Tag Archives: Ukraine

April 4, 2023 · 00:27

Repetition

You would think that the Germans would learn. They were stupid during WW1, then again WW2 and now they decided to openly support Russia. Do people never learn? To be honest, I am not sure that it is ALL germans are that stupid, but it is the party of Scholz, the Social Democratic Party of German (SDP). And to see this we need to look at a timeline. 

The tweet above woke me up, something was bothering me about this. And yes, there it was. It was in 2022 when politico gave us (at https://www.politico.eu/article/we-failed-germany-depended-on-russia-social-democrat-said/) ‘‘We failed’ on Russia: Top German Social Democrat offers mea culpa’, clearly it was a mere spin, their actions will support my view that they are merely the pro-Putin spin puppets of Europe. There we are given “Germany’s ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD) “failed” to see Russia’s aggressive intentions, bargained away trust by ignoring warnings from Eastern Europe and manoeuvred Germany into dangerous energy dependency, the party’s co-chief acknowledged Tuesday”, well this isn’t nearly the end and the media is avoiding all this, why is that? We are also given “The self-critical words are also a break from Scholz, who last week self-confidently claimed that he “always” knew about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intentions to use energy as a weapon; and Merkel, who has claimed that she did nothing wrong with her Russia policies.” Well, Merkel is up for debate, but that needs to be done by someone with a much stronger sense of German politics than I have. You see, this stage preluded the setting we see in the Deutsche Welle (https://www.dw.com/en/why-german-chancellor-olaf-scholz-is-hesitant-about-delivering-battle-tanks-to-ukraine/a-64493249), we are given ‘Why Germany hesitates on sending battle tanks to Ukraine’, but there is a time line now and this message that we get in January 2023 gives us the setting. The German SDP is the spin chihuahua of the Russian machine and it is time that all parties acknowledge that. There is no “Pressure is growing on Germany to send Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine. Chancellor Scholz doesn’t want to commit just yet, partly because he’s playing to his party, the Social Democrats.” There was no SDP, this was to stop the pressure getting upped against Russia and that is what was at stake. The Russian tanks are already demolished enough as it were and the Leopards would make slim work out of the mechanised infantry that Russia has. So when we see “In reference to Scholz’s now-famous Zeitenwende speech condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February, Klingbeil said the party needed to answer fundamental questions: “What does this historic shift mean from a Social Democratic perspective? How do we define our relationship with Russia, China, and the United States? How does a self-confident and sovereign Europe define itself, and what is Germany’s role in this rapidly changing world?”” Well as I personally see it, I am reminded of The Munich Agreement,  concluded on September 30th 1938, by Nazi Germany. You remember the photograph of Chamberlain getting out of his plane? The quote “Peace in our time”? How did that end? I mean you all got history lessons in primary school did you not? 

We see a time line where the SDP is nothing more than a puppet of Russia and the latest BS peace (bad) idea where Ukraine losses their lands was rejected by Oleksii Makeiev in the strongest way, there never was a peace plan, it was the SDP doing what Russia could not, they are losing and it reminds me of something I saw a few months ago “Ukraine is supported to make the war go on, not supported to win the war”, I was skeptical when I saw it, now months later when I see the evolution in the media, and the media is willing to not report on the timeline gives a rather nasty reality, the media is set against complete reporting, exploit the emotional moments and not do their jobs. Feel free to investigate. Feel free to explore the timeline 2022-2023. Russia has support in the media and it shows how redundant the media has become. As I see it, after the news we have seen over the last year alone. There is no relationship with Russia, only the delusional see that there is a relationship. There is merely adherence to the Russian machine ad the media is willing to collect every digital dollar they can to cater to both sides. 

How sickening Europe has become.

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March 13, 2023 · 22:05

The first letter

Yes, sometimes the connection between articles is merely the first letter, it is what connects Aramco and Amazon. I had several articles to look at but they both started with the first letter. The first article is about Aramco. 

