we see people hide behind statements like ‘too big to fail‘, you should also consider the fallout when things go wrong. Consider what once happened to the Dutch SNS bank and is now happening to the Argentinian economy, both impacts were felt in large ways and they are not even anywhere near the scale of the debt the US and Japan have. And as we mentioned Japan, is that not the fear many brokers have? If we see the text from Moody’s (at https://www.moodys.com/research/Moodys-Japanese-RMBS-and-ABS-default-rate-declined-in-April–PR_302652).

Someone or something seems to be pushing Japan along, holding them on the safe side for now. Yet, this economic high-wire act is nowhere near done and it is a long walk to go for now. When we read “For CMBS deals, Moody’s outlook for the next 6-12 months is negative, as it will be difficult to refinance defaulted loans with high loan-to-value ratios“, so as refinance is now getting harder and harder, consider the US bonds. Part of the US debt is also the ‘Interest Expense on the Debt Outstanding’ (at http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/ir/ir_expense.htm), this is set for 2014 (up to October) to be almost $355 billion dollars. This is just the interest. At Bloomberg we see “The government will reduce net sales by $250 billion from the $1.2 trillion of bills, notes and bonds issued in fiscal 2012 ended Sept. 30“, this is clearly incomplete, as there is not mention of WHEN these bonds mature, but the overall sell of bonds will hit the US at some point. If we consider the CNS headline “$2,472,542,000,000: Record Taxation Through August; Deficit Still $755B“, so taxes are coming in, they are not enough as the deficit is around 30%, now consider that the due interest is going to be 15%-20% (because two months are currently not known) of all collected taxation. When the bonds are due, how much larger will the debt become?
I have mentioned it many times, but now as we see the reaction of fear as Argentina defaults, we cannot continue without seeing the threat and fear of Japan from defaulting, which will clearly push the US over the edge of that abyss too.

Here is where the issue becomes the dangers we fear. We seem to always mention that those who talk the talk should be walking the walk too. This has not been done by large by many, so now we talk the walk but no one is really accountable, making for a massively dangerous situation. If you even consider thinking that there is no danger here, try calling a Syrian hospital by telephone and ask them how they are doing. It might open your eyes really quick.

If we are to walk the walk then Argentina will default and we have a new situation, yet the unnamed danger is that ‘some’ deal will find its way, which is great for the Argentinian people, yet it also impacts the cost of doing business for all the other players. Have you consider the costs that this will bring everyone else?

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Tagged as A Philosophy of Accountability for Journalism, accountability, Argentina, bloomberg, cabinet chief minister Jorge Capitanich, democracy, IMF, J.S. Ettema, Jorge Capitanich, Leveson, Moody, Syria, T.L. Glasser, the Guardian, UK, US Congress, USA, Vulture Funds

July 1, 2014 · 11:44

Cleaning house!

This issue has been in the back of my head for some time. It was 2011 when this happened. The ruling hit the news (and the most colourful version was in the Daily Mail as per usual), where a rapist could not get deported because he was entitled to a family life. The article angered me and to some extent, I was then and I am still now on the side of the Daily Mail approach.

Why are criminals granted a lot more freedoms then their victims?

The more preposterous part is: “This is despite him not having a wife, long-term partner or children in the UK“, so what family life? He could try to get one in Nigeria for all I care.

The convention can be found here: http://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Convention_ENG.pdf

The actual text: “ARTICLE 8 Right to respect for private and family life, 1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.”

It sounds nice enough, but it is time for some tough love, so I recommend adding the following:

“3. In case of conviction of a serious crime, that nation can decide to ignore rule 1, providing a connection to a long term partner and the existence of biological off spring, born in that nation, not criminally conceived has been established.”

So, we got rid of the rapist, if the mother is a pro-life woman, that will not protect him and moreover, he cannot hide behind an adoption either. Whether this is altered for the UK or it is accepted within the EEC as a whole is of course the crux. It is also time to stop tailoring from a weak point of view. Yes, at this point, a Human Rights point of view is a weak view (I accept that many disagree here)!

