Tag Archives: United Kingdom

February 20, 2016 · 12:25

Omphalos and its syndrome

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

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

A is for Apple

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

E is for Eisai

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

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

I is for Insight Enterprises

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

O is for Omphalos

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

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

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

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

U is for You!

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

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

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Tagged as Android, Apple, Aricept, Bill Gates, Brexit, Delphi, Donepezil, Eagle Capital Management, EEC, Eisa, Euro, Financial Times, Florian Philippot, France, Frexit, Insight Enterprises, J. W. Burns & Company, LA Times, Larry Ellison, NHS, Omphalos, Omphalos syndrome, Steve Jobs, the Guardian, UK, United Kingdom, www.nhs.uk

February 4, 2016 · 23:21

Intimidating the Euro

There have been several issues in the past, some we seem to embrace as ‘dangerous’ towards the survival of the Euro, some less so. There has been a detectable increase (including from myself) into the events as they are occurring. Yet, any nation, has forever had moments of bad news, so why are we so eager to predict the downfall of a united coin?

You see, we all agree that there will be good times and times that are less so, yet in all this a level head should prevail. This means that there is balance. Nations tend to float their coin when things are poor and as decent times return, that floatation option dissipates. As nations were balanced, these waves still happen, but they were less extreme. Which meant that there were currency cycles, which is not a mystery!

So when the Euro came, a stronger more balanced currency became the global player, with a few ‘visionaries’ claiming that this is the haven of all currency. In that regard, let’s take a look at Rasul Shams (at http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/26228/1/dp050321.pdf), a discussion paper from 2005. Here we see “One of the basic statement of a full developed theory of world money is that the world economy exhibits a specific structure, which is changing through time and that the world money adjusts to these specific characteristics of the world economy and underlies therefore itself large-scale changes in the long run. To understand the development of the world money and any long-range modification in its manifestation through time one has therefore first to study the dynamic stability of the world economy” (page 6). On Page 14 we get “Kenen (2002) and McKinnon (2002), both looking on the use of Euro in trading, bond issues, bank liabilities and official reserves, appreciate the strong role of Euro as an international currency but do not believe, it could be in a position to displace the central role of the Dollar. McKinnon refers to the reinforced Dollar standard by the ongoing price stability in the United States as the main reasons why the Dollar supremacy will continue“. In addition we see “Hartmann and Issing 2002; Huismann, Meesters and Oort 2000; Beckmann, Born and Kösters 2002), looking at the evolving international role of the Euro come to the conclusion that the Euro has indeed a great potential to expand further its international role but that this will be a long run process, not to be realised in the near future“. Now we get the first issue.

You see, certain players behind the screens must have made certain events happen to flow the Euro against the dollar as the 2004 crash became a reality. Now consider that the initial European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) was introduced somewhere before 1980 to reduce exchange rate variability and achieve monetary stability in Europe. In that system the currencies were still floated to the minimalistic degree, depending on the local economy. So when the Euro became the coin, that game changed. Suddenly nations lost their personal flotilla device. Now for the larger economies like France, Germany and the United Kingdom it was not that much of an issue. There was a degree of control. The UK had even more options as they remained to keep a sterling position. The other players were however in a less favourable position. They now had other issues to deal with. As those nations all got an interesting credit card, we saw a growing problem. Greece and Ireland being the larger problems, but in no way the most deadly of them. That part must be reserved to Italy and France. The EEC has a total ‘national’ debt of well over 12.5 trillion. With 50% of that debt belonging to Germany, France and Italy. Germany was until recently safe, because their economy was decent and their unemployment rate was below 5%, this is now changing through several parts. The Germans have many sides to their economy, yet when we read that the Deutsche Bank posted a €6.8 billion loss in 2015, thanks to a €12 billion write-down linked to litigation charges and restructuring costs, and it set aside more to cover any potential litigation (at Read more: http://www.afr.com/markets/deutsche-banks-troubles-unmask-bigger-risks-20160203-gmken9), we see new dark clouds. Apart from the DB shares going down to 10% of what they were before the financial crises, we must wonder what other effects are in place. Here is part of the problem. We can state on one side that one hiccup like that should not be a worry, but the economy in Germany is having a slow start. In addition as other nations are showing a slowing need for Deutsche Grundlichkeit, they are looking for alternative providers, cheaper providers, which is a given. Now add the VW scandal, which pushes down Covestro. All parts of multi Billion Euro sided Bayer. Now for a history lesson (at http://www.press.bayer.com/baynews/baynews.nsf/id/Bayer-MaterialScience-to-be-called-Covestro), which gives us “Bayer intends to float Covestro on the stock market by mid-2016 at the latest. The plan for Bayer Material Science to become a separate company was announced in September 2014” on one side, the timing is great for the board of directors who get to write off the losses from taxation and still get that 8 figure bonus. For the German government that is bad news on top of bad news. So as Germany was not a problem for the Euro, it is now a worry that is growing, growing by the day.

In all this I must now add that the national debt of Germany which represents one third of 50% now becomes an issue.

In addition, the hardship from France as it remains in a state of emergency. In addition, as too many people focus on the fact that the French Economy is moving ahead at 1.1%, which is a good achievement. Yet the unemployment rate is slowly creeping to 11%, in addition, the youth unemployment rate in France increased to 25.90, which means that the French hardship is still escalating. So as we see an economy growth of 1.1%, it is countered by ‘French unemployment rises by highest rate since 2013’ (at http://www.france24.com/en/20151126-french-unemployment-rises-highest-rate-2013), which will impact the French budget. In that regard so far (3 months later) no clear solutions have been presented by the current French government. In addition, the extremist and refugee issues are pressing more and more on the French morale, less and less acceptance is seen there. The French political landscape is still under attack, as the issues deepen, more and more people are starting to listen to Marine Le Pen, who is now seeking alliances with Italy’s Lega Nord, which also includes Geert Wilders from the Dutch PVV and Heinz-Christian Strache from the Austrian Freedom Party. These factors are important, for the simple reason that until 2 years ago Lega Nord was not even a blip on the radar of anyone who mattered in politics. That is no longer the case, more important, the stronger and the more united these right wing parties become, the bigger the collapse of the Euro. I would never have considered these parties to be anything bust extreme in chance. The inability of France’s François Hollande to get the economy to any degree on track is central here. The 1.1% melts away to -3% when we see the cost for France rise and rise. The plan for 500,000 vocational training schemes might sound nice, but that is not any guarantee to growth of economy, just an absolute guaranty to cost well over a billion, with more costs down the track. Italy is in a place not much better, even as both nations have products people want, the bulk of people are not buying the amount both governments need to see bought.

Now we see these elements as the UK has given the Brexit referendum to take place on June 23rd, which means that we are about to get flooded by propaganda from all sides, including newspapers on staying in, or moving out. The Guardian was quickly on board on how the environment would suffer (at http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/03/brexit-would-return-britain-to-being-dirty-man-of-europe), whilst happily ignoring that a homeless person due to no job and no home has a worry with drowning in the rain and freezing solid in a park in winter. All these dangers because no one was willing to muzzle Greece, or bankers for that matter. So as we now see how Goldman Sachs is stating that Brexit could cost pound a 20% drop in value, should we remember those at Goldman Sachs that they are one of the responsible parties that got this entire economic mess started?

Now we get back to the continuation of the Euro issue as I saw it in the beginning. As we see how political parties are influencing events, the political element not seen is how political players have been spending others people money, without fear of persecution, prosecution or accountability. The mere inability of the European nations to keep a proper budget and to keep debts in check is a massive reason why right winged parties are now growing beyond anything. No one seems to be properly measuring data. As national data is inflated (read: weighted) we see optimistic news all over the place, whilst 90% of data and results should have been adjusted from the very beginning. So, we have one currency and all nations are floating the currency by inflating ‘predictions’ of their part of the economy, by the time that falls over, we see waves of managed bad news, yet the currency was from that point onwards never in a proper state, it has not been in that place for a long long time.

Now, France will face the next hurdle. There are too many predictions on how the UK will not go Brexit, but in all this the people are seeing their lifestyle dwindle away and as we see more managed bad news, the British people might have had enough. A strong example here comes from the BBC in December 2015 “Economic growth in 2015 was originally predicted to be 2-2.5%. But in large part because of the decision of the Government to take those bailout talks to the wire that has turned into a 2-2.5% contraction – a deep and painful recession. Now the experts are predicting once again that the economy will return to growth in 2016, unless something else gets in the way“, so as we read this, we see that ‘the experts’ were off by 5%, which is massive, which follows ‘predicted growth’ in 2016. Yet we all know that Greece has had too many problems and when the retirements funds stop because they invested in Greece, where will retirees get their ‘support’ from? They are entitled to that support, but Greece has no more money, debts it cannot pay and it let those who got Greece in that bad a state off the hook. All EEC nations left those Greeks off the hook. So now, as we see that money is running out, which will in the near future could mean that the IMF has to bail out Greece again. If that happens before June 23^rd, how do you expect the British referendum voters to react?

One thing is certain, if Brexit happens, François Hollande will get the nightmare situation he dreads, because the Euro without the United Kingdom will not survive through Germany, Italy and France together. In that light it will push Frexit straight to the top, with at some point in 2017 President Marine Le Pen, signing a government act to secede from the Euro and not entirely unlikely secede from the EEC altogether. That last statement is massively speculative, but not impossible. It is nationalism that are driving the French to her and the Italians to Matteo Salvini, there is still the dangers that Nigel Farage will get on the ‘I told you so horse‘, which had a 1:1,000,000 chance to win. Now my £10 will turn into a nice retirement funds for a nice place on Guernsey (if someone honours that deal). A wave started by the mere political short-sightedness of not having a legal door to expel bad nations and their economic acts. An oversight that will result in additional trillions of write-offs and hardship for the European population at large.

A view I stated in 2013, there is now a decent chance that I will be proven right 3 years later, a mere data analyst without an economic degree.

Yet, can I be wrong? Of course I could be, but you should ask yourself: ‘Where is MY benefit?’ I am not asking you to state this in some rage of selfishness. I am asking you to look at your life, your family and all the parts you lost in the last 10 years. All the things you worked for and what you have been left with. Now, many people have not lost what they had, but their financial progress seems to have minimised, largely due to outside influences, some of them due to really bad internal governing. So how does a Brit feels when the hardship he faces comes from the bad acts not just from the UK, but in addition to the acts from Spain, Greece, Portugal and other nations? In addition, we see that those governments do not seem to be held accountable, neither are the decision makers held accountable by other governments. Now, the average Brit accepts that his government makes mistakes, just like the average Frenchman, or Italians for that matter. But neither wants to pay for the cock-ups of another government, especially as no one is held accountable, so that part leaves us with Brexit and the chance of it becoming a reality. Yet when we see the quote in the Independent “David Cameron has urged mainstream Conservative MPs not to be bullied by party activists into campaigning to leave the European Union as he took on his Tory critics with a fierce defence of his reform blueprint“, we have to consider that the risk is a lot larger than David Cameron is comfortable with, which works for Nigel Farage. The accusations that others are now accusing the UKIP MEPs, who allegedly have been intimidating other members of the European Parliament.

So, now, after a year, the UKIP members that were never seen as anything serious are now ‘intimidating’ others? So now we see the picture caption ‘Green MEP Molly Scott Cato admonished Farage and Ukip MEPs‘, yet in the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/03/brexit-would-return-britain-to-being-dirty-man-of-europe) we see “It will work with green groups to persuade people that leaving the EU could set back the UK’s nature protection and prevention of pollution many years“, so the battlelines of Brexit are being drawn and the question becomes, where is the truth and why are certain bad elements not being held accountable, that is the real reason why Brexit and Frexit are a reality. As no one addresses that because of the ‘friends’ these proclaimers of ‘other’ reasons have, they are driving constituents straight into the arms of Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen and Matteo Salvini. Nigel enabled Marine (to a small extent), the fear of Brexit pushes Marine to a large extent and all those elements are now making Matteo Salvini a threat to the Italian way of life. The question whether that is for good or bad is too early to tell, but the impact will be massive in all three nations. So whatever comes next will be speculative to a larger extent which is, until June 25^th, as that date could be the start of a massive upheaval all over Europe, which could hit as far as Japan and the United States of America.