Aramco
The article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-64931074) gives us ‘Aramco: Saudi state-owned oil giant sees record profit of $161bn’ in this, I can tell you right upfront that there are days that I have nowhere near that amount in my wallet (weird eh?) Even as we are given “Aramco rode the wave of high energy prices in 2022,” said Robert Mogielnicki of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. “It would have been difficult for Aramco not to perform strongly in 2022.” We might think all kinds of things, but the one that matters is missing. You see, the world removed Russia as a delivery agent of Oil and after that the choices were rather slim and Saudi Arabia was a natural first choice. But then we get a small stab. It is seen with “Aramco – the world’s second-most valuable company only behind America’s Apple – is a major emitter of greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change”, which might be correct, but was it not America and England begging like little chihuahua’s to deliver more oil cheaper? Would that not be a contributing factor to the emissions? So when I see “Responding to Aramco’s announcement, Amnesty International’s secretary general Agnès Callamard said: “It is shocking for a company to make a profit of more than $161bn in a single year through the sale of fossil fuel – the single largest driver of the climate crisis.”” Another partisan response from everyones United Nations joke Eggy Calamari. The individual who seems to be a Saudi hater right of the bat, like her best friend who is a Guardian ‘investigative’ journalist named Stephanie Kirchgaessner. I have written several pieces in this in the past. You see, Eggy can yap like the chihuahua she is all she likes, but lets see what happens when Aramco lowers output by 20%-30%, what BS ballad will she utter then? And towards the Guardian, like the BS articles on private jet owners. The Environmental report a little over 1 year back, when we were given that 50% of all damage came from 147 facilities in Europe, who of them spend any time looking into that? 147 facilities creating 50% of the damage, now that does not put Aramco in the clear, but they are not alone in creating climate issues, but leave it to these two individuals to spin BS. In the meantime lets see what happens when the Saudi government decides to shut the valves if that Calamari individual does not clean her act. Just a thought. Then we get “Saudi Arabia is the largest producer in the oil cartel Opec (Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries).” Now this is true, yet the larger truth is that Saudi Arabia is not the greatest producer in the world, that is the USA by a fair amount. As such the Calamari shit becomes a debatable issue on a few sides. As such we need to consider what the Saudi government does when it had enough, when they close the taps by as little as 5%, there will be widespread economic issues for both the US and EU, as such we need to start looking at the actual image, not the image from some hating dodo in the UN building. 

As such in the first yes, Saudi profits are up and the war has something to do with that, but mainly because people stopped buying Russian oil, so how much more oil did Aramco sell because of that? Oh and tanks are expensive they need 3 gallons per mile, how far does one tank go? Now consider that Ukraine has over 400 tanks. That implies 1200 gallons per mile and the war has been going on for over a year. They are not guilty, neither is Aramco. Russia started that event and they are still playing that game. So when we take a look at the bigger picture, Aramco has a commodity that everyone needs, everyone wants and most of them desire. Prices go up especially when Aramco has 100,000 barrels per hour (simple speculation) and each hour people are trying to buy 125,000 barrels. It is a simple economy and it as in place for several decades. So stop whining like chihuahuas and either come with an alternative, buy less oil or shut up. That is my simplistic view on the matter.

Amazon
The second article touches Amazon. I saw it (at https://www.thegamer.com/nobody-wins-if-amazon-luna-succeeds/) it was a debatable article from beginning to end. I have personal connections here, as such, I am a little biased. The title ‘Nobody Wins If Amazon Luna Succeeds’ was like a red flag to a bull. It is wrong on many levels. You see we all win when Luna succeeds. Luna is the beginning of a new stage in gaming. Streaming gaming can up the ante for gaming in many ways, I have written about it several times. It allows for much larger games, it allows for more versatile games and for an evolving game line. Now this is all possible on a PS5 (a console I love), but only in limited way at present. Nintendo cannot go near this because it is limiting in other ways. Still the Nintendo Switch is a system I love and now that Metroid Prime remastered is released I play it a lot more than anything else. That too is gaming. After 21 years Metroid Prime is just as addictive and beautiful as it ever was and I still claim that no FPS can get near this game, this game is a reason to buy a Switch, even as aSony fat with my PS4 and PS5 I make that claim. Gaming is seen in many stages and many ways and the Luna is merely the next wave towards gaming. The next issue is “Amazon Luna and Google Stadia have the same problem – there simply aren’t enough games to guarantee success” that is a mistake that both Amazon and Google had, I set the premise to almost guarantee 50 million subscriptions (one essential rule comes into play) and they had the option to win this, but Google dropped the cloth and evicted the stage, now Amazon has the option to rule it all alone with plenty of games too, so whomever is making that claim (a Tessa Kaur), she is not looking at the field, there is a lot more and some makers had a starting advantage, but apparently they squandered the advantage and now indie developers could end up with the larger stage. So as we get to “It’s the same with game hardware – they’ll discontinue the PlayStation 4 one day, I won’t be able to repair it when it gasps its last gasp. That will be that, all my games will be unplayable.” We get the first element. The article mentions NOTHING about Microsoft, why is that? Yes, they will discontinue the PS4 at some point, yet at present I will have had a PS4 for well over 11 years and several of these games can be played on the PS5, so I could have that one game for another decade, that part is missing too. The element also missing is that any streaming system will need a proper 5G connection, in many cases there are issues with 4G and 5G is still in a deployment stage in some countries a hell of a lot more then in others. The other element missing is that streaming gaming sucks in rural areas which amount to well over 35% of Europe. We do not see that either. I believe that the Luna is the next generation and with a fully deployed 5G it becomes a hell of a lot better and when developers start thinking of streaming as the ultimate goal, not some game that ALSO plays on the Luna, the game changes a lot more in favour of the Amazon Luna. Streaming is the future and we are only seeing the start of it at present. Microsoft is making their Xbox cloud gaming claims and they are hopelessly lost. Even as they are betraying their population, even as their consoles are not getting it done, they stand to lose a lot against Sony (console) and Amazon (cloud) and that is their real fear. Google might have bailed, but that doesn’t mean that Amazon will too, they actually have a few additional options that they might not have considered yet (speculation on my side). And that is where Apple comes in. If Apple (in their own way) starts in this field, Amazon will have a tough opponent. Microsoft is hopelessly lost and when Apple comes into play they will be doomed. But that is for 2024 I reckon. So far I have faith that Amazon will deliver in the end and create forward momentum in cloud gaming. They need not spin anything, they merely have to create the titles and the population, a setting they have a better hand on then Microsoft ever did. But that is merely my view on the matter.