Let’s be clear here. I am all for human rights, but these rights also come with responsibilities and accountability, without these two rights pretty much go out of the window. It should also be clear that if a nation independently decides to not enforce paragraph 3, then this is fine too as I added “that nation can decide“, I am all for the right to choose and Like some should not judge the UK, the UK should not judge France, Germany or the Netherlands.

We are not done yet. There is still Article 12 to consider. We can’t have criminals ‘suddenly’ fall in love and get hitched and therefor avoid deportation (where applicable), hence the following would change

“ARTICLE 12 Right to marry, Men and women of marriageable age have the right to marry and to found a family, according to the national laws governing the exercise of this right“.

Would change into:

“ARTICLE 12 Right to marry,
1. Men and women of marriageable age have the right to marry and to found a family, according to the national laws governing the exercise of this right
2. The right to marry is temporary postponed if one or both persons have been deprived of his/her liberty by arrest or detention, until 6 months after release and was not been deported because of these events
3. Paragraph 2 will not be valid, if a court has ordered the release of the involved parties due to non-lawful detention“.

We keep number three there, as there is always a chance a person was convicted innocently and as such; we must definitely protect their rights too, as I stated we will give all quarter to those who abided by law as we should.

So, it took me almost 45 minutes to get to these conclusions after going over certain papers. The question becomes why these steps had not been made before? Well, let’s take a look at the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/law/2013/dec/22/britain-european-court-human-rights). Here we see another view when we consider the following paragraph:

“Grayling said last week the ECHR did not ‘make this country a better place’. David Cameron has said the court risks becoming a glorified ‘small claims court’ buried under a mountain of ‘trivial’ claims , and suggested Britain could withdraw from the convention to ‘keep our country safe’. The home secretary, Theresa May, has pledged the party’s next manifesto will promise to scrap the Human Rights Act, which makes the convention enforceable in Britain”

I am not sure I can agree with the Home Secretary there. I see her point, but it took me only 45 minutes to alter the convention into something a lot less hassle, without actually changing that much. Those who come to Europe, fighting for a better life, not resorting to crime can still do that. My issue is that the rape victim, who was 13 at the time seems to have fallen of the view of the world (which might be good for her), yet in the dozens upon dozens of documents trying to protect the rapist, how much concern was given to the victim of his crime?

This is at the heart of my reasoning. Some judges talk a good talk, but then they seem to refuse to walk the walk (if it pleases the court and with all due respect). Consider the paper ‘Women in an unsecure world‘ (at http://www.unicef.org/emerg/files/women_insecure_world.pdf). A paper edited by Marie Vlachova and Lea Biason. If we are TRULY going to do anything to make their future safe, then we must begin in our own country. By making the consequence of transgression so high, that considering it will no longer be an option, that is the point where we all move forward and we can slowly start to actually eradicate the violence against women. I will not and cannot state that I have a true solution there, or that my solution will work. The issues are not overly complex, but it is a problem that is massively larger than most realise (including me), I just believe that if we send a strong signal that those transgressors will never be opted any life in any land of opportunity, we might, just might start to turn the tide a little. Is that not at the heart of Humanitarian rights too? If not, then what is Article 14 doing in the ECHR in the first place.

The only part that is laughable in the earlier mentioned PDF is the following statement “The Russian Government estimates that 14,000 women were killed by their partners or relatives in 1999, yet the country still has no law specifically addressing domestic violence“, the ‘comical‘ side there is that the UK did not have a serious option until the ‘Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004’, I am not ignoring the ‘Family Law Act 1996’, yet the issue remains if we see the data (at http://www.womensaid.org.uk/domestic_violence_topic.asp?section=0001000100220041) that apparently the UK faces 1 call on domestic violence every minute. So, it is not just a Russian issue, the more data I see, the more that part should be stated as a global problem, with the Russian terminal numbers being a mere outlier in this entire debacle.

If we accept that not all women call for help, then there is a massive problem and governments all over the Commonwealth will need to make some clear, visible and drastic changes. When we start seeing newscasts on how immigrants have been evicted because of violence against women, how long until the local male population starts to realise that their number is up too?