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Tagged as Australian Financial Review, Austrian Freedom Party, Bayer, Bayer Leverkusen, Bayer Material Science, Beckmann, Born, Brexit, Covestro, David Cameron, Deutsche Bank, François Hollande, France, Frexit, Geert Wilders, Germany, Goldman Sachs, Greece, Guernsey, Heinz-Christian Strache, Huismann, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kösters, Lega Nord, Leverkusen, Marine Le Pen, Matteo Salvini, McKinnon, Meesters, Molly Scott Cato, Nigel Farage, Oort, PVV, Rasul Shams, Spain, the Guardian, United Kingdom, USA, VW

December 13, 2015 · 21:50

It really is Cricket

I just got hit by news from last Friday. It is not about Marine Le Pen, or about the Russian tour that could hit Turkey soon enough, or even anything like a video game. No, this is me trying to plug an idea that allows us to ‘use’ the BBC to save an industry for no other reason that our love of a game. You see nature tends to hit everywhere, it tends to hit the just and unjust alike, such is the premise of nature and when nature hits there will always be a victim.

So, here I am reaching out to all those who love Cricket to make a real difference.

For this we might need the consent and support of Yogita Limaye, who brought it to my attention. In all this I want to make certain the banks cannot move in and take away a legacy, for them to move in and ‘offer’ a deal that will change the game. No, I am here to plea with you to make a difference.

So what do I have in mind? For this you need to watch the small article (at http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35070666), you see floods have ended a proud event. The production of Cricket bats. Now, the industry can recover but it will take decades to do that. Yes, we can watch and wait and see how some other brands move forwards and up the price, some people will never be able to afford that. I might have had an English Willow bat once, but not all can afford it. So this article got to me. An industry given a massive body blow through nature, it happens!

The man is pleading whether there are options of a 0% loan from banks so that the industry can be revitalised. I am going one better (in light of many banks not being that trustworthy).

What if we had a brown gold scheme, one with a difference?

Would that help?

In my view I am appealing to all the cricket fans in the world. We are millions! So what if we see if we can keep Cricket alive in a place in the world where for them Cricket is more important that Soccer is to the UK or Rugby to Australia and New Zealand? What if we make our own investment?

Now, be aware that this is an investment with a danger, you could lose all your money, but the price you are about to lose is no more than the purchase of a Willow Sapling. A sapling gets placed and as the article showed you, it will take 30 years for it to mature. You reward would be a genuine Jammu and Kashmir bat (plus the cost of shipping). Perhaps an investment present for your son or grandson, something that made a difference. Is that such a far-fetched idea?

The banks will be out of bounds and we all will have done something for the spirit of Cricket, what a thought.

So, is this idea far-fetched? I do not believe this to be the case. By buying a sapling now, we support the game, we support a green earth and we support an industry. Yes, it is in India and there should be plenty of people in India doing this, but why leave it to others? To buy a sapling for no other reason than our love of the game. Knowing that we gave support to families who have been working on the Cricket legacy for generations, that is something worthy to settle a few coins for, isn’t it?

Now, how to proceed forward? Well that is easier said than done. You see, I am an honest person, but you do not know that and the world is full of people claiming to be of good spirit, so as I see it, why not let the person who alerted us to all this make that start. I reckon most cricket fans will have enough faith in Yogita Limaye if she sets this up and appeals through the BBC will only rally the lovers of Cricket even more.

Now at the end of 2015, we see one more act to show the greed driven industry that greed is not the way and that an industry can be saved without resorting to exploitation. The goal as I see it will be 30,000 saplings. It will not be the overnight drive to restoring bat production, but it will be the helping hand that should ensure long term security.

So how safe is this? Well this is harder to predict. You see nothing is without danger and nature can be a spiteful and whimsy mistress to say the least. So, if you are tight in the budget, you should not do anything, the question becomes how much is needed and donating a sapling might not be the drain on the pocket and will be a restoring factor in karma and the goodwill should be good for the soul.

In the end, this might be just the crazy idea of a blogger who has a passion for Cricket, but aren’t the crazy ones those who set the first movement that makes a real change? I do not have all the answers, just a small crazy thought to give support to those behind the game. You see, the world isn’t all about some risk reward concept. I do not see the issue of high risk and earnings. I see an option to support my game and if it all works out, someone will end up with a nice cricket bat (I expect to be dead in 30 years).

So in that regard, the investment option, when considering the Time Horizon makes it a bad choice (for me), because the time that I have my investment in there will outreach my time to remain alive and I can’t take my Cricket bat with me where I am going to go.

The element of Bankroll is when we consider the options of Risk Tolerance, when I look at this, I expect my loss to be 100%; does that make it charity? No, because I am doing this for one element of Cricket, plain and simple. I could argue that I am making a really bad investment if profit is my business and we know from Wall Street that this is not illegal, they are not making any money out of this and I can really love that idea. We are not looking at leveraged trading, as some industries rely on losses that could exceed the investment, I (and those joining me) are only investing on the purchase of a sapling. Depending on the setup, we will buy an expensive sapling (to allow for maintenance), but in the end, our investment is brown gold, the making of a bat. Now those who have one look at your bat and consider the thought ‘My dad sponsored the tree that got me this bat‘, how awesome would it be when that is really the case!

I have no kids to leave it to, I will not be around to see the bat be made, and I am merely offering a thought where an industry in Jammu and Kashmir will not be drowned out, were we aid it to survive past a flood.

What will you do? Perhaps the better question is, if your sport got hit to this extent, what would you be willing to do? That is the karma enhancing question behind all this, for the simple reason that governments can no longer afford to do certain things, some governments were never willing to do anything and the commercial world only moves to the waves of profit and ROI, options never good for any sport unless it profits from mainstream advertisements and even then they will only move when it truly benefits them.

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Tagged as Australia, BBC, Cricket, Cricket Bat, English Willow, India, Jammu and Kashmir, New Zealand, Risk Tolerance, Time Horizon, UK, United Kingdom, Willow, Yogita Limaye

June 25, 2015 · 22:15

Hunting facts

We can go on about Greece (which is again in crises), we can look at video games (like how the QA of Arkham Knight got effed up), but for now all interesting news has been said and there are a few British political events starting, but what some of you all forgot about was FIFA. When I look into the Guardian and seek the sports page (online) I see three times the mention of FIFA, only one has a video regarding the money-laundering inquiry. The interesting part is that the term ‘bribes’ is now replaced with ‘money laundering’. In that view the following document is rather interesting https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Fraud_bribery_and_money_laundering_offences_-_Definitive_guideline.pdf.

You see, Money Laundering is a rather harsher part in all this. For that we need to take a look at a few crimes acts, specifically the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (not today though).

And as I go through it with a few giggles, it seems to me that all this is not good for Jack Warner, even though he ‘threatened’ to reveal an ‘avalanche’ of secrets, he could end up looking at his luxurious stay in Hotel Sing Sing for a lot longer, than he would if convicted for bribery, in addition the accusation of him redirecting financial aid for the Haiti victims (from several newspapers) could make matters even worse for him.

This came from the Guardian with the title ‘Jack Warner fears for his life and will reveal ‘avalanche’ of secrets‘, yet so far, no revelations of any kind, or none that ended up in the hands of the press at present. This is the interesting part, if we go by the Jamaica observer who reported only 2 days ago: “but up to Thursday, the Office of the Attorney General had not received any request for Warner to be extradited to the United States, where he is wanted on wire fraud, racketeering and money laundering charges“, is that not peculiar? Technically it is not, extradition, means the start of a trial, and as such, Jack Warner is too visible, there is no place he can run to (as I see it). In addition, setting up a trial of this magnitude will take some time. However, the initial indictment that I published in ‘Condoning corruption!‘, (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/05/29/condoning-corruption/) almost a month ago, should clearly put him at the top, as the star player in all this. In addition there is (at http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/jun/10/john-oliver-trinidad-television-mock-jack-warner-fifa), where you can see the comedian telling the same things I told , but his comical approach is one that is not to be missed!

So why the long silence?

Well, that is the interesting part. There was no silence, when we look at the Guardian in Trinidad (at http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/2015-06-23/warner-integrity-commission-has-tapes), we see the headline ‘Warner: Integrity Commission has tapes‘, yet, I have at times doubted the duty of many newspapers all over the place, especially when it is owned by a member of the Murdoch family. Still is it not extremely interesting how many large newspapers have not picked up this news? I would think that the news of audio tapes, FIFA members and bribery would be the stuff of legends for papers like the LA Times, the NY Times, or even the Washington Post, yet none of them had picked up the Breaking news, or should it be broken news? The Washington Post did however pick up the response to John Oliver from Jack Warner (at http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/early-lead/wp/2015/06/12/composer-says-jack-warner-stole-his-music-for-video-directed-at-john-oliver/), especially as Jack Warner is also under fire from the composer, whose music he used to drown out his own voice from 1:13 to 2:20. Anyway, his response to the comedian was given on the 12^th of June, the Washington Post possible regarded this as light entertainment (with Greg Dombrowski who is at present the only one who is not amused). After that the Washington Post has nothing. So was it breaking or broken news? I do not know. I have not heard the tapes, yet neither had any of the other news outlets as far as I can tell, so if Jack Warner is bringing evidence out, why ignore it? A half-baked news moment on the ‘MH370 suicide mission’ gets picked up with what was called a ‘reliable source’ by those working for the Barclay Brothers, yet no one is touching the Warner Tapes.

I am quite happy to see Jack Warner Fry for all of this, but the man is entitled to a defence, when the press steers clear to this amount, who are they actually listening to? What is the audience not getting informed on and where are the FIFA puppeteers? Let’s not forget that the full report from Michael Garcia is still being kept locked away. The entire FIFA debacle has people running for the hills and there is a decent indication that the press is aiding some of them by not illuminating the issues at play.

Yet, we must also look beyond Jack Warner, which gets us to CONMEBOL. It is forced to pay 10 million out of its own funds. When we look at http://www.espnfc.com/fifa-world-cup/story/2502646/conmebol-facing-cash-flow-crisis-due-to-fifa-bribery-scandal, we get the following facts:

Sponsors have been asked to pay Conmebol directly
Datisa had only paid Conmebol 35 out of the 80 million, which means it is all short by 4,500,000,000 centavos.

It becomes a little weirder (possibly due to missing facts), when we consider the quote by Bloomberg: “head of international business for Brazil-based sports marketing firm Traffic Group (Jochen Loesch), one of the companies that make up Datisa. Traffic founder Jose Hawilla, 71, pleaded guilty in federal court in Brooklyn to racketeering conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy and obstruction of justice. He agreed to forfeit $151 million“, so if he forfeits THAT MUCH, what else did he stuff into ‘a’ matrass? By the way, I had a decent income for a few decades, yet summed up, over my whole working life, pre taxation, I will have made less than 1% of what Hawilla is forfeiting in this event; crime has become THAT rewarding!