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March 7, 2023 · 00:19

Words of a feather

That is at times the setting. It starts nice for me, as I got subjective confirmation that one branch of my solution is set to a stage that is unfolding EXACTLY how I expected it, and as such the first stage to 50 million subscriptions is close to set, the second branch is in the same setting, but requires something specific. Which now leaves the third branch and there is some friction there, but for the most, it should work, especially if advertisements on rules and regulations unfolds the way I hope. In this I created three advertisement tomes. Like the Yellow pages, but with a difference and if that works Facebook will see the impact too. A stage where I had the right approach all along and that feels good, especially when a player like Amazon buys it (I had hoped for Kingdom Holding to buy it), but beggars can’t be choosers. 

And this gets me to the story of the day. The story came from the BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64859780) and is less then an hour old. And the reflection is seen in the article (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/02/27/on-the-subject-of-failure/) called ‘On the subject of failure’ which I wrote on February 27th, a week ago. There I wrote “The logistics of the Russian armed forces are a mess. Their soldiers are ineffective, their hardware is failing on many levels and their supply systems are (from my point of view) broken in many ways. Russia has a problem.” And here we get Yevgeny Prigozhin complaining about a lack of ammunition. He throws it towards ‘betrayal’ but I know better, all information shows us that Russia blatantly ignored overhauls from the 90’s onwards and the Russian Mafia took whatever they could and left the Russian bear with a flask of nail polish for its claws. A nice and shiny red (like the original flag). We are also given “Mr Prigozhin said his representative was unable to access the headquarters of Russia’s military command. It is unclear where the headquarters is located. Mr Prigozhin said it came after he wrote to the chief of Russia’s “special military operation”, Army General Valery Gerasimov, about the “urgent necessity to give us ammunition”.” Yes, in what army would one need ammunition? Oh right, the winning kind. The logistical issues I saw last week and I saw it a mile away was not some business appeal. It was a simple setting from my army days in 1981-1983. Logistics was giggled at from some branches, but the supporting units are just as important. It seems that the Russian army never learned that lesson. 

And it it always fun to see a mercenary use his fingers and shout “pew pew pew”, although, at that point his life expectancy is reduced to less than a minute. It will still be entertaining for the Ukrainian armed forces to see how desperate the Russian Army and the Wagner group have become. The Kyiv independent tells us that in a week over 12,000 Russian soldiers have been killed. I reckon that this is the Russian army and Wagner mercenaries. In addition they lost 317 tanks,120 artillery pieces, 56 MLRS and 482 cars and a lot more all over the field. These numbers are important, because when you realise that there is no train system in play to replace it all, you will get a first inkling on how bad the war is going for Russia and all these people fleeing to places like Argentina, that becomes a different story. As I personally see it under these conditions there is no life left in Moscow and the 6 million women there better start getting pregnant today, if not, by 2038 there will not be much of a workforce left in Moscow. On the upside, there is every chance that Russia could become a matriarchic society. The war took care of the man and the ones who did not flee Russia are about to be dead in an offensive that only one person seemed to have wanted. As the setting changes and the stage becomes clear there is a second danger one that becomes a big one if not tended properly. But that is a story for another day. For now realise that any organisation with substandard logistics gets run over fast and that is what we are seeing here. 

Just my point of view. Feel free to disagree.

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February 27, 2023 · 05:35

On the subject of failure

Yes, it is a subject that we all face and no one (including me) is happy about it. We all face it in one form or another. I saw an event that could play out later this year, somewhere optionally between July and September and I was not happy on how I showed myself. How I responded, no matter how honest I was, at that moment, I saw something I never felt happy about, but no matter how valid the response was, it does not mean that I am happy that I responded in that way. It was not about finding another way to say it, it merely went on about something that does not matter now. It applies to some degree to what this is about, because it made me check news sources and in this I decided on the article (at https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cia-director-bill-burns-china-russia-lethal-aid/). The CBS News article gives us ‘CIA confirms possibility of Chinese lethal aid to Russia’ and when I read it, I saw something different, it was not related to the earlier part, but it changed the way I looked at that news. We are given “In an exclusive interview with CBS News, CIA Director Bill Burns confirmed the possibility that China may send lethal aid to Russia in its war against Ukraine. “We’re confident that the Chinese leadership is considering the provision of lethal equipment,” Burns told “Face the Nation” moderator Margaret Brennan on Friday.” We are also given “I think the Chinese are also trying to weigh the consequences of, you know, what the concerns we’ve expressed are, you know, about providing lethal equipment”, this comes from CIA Director William Burn and that is fine. I am not debating that part, but when you consider what is behind it, it is a different stage. You see Russia is close the broke on a few levels and the only way that Russia can pay for this (as China would prefer it) is via massively reduced oil. Oil China needs and Russia cannot sell it to their former largest buyers. Yet behind all this is more. The logistics of the Russian armed forces are a mess. Their soldiers are ineffective, their hardware is failing on many levels and their supply systems are (from my point of view) broken in many ways. Russia has a problem. It needs drones, it needs missiles and it needs hardware that soldiers can use, Russia is falling short on several fronts and it is losing against the 21st largest army in the world. We all have seen Ukrainian achievement reports in several languages on several sources and they seemingly align. Russia could mobilise its armies, but the hardware issues remain and that could push the Russian armed forces in a direction it does not want to go, not in this stage. To give some slight reference. Russia lost more people in this war in one year than the UK and France combined lost in WW2 over the entirety of the war. In one year lost more soldiers than the UK and France lost over the entire world war, they are doing THAT bad. So now they need upgrades in hardware and that is what Russia is seemingly angling for. But I reckon that China is only considering a limited list and the payments are due in oil and upfront. Which would give them millions of barrels in extra oil, oil they need and I reckon they will get it for an apple and an egg. 