This view is only amplified after seeing this article (at http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/08/police-fear-rise-domestic-violence-world-cup), is this for real? I wonder if a name and shame option would work. You know, we take his picture and place poster sized pictures close to ‘his’ watering holes. I wonder how happy such a person would feel in the local pub when they all knew what he was (apart from being an absolute wanker).

In several regards Theresa May was correct, the ECHR is a problem, but she was in my humble opinion incorrect to think that this issue was just in the UK, the Netherlands has numbers that indicate that violence against women is a lot higher there, or is it? Research seemed to indicate that Dutch women are more likely to report these crimes with the police, which makes the violence against women in the UK a lot higher than expected (at http://www.rtlnieuws.nl/nieuws/binnenland/geweld-tegen-vrouwen-nederland-een-stuk-hoger-dan-eu). Is that last part true? Without better data I cannot tell, but the chance that 4 out of 10 women are under direct threat of violence sickens me to my stomach, which makes the ECHR a larger joke then we are willing to admit to.

I think altering (best), or rejecting it (not that great an option) could be the next step, however, not doing anything should no longer be any option, not in the UK and not anywhere in the EEC, or anywhere else for that matter. Should we go after immigrants first? That is of course a valid question too. I think it is, as stated before, when these transgressors realise that crime gets you deported, a clear signal is given and not just in the UK either. I believe that once these events start, the signal is given all over Europe that a person is welcome as long as they abide by the law. There is of course the question where to add the bite we need. If too much is added to the ECHR, the bigger the chance that we create loopholes because of it and that makes any act or law bill toothless. The strongest bite is found in simplicity (as I see it). In that regard I would like to add something to Article 3 of the ECHR, changing it into:

“ARTICLE 3, Prohibition of torture
1. No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
2. Domestic violence will be regarded as inhuman and degrading treatment of a person and is as such subject to local criminal law.“

So, now that Domestic Violence is set on the same scope as torture. How soon until the local population realises that the ‘game’ is up and this kind of violence will get them into jail, out of house and home, an automatic granted divorce to the victim with all rights given to the victim, hence the victim gets the house, the children and what else and those who regarded domestic violence as an option would get the short end of every stick. I am willing to bet that the face of domestic violence is changed within a year after the courts start handing out these verdicts.

It would be nice to see such a change in mentality and I will (again) humbly accept my knighthood and cottage (especially as I concocted a solution after breakfast and before lunch).

I do agree that the solution is not that simple, but giving these victims additional protection with real teeth is likely a much better approach then has been attempted this far. Knowing that the other approach has not worked, is it not time to start opting for a more direct approach?

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Tagged as Crime and Victims Act 2004, Daily Mail, David Cameron, domestic violence, ECHR, European Convention on Human Rights, Family Law Act 1996, Germany, Grayling, Home Secretary, Lea Biason, Marie Vlachova, Netherlands, Nigeria, rape, RTL nieuws, Russia, the Guardian, Theresa May, UK, unicef, violence against women, Women in an unsecure world, womensaid.org

June 30, 2014 · 13:43

Exit strategies anyone?

Today is an interesting day. The article in the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/28/european-union-exit-will-harm-britain-says-cbi) is well worth reading and in addition, I must state that I am not sure whether I have made up my mind what would be the best course of action. I have been on both sides of this and I am currently on the fence. First of all, the UK must do what is best for the UK and beyond that the UK should do what is best for the Commonwealth. I personally think that this is the status as it should be at the moment. The question becomes whether Europe is the best for the UK. I am not talking about the Juncker issue (even though that seems to be part of any decision), but where should we be? The headline states “EU exit will harm UK, says leading British industry group“, yes THEY will talk in their own interest, they always do. The Eurostat numbers are unconvincing (at http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_PUBLIC/2-22012014-AP/EN/2-22012014-AP-EN.PDF), today’s reserved savings are tomorrows signal to abundantly overspend funds, that much has been seen again and again ever since 2009, when the taps should have been closed. This is also at the heart of the matter for what is best for the UK. And in all honesty, the UK has overspent their quota a fair bit too. Now we have a new issue. Up to 2013 we got to see a picture from some of the more decently reliable sources, yet, now later in 2014, there is almost nothing on the projected and actual numbers for 2013. There lies the hidden issue, it is not that there is little, there is too little information now, so who to believe. When governments are not boasting, they are definitely hiding some issues under the carpet and those issues will impact the UK too. I will not bore you with the numbers UKIP gives us (at http://www.ukipmeps.org/uploads/file/Cost_of_the_EU_25_5_11.pdf), they are talking their own brand of flavour, as would Prime Minister David Cameron, but where is the truth?