Of course, we seem to focus on FIFA alone, yet, when we look at the Boston Globe, we see the indirect fallout, which makes the lashing the FIFA executives a lot more essential. When we read the article ‘FIFA scandal may affect Boston’s 2024 bid‘ (at https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2015/06/24/fifa-scandal-grows-could-affect-boston-bid/AasXsCJZobZTayvfb06obP/story.html). My issue is not with the article in the Boston Globe, it was with a quote in the Chicago Tribune “Because next Tuesday, if the U.S. Olympic Committee has come to its senses, its board of directors will wisely choose at a regularly scheduled meeting to pull a doomed Boston bid that has been a disaster from the start“. Two parts, one is the question, why it was doomed? That is an actual question, there is no direct answer in my view. The second is that the Olympic committee could, ‘wake up’ is the incorrect term, I do not think that the Olympic Committee is asleep, I mean that they need to refocus their current vision. What could be the problem is the location of the games. You see, no matter how all this goes, the 2024 Olympics will be 2 years AFTER Qatar, actually, due to rescheduling, less than 18 months, which means that there will be all kinds of issues all over Europe (a reeling UEFA after a drenched timeline as part of the 2022 soccer competition will be all over the place is one), the second one is French politics. At this point it is still extremely likely that National Front end up in a new location, when Marine Le Pen moves to 55, Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Paris, with the French in a massive wave moving towards European segregation, keeping the Olympics on the US side of the Atlantic river might not be the worst idea. Although, if the American administration does not clean up its tax act, it will be bankrupt making the entire exercise slightly exotic to say the least. If there is one essential part we need to consider in all this, then I would state that the Stability of the Olympics need to be assured, apart from that having them in the US after 28 years is not a bad way to go. With all the troubles Europe is still to face, especially with Greece messing up the European economy (the makers of the Olympics of all things), both Paris and Rome could end up in such a bad state that only Hamburg and Budapest remain a realistic location, considering Boston for the games of 2024 is definitely in my books at present.

So how did I get from FIFA to the Olympics?

That we do get from the Boston Globe, where we see “While longtime FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who has said he’ll resign possibly by year’s end, has not yet been indicted, he is said to be a target of the investigation. Blatter also happens to be an IOC member, which comes with the job of heading one of the planet’s biggest sports, such as track and field, swimming, basketball, and skating“, which is generic information. The second quote has the gem: “If Blatter is indicted, he’d obviously have to resign from the IOC. The question is, will the Justice Department stop with soccer or will it broaden its inquiry to other federations where payoffs likely have been made over the years? And since at least 17 present or honorary IOC members are current or former federation heads, will they have a strong incentive not to vote for Boston for the 2024 Summer Games, lest they be taken into custody upon arrival at Logan“, you see, the quote “at least 17 present or honorary IOC members are current or former federation heads” in that same article is linked to all this. Now, there is absolutely ZERO indication that these members have done anything wrong, but a massive amount of them are Europeans and this FIFA spectacle will grow and touch (read: smear) many European nations, at which point the media, will go on a rampage like hungry rats, ripping whatever they can for the prospect of ‘circulation’, getting the 2024 Olympics out of Europe that time around might be something to seriously consider. As viewers watch matches of all Olympic events, whilst games are overshadowed by all kinds of ‘speculative revelations’ by unnamed sources in newspapers, it would be good to have the Olympic games in a time zone several hours away, so that the games can remain centre in all of this. Is that such a stretch? In addition, all those close friends of Sepp Blatter in the IOC would also benefit from a time zone isolation of what will still be reeling at that point in Europe.

So, I will happily oppose Philip Hersh of the Chicago Tribune regarding “a doomed Boston bid that has been a disaster from the start“, I am not convinced, moreover, defaulting the Olympics to Boston could be the best thing. I’ll be fair, Canada might have been better, but they pulled beforehand, which gives us “Toronto’s Economic development Committee voted against bidding for the 2024 games on 20 January, citing a bid would cost the city $50 to 60 million” (Source Wiki), why does a bid cost them that much? I never really looked into that part of Olympic biddings, so the costs in that are equally disturbing, but that is for another day.

Anyway, if Toronto has an issue with 50 million (which is a truckload of cash) having them in the ground of a few billion might not be a good idea. Sydney had its Olympics in 2000, which is way too recent, from that logic I state, let Boston be the default!

Back to FIFA!

We learn today, via SBS (at http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015/06/25/two-argentines-sought-us-fifa-scandal-put-under-house-arrest), that the extradition proceedings are happening and they seem to be accelerating. With guilty pleas in the bag from other members, the options for Hugo and Mariano Jinkis are dwindling down fast. Federal judge Claudio Bonadio rejected their release saying they presented a flight risk given their personal wealth, adding that until last week they had both been fugitives. Their bail which was set at $1.2 million for the both of them might be regarded as a laughing matter when we consider the 151 million Jose Hawilla forfeited, so how much funds do the Jinkis have? Perhaps an electronic tag is for them a mere inconvenience should they decide to move to a nation that will not extradite to either Argentina or the US; I am just phrasing a question here!

So as we hunt facts regarding the FIFA members involved, how come the news on the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian was not picked up anywhere internationally? That is the issue we started with, a question not answered and unlikely to get answered any day soon. There is one more part to consider, it is a part every FIFA executive fears, because with Football (read soccer) is such disarray from the FIFA point, why are the nations involved not inviting UEFA to ascertain in what depth of trouble their local sport is in? Any political move to ignore this can be countered in this as unofficial knowledge of bribes and corruption went unanswered for over a decade, we only need to look at the work of investigative journalist Andrew Jennings to see that the problem is truly Titanic in size. The added fact that one person walked away with $151 million is proof further still. It should feel pretty comfortable for Michel Platini to see UEFA in a consideration to clean up Football. In all this, there needs to be transparency and visibility. Although I was never much of a soccer fan, to me it feels important that in all this both members of the IOC and soccer members like Michel Platini, Jean-Pierre Papin, Johan Cruyff, Marco van Basten, Alan Shearer, David Beckham and Jürgen Klinsmann to seriously sit down and see how FIFA can truly be cleaned up. I personally have zero trust in Sepp Blatter doing anything else than cover his hide at present, because when anyone sitting at the helm remaining THIS unaware of bribery and corruption for such a long time is on all fronts the wrong person to sanitise that system. I would like to add that such an investigation should be headed by three members of Royalty. Soccer is such too strong influence in Europe, to be handed to people loving the limelight for personal reasons. In this I would nominate Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark, King Willem-Alexander of Orange from The Netherlands and Princess Anne from the United Kingdom. It will requires officials and renowned players with managerial knowledge to take a harsh look at all this, having this headed by three members who have lived a life beyond reproach is equally important.

So in the end, consider that in all this, when we look from a distance, you should be appalled on how an organisation so influential in national events on a global scale is given a level of leeway that even the most powerful organised crime organisation could never ever hope for is just too unsettling. And in all this, it is all preparation, the support acts have not started yet and the main event is some time away. It is time to make a massive change and the sooner such actions begin, the better for all those passionate about sports involved.

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Tagged as Alan Shearer, Arkham Knight, Barclay Brothers, bloomberg, Boston Globe, Boston Olympics, Brazil, Budapest, Canada, Chicago Tribune, Claudio Bonadio, CONMEBOL, Crown Prince Frederik, Datisa, David Beckham, Denmark, federal court in Brooklyn, Federal judge Claudio Bonadio, FIFA, France, Greece, Greg Dombrowski, Hamburg, Hugo Jinkis, Italy, Jack Warner, Jürgen Klinsmann, Jean-Pierre Papin, Jochen Loesch, Johan Cruyff, John Oliver, Jose Hawilla, King Willem-Alexander of Orange, LA Times, Marco van Basten, Mariano Jinkis, Marine Le Pen, Michel Platini, Paris, Philip Hersh, Princess Anne, Princess Royal, Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, Qatar, Rome, Saint-Honoré, Sepp Blatter, the Guardian, the Netherlands, the NY Times, the Washington Post, Toronto, Traffic Group, Trinidad and Tobago, United Kingdom, United States

June 8, 2015 · 00:31

A slave to greed

It is time to take a stance a little more vocal and a little more ‘anti’ certain voices. You see, the people are being led astray, misinformed and basically lied to. It is a clever lie that some people spin, where the involved players (like in Greece) focus on one part of the story and after that story is told, those who think they are getting informed, are told a fairy tale with no concrete connection to reality or to the factual complete truth. Those advocates work from the concept of ‘in the eye of the beholder’, which sounds nice, but when you pay your electricity bill, there is no eye of the beholder, there is just the invoice!

To get this party train started, let’s take a look at the definition. We are looking at Austerity!

According to the Investopedia it is: “DEFINITION of ‘Austerity’ a state of reduced spending and increased frugality in the financial sector. Austerity measures generally refer to the measures taken by governments to reduce expenditures in an attempt to shrink their growing budget deficits“.

Whilst dictionary.com tells us “strict economy”

Both apply here!

So when I am looking at an article in the Guardian by Heather Steward called ‘Austerity isn’t ‘good housekeeping’: it’s dogmatic, risky and unjust‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jun/07/austerity-isnt-good-housekeeping-dogmatic-risky-unjust), it is time to get a few things out of the way. To help me, there is a source I used for part of this, which is at http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/5509/economics/government-spending-under-labour/. You see, in the time 1997 – 2010 several things happened, even though around 2007 the total debt was at a record low, the increase in spending has changed that. The debt is getting out of control, plain and simple. Governments (both sides) tend to hide behind GDP percentages to validate their spending, yet, in the previous conservative government, it was at 40% of GDP, by the time Gordon Brown was done, it was at 45% of GDP, considering that the UK GDP is decently high, that 5% amounts to a lot. Yet, that figure does not tell you the whole picture.

The UK public sector debt went in the period 2008 – 2010 from around 36% to over 65%, which is massive, this current government has been adding to that, but they are trying to stem that tide, which is not done overnight. Now this is not me blaming Labour (which is always fun), Health care spending almost doubled in real terms between 1999 and 2010, which is a Grim Reaper reality. Some were massive bungles by labour, but the added reality is that the UK population is growing old, that is just a natural part and we have always known that. So there is no blame, but it is therefore of a much higher importance to get a handle on it and none of the choices are nice ones.

You see, the source gives a possible connection, but not the reality behind it. We see the mention whether Keynesian economics are to blame, with the quote “Keynesian economics calls for counter-cyclical spending and deficits. Thus, in a period of strong economic growth, Keynesian economics would advocate balancing the budget or even pursuing a budget surplus“, but that is the problem, the politicians, in the era 1997-2004, in such a ‘good’ climate did not adhere to that. The GDP debt is evidence of that. You see, to some extent, politicians are like children, give a 17 year old boy a credit card with one million pound, stating that he must be careful, and that person will find a reason to get the PS4, the Xbox One and get personal biology lessons at the ‘Steam and Sun Health Club’. At which point that person is feeling that the good life is here, alas, at some point the invoice is due and whilst it is not getting paid, the interest is getting paid from the credit card, dwindling reserves even further, this is EXACTLY where Greece is at!

So now to the first article as mentioned in the beginning!

“the spending squeeze the Tories now hope to implement, starting in the current financial year, is intense, as the spreadsheet wizards at the Institute for Fiscal Studies made clear last week. Shortly before Osborne’s statement, Carl Emmerson, the IFS’s deputy director, warned that achieving the Tories’ planned cuts would be “anything but easy”” Here I agree, it will not be easy, it will be hard and it will be even harder on the people, the issue is however that £1.56 trillion comes with the added issue that at 1%, this bill gets an added 15.6 billion in interest, however, the interest is not 1%, it is higher, so we see that the annual cost of servicing (paying the interest) the public debt amounted to around £43bn (which is roughly 3% of GDP). In an age where some people get instant orgasms from reporting a 0.2% increase in GDP, they seem to forget that this amounts to the part that the UK is annually down 2.8% of GDP. If we act harshly (really harshly) it can be dealt with and even be reduced! Which is the real deal. That interest is benefitting banks and foreign investors. It boils down to ‘money for free’. So now we get the second quote “the belt-tightening is likely to be profoundly unfair. Osborne has repeatedly said his cuts plan will involve a £12bn reduction in the welfare bill. Since pensioners are protected, and out-of-work benefits are a relatively small part of the £250bn social security budget, much of the burden is likely to fall on low-wage workers and their children” I agree, it is very unfair, but when the economy was high, no one was shouting loudly to decrease spending as bad times are always around the corner, no one stopped Gordon Brown to give away the keys to the kingdom, which is what he pretty much did!

