Tag Archives: Wall Street

March 20, 2020 · 15:02

Insensitive Me

Yes, at times I tend to be truly absent of empathy, especially when I see small items like ‘as companies struggle with debt‘, so as I am given ‘Experts warn companies that have gorged on cheap money for the past decade face going out of business‘, some of them relied on the famous sales quote ‘Fake it till you make it’, and now we see the ‘warning’ sign “A worldwide credit crunch triggered by the coronavirus will set in motion a wave of corporate bankruptcies that will make the global financial crisis look like “child’s play”, investors have warned.” In this my sober response would be ‘And? Why (the eff) would I care?‘, these people relied on the debt, money they never had to get beyond the point of faking it till they made it and one small flu event is now driving them out of business. So as the world is throwing trillions against it all, I wonder just how short sighted they are. The EU spent 3 trillion on an economy to start it and it never did. As such there will be a much larger toll to everyone involved. There is no upside in “The sudden loss of revenue faced by airlines, tourism-related businesses and carmakers make them extremely vulnerable” OK, we get it, it is not their fault, but we have seen an economy giving out ebts, loans and cheap travels all over the world. Now that there will be an actual cost, there is always an impact we did not see coming. And as we are treated to: “many companies will struggle to refinance debt due to a repeat of the sudden change in credit conditions that sparked the 2007 credit crunch, banking collapses and then the GFC. The prospect of no revenue for months meant creditworthiness had plummeted in exposed sectors and cut off access to funding” we see the shortsigted issues that not having reserves bring. There is now a larger cost to rolling over debts and the stage that zero revenue brings will kill off the smaller players, those players thinking that they were in the same league of the big boys and the big boys are indeed wondering if they survive this age, as such the small fishes have almost no chance. 

As such as we consider the impact of “$2 trillion worth of corporate debt is due to be rolled over this year” all whilst we see no validation of debt rolling over, and the absence of paid off debts, we see a much larger field and everyone is in a stage ‘but why me?‘, as I personally see it, it will affect everyone who did not take the option to reduce their debts. I get it, some will be in a shabby situation and none of this is on them, but to give a rise to 5 out of 500 is a little shallow, is it not? It is the station that we see with “Lindsay David, of independent consultancy LF Economics, said the coronavirus shutdown had exposed longstanding imbalances in the financial system that had been disguised by more than a decade of ultra-low interest rates and trillions of dollars from quantitative easing schemes in the major economies“, we see the stupidity of ‘longstanding imbalances in the financial system‘ and the question attached to that ‘Why was it unattended for so long?‘ is a station that no one wants to be at, no one wants to answer that part of the equation. 

As such, the quote “We know everyone is overleveraged, full-bore, full-risk,” he said. “All we were waiting for was a trigger and unfortunately that has come in the form of a health crisis.” As such it is not the fault of the Coronavirus, any trigger would have sufficed, as such being the one adhering to some Wall Street need, is set to zero and the house will take it all, it is in that light that some see players like Virgin Australia who needs to roll over $5 billion whilst it is in a stage where it cannot bring more than $500 million to the table, a mere 10%, even in the better stage where it would have been double that, rolling over is a doubtful stage for a few lenders, yet this health trigger is not the one anyone hoped or even wished for, it is a stage that was well over 10 years in the making and greed driven people filled their pockets and walked away with a multi million bonus, enough to live in luxury for the next 10 years. After which the market will resettle and their stage of profit comes again, that is what we have catered to.

So as we are introduced to “A full repeat of the post-Lehman Brothers crisis was on the cards, he said, as banks scrambled to hold on to liquidity” a lot of people have not considered the stage we see where the panic driven people first bought out all the pasta they could and after that take out their ATM and saving balance before the bank runs out, at that stage the initial point leading to the worst of the worst will be a much larger stage for everyone.