My benefit here is that I speak half a dozen languages, which gives me additional sources. The ‘Nederlands Dagblad‘ gives us (at http://www.nd.nl/artikelen/2014/februari/28/lagere-overheden-verwachten-te-hoog-tekort) the following: “Gemeenten, provincies en waterschappen verwachten dat hun begrotingstekort dit jaar uitkomt op 3,7 miljard euro. Dat is zeshonderd miljoen euro meer dan volgens de afgesproken norm mag” [translated] “Municipalities, counties and Water boards (a flood control and water resources management group) expect that their budget shortage will total at 3.7 billion, which is 600 million more than agreed upon“.

So the Dutch are already coming up short at present. This does not mean that this will be the end result! At http://www.bnr.nl/nieuws/beurs/487506-1302/liveblog-economie-krimpt-begrotingstekort-naar-33-procent-in-2013, we see the mention that the Dutch will have a budget shortage of 3.3% in 2013 and 3.4% in 2014. How much of this is correct, and when were some projections made?

We see the Dutch news on how the American economy is down 2.9% and that Bank managers are now getting a sizeable raises, yet the overall shortages of the Dutch is not really discussed on sites with above average reliability (like the NOS). The only one in a ‘happy happy joy joy’ position is Germany who now seems to have a budget surplus. Again, the harsh cuttings Germany did from 2010 onwards paid off, but they seem to be the only one. France deficit was set at 4.1% for 2014, so as we see the list grow, is it truly a good idea to stay in the Euro group? Industrials might think this, but they will not be confronted with the financial measures that will hit the UK and its taxpaying citizens. I was at first in the same boat where I thought that going out of the Euro was a bad idea, but as we see the growing concern of nearly all EEC countries going over the deficit limit, can the UK afford to stay in there? Moreover, will staying in until 2017 turn out to be a dangerous issue?

This is part of the issues, which I have stated before. When, not if the American economy goes over the edge, those in deep debt will get a new approach to humility. That part is still a dangerous situation for the UK as well (with a balance of almost minus 1.5 trillion). So, the dangers of additional debts from Europe would cripple the UK as well. This is as I see it part of the reason why the UKIP got such a huge success. The bulk of the politicians and all the other parties have been dancing around the economic situation. Most people have noticed it and 26 months of ‘feigned’ economic recovery is nice for the industrials, yet the people have not seen ANY improvements in their lives, which is the centrepiece of all the stress out there. This is part of the situation all are avoiding.

If we consider the Independent (at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tony-blair-nigel-farage-and-ukip-are-deceiving-british-public-and-holding-back-the-unemployed-with-immigration-rhetoric-9472289.html) we see another side. I would be willing to agree with this, yet the voice of Ed Miliband is not giving decent clarity and David Cameron is voicing the need of big business (to a larger extent), they all are talking in their own fast lane and the people end up being not in any good place.

Even now, less than an hour ago, Ed Miliband is quoted by Reuters as ‘looking to shed the anti-business label‘, which gives a lot less security to the people. In this confusion Nigel Farage is cleaning house as he is stating what people seem to want to hear. The correct critique remains how truthful are his statements?