But when you think this through we could optionally deduce a lot more. You see that oil can then not be used to heat Russian houses, fuel power and fuel mobility. In addition it would be a first direct proof that the Russian Army has no place to go, or at least not operational. If it was merely missiles the issue would be small (except for the Ukraine), I am speculating that it is about a lot more, even if we accept that Russia is sending troops with 40 year old ammunition. 

The fact that they cannot do this with a renewed offensive is up on the wall and now we see how deployment and supply lines are on the front issues. If they cannot get supplies they will need to acquire them and China is nearly the only option and that is merely the beginning of the issue. Thee news has shown enough issues with soldiers personal gear and debatable mobile hardware (tanks and other things requiring wheels). This is not the stage of some new tanks, this is about the refurbished T-72 tanks that are almost 50 years old, implying that whatever anti tank comes their way will slice through their armour like a hot knife through butter and that is if the refurbishments were properly done, which in light of several issues is now a matter for debate. If Russia stages this war with its regular armies (if they can find them) Those armies will be ill equipped and ill prepared. A lesson France learned in 1812 the hard way and now Russia gets to learn that very same lesson. But is it all true? I am speculating, but I believe that I am in a stage of presumption because I do know how in parts this field is set. And the lesson is not over, not for the Russians and not for me either. Because there are many debates on what was real, I need to wonder how reliable the information I have is. I believe that I made enough sidesteps to alternate sources of information so that I believe that I am on the right track, but that too is not properly vetted information, so there could be gaps. Yet overall the news is still valid. If Russia needs China it means that they were never ready for any real combat and they were never prepared with the hardware they had, or they wouldn’t need China’s hardware. It could be a Russian ploy, but I do not think so, if that was the case the CIA would have come with a very different presentation, of that I am very certain.

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February 12, 2023 · 09:40

Introducing: The nightmare

Yes, that is where we are at. It is not the beginning of some horror, although that is not out of the question, the larger stage is who the horror will hit. The setting of this stage begins with ‘Biden prepares largest Pentagon budget in history as spending cuts loom’ (at https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/10/biden-pentagon-budget-debt-ceiling-00082302). This could be any day just like any other day, but it is not, it really isn’t. You see, the debt ceiling is about to get hit (yet again) but there is no raising it this time, with the debt surpassing $30,000,000,000,000  this debt is also surpassing the national GDP. It is even more dangerous. Last year the interest on this debt surpassed 25% of the national budget. It has become that bad. And I tried to warn people that the media and the puffy politicians were playing a game with you, but most never listened and that is not on them. There is no reason to listen to me. It is much better that you find out for yourself. So here we are, all whilst something serious should have been done from the age of former President Barack Obama. Let’s be clear, I am not blaming him, the fault is on BOTH sides of the isle. Tax laws and a tax system that was never overhauled, budgets that were not kept in control and things went from bad to worse. So now we get the pentagon budget. I am not saying what should be done, the issues with Russia and their invasion of the Ukraine is still a massive factor and there is every chance Russia does not stop there. Something needs to be done I get that, what the best course is is only known for those who know the actual facts and we don’t have them, but with a stage where that budget is now getting the additional “lawmakers appropriated $858 billion in national defence funding — $45 billion more than Biden sought”, almost a trillion dollars is added to the total debt slamming pretty much through the debt ceiling, as far as I can tell issues will rise and things will start to collapse the things got this far out of hand and now the US will face a new domestic danger. You see Wall Street might actually embrace a default. It would give them unparalleled powers in the US, not for a few years or decades, it will solidify their powers for CENTURIES to come and that will make them richer then anything else. That is the nightmare scenario and it is here 3-5 years before I thought it would come, but then I am not an economist and my predictions are more on point than some of the predictions the IMF made, so there.