And the larger issue is seen at the end of the article with: “Let’s say you are a pension fund in Canada and six years ago you gave a bank $1bn. Every year you roll over that bond and the deal remains in place. But now you’re saying, ‘you know what, can I have that money back now?’. So the problem for the company is, where will I find $1bn? Not from its deposits or its liquidity because it’s now got more money going out than coming in.” and that is not where it ends, in October 2019 we saw “regulators should be ensuring the strength of the financial sector to withstand future risks, not weaken it, but that is not what is happening in the U.S.  Recent moves to ease regulations suggest financial stability risks are at an inflection point. Incentives to leverage will continue to rise as interest rates remain low amid a global search for yield.  Vulnerabilities that have been “moderate” could escalate quickly to “elevated”, as they did in the lead up to the 2007 – 2008 crisis“, as such some tried to ‘ease’ the Basel 3 regulations as fast as their greedy needs required, as such, we see “Phase-in arrangements for the leverage ratio were announced in the 26 July 2010 press release of the Group of Governors and Heads of Supervision. That is, the supervisory monitoring period will commence 1 January 2011; the parallel run period will commence 1 January 2013 and run until 1 January 2017; and disclosure of the leverage ratio and its components will start 1 January 2015. Based on the results of the parallel run period, any final adjustments will be carried out in the first half of 2017 with a view to migrating to a Pillar 1 treatment on 1 January 2018 based on appropriate review and calibration” (at https://www.bis.org/press/p100912.pdf), now that was then and it got a little more time “The leverage ratio1 and the Net Stable Funding Ratio (NSFR), which took effect in January 2018, and the supervisory framework for measuring and controlling large exposures, which took effect in January 2019, have yet to be adopted by all jurisdictions (Graph 1). The leverage ratio is now in force in 16 jurisdictions (one more since 2018), while 11 jurisdictions have final rules in force for the NSFR (unchanged since 2018). Only 10 jurisdictions have final rules in force for the large exposures framework.” (at https://www.fsb.org/work-of-the-fsb/implementation-monitoring/monitoring-of-priority-areas/basel-iii/) as such it is not required until 1 January 2022 (as some stated), and now that it is too late, we will get the larger impact. So how happy are you with those people making 6 figure numbers and delaying it all again and again? You will feel that part soon enough when internal systems start to buckle. We might think that President Trump $1 trillion dollar bailout is a good thing, but when that money dries up (and it will dry up a lot faster than you think) he will a scared little mouse, as he will see firsthand what 300 million angry Americans look like and corporations will see the impact of their delay and rollover tactics. Even now as we are told ‘Trump administration is asking states to hold off on releasing unemployment figures as economy plummets‘, we might start to see a much larger failing. We are in a stage where we set ourselves up for a much larger stage, one that outstages the great depression of the 30’s, it merely took a case of the flu to get us there.

Should you think I am exaggerating, consider the Bloomberg headline (at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-19/goldman-sees-deepest-australian-downturn-since-great-depression) a mere 2 hours ago. It might have the sobering ‘Goldman Sees Deepest Australian Downturn Since Great Depression‘ headline, but in part the overp[aid delaying factors are to some degree cause of it all and they are hiding behind “Most of the contraction is expected to be driven by a collapse in ‘social’ consumption“, the essential part of ‘the stage of reserves is not what it needed to be‘ is not mentioned anywhere, you have to distill that from other parts and read through the emptiness of what they claim, they might claim facts, yet they do not give any part of the whole story and it will hit the US, Australia, the UK, France, Spain, Italy and to some degree even Germany. That is what we have to look forward to, at least as the Covid panic continues. It seems to me that the makers of pasta and pantry items are in a much better position. Until a month ago, the idea that San Remo ends up being one of the richest companies in Australia would have been laughed at, when you look at the empty shelves almost everywhere last week, that stage is a lot less laughable at present, I wonder in all this whether the new economic superpower will include San Remo and/or Barilla, as there is a chance that the seat of Virgin Australia on that board will be up for grabs soon enough.

 

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March 9, 2020 · 15:31

WYSIWYG?

What you see is what you get, that has been around since the old PC XT (or AT) tried its hands on desktop publishing. The phrase continued and spread in other paths, and we all accepted the term. Yet the term evolved and the fakeness of the term used later was ignored. As such the evolved WYSIWHY has come to be: What You See Is What Hyped You.

We see it in all matters of events. How the media gives rise to ‘Fed cuts rates by half a percentage point to combat coronavirus slowdown‘ (source:CNBC), even as there were less than 300 cases in a nation with 325,000,000 people, no such consideration was ever given with Swine flu or HIV. It was merely an administration what wanted to avoid the use of ‘recession’, now we see ‘Recession fears grow as Wall Street investors brace for a wild week for stocks‘ (source: Washington Post), even as we accept “after coronavirus fears caused the biggest weekly decline for U.S. stocks since the financial crisis“, the idea that a case of the flu, with a present 109,975 cases is just insane and most people are just buying the cake shovelled towards us. Consider that China has 73% of the cases and 19.3% of the cases are spread over Italy, South Korea and Iran. So how can these 4 nations impact the world economy to THAT extent? Lets not forget that the global fatality is still around 3.4%, all whilst the cases in Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Norway, Singapore, Austria, and Canada are without fatalities (at present), as such the overreaction is large and WYSIWHY is as I personally see it the stage.

Yet this is not about that, even as the beer virus (Corona) is staged to you in ‘E3 2020 is on a knife-edge right now – and it could end the gaming show for good‘ by Techradar (at https://www.techradar.com/news/e3-2020-is-on-a-knife-edge-right-now-and-it-could-end-the-gaming-show-for-good), there are a few important parts here and it is time to call the spades that they are not diamonds (or hearts for that matter). 