So, the term ‘pursuing a budget surplus’ sounds nice, but politicians will avoid bad news whenever they can, so cutting down on expenses will only be done when there is no other option, and preferably in the 11th hour, whilst there is no guarantee that there is a surplus at that point to work with!

“More austerity is risky at a time when recovery appears to be fragile against a background of the bubbling Eurozone crisis” this is a clear misrepresentation. You see, the statement is true, but there is no ‘fragile recovery’ at present, Greece is making sure of that by not doing its part. Which is exactly why the UK is contemplating getting out of the EU in the first place. The bulk of the Euro nations are all not balancing their books and getting out now might be the only way to preserve the little gain the UK can get. Now we get to another ‘failed’ view. It comes from Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen. The statement is “A nation’s debts are mainly owed to someone else within the same society – for example the pension-holders whose funds are stacked full of gilts“. Is that so Mr Sen? Well, if you did your homework on this then please elaborate where the 1.5 trillion in UK debt is? I feel 99.324% certain that a massive amount is in other hands, not in the hands of pension holders, in addition, with the annual increase of needed funds over the next two decades, that amount is about to dwindle to record lows really fast, so where is all that debt?

The next statement is a view that I oppose “a report from the International Monetary Fund, rarely considered a hotbed of fiscal recklessness, warned about the risks of trying to tackle a country’s debt burden too quickly“, what is too quickly? You see 1.5 trillion is not going away overnight, it will take 2-3 decades to truly slim it down, so for the next generation, someone is walking away with £43bn a year, so we should get the debt down soon, preferably by a lot because the annual interest bill is around 7% of the received revenue in 2014, that whilst George Osborne spent 15% more than received, so to cut back on that increasing debt austerity seems to be the only answer.

Now we get the next issue “Paying them down rapidly distorts the economy too much to be worth the risk“, the risk to whom? To banks not getting ‘free’ money? Debt is a kicker, it always has been it has never been different. We will never be completely out of debt, but the debt at present is unacceptably high. You see a debt driven economy is based on the illusion of never ending growth. How did that work out in 2004 and 2008? In that light, how is it working out for Greece? They can no longer pay their bills. Whatever they get now in bail-out will be swallowed by debts and interests before Q3 ends. So, when I read “Debts should be “reduced organically through growth, or opportunistically when less distortionary sources of revenue are available”, the IMF’s researchers argue“, I am reading more misinformation. The theory sounds nice, but in the time when there was the option of surplus NOT ONE government created surplus. President Clinton was the only one who got a true surplus, after that due to circumstances the US could not foresee, the debt went completely out of control. In reflection on Austerity, Germany did tighten the buckle and got part of its debt down, which is why they are in a better position at present.

So this is the first article, Heather Stewart is not stating anything untrue, but the article is missing a lot and some of these points I very much disagree with (figure me, disagreeing with a Nobel prize winner, whilst I have no economy degree).

Now let’s have a go at the second Nobel Prize winner. In this case Joseph Stiglitz, recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences and the John Bates Clark Medal. The article that in centre of this is ‘Greece’s creditors need a dose of reality – this is no time for European disunion‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jun/05/greeces-creditors-need-a-dose-of-reality-this-is-no-time-for-european-disunion). The first paragraph is the very notion of the beginning of my disagreement. “Athens has met its creditors’ demands more than halfway“. And we care….why? Why is Athens not meeting those demands 100% of the way? You see, Greece took the debt, it went back to the markets and sold 5 billion more in bonds (I still have not figured out the name of the idiot allowing for that act of stupidity). Greece vowed to make payments again and again, yet at present the already deferred TWO payments. Now, let me be frank. They were allowed to do that! The rules were there and they played by the rules, yet we all know that Greece is out of money, there are no more options. This will be the first time that a nation goes extinct through economic inaction! Even when Syriza won, instead of going after their predecessors, instead of sitting down and getting to the tax evaders, we see (at http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/europe/article4358352.ece) “The country’s financial crimes police, the SDOE, had begun shredding scores of documents linked to cases of corruption. What remained was stuffed in bin bags and discarded outside the bureau’s headquarters in Athens, in public view” the title ‘Greece shreds files on tax cheating by rich and powerful‘ Kostas Vaxevanis reported this on February 19^th 2015. So, why was there no prosecution here? The entire debacle on tax evasion has been treated like a joke by 4 previous administrations, so as they cut their own jugulars, why allow for just a half way approach? So far this Greek administration has not done anything to give ample faith that there will be any level of resolution. Then we get “Greece has made clear its willingness to engage in continued economic overhaul, and has welcomed Europe’s help in implementing some of them“, is that so? So far there has been no overhaul at all, the public sector cuts were undone by rehiring. Greece needs to lower its cost by a massive amount. In all that time, which of the over 2000 of wealthy Greeks ended up in court for tax evasion (from Swiss bank accounts), perhaps one? Oh the Journalist Kostas Vaxevanis ended in the dock too, a massive miscarriage of Justice as I see it!

The one part I do agree with is the dangers of Greece exiting “I believe such views significantly underestimate the current and future risks involved“, this is true, but Greece can no longer be trusted to do what they stated to do and as such, some of the players prefer to get out, before the total debt grows with another 20% which is basically no more than a year away. There is not concrete evidence that the economy will truly pick up and those who have enabled this debt driven event are not held to account either (that small matter of a massive amount of Greek bonds on the market).

Then the last part “The ECB president Mario Draghi’s confidence trick, in the form of his declaration in 2012 that the monetary authorities would do “whatever it takes” to preserve the euro, has worked so far. But the knowledge that the euro is not a binding commitment among its members will make it far less likely to work the next time“, yes, how did it work? By spending a trillion or more one areas that are still not recuperating and will need at least a decade to regain the trillion that was spent in under a year? How is that anywhere near a workable solution?

In all this, whatever should work might have worked to a degree if politicians would control their budgets and that financial institutions would not be as greed driven as they are, which is why it all failed. When we see the quote “16 banks in five years to the end 2014 reveal £30bn increase in payouts, fines and legal bills on previous five-year period to end 2013” and this is linked to a total of well over £200bn. Lloyds alone got £117m in fines, how is this linked? Well, such losses means no taxation in the books as profits are gone, whilst many involved walked out with enough money (read: bonus) to pay their full mortgage in places like Golders Green.

Mr Stiglitz never lies or misinforms, but his view is incomplete. It is very dependent on the people involved doing the right and the correct thing. Politicians and bankers tend to be not those kind of people, Greece has shown it, Gordon Brown has spent it now the Conservatives need to repair the damage, Prime Minister Tsipras is ‘forced’ to play a high stakes game, whilst those involved are no longer willing to give leeway. In my view, that game should never have been played in the first place. By setting austerity, whilst going after the Greeks and their wealth benefitting from all this was perhaps one of the few acts that could have opened wallets all over the place, that act was never done, which is why many see that meeting half way is not really an option.

Austerity might seem unfair, and it is not fair on the payers at present, but someone opened a tap whilst the bulk of those knowing what was going on should have spoken out, and spoken out very loud. This was not done, so behold the consequence of that little caper.

There is one gem in his article at the end that is part of the entire Euro mess, which is fun as I have raised it a few times over the last few years. Not bad for a person devoid of an economics degree!

He states: “Europe’s leaders viewed themselves as visionaries when they created the euro. They thought they were looking beyond the short-term demands that usually preoccupy political leaders. Unfortunately, their understanding of economics fell short of their ambition; and the politics of the moment did not permit the creation of the institutional framework that might have enabled the euro to work as intended. Although the single currency was supposed to bring unprecedented prosperity, it is difficult to detect a significant positive effect for the Eurozone as a whole in the period before the crisis. In the period since, the adverse effects have been enormous”

This is true, the one part I have an issue with is ‘Europe’s leaders viewed themselves as visionaries when they created the Euro‘. I think Europe’s leaders had nothing to do with that part. I have always viewed this change as an essential; step by the US. Their benefit of trade with a single currency was titanic in proportions, in addition, the US would keep its option to float the currency as any economy tends to do in times of hardship, whilst the nations that are part of the euro are part of a collective, which removes the option of floating a currency. This was centre in the additional growth (or diminished fall) for the US, yet, even they did not bank on the credit swap meltdown, which did hurt them. The US is getting better, but their 18 trillion in debt is choking them, even with the option to float the dollar, the Euro in the massive debt it is, can only remove the debt by paying it, which is strangling France and Italy. The UK is dealing with it, and the Euro is hurting them, but not as much as being part of the Euro is. Which is just my view on it all.

As I stated in the beginning, the articles are incomplete, misstated, not by inaccuracies, but by incompleteness, which is why people have the skewed view they seem to have at present. In the austerity path, which is unfair to some, we need to add the legal premise and the legal definitions as well as legal obstructions to remove the option of overspending to the degree that was done, we need to make sure that the law will not allow for such overstretching ever again, when that is done, we will return to times when there is hardship, but when there are good times we will all feel it too, in my view, the push of the financial sector to remove the season of ‘financial winter’ resulted in the banks getting by and the rest suffering, this must never be allowed ever again!

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Tagged as Amartya Sen, austerity measures, Carl Emmerson, conservative government, dictionary.com, ECB, economicshelp.org, France, George Osborne, Golders Green, Gordon Brown, Greece, Health care spending, Heather Steward, Institute for Fiscal Studies, Investopedia, Italy, John Bates Clark Medal, Joseph Stiglitz, Keynesian economics, Kostas Vaxevanis, Lloyds, Mario Draghi, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, President Clinton, Prime Minister Tsipras, SDOE, Steam and Sun Health Club, SYRIZA, the Guardian, UK, United Kingdom