And if you think that this is merely some paper run, think again. If the US goes into default, where do you think the Ukraine will get there hardware from? When the US falls, so will Japan soon thereafter and the EU is not far behind them, a world that overspent for decades. A world for the taking by China to say the least, optionally 2-3 more players enter that field, but about that more later. And if you think that this is just prancing, think again. As I see it to avoid this setting the US would have to cut budgets by 50%. That pretty much ends the social settings, infrastructure and a few other stages. The nightmare scenario has arrived on the porch of US households and there is no way to predict how this unfolds, we cannot tell because the path will be in part on how Wall Street deems it to be and that is never in favour of any household.

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February 3, 2023 · 00:12

As the tide turns

That is the subject of today. I have seen the events, I saw the considerations and I saw the traitor politicians (Thierry Baudet) as they betrayed their own country for a pro Russian rhetoric. For the most I stayed away, I did not care. It is not that I did not care, I merely cared about other things more. The accusation that countries did enough to keep the Ukraine in the war, but not enough to win it struck a chord with me. It made sense and it made sense for some to keep a distance, but they kept a distance for too long and now that the tide is turning people will demand answers from these people. I expect them to hide behind settings of nuance, or that it was too complex an issue for them. But the stage is set, these weak politicians will be out of a job soon enough and whilst they cry to any entertainment channel (example Fox News) that gives them a few seconds of limelight. The people who know are the people sidetracking those weaklings.

Now the BBC gives us (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64495520) with ‘‘I apologise to the whole Ukrainian nation’ – former Russian army officer’ or (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64470092) with ‘Russian army officer admits: ‘Our troops tortured Ukrainians’’ these people as well as the Wagner officer who ‘defected’ earlier. They are busy to create humanitarian revenue. They need good coins because they see it is the end for them. The Russian Stalin approach does not allow losers, the Russian stage is falling apart and even as I am not sure whether they will completely lose, they will lose a lot and with the exception of an execution of Putin by the Kremlin. Putin remains in charge and the losers have no place to go to. It will be a larger setting soon enough. The Russian army needs to order 129,000 bodybags (or coffins) so there is revenue for some in front of them, but the story behind them is a lot worse. 

The image gives us that over 300K are wounded and they never had that much medicines to begin with, the long term cost is beyond what Russia can give to themselves so the number of Russians seeking any kind of currency that keeps them away from Russia and away from the Russian Army is going to be the choice of too many Russians. A war that was badly conceived, poorly executed and even worse considered with the opposition to have and even as Russian propaganda continues, the propaganda people are starting to realise what the bad end of propaganda is when you lose. These people have no place to go. The Russian mafia is losing grip on to many places. With the oligarchs out of billions and most of them left with nothing, the material support for them is not going anywhere and without their billions in support other groups will now push in, soon that scenery changes for a lot of people too. Tongs and Yakuza will see their options soon enough to take over terrain and as loss after loss is becoming clear, some governments will start to draw out papers where Russians without permanent residency or citizenship will not be allowed to own anything. In the mean time as the BBC gives us “Konstantin Yefremov, the most senior officer to speak openly, said he witnessed interrogations and the mistreatment of Ukrainian prisoners”, it is my personal belief that he does this for a passport for him and his family. Russia is about to become an automated deathtrap for him. You see, not only did he lose, he spoke out against the Kremlin and that never ever goes good for any Russian who does so. At the same time we get ‘Fvd-leider Thierry Baudet op Curaçao om stemmen te werven’ the politician Baudet is on Curacao to get votes, but personally I reckon he is starting to feel too much pressure in the Netherlands and soon enough his voice will be shut off from politics and too many people will want him hurt, so better for him to go to a place where no one cares about him and the tropical setting of Curacao might be the last place where he has a chance to live out his life. 

That gets me to the final part of this. Over the decade too many Russian primed people have had their options to fill their pockets and the hunt that will start no later than 2024 will happen all over Europe. Ukrainian coated hunts for all these people who thought that they could hide behind Russian colours will now find themselves in a new setting, a setting where they all hunt them and it will not go well for them. Beside that there will be a setting where over 300K Russian women will seek a man, any non Russian man will do. Russian lives will be slammed all over the field and Russia will see what the short end of a Versailles treaty feels like. That is a future I expect to see, I could be wrong but considering that a Ukrainian army, 21st on the army size list took Russia to town and put over 500,000 Russian troops in either a hospital bed or a bodybag is a setting no one saw coming and now that they are getting some real equipment the impact will increase dramatically. This is merely my point of view and I could be wrong. I will let you decide.