As I personally see it, there is a larger rift between Sony and Microsoft and it is coming to blows soon enough. Sony wants to be slightly cheaper than the Microsoft product, all whilst the Microsoft presentations are hiding the simple fact that they DO NOT want to reveal the storage space on their contraption. Look at all the presentations over the last year, it is all about hype creation, all whilst storage is a massive part of a console, no matter how you play, you need storage and for almost a year Microsoft steered away from it in any way they could and for them the E3 is coming too soon to feel comfortable. More importantly, in 2013 they had this ‘always online‘ part and it nearly destroyed the Xbox as a product, now they are afraid to come out and play as the kids would say, they are all into hype creation, whilst essential issues like price and storage are averted. I give them a pass on price this early, not on storage, because if the systems is this ready, the storage is known, even if there are multiple options. 

Microsoft desperately needs WYSIWHY and the people in gaming have had enough of that stage. The Techradar article mentions Microsoft once, a player that distinct in the E3 history, to see it only once, implies (for me at least) that this is about avoidance. Sony has had a great run and it has the benefit of a huge PS population, it is ahead by a lot. To be honest, if the PS5 is $100 more expensive than the Microsoft version, I will still go for the Sony option, as I personally see and feel it, there was too much treason by Microsoft towards me, too much harassment towards online and too much bricks on the road for the offline players (not to mention all the advertisements on my XBox One home page), intentional limitations is as much of an harassment than anything else and Microsoft is out of options with me.

There are a few options, especially as the E3 trade show is a moneymaker, merely delaying it would already be a clear alternative, no the talk is ‘cancellation’ and it does not sit well with me (so far ESA has clearly denied any cancellation of the E3). Yes, even as the corona cases are blatantly out of proportions (the shouting that is), we see no foul in delaying the E3 event, cooler heads prevail and I see that the E3 might have to be delayed, yet for how much, that is the question, also, as the E3 is getting closer to the end of the year, the PS5 and the Microsoft alternative could actually be presented to players, as such I see that there is a lot more going on. Nintendo has a hard time ahead, but the Switch is so switched on that it will stay standing in the upcoming Sony vs Microsoft battle, but Microsoft does not want that, you see with the Nintendo Switch surpassing Microsoft on lifetime sales the stage is not pretty for Microsoft, they were willing to grudgingly be in second place, but to get to a trade show where the weakest processor sells better then the most powerful one, especially as pricing is seemingly not the issue is too unsettling for Microsoft, until they can hype some kind of a win over the other two, they want to avoid the E3 completely, yet the E3 is more than these three, the game makers (Bethesda, Ubisoft, Square Enix, Sega and others) are also a factor, they are the people also enticing the audience and even as we see good things, we see that Ubisoft is in terrible danger. First we get “The Division 2 is still having a few issues, despite the release of a new update. The issue appears to be affecting Xbox One owners, who are unable to login because their characters are locked.” (source: the Express), then there were a load of issues with Breakpoint, Digital Trends gave us yesterday “Ubisoft will try to save Ghost Recon Breakpoint with huge overhaul, new modes” this is on what some would call ‘an old system’, and it seems that they are nowhere near ready to go to the new systems, whatever presentation they bring with get nitpicked by thousands and Ubisoft might not ready for that as I personally see it because they could not properly test games (as the released evidence shows or muzzle their marketing department until it was safe for them to create hypes).

Bethesda’s largest issue was Fallout 76, and that is fair. They gave us two days ago “Just Because It Didn’t Go Well Doesn’t Mean It Was Wrong to Try Something Different“. OK I support that part, trying something new could break the bank, it did with the Nintendo Switch, and there is no shame in trying and failing (Nintendo WiiU anyone?) This is how gaming goes. When you are on the edge of what is possible, doing the same will not get you anywhere, I personally was not up for Fallout 76 (I prefer my games single player), as such Pete Hines is correct and beyond that, until they have something that is really ready on PS5/XBox, they might prefer to remain quiet, I get that. The E3 is too big and it is possible that some makers don’t have anything ready at that point and that is fine, but the fact that no one has anything, that becomes too weird.

If I can design a gaming idea in 8 hours, so can those who are better at it then me, that is merely a simple truth to behold and the cancellation of the E3 does not make sense. Yes it makes sense for Microsoft (for all the expected reasons) and it makes sense for Ubisoft (for all their unfortunate events), yet there is more than these two and there is so much to behold in gaming land that it is sad to see so much depend on the PS5/XBox to falter (whilst some are hiding behind a bottle of Corona).

As Techradar finishes with “given the melting pot of illness, behind-the-scenes disagreements, and online distribution channels threatening its survival. And the status of E3 2020 could be decided any day now. We’ll keep you informed either way” we see that nothing is set in tone, but the flexibility to avoid issues are in play, we get part of that. 