This is what is driving the people in regards to an exit strategy. As the news is playing a game of what I personally regard as ‘managing bad news’ in several nations, the people are catching up and losing faith in governments in general. This is partially driving the demand for a European exit. The people are losing faith in the ‘facts’ as presented, because good news gets overinflated, bad news is managed and the press seems to help out governments and big business in not giving proper tallies, as too many are depending on advertisement funds (often from Big Business). We all seem to watch a weighted scale. Under those conditions, many prefer to go it alone and see that part return. Let’s not forget that before the Euro, the UK was in a pretty good position. The entire mass flocking to UKIP are remembering those days and they are hoping that they will return to these days and UKIP is talking right into that alley of expectations.

In regards to the article with the quote involving Tony Blair “The answer to the white, working-class unemployed youth in alienated communities in Britain is not to tell them their problems would be solved if there were fewer Polish people working in the UK, he said“. I tend to agree, but the truth is that these Polish workers seem to be getting some jobs and this is causing more stress with those desperately seeking work. I am not voicing any anti-Polish thoughts, the question becomes how did they get those jobs and more important, if this is how some businesses are getting cheap labour, why is this not dealt with in regards to unfair working conditions. The Telegraph (never a great source for quality info) is publishing articles on how 10% of a company is Polish. This is getting to the people, who do not look at the whole picture. The Independent is bringing us a much better story quality wise (at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/migrants-in-britain-a-decade-on-the-poles-who-brought-prosperity-9278710.html). The article by Emily Dugan shows the story of a Polish entrepreneur, who because a success through hard work, employing dozens of people. This Radomir Szwed shows another side, one that does not get illuminated that often. It is a story all should read, only to show that immigration is not a source of job losses, but one that brings jobs too, yet the Telegraph is not that likely to bring such a story.

All this brings us to a less appealing story in the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jun/18/nigel-farage-far-right-european-parliament). As the power of Nigel Farage grows in regards to his European side whilst joining with former members of French ‘Front Nationale’ and a more extreme viewed Swedish party, the issues will continue. Even though there is debate on Nigel Farage, he sees himself as the person to voice the needs of Britain, a voice Prime Minister Cameron lost when his opposition to Juncker was defeated 26-2. If Nigel Farage delivers any victory for the British people in any way, the powers in the UK will change leaving the Tories very little options in regards to the EEC. Will David Cameron be forced to call an early vote to exit Europe? Perhaps Nigel Farage will have that option as he currently has the strongest options in Europe. However, not all is well in that regards either, now the votes are done, we see a splintering in what was a solid danger. Some are re-establishing themselves and some are defecting to the new Le Pen group. So, not all is quiet on the eastern front with the EEC.

These matters will bring question to any exit strategy we see on the European front. No matter what happens, until the people get some clear information on how the debts are, where they are and how deficits are going as well as their own options, there will be no relief. The party that brings the best story and adds true relief on the hardship the people in the UK currently have will get a massive spike in votes.

I am not sure any exit strategy will bring that, yet, when we consider the response by Richard Branson (at http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/why-an-exit-from-eu-would-be-bad-for-british-business), my response is that this is not a given either. If we see what some Commonwealth partners are agreeing to within the TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership), then we are seeing how politicians seem to be lining American Big Business pockets, whilst not overly protecting the their own local interests. This will in the end hit back to the UK as well. Consider that these Trade Agreements are not at all discussed out in the open (which makes sense until some point is reached). It seems to me that the UK needs to talk to Australia, Canada and New Zealand at that point. Because not only will the TPP impact the UK, whomever signs the TPP could be in for a long rough spell whilst US and Japan will hunt down a new currency, which is no longer the dollar, but a currency named IPR (Intellectual Property rights). IPR will be the new gold over the next 10 years. Those who have enough of them survive.

This is the unspoken side of the exit strategy. As the EU is chained to the US in several ways, the UK must secure its future in any way it can, yes we must all get rid of our debts, but in equal measure the UK will rely on its entrepreneurs, which includes people like Radomir Szwed, that is the side UKIP is not really talking about and their immigration changes would have negatively impacted the UK.

I remain on the fence on whether the UK should or should not leave, but complete clarity is a must which is a side the press, in all their whining after the Leveson trials have remained awfully unclear about.

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