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February 1, 2023 · 14:02

Insecure Masturbation Fraternisers (IMF)

Yup, that is the slogan and to get there we need to take a little trip down memory lane before we get to the article that jogged my memories. You see, it all started on October 10th 2013 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2013/10/10/economic-management-through-newscasts/) where I gave the readers “The same day I get the news on a diplomatic escalation in the Netherlands, sky News UK comes with an entirely different matter. Two elements seemed to be in play. The IMF suddenly lifted the economic growth for the UK by 1.4% for 2013 and for 1.9% for 2014. Those are numbers that are beyond remarkable. Sky News showed Olivier Blanchard the Chief economist of the IMF to make this statement. It was interesting that the IMF calls on Christine Lagarde to give the bad news and Olivier gets to give the good news. There was a shimmer of hope for realism as Ed Conway, economic Editor at Sky News was happy to not reject the notion that the IMF have been lousy forecasters in the past to say the least”, as well as “‘Suddenly’ there was good news, a week before the debt ceiling needs to be raided, whilst the US is still in shutdown mode. Let us not forget that Greece, who also suddenly had ‘good’ news last week is still beyond broke, in addition France and Italy are still not in good shape. The biggest issue is that the UK forecast, which was +0.6%, which was a pretty good achievement to +1.4%. That boils down to a miscalculation of almost $18 Billion! That is a massive miscalculation. There is no indication that such errors were made. Consider that the IMF had high criticism towards the tactics by Chancellor George Osborne, UK’s faithful exchequer.” Are you clued in at present. There is now an indicator that the IMF is nothing more than a political presentation tool to hand out lollies for others to look away as credit limits are increased. It is one of the reasons I went towards Brexit. After the speech by Marky Mark of the British bank (aka Mark Carney, a Canadian no less), I saw the dangers of staying in the EU. Mario Draghi was using a Credit card for trillions after the first trillion was a miss. Now, that happens, solutions are selected hoping it will set the outcome to another stage. There is no fault there, but then he does it again for another 2 trillion. Wasn’t it Albert Einstein that stated that only a lunatic will do the same thing twice hoping for a different outcome? And it wasn’t just me, others had reservations too. There was no outcry when Mario Draghi was shown to be a member of an exclusive bank group. So how much did his friends end up with catering to that debt. Consider that bank bonds have a registration fee and commission. So how much commission did these two dozen people get over three trillion? I can tell you that is would be up to 2%, implying that two dozen people ended up with $600,000,000, not a bad run. So why should the UK pay for that?

Now that we are all caught up (to some extent) it is time to look at the article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64452995) giving us ‘UK expected to be only major economy to shrink in 2023 – IMF’. Now I am not stating that this is not the case, it could be. Yet when we look to 2013 and later, the IMF has played the wrong spades in this game. So when I see words like ‘expected’ and ‘only major economy’ after it took the IMF and Creepy LaStrange (I think that was her name) a year to admit that they made an error of well over $18,000,000,000 I have issues with anything they claim. And when I see “The IMF said the economy will contract by 0.6% in 2023, rather than grow slightly as previously predicted” without clarity I have issues. The numbers could be true, but with the Russian clambake in the Ukraine, the Covid issues (especially in China), the labour shortages and a few other elements that influences the issues, we merely see  “Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said the UK outperformed many forecasts last year. But shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said the figures showed the UK “lagging behind our peers”” and charts and numbers how bad the UK is doing, but the problem is that the IMF (or Insecure Masturbation Fraternisers) have been too much like a political tool. They proclaim that Russia is getting a positive boost this year but we do not see that it might be mainly woodworkers to create the  126,650 coffins for lost troops, so their economy is up, but who pays that bill? And in the stage of presentation my issue is that these people are all about ‘forcing’ the UK back into the EU so that their GDP can be added to their credit limit. The EU is running out of credit card space, it has been for a year and the UK revenue is essential to turn that about and people need to wake up to the unaccountable overspending the EU is doing. At present the EU debt is well over €12 trillion  with several nations having too much debt. We all know about Greece with over 193% of GDP, Italy surpassed 150% of GDP and Portugal surpassed 125%, Spain is almost at 120%, and France is at almost 115%. The credit limits have been reached and it does not bode well, so all hands on deck forcing the UK back into the EU, but the truth is that once the hardship is passed (which will take some time), the UK will become the power player and the EU will be reduced to a third world nation. So basically at present (a personal view) the German debt of 80% of GDP is the only economy keeping the EU standing. That is not enough and I spoke about that in the past (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2017/03/17/the-finality-of-french-freedom/) in ‘The finality of French freedom’ on the 7th of March 2017 where I wrote “Which is why France is a big deal, that whilst they represent one of four anchors keeping the Euro in place. With the British anchor removed, the stress on the three is intense, the Euro cannot continue with the remaining two anchors that is the desperate game Draghi is facing now. Weakness and non-decisions from 2012 onwards have caused this mess, and of course he is not done yet. As we see in Reuters, last Monday he stated “If non-high-tech companies adopt more innovative technology, that would provide a boost for European productivity“, speaking as the European Central Bank President last Monday, it that so? With what funds? Innovations requires money, such steps have a cost” here I compared the economy with a floating platform kept in place by 4 anchors. It used to be the UK, France, Germany and Italy. Now that the UK is gone, the platform is now in trouble as only the German anchor has any strength left. The economic sea is in turmoil and I already saw this in 2017. Then we got Covid and that stupid bear named Russia and now the economy is a problem, especially for the EU and when that breaks up, the US (Japan also) have no way to go but down and that is what they all fear, they can prolong this if they can bully the UK, but we have seen enough bullies. We all have had enough and that is why I chose Brexit. I could not predict Covid or Russia, but a next economic disaster is alway just past the horizon, there is always a next fire to put out and now the IMF wants to make matters look worse. As I see it, they need a whole range of better and more descriptive numbers. As it stands, at present I do not trust the IMF. Yes the UK could face another recession, but it will be nowhere as bad as the one the EU faces. In the end the UK is part of a Commonwealth and we all (Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and the United Kingdom) need to united to face the headwinds of the coming storm, we owe it to each other with the acts of irresponsibility we do not owe the EU and we do not owe the US. The US has had over a quarter of a century to overhaul their tax laws. I made mention on this as early as in the age of President George H. W. Bush (1998) now 25 years ago. I say enough is enough and the IMF better give us a lot more and a lot clearer numbers than what we see in the BBC article. That is my personal point of view on the matter.