May 23, 2015 · 20:45

The outspoken lie

This is the issue we have seen many times in the last months. The lie perpetrated by people (including journalists) to keep them in some fake shape of ethical non-prosecution. The clearest one was shown by the Guardian Yesterday (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/may/22/secret-bank-of-england-taskforce-investigates-financial-fallout-brexit), it is not the first one, it will not be the last one and until some individuals get out of their lazy chair, it will never improve. The quote “News of undercover project emerges after Bank staff accidentally email details to the Guardian including PR notes on how to deny its existence“. This is not even close to an accident, you do not ‘accidently‘ add journalists to confidential e-mails. This is almost like me going to Lucy Pinder (famous UK Presenter) stating: “Can you please stand there, now bend backwards a little and please keep your legs spread and without knickers, so I can ‘accidently’ land my penis into your vagina” (sorry about the graphical intensity Miss Pinder)! Either event does not happen accidently, only intentional or orchestrated as I see it! We will likely hear on ‘accidental’ typos, on how names were the same, but the cold reality is, is the mere fact that some people are trying to be some misguided whistle-blower yet the other group are doing that intentionally, some to warn ‘friends’, some to influence the market. And this event is nowhere near the only one. I wrote about Brexit yesterday in my article ‘Is it all Greek to you?‘ there are several issues in play. There is the link to Natixis, regarding their over half a Trillion Euro issue. Is that information not really handy to have? So in my view what is currently ‘regarded’ as an accident is possibly a simple case of either whistleblowing or corruption! The next quote is another one we need to take issue with “The revelation is likely to embarrass the bank governor, Mark Carney, who has overhauled the central bank’s operations and promised greater transparency over its decision-making“. The issue is, is that there is no issue. The Bank of England has a clear responsibility to investigate economic impacts, this means that both Brexit and Grexit are to be investigated. You see, if Brexit becomes a necessarily evil, those making the decisions would need to have all the facts, not just ask for the facts at that point. So, 30 seconds after the Guardian revelation, Natixis and all its links, Airbus, HSBC and a few other players will now be preparing their own kind of noose, threatening the UK government on the consequences of going forward on Brexit, the equations as per today will be pushed in other directions, including by the US, who would get into deep insolvent waters the moment Brexit becomes a fact. So, the accidental mailer is in my view an intentional traitor to the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. That person is an even bigger traitor as this is not about where the freedom of choice for a sovereign nation lies, but the fact that it is no longer able to get the true facts ready for the people to freely make a choice on, so when the referendum does come, the people are likely to get misinformed because powerful players do not like it when their profitability is on the line. It is of course every little bit useful for the large industries who believe in keeping the status quo of exploitations high, dry and mighty. So even though Mark Carney will likely be under fire of questions as per Monday, we must also see that in this case our Canadian Marky Mark is totally innocent (in this case). He did what a responsible governor of the Bank of England did. He made sure the correct facts were collected (tried to do so without kicking a fuss), a task that is now less likely to be successful. So as we look at what happened, according to the Guardian article, we see “The email, from Cunliffe’s private secretary to four senior executives, was written on May 21^st and forwarded by mistake to a Guardian editor by the Bank’s head of press, Jeremy Harrison“, so as I see it a mail from Sir Jonathan Cunliffe went to 4 senior executives. Now we suddenly see that Jeremy Harrison had it. Was he one of the 4 recipients? It seems unlikely as the text would have stated something slightly different. It is the formulation that gives way to the notion that it is likely (read: possible) that one of those executives forwarded the mail to Jeremy Harrison and he did give it to the Guardian. So we have two issues. Who gave it to Jeremy and was the release to the press more intentional than not? That question remains an issue. Is this orchestration or blatant treason. Let’s not forget that treason means: ‘The betrayal of someone’s trust or confidence‘, in this case the trust AND confidence of the British parliament. So the people are confronted with a spokesperson who likely spoke out, against the wishes of the ruling governor. So this event will have consequences from Monday onward. The markets will react and after that we will see more events into escalations as the British people will get to see over the week how the Greek fallout will hit the markets and the European economies as a whole. The non-actions, or any act regarded too small by the people will shift political allegiances fast, yet that effect is less likely to be felt in the UK and more likely to impact France at present. And these Brexit revelations are not the first ones. That Greek tragedy called insolvency is riddled with ‘leaked’ documents all over the place. In February 2015 we had ‘Leaked documents reveal what Greece had to say at the Euro group negotiations‘, in this view, I agree with blogger Raúl Ilargi Meijer who wrote less than a week ago “Whenever secret or confidential information or documents are leaked to the press, the first question should always be who leaked it and why” (at http://www.theautomaticearth.com/2015/05/the-imf-leaks-greece/), but that is not what orchestration is about, is it? So are the events from the Bank of England orchestration too? If so fine (well not entirely, but that would not be my call), if not then please fire Jeremy Harrison and give me his job. I have no proper degree for the function, but at least I will not be leaking any documents. These events go a lot further then just Greece of course. The Herald Scotland gives us ‘Civil servant who issued RBS leak email links with Better Together leader‘ (at http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/revealed-civil-servant-who-issued-rbs-leak-email-links-with-better-together-leader.120666908) gives us “THE Treasury civil servant who issued an email leaking sensitive information about Royal Bank of Scotland’s plans to leave the country in the event of a yes vote had links to the head of Better Together campaign, it can be revealed“, so again the question regarded is, is this not corporate treason? Consider the quote “Now the civil servant who issued the communication can be identified as Robert Mackie, the son of Catherine MacLeod, who was a special adviser to Better Together leader Alistair Darling when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer“, was he preparing his own more comfortable future? Getting himself into the proper future setting with friends of Alistair Darling? These are questions to be asked, for sure. Of course, a valid question might be, why would the Royal Bank of Scotland, leave Scotland if it becomes independent? Is it about the lost power of image of its board members? I do not proclaim or imply to have the actual answers, but the truth is not likely to come out, which means we end up living an outspoken lie, does it not? My own little island Australia is not without its own negative merits here. The title ‘Leaked documents reveal problems within Air Warfare Destroyer program‘ should give cause for concern, because that is not a mere commercial/political issue, it is a military issue, where one might expect a little more bias into ‘disclosing’ classified information (me going out on a limb here). we see the information (at http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2015/s4232702.htm), where we get the quote “But documents obtained by Saturday AM reveal the alliance is now worried continued cost blowouts and delays are harming its shipbuilding reputation“, of course ‘cost blowout’ usually means that the leaders of those projects did not have a proper clue to begin with and the amount of 9 billion gives a lot more weight to my statement (the UK NHS IT program being a nice piece of 11 billion pounds in evidence), but that is not too unexpected. The quote “MARK THOMSON: With an alliance contract where you don’t have somebody clearly in charge, you can rapidly find yourself in a situation where things go wrong and people are looking at one another passing blame, not taking responsibility, and decisions aren’t made” is precisely to the point. Our own Marky Mark (not the one running the Bank of England) shows the major influence, a person that is clearly in charge. I would add that quality of communication tends to be a solid second one in these projects. You see, as these elements go back and forth the e-mail (read Memo) goes on and on. When someone is in charge we get that defining moment when they hear (or should hear). ‘Shut Up! This is what we have decided on!‘, yet military contractors (like Raytheon and Northrop Grumman) are very trained in encapsulating questions within answers, adding premises so that the water is murky, as this is all about their continues consultancy as those people are like lawyers, they bill by the hour per project (as I personally see it), so here again, we see the outspoken lie, now not by telling, but by omission through non-clarity. So as the article ended with “Last year problems with the AWD program prompted former defence minister David Johnston to warn he wouldn’t trust the government-owned Australian submarine corporation to build a canoe“, on one side it seems odd to bite the hand that feeds you, on the other hand the question becomes what evidence did he have access to? Was this a political move to shelter individuals or signal true issues? So now we get the news (less than 2 hours ago at http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/first-air-warfare-destroyer-launched-at-asc-osborne/story-fni6uo1m-1227366174513) ‘First Air Warfare Destroyer launched at ASC, Osborne‘, which should be a huge reason for parties as well as spoil a bottle of bubbly against the hull of that beauty. Yet, the article is not all good news. We see that in the quote “The occasion was overshadowed to a degree by Friday’s release of a Federal Government audit claiming the destroyers cost three times as much to build in South Australia as they would if they had been built overseas. It also found the total cost of the project had blown out to $9 billion“, so here are my questions in this:

Could we ever rely on our defense by getting things build overseas?
Who kept check on the expenses?
If I go over the books and If I can cut more than 20% by invalidating time wasted on drawn out lines of ‘communications’ (I mean those long winded memos from these military contractors), will I get 10% of the 20% saved? (This should amount to 180 million) not bad for a few months’ work! You know, I had a dream where I ended up with 160 million and bought a nice house on Guernsey. I am willing to settle on 20 million less!

So here we see the outspoken lies! Political, commercial and even military, lines of miscommunication drained through ‘leaked’ documents. Is it all orchestration? Is orchestration not the same as treason when we consider the allegiance those people were supposed to have (in opposition where ‘leaked’ documents are a tactical move)? It would be for a court to decide, yet we will soon learn that these matters will not make it into any court, and as the cost blowout of 9 billion is shown, this leaky path will pay handsomely into the hands of businesses like Raytheon and Natixis, and what do you know, there are links between these two as well! So is this last statement my outspoken lie? Or can we agree at least to some degree that these companies all talk to one another? So in the end are governments getting played and who is actually in charge? That would be a very valid question as the bill got pumped by 9 billion, where 10% of that 9 billion could have solved the Australian legal aid issue (as well as a few other issues), so will any investigation into that issue result in a new outspoken lie (read: carefully phrased political conclusion without further accountability by anyone)? Time will tell!

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Tagged as ABC, ABC News, adelaidenow.com.au, Airbus, Alistair Darling, Australia, Better Together, Brexit, Catherine MacLeod, Chancellor of the Exchequer, First Air Warfare Destroyer launched at ASC, France, Grexit, heraldscotland.com, HSBC, Is it all Greek to you?, Jeremy Harrison, Lucy Pinder, Mark Carney, Natixis, Northrop-Grumman, Osborne, Raúl Ilargi Meijer, Raytheon, RBS, Robert Mackie, Royal Bank of Scotland, Saturday AM, Sir Jonathan Cunliffe, the Commonwealth, the Guardian, The Herald Scotland, United Kingdom

May 3, 2015 · 08:32

The Trans European Crash

It is a work of power, but not from any one station. The Germans would call it a Kraftwerk, but this is not an express as envisioned by Florian Schneider or Ralf Hütter. No it is a subtle hidden crash, pushed by those who need the status quo, not the fallout before they leave with a huge golden handshake.

You see, people forget how things are interconnected. We forget too often that the machine is based on values that are virtual and on foundations that are a generation old, we all forget that!

It is now 2 days ago that we see an article (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2015/apr/30/markets-await-eurozone-inflation-as-greece-takes-on-brussels-live-updates), the title ‘Eurozone edges out of deflation – as it happened‘ is not informative, it all seems like a collected pile of lose facts, are they connected?

They are to some extent, but not in the view people have. Let me enlighten you!

“The Greek government was struggling on Thursday to complete payments to more than 2m pensioners after claiming that a “technical hitch” delayed an earlier disbursement“. I will not attack that. We all have our doubts, but we need to consider that technology glitches, it always does so at the moment it hurts the user the most. Yet the response ““Normally I only withdraw half the money at the end of the month but today I’m taking it all” said Sotiria Zlatini” gives us pause, the expected bank run is coming and this might not be the bank run, but Greeks all over Greece fear that the bank run will happen whilst some pension money is still in their bank accounts. This gives a view of 2 million pensioners holding on to their money for dear life. You see, a small element is that at this very moment that this is written the Greek government was due to pay 200 million. Had that payment been made?

If an ‘extension’ has been granted, you can be sure that this will upset the Conservatives with David Cameron and it will fuel UKIP with Nigel Farage. Two non-related entities, yet they are all connected through other strings. Yet, the news we hear from Reuters is “Greece’s next payment to the International Monetary Fund, totalling some 200 million euros in interest payments, is due May 6 because of the May Day holiday in Greece, an IMF spokesman said on Thursday“, so, because of one day, they get an additional 5 days. Do I now have your attention regarding the ‘Status Quo’? Still, the ‘technical glitch’ the Greek bank has could be for real, but now consider the 2,000,000 accounts that will withdraw all funds, how short will the Greeks be to make payment? Yet, another part of the Guardian already informs us of a third bailout negotiation, something we knew, but the timing is so auspicious, we will see if the Greeks made payment before the €7.2bn (£5.2bn) in funds are released. Perhaps a third party deal through an investment bank will see the 200 million released on May 5^th, for perhaps a mere 243,546,576 dollars? Any takers at Goldman Sachs perhaps? I am not sure if that will happen, I am merely speculating!

You see, this goes a little further, it is not just the message of “Eurozone inflation picked up in April to 0%, from -0.1% in March. It brings to an end a four-month run of deflation“, which I got from Eurostat. You see, which of the 28 Euro players have rounded up their numbers? Likely more than one, so was the inflation 0%, or was it perhaps -0.048%? It is in the margins that we see the game being played, but playing it all from the margins is a dangerous game, because trimming the fat always leaves us with one player that takes the smallest slice of beef, now we are bleeding and one player goes ‘Oops!’.

We get the next piece from Germany. The statement “The number of people out of work in Germany dropped by 8,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis in April, to 2.792m. A bigger fall of about 15,000 had been expected“. I have two issues with this. the first being that these 8,000 mean 7.5 million a month less drainage on the German Treasury Coffers. These people now have a job, which is good for all parties, which means they will get extra groceries, perhaps treat themselves to a slice of cake to celebrate, which every person should do if they get themselves a job. It is the second part, the prediction ‘A bigger fall of about 15,000 had been expected‘, why? What data precipitated that thought?

You see, the people doing the forecasting as a whole have not been doing that great a job. They failed on multiple levels for years, mainly because of ‘unexpected’ conditions.