So let’s look at the elements

  1. Illness. Not an issue, the delay could optionally avoid that and give rise to solving another part.
  2. Behind-the-scenes disagreements. OK, we accept that, but that has always been the case, in this stage we see that Microsoft and Ubisoft are in a massive negative swing, so do these two players have THAT much swing on the E3?
  3. Online distribution channels. Not an issue educating and buying a muzzle for your marketing department solves that. What is hyped is an issue, but only to the hyper, online distribution channels have been a larger issue for much longer and the NDA tends to solve several issues, in addition, barring those who break the NDA is also a solution, the fact that they can never get nfo ever again also makes them unemployable, so people tend to take these parts serious. It also implies that the smaller fry gets left out which is not a bad thing, there are plenty of larger players that have (to the best of my knowledge adhered to the NDA states, as such just the muzzling of their marketing department remains, hiring the right people tends to solve that.
  4. New: E3 2020 Creative Directors Resign, OK that is an optional event, there is a larger issue in play and it is not merely the running aways by Creative Directors. There is not enough information to judge the actions of iam8bit, and the actions by Geoff Keighley give rise to a lot more and this has nothing to do with any fear of any case of the flu. 

As we look at the stage of the E3, the amount of questions rising within me is increasing almost exponentially, no matter how certain paths go, anywho has ever planned for an event will tell you that largest contributors walking out past the 90% point is not merely rare, it should be grounds for a large open debate towards what is really going on, in that same trend we see the walking off by Geoff Keighley and the face he presented towards gaming at so many events should also be the foundation of questions.

What you see is not what we are getting and the media is actually part of the problem here, and it is seen in other ways too, as CCN gave us on February 15th (at https://www.ccn.com/this-company-wants-to-save-e3-2020-and-its-inviting-keanu-reeves-for-the-ride/) ‘This Company Wants to Save E3 2020, and It’s Inviting Keanu Reeves for the Ride‘, we can optionally argue that this is the coolest invitation that Keanu Reeves ever got for St. Valentine, the truth is that he is more than a crowd pleaser, as actor, as the actor for the John Wick stories, as the man playing Silverhand in CD Projekt Red ‘Cyberpunk 2077‘ it is one of the better thoughts, yet Limited Run Games (the company behind this action) is largely unknown and so far the media is ignoring all this and I see no refusal or denial from the agent of K. Reeves (as far as I was able to look into this). As CCN (in their article) gives a lot more, we see the stage that makes no sense, The E3 is a lot larger than the mere product makers, there are the entertainers, the software makers and there are multiple event carriers in place, the math doesn’t add up on my side and the media gives too little attention to this (the news media, not the gaming media).

When a global event like E3 is on such a stage, how can the news media remain silent to such a degree? Lets not forget that the event is 3 months away, optionally 5-6, as such there is a much larger stage in play, can you all see that? For the most I steered clear of the  Electronic Software Association (ESA), I am not stating that they are not a factor, but I have no idea what factor they are and what their agenda is in all this, even as we see statements like ‘ESA says E3 2020 still going ahead as planned‘, we cannot say what the finite standing is, they will have to take the Coronavirus as a factor, because there are costs for moving an event like this and as such there is a financial path to consider, I am not denying that in some cases. 

The math doesn’t add up and the stage is too large, whatever is plaguing E3 has a much larger issue that is not reported on and it seems to me (paranoia comfortably setting in) that this might be a case of the media having to deal with people who are either shareholders, stakeholders, or advertisers. Yet this is merely my take on the stage.

Is it true?

Well that remains to be seen, until the end of last month Xbox, Nintendo, Ubisoft and Bethesda were all confirmed (more were), so I have to remain skeptical at the whole ‘cancellation’ hype, yet there are rumours in the weeds that the cancellation drive is growing and two players cancelling at this point implies that the cancellation drive is not non-existent. There are optionally more issues in the field, one is ‘Top Rainbow Six Siege creators call for Ubisoft to prevent harassment and ‘stream sniping’‘ (source: Windows Central) which is nothing against Ubisoft as a company or a product maker, but it is fallout that they have to deal with, as such I also accept “Ubisoft has made strides in tackling cheating and toxicity, top content creators voice concerns over tools to protect broadcasters“, we can argue that there needs to be ample protection against cheaters, yet against bullies it becomes a different matter, what can you allow for to keep the game as open as it is without restraining valid gamers beyond valid measures, it is an optional headache that Ubisoft doesn’t need and more clearly does not deserve. In addition to all this, there are several software houses pulling titles from the NVIDIA’s GeForce NOW service. This will also lead to all kinds of questions, as such we see that this E3 has an enormous amount of questions and this will be the first E3 lacking all kinds of answers, we can expect a whole range of spin answers, but actual answers? I fear the worst at present.

At present there is no cancellation of the E3, yet I believe that if this does happen during the week, whatever factor is given to the Coronavirus will be off by at least 50%, it is in my humble opinion too much about certain people needing it not to happen because of very different factors, the Coronavirus was seemingly no more than a happy coincidence.