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January 28, 2023 · 20:51

Some hypocrisy

I saw the news earlier this week and I kinda shrugged it off. In the end it was about “Djokovic’s father was photographed with the Putin supporters after his son’s quarter-final win over Russia’s Andrey Rublev.” I cannot judge this part as I did not see how it all happened. This is important for a few reasons. And the idea that his father has to watch it on TV is a bit of an issue for me.

You see to get that part of the equation, you need to learn something. Yesterday I was given ‘Why are so many Western companies still doing business in Russia?’ by the Strategist. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (at https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/why-are-so-many-western-companies-still-doing-business-in-russia/) here we see “The study identified 1,404 companies headquartered in EU and G7 countries with a total of 2,405 subsidiaries in Russia before its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Only 120 of these companies, or 8.5% of the total, had ‘exited’ at least one of their subsidiaries by the end of November.” So where is your outrage now? Why is the media not hounding these players? Actually, why is the media not hounding these players? You have a go at some father whilst we see that the bulk is selling their wares in Russia, what a bunch of cowards you are. So 90% is still filling their pockets and I actually do not care what they are selling, they are supporting the Russians and their war efforts, so here is my message for Ukraine’s Australian ambassador Vasyl Myroshnychenko who stated that “Tennis Australia should ban Srdjan Djokovic for “such a disgrace’’”. I have nothing against Vasyl and he has genuine beef with the Russians, so I get it. But I am PERSONALLY holding him responsible for investigating the media and why they are not all over these thousands of businesses who are still selling to Russia. I get that we are given “The researchers acknowledge that there are many sound reasons why companies might fail to withdraw. ‘A Western firm operating in a sector excluded from official sanctions may decide that it is inappropriate to abandon its Russian customers, who may have played no part in the decision to invade Ukraine or in the prosecution of the armed conflict,’ they wrote.” But is that enough? What do you think Vasyl Myroshnychenko? Is it enough? In this US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has repeatedly called on the US business sector to strengthen the resilience of its supply chains by ‘friend-shoring’, or redirecting investment to allies. In the context of the risk of conflict in the Taiwan Strait, she urged US businesses to pay greater heed to geopolitical realities. Which is also massively fair. Yet in light of the outburst that Vasyl Myroshnychenko gave us, I reckon he is now equally responsible to hand out outrage of these businesses still doing businesses with Russia and he needs to expose them all, because when over 1,000 businesses are still selling to the Russians, they are sure to miss out on the pressures that would force the Russian army to fall back. What do you say? Do you think I have a case here? I believe I do, but I am but one voice (so is Janet Yellen) should more be done? I will let you decide on that and decide what you should do to make is harder on Russia, even if it is for the simple reason to give Paddington bear time to eat his marmalade sandwich.

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January 26, 2023 · 11:26

School out awareness

This is a time for me to gather thoughts, for me to take notice if what I know and what I THINK I know, they are not thee same. You see in continuation of yesterday I got to think. I giggled at the people stating that when we send F16’s to the Ukraine the war will be over pretty soon. So who will be piloting them? Americans? Other NATO nations? The learning line of an F16 is months if not a year and there will be little left of the Ukraine when that is done. Tanks are a different matter, basic tank skills are within every tank operator and training them to a new tank takes weeks at best and some will be ready in days, that is something we can use. I know because my first education was as a military instructor (small arms). So when these tanks are delivered, will instructors be coming along to train them? It is a serious question, I reckon that they thought of it, but how is still unknown to me. Perhaps military advisors like the start of Vietnam, all kinds of options. It takes a day and a practice day to get people ready on most small arms including the LAW (M72), it isn’t enough to stop a tank nowadays (although the Russian tanks are not that good as news shows us), but it will wreck havoc on a truck with supplies, its inhabitants will require more than a bandaid. 

So why the thoughts?
Well we need Russia to lose for all our sakes, we need Ukraine to win for pretty much the same reason, the fact that it is the right thing to do is merely icing on the cake. Yet most people forget that wars are not won in a day and such settings require infrastructure and operational points to make it work and when we introduce hardware that is not native to its army, the lines become a lot more important. The infrastructure needs more and that is where my mind was at. 