Now we get to Spain, where we see the quote “It shows that reforms work, it should help reduce unemployment much further and thus political fragility and it serves as a shining example to Greeks of what their country could have if its government finally returns to the path of virtue“, which is nice, but in this case, the given quote from Christian Schulz, economist at German bank Berenberg is one we also need to take caution with. I would like to claim this as a mere fact, because my ego would like to see Tsipras and Varoufakis cut down to size (am I too honest?). They played a very dangerous game on behalf of people who cannot afford to lose as they have nothing left, yet in my view Antonis Samaras had the right path. It was a painful path for all Greeks, but it was slowly getting Greece back. Now the Greeks face fears they never faced before. This is however not about Greece, this is about Spain. In my view Spain had nowhere left to go but up, or die. At 23%, one in four does not have a job, those with jobs work many long hours to keep their job, many products are still not getting sold because many people cannot afford it, so Spain is getting back on board, but ever so slowly and let’s face it, beating a 0.3% prediction, making 0.5% is not great, but it seems that exceeding predictions gets to be rewarded. The reality is that 0.5% is 2.5% below the currency inflation, so we have nothing to celebrate. When Spain loses even 2% unemployed persons, as they get a job, then we can make a cautious cheer. That moment is nowhere near at present. So why the optimism?

Now consider other elements, consumer spending is falling in France, Italy and a few other places. The economy slowed down in a massive way this quarter, even though in some places unemployment figures look better. The Netherlands now has the lowest unemployment rates compared to other numbers for a long period of time. Yet, the news came with the image of a lovely Dutch girl with impressive cleavage buying a backpack, which does not sway from the blow that the American economy is getting and that affects the Eurozone too.

So here we have the initial part, some EEC nations are now getting a little positivity (most less than 1%), which is better than zero or minus, but it still is a long way from serious movement away from dark times, they are still overhead for the largest extent.

Will you stand by the view that the economy is getting better? I say that this Trans European Crash is still moving along towards the assets of all citizens there. You see, every month I am wrong, it will not be because of the premise, but because some people were allowed to push forward the status quo. In the case of Greece that will be another €7.2bn, with additional funds for bailout three and four. Whomever considers that there will be no bailout four, so you better wizen up fast! Greece has almost 316 billion in debts, it will need another 7.2 to make payments now and then we will see the need for no less than 10 billion more and who knows how much for bailout number 4, which becomes a lot more important now that we see that the Greek government is out of cash. So as the Greeks are not defaulting, Europe gets the added pressure of 17-30 billion before the end of 2016 (likely no later than Q1 2016). So the Greek debt will go beyond 200% of GDP. So when you read these miracle messages of suddenly growing from 0.6% to 2.9% I worry, because someone is again getting creative with the numbers and not with the actual GDP. If the Greek GDP is doing so well, how come we see zero messages on how manufacturing is up by a lot, how unemployment numbers are down, as I see it this is a number ‘fixing’ game where Greece is kept on the edge of the Abyss in virtual representation, whilst in reality Greece took three steps forward over the edge! But those who need the Status Quo, those who invested and want their money, or give their losses to someone else are giving us a skewed picture.

This is what UKIP has been up in arms about. I can tell you now that the picture is a lot more complex than I give it, but I believe that I am right, I believe that several announcers are painting us something that is not there, that is even without the laughingly bizarre article in Forbes by Panos Mourdoukoutas on how ‘Greece’s Net Debt Is 18% of GDP, Not 175%‘, which sounds fine in theory (he uses net debt, not total debt), but why is all that taxation not collected? I see the article nothing more than the article of a Greek having a go at the Germans (oh, how original), yet in this light we also see Reuters stating ‘Ratings agencies say no default if Greece misses ECB, IMF payments‘ (at http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/01/us-greece-default-ratings-idUSKBN0NM3N420150501). This is partially true as I reported earlier, because missing a payment is only the track to the Grexit and Default, but not the immediate consequence.

Now we get to the jewel in that article, which links to all other parts “The only potential impact Allen & Overy’s Yannis Manuelides saw from any missed payments was that they could technically give the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) the option to demand immediate repayment of one of its big Greek loans. But as the EFSF is government controlled, that seems highly unlikely and it would most likely waive that option“. This is the crux, those in charge will put pressure on the EFSF to get time to settle things, which means the EFSF will not act immediately, because the governments want to make sure that there is no other option to get their money, so everything gets pushed forward. Yet not paying should have an impact on several linked numbers and it could hit Italy and France, this is the true nightmare, Greece is pushing to get both Italy and France on the edge, because that will unlock the big blocks of cash, from which Greece would ‘benefit’, in that regard we could see that Greece gets reduced to a mere slave labour nation, but that is just me stating the obvious.

This is partially the issue I feared coming. One small nation of less than 10 million gets to push the rest around because no one is muzzling the people who are not playing the game according to the rules, as many politicians are not held to account, Tsipras and Varoufakis worked under the premise, if they need not, then neither do we, which is not that ludicrous a thought, but Greece is the only one approaching 200% of GDP, giving pause to the incorrectness of their train of thought.

Station Crash

This is the point where the brilliance of ‘Kling Klang’ studios is shown, the repetitive background of the Trans Europe Express shows the status quo of the finance world, like a monotonous train engine, it is pushing the Greek situation and as we lose the ‘n’ of finance, we get that Greece becomes the debtors fiancé, a shattered relationship (perhaps battered might be the better word) that has no good ending in sight. In all this, I look again towards the Album of Kraftwerk and the brilliance how it relates here. Europe endless gives me the lyrics ‘Life is timeless’, or in this case the European’s time is lifeless. So as we watch the economists admiring themselves in the Hall of Mirrors, we see a shift, one that is NOT BECAUSE of Greece (lets remain fair here) but as they were allowed to continue, we see a shift of people now less and less willing to see Europe continue. When we see stories on how some families in UK sometimes have less than one meal a day, where Spain is in so much hardship the people are bleeding, but now Spain moves forward, in all this Greece sees itself above the law of normalcy and this will soon come to blows. Germany need only to step back and not interfere. So as Varoufakis states that Grexit advocates are ‘anti-European’, we see additional resentment towards Greece, not from the powers, l but from the voting population at large. In that form at present, National Front is still making headway in France, which spells really bad for the Eurozone. Spain becomes a second player, if it goes on like this, slowly making headway, additional fuel against Tsipras is won, yet if it goes the other way, several players will need to pull out if they wish to avoid getting hit by the debts of both Greece and Spain. You see, when one goes, the banks will want to offload the debts as fast as possible, preferably in the last hour before defaulting, leaving who owns it a mess no one will survive, which means they will try to get governments to sign long term agreements for the debts. Will it work? That is uncertain, the fact that most players desire status quo, means that it is not impossible, in the end the debt goes to millions of taxpayers, that might survive, the banks ending up with this bill will topple and go under. This is where we are!

Greece (possibly with Spain) will push France and Italy, they will push whatever is left!

Now we get to the banks and the Greek bank run, this was nicely stated in the Reuters article I mentioned earlier. Here we see “They would be more likely to default on their T-bills (than the ECB) the only problem is that they are then defaulting mostly on their own banks… and in any case a distressed exchange on T-bills would definitely be classed as a default“, this is the fear I had, yet I did not think it would go that fast, because this act leaves the Greek population without any money and this means that the Greek solution could only work outside of the Euro, super inflating a Drachma, paying people pieces of paper that had no real value, a new kind of monopoly where everyone gets cash and no cause for it is needed. Here we see the faltering logic in it, partially the logic on my side too. It can only work if Grexit is forced, which some places do not want (they want their investment) and the inflated Drachma means that retirement funds have no value whatsoever, not even the printed money that is handed for it. A virtual mess of real money and no assets. It is a currency that goes nowhere, a funding from nothing that cannot be, because any product that needs importation will not be affordable. Basically that new Drachma would be even less stable then the old shekel, a worrying thought.

Now we get the UKIP charter in a new light. UKIP will close the borders and will proclaim the European Union to be null and void in the light of the Union Jack, the only Union that England will recognise. After that Germany, Sweden, The Netherlands, Belgium et al will have no alternative left to them, just because Greece would not play ball. The UKIP view is the worrying one, because the electorates that were once an ‘outside chance to win‘ could grow beyond contender, Greece got them there, by playing the rock star game, the British people are now angry, because many of them are getting by on too little whilst team Tsipras/Varoufakis kept playing the ‘we do not care game’ loudly and squandering, it opposes the UK standard of normalcy. They will often spend money, but fess up to it and pay it back, Greece leaves the impression that paying back is not a given, which has been illuminated more than once by Yanis Varoufakis.

Yet, Europe is more than Greece and Greece is less than 5% of that entire mess, which is not voiced that often. Because at GDP, the debt of Greece seems phenomenal, but the debt Italy holds is massive, it is only because Italy does have its products to bring abroad, it has additional tourism and it has almost 60 million people is why Italy does not seem to be in as much danger. But at 130% of GDP, Italy is in trouble, the debt of Greece, if defaulted could push Italy pretty much over the Abyss too. This is the danger Europe faces as Italian Liga Nord could do worse damage to Europe, especially as it does not like the place Greece is pushing them. The Italian debt at 2.6Trillion Euro’s is nothing to be sneered at. Their debt is growing at almost 4000 Euro a second. To deal with the interest, every Italian would have to pay an additional 2,000 Euro a year. This was the danger all along, where Greece is, Italy soon will be and after that France will follow, that is the Trans Europe Crash we will face. This is why Nigel Farage wants to bail out before that bill comes, which is fair enough. If the European governments had changed their irresponsible views 5 years ago, there would be an improved path and Greece would have more time and no one would worry, but that is not the case. The train is approaching station eleven and time is no longer a luxury.

The moment we dread is coming, yet in all honesty, how hard it will hit is not known. We only know that all in Europe will suffer, those who will survive decently are those without debt, the rest will suffer for many years to come. So are you still happy you let things slide or are you ready to pass the Accountability Act? In that act, those who created the mess do not get to push it forward, they either resolve it or become liable. It is in my humble opinion the only way to get governmental budgets properly addressed.

But that might just be my view on this.

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Tagged as Allen & Overy's, Antonis Samaras, Berenberg, Christian Schulz, Conservatives, David Cameron, Drachma, EFSF, Europe, European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), Eurostat, Florian Schneider, France, German bank Berenberg, Germany, Goldman Sachs, Greece, Greek, Greek government, Hall of Mirrors, IMF, Italy, Kraftwerk, Nigel Farage, Panos Mourdoukoutas, Ralf Hütter, reuters, Shekel, Sotiria Zlatini, Spain, the Guardian, Trans Europe Express, Tsipras, UKIP, United Kingdom, Yanis Varoufakis, Yannis Manuelides

March 13, 2015 · 11:35

True torture

This issue started a while before this. The title “Tony Abbott: Australians ‘sick of being lectured to’ by United Nations, after report finds anti-torture breach” is just an incentive for emotion. (at http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-australians-sick-of-being-lectured-to-by-united-nations-after-report-finds-antitorture-breach-20150309-13z3j0.html).

There are two quotes that need to be looked at: “Mr Abbott’s criticism of the UN follows his attack last month of Australian Human Rights Commission President Gillian Triggs, in which he called the report she commissioned on children in detention a ‘political stitch-up’” and “The United Nations report, by the UN’s special rapporteur on torture, finds Australia is violating the rights of asylum seekers on multiple fronts under the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment“.

I am all for human rights! I think Human rights are important, but what about the people ‘orchestrating’ the message?

Let’s that a look at the message ‘U.N. Urges U.S. To Treat Migrants as Refugees’ (at http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/07/08/329774643/u-n-urges-u-s-to-treat-migrants-as-refugees). The message seems to be clear, but what is that message? When we consider the quote “The refugee agency is particularly concerned about the large number of unaccompanied children arriving in the U.S. Washington estimates more than 90,000 unaccompanied children will arrive by the end of September“.