 

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March 4, 2020 · 16:03

Mere numbers

Yes we all have mere numbers, and it is nice that some are advocating the lack of numeric connections on the news. Consider that we are being confronted with a disease with an optional  death rate of 3.4%, however the news is being brought like that is not the death rate, it is the survival rate. From ‘Murder inquiries could be hit if coronavirus reduces police numbers‘, to ‘WHO says coronavirus death rate is 3.4% globally, higher than previously thought‘, in all this we see a massive level of overreaction by all (including media), why? Lets face it, it is a flu and 3.4% in fatalities is still lower then your chances to cross the road whilst the crossing light is red in Manhattan, Regent street London or Parramatta road in Sydney. The overreaction I see is just staggering, even now we see ‘Wall Street slides after Federal Reserve makes emergency US rate cut‘, all as we see the numbers that give us “Coronavirus Cases: 92,880 Deaths: 3,168” and this is all before you realise the slight side factor “Recovered: 48,589“, so as the amount of people are restoring it and as we see a level of fear mongering whilst the amount of people not alive is a mere 3.4%, in addition, as we see the small realisation that in a group of thirty including me, i would feel that I was the one not making it, that is until I realise that one of the other thirty is Rupert Murdoch, which would make him the unlucky fellow, age is apparently a factor, the young have a much better chance, so there you have it, playing Russian roulette with thirty others and one gun, making it one out of the thirty not making it, and when you realise that a pistol has 6 options, we see the overreaction. Age is a factor, making it a setting where the bulk of the people will end up having to pay their taxes. I did have fun last week, as i was in a train I stated on my mobile (with no one at the other end) “I’ve had the sniffles ever since I came back from China“, within a few minutes I was alone in that carriage, that will teach people lo listen to other people’s phone calls. Over reaction can work for you, I learned that a long time ago and I do have a flaky sense of humour to boot (every now and then I should just kick myself).

Even in the UK with now 51 cases, the UK still has no fatalities, we get it, it is a disease with an optional not happy ending, but we need to realise that so far the death toll is a mere 3.4%, some nations have a larger death population by drinking water. When you consider “Contaminated drinking water is estimated to cause 485 000 diarrhoeal deaths each year” and you consider that this flu virus has only taken the lives of 3,168 people, the overreaction by others is just a little too much. So as we are treated to adjustment in interest levels and we see US rate cuts all whilst the death toll in the US is so far 9 people, we see a massive overreaction, and it is time to call the media and governments to attention. In the US Heart disease will kill 165,000 people, cancer 152,000, no one cares, yet this flu that has killed 9 shows an overreaction that is uncanny, it is lower than diabetes, yet we overreact, all whilst sugar intake is off the charts.

Caution and the wind

We all need to take caution, I am not stating that this is the case, but the overaction seen all over the media is just stupid, a disease milked for circulation through the use of implied danger, not shown danger. The best headline is seen with ‘Corona Causes Stupidity To Go Viral‘ (at https://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2020/03/01/corona-causes-stupidity-to-go-viral-n2562371), here we see “the United States has excellent care everywhere. While there is no “cure” for a virus, we have the ability to treat the symptoms more readily available than any other country in the world. And we also care to administer that care. Most of the rest of the world: not so much” for the most, the issue is spot on, even as we now see that the US has 9 fatalities, the media is all to happy about keeping people in the dark on the 3.4% fatality rate (at best), 

Still, we should not throw caution in the wind, yet between that status and the mediated one where we see “80pc of Scots could get disease“, all whilst no national numbers in any country show any numbers that could give rise to such a blatant form of miscommunication. I think that the danger of Scots becoming British nationalists is a lot higher, if you catch my drift.

Even if we for whatever reason ‘hide’ behind the numbers, we all take a position, the media as mostly fear mongering, the governments in easing whatever economic pressures there are and even me, as to the overreaction of so many others. A disease with a death rate of 3.4% gives a different optimistic side, my survival rate on most cardiac options I could get hit with is a lot lower than 96.6%, so I have a better chance to live longer if I get the Coronavirus, how sic is that?

China, South Korea, Italy and iran, all  have thousands of actual cases and there we see that ONLY China and Italy have a percentage of non-living that is at the 3.4%, South Korea has a fatality rate that is less than 1%, so 99% survives there, 32 deaths in 5,328 cases, as such Australia with one kill out of 39 is not in any danger of being an issue, especially as 21 cases have made a full recovery. Yet the media does not give us that part, does it? And when we see how it hits the places where poverty is a danger, is that because there are no cases in Monte Carlo? (fingers crossed), or perhaps it is because Saudi Arabia currently only has one case? 

No matter how we slice it, we need to sit down and take a sober look at the numbers, in the first it already is a pandemic, in the second we see the cold numbers give us that 96.6% will merely get sick and recover without dying of the disease. There were 4 flu viruses in the past, the avian version (1957) killed around 2 million, the manana virus (Spanish flu) killed 50,000,000. the other two killed a million each, this Coronavirus does not add up to anything serious, the numbers prove me right. There is a massive overreaction, especially when you consider serious diseases like Ebola, or HIV. Their death rates are indeed serious, this Corona event does not add up to much at all and it is time that we take that into consideration.