And it is the Lithuanian news give us ‘Lithuanian military instructors leave for UK to train Ukrainian troops’ (at https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/1874591/lithuanian-military-instructors-leave-for-uk-to-train-ukrainian-troops) a mere 14 hours ago. So when we see “Ukrainian troops are being trained in Lithuanian military units to use 60 mm mortars and are taking part in training courses for military police instructors.” I see nothing wrong, it makes perfect sense, but at some point (a month ago was better) some people will have to decide to place boots on the ground in the Ukraine. It does not solve the issue to ship hardware and leave the software in the west. We need to consider setting the stage there to train people THERE. There really is no other way. We can train a set of officers and NCO’s in the UK or any place, but at some time we need to train troops and there is a time gap between any NCO having certain skills and the point where he can actively and efficiently transfer that knowledge to troops, this takes time and as such as the image grew, my thoughts were with the instructors and how to get the knowledge into the Ukraine. It is a school out setting, a field exercise and the exercise is in the Ukraine. Of course any volunteers optionally get to shoot Russians as well, for some a boyhood dream in a real stage where buildings are slammed to the ground by missiles. It is not a fun place and it does remain a dangerous place. Even if the Russian Army (or Wagner) can’t shoot straight (as some news reports), a missile could accidentally hit you whilst shooting a civilian building, so this is no ones clambake, but it has become an essential one. The west needs to realise that the Ukrainian troops need to be taught, need to become efficient making the numbers (bad for Russia, good for Ukraine) more appealing. So 1:100 (one Ukrainian for every 100 dead Russians) could then become 1:800 or even 1:1000. Skills have that much of an impact in the field. There is of course more than merely shooting down Russians, other skills are required, but I never had those. In the field of survival the ability to properly wield hardware is essential and my thoughts are with how are these skills ending up in the Ukrainian heads? Perhaps it is already solved, but I would not know anything about that at present, hence the thoughts came to me. This war has been going on for a year now, as such the Russian opponent is already a first class loser, but I feel we need to do more to make it worse for Russia and the FBI not aiding oligarchs is an essential first.

 

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January 25, 2023 · 20:15

Pussies in the Pentagon?

OK, that is not really true, I get it. This all reminds me of an old joke. The doctor arrives in the morning asking the night nurse if something happened during the night. She says nothing, and then ohh yes, the hypochondriac they brought in during the night died. 

You think it is funny and of course to some extent it is, but there is another side. For decades we were kept in fear that Russia was the big bad, the great evil, the big fighter. Yet at present, a year after they tried to overtake Ukraine, a nation with the 21st largest armed forces is fighting off and winning against one of the top three nations (there will always dispute whether China, Russia or America is number one). Russia is becoming the defence joke of all time. Their army is demoralised and unable to keep any kind of battle tactic in play. They are for the most nothing more than rapers and war criminals. Their materials are buckling under minimum pressure and whatever is abandoned by Russian armed forces is repaired and added to the Ukrainian battle tactics. They rely on the Wagner mercenaries who are getting killed as easily as the Russian armed forces and their commander ran to Norway to defect. That is the army we all feared for decades. Or as some might say, their trains cannot run as they have flat tires. We see the introduction of horses carrying the wounded and in the demonstration the horse kicks the bed dummy of its saddle. The Russian army is failing on many fronts. Their missiles are not as they pound civilian targets again and again. And the west does very little. I saw week after week some debate on leopard 2 tanks. They are apparently finally shipping to Ukraine. 

So is the failing Russian army the best kept lie in NATO? There is no way that these failings were not on the visors of the CIA, and if they were not how massively did they fail? It is like the Dutchman Rob de Wijk, we need to acknowledge that Russia is a nuclear power (if that part works) so we need to tread carefully, but there is a difference to tread carefully and there is treading cautiously letting Russia get away with war crimes and crimes against humanity and the second part has been in play for much too long. 

To be honest, it would be an idea to try my contraption on one of the 38 nuclear plants Russia has. Three or four would be enough to show Russia what an energy crises really feels like. I got the idea from a snow globe, so it could be flawed, yet isn’t it better to test it in Russia at present? In Russia alone there are enough people willing to try that idea out. The setting is however not that simple. We see all the nations contributing weapons and armour, but at present for the most the Ukraine at present is alone when it comes to soldiers and I wonder why. We see Russia rely on Wagner mercenaries who are even less effective than the 122,000 soldiers they lost at present. 

And at present Russia is not stopping with their acts of terrorism, willing to allow others to lose even more. At what cost and can we afford to lose the losses that the Ukraine is losing? What more should we allow to lose? There comes a time that enough is enough and we are very far past that point, but the news is shouting, they are dangerous. Are they? When the FBI (certain people) aid Russian oligarchs (Oleg Deripaska) in certain matters, we have gone long past the time of catering and we are seemingly whoring for the Russian bear. It is now time to stop that and we all need to chip in, or we become a simple Russian knave forever at their back and call, I am certainly not willing to become one of those, are you?

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