This was the news of last year. You see, what we all ignore (especially Labor and Greens) is that this all has a cost, it does not matter whether it is in Australia, Canada or America. When we accept refugees we accept financial responsibility to some extent. This is the not so nice part if us trying to be good and humane, there is a cost and we do not shy away from it, but we have limits, we all do! With every irresponsible act of spending what none have we limit our options and limit those who we allow in as well.

There is however another side, the side from the UN as we see the title ‘Asylum seeker torture report: United Nations special rapporteur Juan Mendez responds to Tony Abbott criticism‘ (at http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/asylum-seeker-torture-report-united-nations-special-rapporteur-juan-mendez-responds-to-tony-abbott-criticism-20150310-13zrwz.html). The quote “I think we in the United Nations also deserve respect and I wish the Prime Minister had taken my views on this more seriously and engaged with my rapporteurship more constructively” is a defence and a subtitle, also a statement that is not incorrect, but perhaps incomplete. When we see the quote “Among the concerns raised by the report was that escalating violence on Manus Island, and the ‘intimidation and ill-treatment of two asylum seekers’ who gave statements about last year’s violent clashes at the centre was in breach of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment” issues come to light. Now, it is important that I am not making any claims of dishonesty or that the claims are lies. There would be no way for me to prove it. In addition, it is nice that we get these ‘verdicts’ from the UN, an administrative group where those ‘voices’ are incomes vastly above minimum wage, an income fuelled by other governments, but guess what, EVERY single one of these nations are in debt, not one excluded! Yet, this is not about money, or the income of some of these comfortable living executives. Let’s take a look at some of the elements.

Let’s restate the phrase: “intimidation and ill-treatment of two asylum seekers“, now, I am willing to blindly accept the following:

There are likely more than 2 victims
Let’s accept that in every case it is always both intimidation and ill-treatment

Now let’s take a look at the information form Amnesty international (at http://www.amnesty.org.au/refugees/comments/33587/), where they state the following: “There are currently 1,100 asylum seekers detained on Manus Island, all of whom are men who arrived without their families. These men have fled war, chilling acts of torture, threats of death, or profound discrimination. Many of them have made the desperate decision to make a perilous journey from Indonesia and other countries, including Sri Lanka, to Australia“.

Now, let’s be realistic and accept that more than two people have faced certain ordeals, there is no way for me to clearly find (at present) how many faced events. But if we take 20 people, than the issue revolves around 1.8% opposed to 0.18%. 1.8% might be too large, and I would agree with it, but we all seem to forget that a detention centre like that, is a place with constant pressures and clashing cultures, there are uncertain times ahead for many of these people, so pressures will come to a boil pretty fast in a place like that.

I am trying not to trivialise, but the need for better statistics is evidently required before we start a dictionary war between Australian parliament and the UN, whilst we know that the media is ‘presiding’ both sides whilst they enjoy the benefit of the occurring discord.

Yet, in the end, the actual culprit has not once been named. Oh, evil villain, oh master of the dischordian principle that weighs the loom of infinity unto the hands of fate. I have seen thee oh villain and I name thee………. (wait for it)………. Tax-Man!

Yes, in all the issues of emotion, so many forget that humanitarian aid must be paid for. Humanitarian causes require funds to exist, as do immigration centres, because they are a pure cost for any government. Which is one reason why Greece is getting rid of them tout-suit! In addition, they are so broke they are now returning to the need for WW2 reparations from Germany, which I will not condemn, but in reality, their own Tax-Man did not do anything, which covers close to 1/3rd of all their debt. So as they ignored current debts (and irresponsible spending), they go back to WW2. It makes perfect sense, the Greek PM and that finance ‘Rock Star’ have no other options (if they want to remain in power), but this is not about the Greek debt!

This is about refugees and the truth is that many nations (most of them), they are all failing refugees, mainly because of Tax-Man. You see, this super villain relies on the help of its sidekick Mrs. Poli Titian and this sidekick has been overspending, giving tax breaks to large corporations in a whimsy notion that under those condition more money would come in. It was a flawed approach, because they all rely on people SPENDING money. Guess what? They overspend on luxuries and are now paying it off, many have no jobs and many more have been in an income world that resembles the world of Frozen, whilst the cost of living is still rising. All this adds up to empty coffers.

So Mr Juan Mendez, where will these costs come from? This is not my lashing out, this is me actually asking. I remain in favour to help refugees as much as possible, but how? We need to make massive changes to the way of life we now have. Mrs Poli Titian needs to actually instigate massive changes. Not just in Australia, US, Canada et al. ALL nations need to accept certain changes. We need to readdress the way we think and I will admit right here, right now that I am at a loss how to go best about it.

In my view, there is an option, but it is not one you like, not one you will even find acceptable or humane.

Retirement homes are as per now only for those without family. If they have family, they must go there. This needs to be a global change

Yes, you are all upset now. Yet consider, if we unite families we shrink the costs of arranging all this, yet in answer, those funds will ALL go to legal aid, health care aid and refugee aid.

Refugees can come in, but only assigned to volunteer positions for places like Salvation Army, St. Vincent, Red Cross and other volunteer places. For this they receive room and board. It will give aid to other places, work force and support. For that they will receive a place in our community and after 5 years they will get automatic citizenship.

Non-compliance means expulsion from that nation!

This is not even that harsh, the situation could become a lot worse soon enough, then what will we do? As we get all these academic people (and governmental expert consultants) telling us how things will get better soon, hoping that they can avoid actually answering the question in earnest.

The Greek example of their detention centres might have been the most outspoken, but I feel certain that they are not the worst, not by a long shot. Real refugees want to work towards a better future, my solution seems to be less, but it still gives them a guaranteed future for them and their children.

The parliament of Australia site gave me two paragraphs that matter (at http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp0001/01RP05).

“Asylum seekers are drawn to particular countries by a range of obvious factors-proximity, family and ethnic community networks, employment opportunities and wage levels, generosity of welfare systems, levels of tolerance within existing societies, and the accessibility of determination systems. In Europe last year 70 per cent of asylum seekers sought protection in just four countries-Germany, Britain, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Acceptance rates are more revealing of a country’s political priorities, or its attitude to migration, or the weight of numbers it has had to deal with, or its diplomatic relations with ‘sending’ countries, than the genuineness of refugee claims” and “Australia is perhaps unique amongst Western countries in its capacity and willingness to remove failed asylum seekers; in other countries most failed asylum seekers simply remain. Australia has however joined other countries in attempting to discourage new applicants. The most minimal welfare payment, special benefit, is provided to illegally arrived asylum seekers even after they have been determined to be Convention refugees; they are provided with temporary visas with no family reunion entitlements; and they are denied access to settlement services tailored for and provided free to off-shore refugees”

In my view refugees would (read: should) willingly go to any place that will accept them, this information gives a slightly different view. It is also interesting that the information is incorrect. The Dutch numbers are going down, whilst the Swedish numbers were going up. Moreover, the Swedish numbers are over 25% higher, yet the premise of the writ is not strongly affected. In this light we will see that the economies of the large 6, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Sweden, the Netherlands and Switzerland will soon change stronger and stronger if large changes are not made. Reasoning is that ‘in earnest’ (not in condemnation of any kind), refugees are an economic burden. They often cannot speak the language, the culture is different and there will be other moments that will stop them from becoming an asset to any future (most important their own future).

The solution that I am proposing might seem ‘inhumane’, but they are cast in places where people are less likely to take advantage of them. They will be in places helping their new nation and as such themselves as well and they will get exposed to a strong impulse of skills, language and cultural foundations that will only propel them stronger in future. In that light their children will already be eligible for schools and will help them build even stronger foundations.

Is my plan the best? No, it is not, but by giving it to large industries, who gave a massive part of that to their own members of the board is certainly never going to be a solution. This is not some anti-industry chant. The issue is that life in any environment requires equilibrium. A ‘coalition’ and politicians with their ‘after-elected’ need, as I personally see it, have been uniting for the need of a few and that need has been answered for these few to such an extent that the many are now no longer regarded as essential. We have now entered into the realm of trimming. Not the trimming of the fat, but the trimming of non-consumers and in the short minded view of the industry, those, of whom they think no one needs. But in that same view we will also trim our humanity, reduced to be workers, for the lessened good of consuming.

My view is not a good one, but as I see it, it beats where we are moving towards. In the end, is my view just an exaggerated negative view? I personally wish it was so, but consider the following facts:

External debt and population

Germany – 5.5 trillion – 81m
France – 5.7 trillion – 64m
United Kingdom – 9.5 trillion – 65m
Sweden – 1.1 trillion – 10m
Netherlands – 2.5 trillion – 17m
Switzerland – 1.6 trillion – 8m

Now take the next part in close (but sceptical consideration), one report claims that for the UK servicing the debt costs a mere £43bn, which amounts to the entire defence spending of the UK. The UK collected a forecasted 650 billion in taxation last year, taking 6% of the budget away just to keep Even Steven, so if the UK wants to move forward they need to budget on 90% whilst collecting the 100% forecasted part. It is quite the miracle to make that happen. Now the UK and Germany are doing reasonably well (compared too many other nations), but they too have issues. When we look at Sweden and the Netherlands; that image swifts a lot faster in a downward spiral. Perhaps some will remember the issues Switzerland and their currency had a little over a month ago in my article ‘A seesaw for three‘ on January 18th 2015 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/01/18/a-seesaw-for-three/)

We now see the picture adding up to a lot more hardship, and add to that the refugees:

Germany 571K – 144
France 210K – 310
United Kingdom – 194K – 319
Sweden – 86K – 106
Netherlands – 75K – 222
Switzerland – 50K – 154

Now the view is almost complete. So for Germany we see 571,000 refugees, which means one refugee per 144 non refugees. The 144 pay for the way of one refugee. We could think that this is easy, but now consider that taxation is down, so the required money is not getting in (for various reasons). Now we see the problem, how can any government continue to support a sliding scale? This is not about fairness, because it is not fair on the refugee. I will be on the first line stating this, but when the bills are due, fairness will no longer be a factor. If we want to resolve the refugee solution, so that we all can continue giving them a future, something must give way. We can hope for a much better economy, but that is a ludicrous fantasy, even if the economy suddenly upgrades by 15%, these nations will still be hurt by the overspending and the consequential bills that became the headache for well over a decade.

So in my view we either change the way the refugee issues are addressed, or soon thereafter Australia will not be the only one sending back refugees, with the consequential nightmare that such actions will bring.

So as I contemplate the words of Juan Mendez, I wonder if Mr Mendez has considered the dangers of true torture when funds run truly dry on a near global basis. We all need to look at how it can be made better as we all should consider such steps, but in addition, no one seems to be looking at the cost of it all, yet the pressures of the rising costs of helping refugees getting a future are not being addressed in this economy, why not?

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December 14, 2014 · 21:39

Where we disagree

There is another article in the Guardian; it was published almost 12 hours ago (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/dec/14/deficit-problem-crisis-productivity-george-osborne). It is a good story, it gives a decent view, but I feel that I cannot agree. It must be said that this is all in the eyes of the beholder. The article is good and sound and many will adhere to this idea. Yet, I do not completely agree. Yes, all the facts are right, the view is not incorrect, but it feels incomplete. The first quote “The most important issue is the poor performance of the nation’s productivity, which, far from being improved, has almost certainly been exacerbated by the constant emphasis on the putative need for austerity”, now this is a decent view to have, it is an optional view, yet in my view the following com up:

Productivity relies on orders; the UK is competing with its baby brother India where daily labour rates are decently below the hourly rate of a UK worker. That in itself is not enough, the EEC overall is pretty broke, no less than one in 10 has no job, it is driven up by Spain and Greece, yet after a long term most Europeans are very careful about where money is spend on. So which manufacturing industry is getting the few coins that do get spend?
There is no reputed need to austerity; there is an overspending in excess of 1 trillion that needs to be addressed. We can bark high and low on the reasoning for it, but that water passed the bridge a long time ago, now the debt needs to be taken care of. The US, Japan and UK have a combined debt of 30 trillion of national debt, the UK is a little over 3% of all this, let’s make sure that when the two behemoths stumble into nothingness, the UK does not end up being the biggest debt of all (again just my view), yet I feel certain that the banks will be in charge of a nation with such debts.