By the way what was the rate cut by the federal reserve when HIV became an issue? It seems to me that this is an event that the media, especially the financial writers seem to have forgotten (read: ignored). So whilst the media is giving us ‘Washington state residents frustrated over obstacles to get coronavirus tests‘, or even ‘WHO warns of protective gear shortage as global recession fears mount‘, in a case where we see proven that 96.6% will not endure any fatalities, the overreaction is clearly seen, yet the lack of governments making sure that all people realise that there is too much overreaction in the midst of a generic flu season is a little staggering. All whilst the headlines are spiked with phrases like “its battle against the deadly virus“, I personally believe that the fatality rate needs to be a lot larger than 3.4% before we have a viral publication of “the deadly virus“, at least that is my take on it, call me crazy, but a situation where a virus optionally kills 3,200 all whilst traffic kills 1,250,000 people annually is a stretch, especially when you realise that the virus could have been a mere complicating factor in several deaths, the elderly die for all kinds of non-natural causes, the virus is a given complication here, but there will be some debate whether the complications, or the virus was the killer remained to be seen and the elderly will get hit harder, no doubt about that.

When we consider the mere numbers, the ado about Corona becomes much about nothing, even if it does kill, 3,200 deaths does not amount to anything when we compare it to the lack of life through survival in Syria (Idlib, Aleppo) or all over Yemen, did you consider that?

 

 

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February 26, 2020 · 16:02

The defining moment

We all have seen it, we all have experienced it, yet what happens, if the definition does not align to what a government or a funded overreaching group likes? I am referring to those small grocery stores like the EU and the WHO, and should you doubt it, then consider the following part that has been published in several papers and online sources.

WHO mission director warns world is ‘simply not ready’ for pandemic, as well as ‘prepare for a potential pandemic‘. This was the news today, yet when we consider “A pandemic is an epidemic of disease that has spread across a large region; for instance multiple continents, or worldwide“, I raised it in the beginning of the month (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/02/03/corona-i-never-touch-the-stuff/) with ‘Corona?  I Never touch the stuff!‘. In that piece I wrote “there are now close to two dozen nations with confirmed cases. The one from Sweden is perhaps the most illustrative one. “The patient is a woman in the Jonkoping region of southern Sweden who had visited the Wuhan area of China. She sought medical attention after arriving in Sweden on Jan. 24. “One case doesn’t mean that we have a virus outbreak in Sweden,” said the agency’s Karin Tegmark Wisell, who added that the country’s health-care is well prepared to deal with the virus.” I do not disagree with Karin Tegmark Wisell, yet she was a carrier and passing on the disease before the patient knew she was a carrier, as such she would have been in Arlanda (most likely), then a train or a car with stops and for some time she was unaware that she was sick. There is every chance that she infected 3-50 people” in the meantime the disease has now grown the amount of infected in 20 countries (Italy, Japan, Iran, USA, Bahrain, Germany, Algeria and Australia) that implies a growth of the infected on 6 continents. So when exactly will the WHO (or the EU) decide that this is a pandemic?

All whilst the media is happy to report “prepare for a potential pandemic as the outbreak spreads across Europe“, this is a much larger issue, an issue that is bigger than the media, we are being sold a bag of goods and there are players who are too scared for their value when the ‘pandemic’ becomes official and they are willing to sell the world population down the drain to protect their profits (a personal assumption).

And now (as per 16 seconds ago) the situation is “total number of cases in mainland China to 78,064, and 2,715 dead“, whilst the new deceased numbers include China (the bulk) and South Korea, Italy and Iran. So when will it become a pandemic? I believe it already is and it is not the worst pandemic to face, this part we get from a fatality surpassing 3.4%, these facts are available (at https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/), the fact that these numbers also appear in the Guardian (and a few other sources) validates them for me. 

Yet there is one nice epitaph to my consideration of Pandemic, it is found in Wikipedia (at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemic) and gives us “Further, flu pandemics generally exclude recurrences of seasonal flu.” Yet it gives us a much larger setting too. 

With the header ‘Economic consequences of pandemic events‘ it introduces us to “In 2016, the Commission on a Global Health Risk Framework for the Future estimated that pandemic disease events would cost the global economy over $6 trillion in the 21st century – over $60 billion per year. The same report also recommended spending $4.5 billion annually on global prevention and response capabilities to reduce the threat posed by pandemic events“

That is an amount that scares Wall Street (and therefore the US administration) to a larger degree. The economic part we get from ‘The Neglected Dimension of Global Security‘, that document gives us a lot more too (added atthe end). Even as the preface introduces us (again) to “After the outbreak was recognized, the international response was slow and uncoordinated. Mechanisms for the establishment of public–private partnerships were lacking. For example, the development of lifesaving medical products was reactive, rather than proactive.” It is seemingly the smallest stab to the Ebola event in West Africa, yet the goods on page 23 gives us “National public health systems are essential components of resilient health systems and the first line of defense against the threat of pandemic disease. Robust public health capabilities and infrastructure at a national level are thus the foundation of a global health risk framework” and here is the first pebble that starts the avalanche, on a global scale the stage was to do as little as possible as there were no budgets, the US, UK, Netherlands, Belgium, France have been showing larger failures for several years. Germany is not far behind, yet still in a slightly better position and the less said over failing Greek healthcare, the better (at present). 

In this environment a pandemic is a larger issue for the people in and connected to Wall Street as they need to be ahead of the curve and not trailing it. As such pushing the statement ‘We have a Pandemic’ back further is for them essential, it is at present more likely than not that the Coronaviirus will be seen as a pandemic AFTER the fact, especially after the greedy people have their profit ducks in a row.

The weird part here is that this is not a new issue, Pandemics were the focal point in writing as early as 1350 (Decamerone), films and TV took the subject as early as 1957 (7th seal) as well as several games on PC, consoles, iOS and Android. Enough people knew of the dangers that this issue brought, it even made it to the comic books, although there the setting was warped massively beyond reality as we know it (the Extinction Parade). 

In all this the references make sense, it is seen on that same page when we see “Public health objectives can only be achieved within a highly-functioning and resilient health care system with effective primary care delivery (WHO, 2008)“, a statement seen 12 years ago gives rise to the dangers that nations have brought onto themselves and those remembering that 12 year old statement are now not ready to answer the questions from voters when the ‘pandemic’ is made official, in a more healthy style we could argue that political heads will roll when that news comes out a little too soon to their needs. This is more true when one considers “both sets of capabilities and infrastructure are necessary to prepare and respond to the threat of infectious diseases. A primary health care system without the support of strong public health capabilities will lack the ability to monitor disease patterns and be unable to plan and mobilize the scale of response required to contain an outbreak. A public health system without strong primary care capabilities will lack both the “radar screen” to pick up the initial cases of an outbreak and the delivery system to execute an effective response strategy“, in all this China has shown a decent degree to deal with it, and as such we see in the Guardian ‘Expert tells nations to access the expertise of China and prepare for a potential pandemic as the outbreak spreads across Europe‘. The move makes sense, but the larger issue is not the reactive side, it is the proactive side and most of Western Europe is seemingly not ready. In all this Western Europe is the second stop as International travel is the highest there and what is in one nation could hit a dozen nations a week later, basically one infected person in an international airport could in theory be the global exporter on the spot. If Virgin calls a $130,000,000 loss and a large chunk of that is the Coronavirus, could it be possible that the $60 billion a year seen earlier might be somewhat optimistic? In that consideration look at Virgin and its size, with the fact that this one company is 0.1% of that annual number, and this is not my imagination. 

Only 4 hours ago the New York Times gives us ‘Wall Street Is (Finally) Waking Up to the Damage Coronavirus Could Do‘ (at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/25/upshot/coronavirus-wall-street-analysis.html), in all this, all the issues I filed over a month, with connections to reported issues 12 years ago and now we see: “there has been a strange divergence among those trying to predict what coronavirus might mean for financial markets and the world economy“, “People in the trenches of global commerce — supply chain managers, travel industry experts, employers large and small — warned of substantial disruptions to their businesses. And public health authorities feared that the disease could spread far beyond Wuhan in China” with the closing phrase of “financial markets and most economic forecasters projected the virus outbreak wouldn’t do much harm to the economy and corporate profits” where we need to notice that ‘corporate profits‘ was the centre of attention, as such we now get to live with the image “last Wednesday, the S&P is down more than 7 percent. And on Tuesday, yields on 10-year United States Treasury bonds fell to their lowest levels on record“, Wall Street is finally waking up having to reek the shit they shovel. All whilst the New York Times also gives us “if the virus becomes a global pandemic that causes meaningful pullback of commerce across major economies” it is the setting we needed to see, certain influencers do not want the claim of ‘pandemic’ to become reality, they are just not ready to see all their long plays become shorted stocks, the fallout would be massive for some players and they are not ready to adjust their economic game play. In all it seems that all over the world, medical centres are nowhere near ready and even as we admit and should realise that this can never be the case, the spreading of any pandemic is likely to hit all over the place and fighting one is not set to what we can do, but to what we can detect. It requires a larger proactive engine and as we see in the UK (NHS), as well as the US, they are lacking in proactive stages and as such, the statement of pandemic will require two elements the first is to find the real cases (any pandemic is likely to cause a panic in equal measure) and to deal with the real cases, it is there where we see that those running with a panic end up running into a disease spreading cluster (an acceptable speculated situation). 

When we see the facts and the situation where this had been going on for two months, CNN gives us ‘Trump claims coronavirus is ‘going to go away’ despite mounting concerns‘, as well as ‘Spread of coronavirus in U.S. appears inevitable, health officials warn‘ (Washington Post), as such we have a larger issue. The numbers give us that the US only had 57 cases and no additional ones since then, they only show 6 recoveries, so what happened to the 51 others? they might still be sick and more importantly there is no telling who the 57 infected, the lack of reporting there leaves a lot to be desired. That part is seen when we look at the CDC (at https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html), here we see only 14 confirmed cases, now that does fit better with the 6 cured ones, yet the discrepancy of 57 and 14 is important, it also gives rise to larger clusters of people unknowingly affected. 