Yes, productivity will take care of all it, but I believe that the debt needs more then productivity. It needs innovation and IP. They will drive true productivity. People forget about the innovators. Alan Turing is still regarded as the man behind the concept of Artificial intelligence. What was a fab in the 40’s became the driving power for the planet from the 90’s onward; let’s not forget the foundations for the computer. We seem to herald IBM and others, yet Professor Sir F.C. Williams was at the foundation of the driving force that became the behemoth for almost half a century and this wave is still going strong.

The new currency will be IP; innovation will drive the places of work, the places of sales and the filling of coffers (the empty bags currently in a corner of George Osborne’s office).

People keep on ignoring the need for innovation; I tried it twice in a previous job. The response remained almost the same ‘it works as it is, so leave it‘, that is the drive stopper that ends a future, although the early 1900’s did not have the need for IP, consider the history of the paperclip and Gem Manufacturing Ltd, a British company. They had the better design, but never registered the patent, which is why Johan Vaaler is often seen as the inventor. I am not debating the validity, yet he registered his patent. In those days the rights were approached a lot more liberal then now. Nowadays our lives are all about IP, patents and who it is registered to. Haven’t we learned anything in 115 years? No matter that we now enjoy an article that is not patented, in nice contrast to people who enjoy a life because the man behind finding a cure (read vaccine) for polio did intentionally decide not to patent it (Dr Jonas Salk, who deserves a sainthood for that act), our future for certain, our survival to some exaggerated extent is depending on IP. Need drives production, but who owns the article that is needed? That part I see ignored again and again.

William Keegan does not look at the IP side, because he focuses on the steps following it, yet those in this real rat race seems to silence the need to look at it as they talk about productivity and manufacturing, but the innovator behind it, the one designing the IP, that person is worth gold. Consider Microsoft paying 2 billion for a piece of IP called Minecraft. A simple game, looking the way Minecraft does, is worth the revenue the high end looking GTA-5 made. It is all about IP in gaming; it should be the same in nearly any industry, not just the one that got kicked off by Alan Turing and Professor Sir F.C. Williams. IP drives every computer industry, it became the centre piece in the jewel that is now called ‘Business Intelligence‘ and ‘Predictive Analytics‘, but we broke the system after that.

Why was the system broken?

It is a broken system that is now illuminated in its flaws by people like Sir Kenneth Robinson and Brian Blessed. We ignored for too long that IP and innovation requires creativity. As Universities have been pushing logic and business, they forgot that the future tends to be created in the arts. Creativity is the driving force for any future, whatever is produced after this required a need for IP. It is a chicken and the egg issue, will the thought create the idea or is the idea the drive for creation? As I see it, this drive needs an artistic side, a side I was never any good in, but the best futures will need an artistic hand. It is shown into the massive amounts of IP the gaming industry manages. People might wonder why I keep on coming back to the gaming industry.

The answer is simple Games have driven a trillion dollar industry (totalled). Commodore Business Machines (C-64, Amiga) Atari (2600,800, ST), Creative Labs (soundcard), The consoles that followed by Nintendo, Sony, SEGA and Microsoft and the list goes on and on, all from creativity. Even the military sees the essential need of creativity. Consider the text “Space-based Missile Defense: Advancing Creativity“, it is at the heart of everything, so many forgot about that, those in charge forgot about that part. It is why my vote for Cambridge chancellor would not have been for Lord Sainsbury of Turville, but for Brian Blessed. Lord Sainsbury is not a wrong person, or a bad choice. As I see it, all our futures require a much stronger drive towards the arts and creativity. In my crazy creative view photography was invented in 1642 by a Dutchman named Rembrandt van Rijn; his visionary view came 200 years before the chemicals were invented, if you want evidence? It is in the Rijksmuseum and they call it ‘the Nightwatch’.

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December 6, 2014 · 20:43

Not just telling you so!

This article took a little time. There is so much not happening, it is almost scary. Yet, I found a few issues that gave way to the following topics from both the past and the upcoming present.

The Dutch Economy will recover slower according to the IMF (at http://nos.nl/artikel/2007483-imf-langzamer-herstel-economie-nederland.html). Here we see the following statement in regards to this: “Het IMF dacht in oktober nog dat de Nederlandse economie volgend jaar met 1,4 procent zou groeien, dat is nu iets naar beneden bijgesteld op 1,2 procent. Dit jaar wordt een groei verwacht van 0,8 procent. Dat is overigens iets meer dan de 0,6 procent die het IMF een jaar geleden verwachtte“. “Translated: The IMF expected the Dutch economy to grow next year with 1.4%, which is downgraded to 1.2%, this year the economy will grow with 0.8%, which is slightly better than the 0.6% expected a year ago“.

Yet, when we look at my blog dated May 15th 2013 ‘A noun of non-profit‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2013/05/15/a-noun-of-non-profit/), we see the following: “The Dutch NOS reported the prediction that even though the Dutch economy will shrink another 0.5%, they do predict a growth of 1.1% next year, so basically, they expected the economy to grow 1.1%“, so that story about “this year the economy will grow with 0.8%, which is slightly better than the 0.6% expected a year ago“, seems to be retroactive rhetorical whimsy (a sort of economic BS using numbers, as I see it). When we see the predictions on how they were ‘so close’, it is in its most colourful form an example about a guy having unprotected sex and then cry out ‘but I almost did not get her pregnant!’, yes, pragmatically speaking he failed by a mere six inches (you the reader can connect the dots, can’t you?).

You see, this is not whether I am right or wrong (it is a nice side effect), I am postulating the issues of managing Bad News. We see this happen all over the world, even in the more respectable places like the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. There are cogs in the system, but between these cogs is one extra cog that is slightly variable in size. You see, if the cogs are consistent as a watch, then they are always at one speed. Yet economies do not run like that, so the spring that drives it is not consistent in strength and resilience, as such the cogs would be a little variable in displaying the economy, now here is the magic cog, it is placed between two cogs so that it can shrink or expand, so as the economy slows down, then so does that cog, which means it rotates faster and commercial times will move through with the same consistency, we do not get to notice the slowing. Yet, this approach is virtual, it is nice on paper, but in reality, the money is not coming in, so the people have to make due with less, but the economy shows growth, no matter how much we cannot afford food and the items for our creatures comfort.

I think that the IMF is aware of this to some extent. Euro nations have been optimising their presentations in a few ways. Mind you, then are not cooking the books, but at times as the situation is generic, there are all kinds of posts that could be included or excluded, the difference is billions allowing for an upgrade or downgrade by one or two tenths of a percentage point. That is at the heart of it, now we see this for almost a dozen nations and the colourful loom that is called the EEC economy is now a lot less white and its product shows a fabric in all the colours of the rainbow, which is what we face now. We get incorrect presentation which will require a lot more adjusting. Doubt me? Then consider the two quotes that I showed earlier from the IMF. In an economy of 770 billion (previous Dutch GDP), the offset comes down to 3.85 billion, that covers a lot of bills. Now that you see this, consider how inaccurate some need to be to base a budget on something that is off by almost 4 billion, which is 50% of the entire budget for defence. How can this not have been ‘predicted’ better? Well, here is the crux, prediction are never accurate (and 4 billion out of 770 billion is a mere drop), yet in the end, governments all over the world will always portray them to be in a better position, then downgrade that view, yet with billions at risk, that approach seems short-sighted to me. It is almost a forced attempt to spend where there is no money, which is how we all got to be in this predicament to begin with.

To illustrate it, I will grasp to the article and link of a story done by Greg Jericho, who does an excellent job of it. It is called ‘Why isn’t the government being held to account on the China free trade deal?‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2014/nov/20/why-isnt-the-government-being-held-to-account-on-the-china-free-trade-deal). I do not completely agree with his assessments, but overall the picture that is painted here is quite clear and not incorrect. The first quote in this regard it “The modelling, which was used in the feasibility study, estimates that had a free-trade agreement been signed in 2005 by 2015, our GDP would have been about $3bn more than it would have otherwise been. Is that much? Well it’s about 0.37% bigger. So no, it’s not much at all“. Yes, I have warned in previous articles how dangerous it is to compare statistics, what I had not mentioned at that time, which was not in play, is that changing the base of measurement is also a good way to ‘lie with statistics’, as the article points out. I had done an example in a class I have years ago on founding a hypothesis. In there I used a Dutch municipality data set. When I compared the two in one graph, it showed how the states that were adjacent to the river ‘the Maas’ had decreased in average population, in those years that river caused damage due to flooding in several towns. Yet, the municipalities are all over that state, so does it apply? How to prove it? That is an entirely different question.

Now, I have nothing against free trade, but when we consider the large corporations not paying tax at all due to artistic accounting, adding fuel to the fire to give these large firms even more options to avoid taxation is not a good thing. So that net revenue, how is that taxed, what is more important, once this agreement is in place, how long until Google, Apple and Amazon will change their parameters to include that setup to avoid paying more taxation. How does that help Australia or Australians in any way, shape or measure? When that graph changes, export slows down and imports of all measure go up, how will free trade benefit then? I am not stating that this will happen, I am just wondering what happens if it does.

The one statement by Greg I disagree with is the one at the end “A free-trade agreement is no more a guarantee of economic growth than not having one is“; I would state “A free-trade agreement gives a lot more danger to tax avoidance on several levels than not having one“. Google, Apple and several others proved that point for the last 4 years, at present there is little chance of seeing them pay any taxation for at least another three years, then there is the solar panel debacle, but the least said the better. The fact that there is a decent issue with well over 50% of the panels (out of 600-1000 manufacturers) should give an indication that this free trade agreement, does not necessarily mean that quality will improve, with free-trade in play, that list consisting of dozens upon dozens of articles will sharply rise. How to guarantee that quality? The article does not reflect on that (was not meant to do so), but that issue will be (better stated should be) on our minds too. There is however one side that we should consider. We forget how rich the Chinese culture is. I believe that China could become a serious player on the video games market. Some of these stories would translate into different genres of games on every console. I am not talking about South South East China (most people call it Taiwan), I am referring to Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing. One of the strongest cultures has not presented itself digitally in any strong way, which is a shame, because in the end, gamers care for good games, not where it was made.

Why the jump to games and gaming? Well, it is one of the markets I know a lot of. We might be on par with IT, engineering and other options, but gaming in China, original gaming in China is a relative unknown. We tend to look at Japan for that. Well, guess what, Nintendo has been rereleasing games for some time now (good games mind you), but they are slowly becoming an iteration of what was an original concept. It is not about the games (well, it is only to some extent), I believe that new innovation, new IP and new, truly mindboggling advances come from interaction. We need IP, advances and new opportunities, these come from fields we have not seen yet. If you doubt it, consider 1993, when a game named Doom entered into our lives. Most will not remember it, but it changed gaming in a massive way. I still believe that this game became the spark that would be the conception of what would become in 1998 the Unreal engine. That would change gaming forever, even today, 16 years later, many games are relying on the unreal engine, and some of the artwork created today through the Unreal engine is so amazingly sharp that it makes the result almost undistinguishable from reality. That is the foundation I believe we can see, another jolt in the advance of gaming. That is a development which will not just remain in gaming, as unreal developed, it developed a commercial need for 3D technologies and it even has military applications in more than one nation today. I believe that the multi-billion dollar games industry has the potential to drive a trillion dollar commercial need for innovation; we only need to find the right combination to make it work.

That’s just the opinion of one blogger, but I feel fairly certain it is a shared opinion.

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