In all this we are still ‘heading towards’ a pandemic? I think the pandemic hit us all in the beginning of the month and too many are eager to hide (or oppose) that part and they hide themselves with numbers. In all this, we can argue left, right and centre, yet the definitions were clearly set and a paper with references to facts 12 years ago make for a larger case that politicians are too much in denial of the hardship hitting their lives, their welfare and their economy. A side that the Guardian reported on a week ago with “The coronavirus could cost the global economy more than $1tn in lost output if it turns into a pandemic“, as such, Samsung might end up seeing its stock shorted sooner rather than later, they did get help though, 1146 people with COVID-19 helped the forecasted need to short the stock, I wonder where those 57 Americans were and how Wall Street is optionally setting a different stage, one that has them seemingly unaffected by a so called optional pandemic that is set in China.

When these defining moments surpass the expectations of the people with stocks against the people with expected sick relatives, at that point will we see a first engagement of what Wall Street states versus the impact of the victims, the victims that could get not be cured in time because the proactive medical needs were numbered away by other means. Consider that against the fact that some of these white papers and warnings have been out for years, at that point reconsider the culling of funds in healthcare. There are too many related factors and they all survive as their test for ‘pandemic’ is not passed.

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December 23, 2019 · 11:43

Double Standards

You might have heard of this new tech company in China, it makes all kinds of telecom stuff and they are known as Huawei. What is interesting is that we got a lecture by Alex Younger (fearless leader MI-6), he was all about the fact that at no time a national infrastructure should be done by a foreign nation, now as reasons go, this is a decent one, there is no need for evidence, it is about national interest. I was not in favour, but I do not set British policy (apparently) and as such I believe that it is an acceptable view.

In that light I have a hard time looking (at https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-50879809), where we are treated to ‘Cobham takeover: Boris Johnson defends £4bn sale to US equity firm‘, so we see a stage where British national security concerns are now going through an equity firm putting Wall Street in charge of a large chunk of British Defense. Can anyone explain that to me?

The US has one directive, serve the needs for the US and the US only, then we get Wall Street where profit is the run of the coast, so at what point was selling Cobham to any other nation a good idea?

Even as we see the statement from Boris Johnson “A lot of checks have been gone through to make sure that in that particular case all the security issues that might be raised can be satisfied and the UK will continue to be a very, very creative and dynamic contributor to that section of industry and all others“, I wonder if proper checks have been made from situations that are in opposition, the entire Yemeni war and the position of the US Congress is an apt description. Admiral Lord West was concerned and not without reason.

Issues like:

The risk of “unauthorised persons” obtaining information about the MoD’s capabilities and activity is a big one, keeping secrets in the US and on Wall Street is a challenge at the best of times and this will bite the UK before 2030, optionally before 2022. 

The threat to existing MoD programmes (due to funding cuts or moving capabilities “off-shore”), more important, whatever is done to keep the invoices low will be an affront to Wall Street an equity managers, so they will oppose whatever options the MoD finds to lower invoices. Then there is the other issue, do you think that ANY equity firm will pay £4,000,000,000 unless they can get at least double out of it? So where is that marging coming from? There is no way that this was merely for the nicety, it is an equity firm and I get that, yet what business are we in when governments hand over control of defense contractors and the power that they have within the MoD to a foreign nation? It does not rhyme and we see an absence from MI-6 setting that stage correctly (and optionally openly). 

I also believe that the moment things do go South, the people in the UK will dress up like angry villagers and quarrel their settlement with pikes and pitchforks with Business Secretary Andrea Leadsom who was kind enough to validate “she was satisfied the risks that had been identified had been mitigated “to an acceptable level”” you see an acceptable level is a subjective term and of course it will bite and probably whilst she is still in office. I am also interested in the fact that a Business Secretary sets the stage for national defence, was that her job? And I am completely with Admiral Lord West on this one, which issues had been mitigated? How were they mitigated and why was mitigation a point of discussion in the first place. 

There is another side, the side of the equity firm (advent) and in this case Shonnel Malani who states “We are confident the transaction and undertakings being given on national security, jobs and future investment, provide important long-term assurances for both Cobham’s employees and customers, particularly in the UK and also globally“, these words when you look deeper take no consideration of stock and change of stock, this is a statement of people, data and hardware are not considered in this, and perhaps the government looked at it, but I wonder to what degree. Consider the complete data branch of Cobham Airborne Surveillance not having one storage location, but now also is handed to the US data farms for intel grinding. That would be worth a pretty penny, would it not? And lets not forget, Cobham is a global player, so advent will get doors open all over the alphabet group (as well as alphabet). There is a lot of intelligence in Cobham and the deciding factor of where it goes is now in the hands of a Wall Street pleaser. 

I checked (at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-update-on-the-proposed-acquisition-of-cobham-plc-by-advent-international) and I was right, again we see “After meetings with the parties, advice from the Defence Secretary and carefully considering the consultation responses, Ms Leadsom has made the decision that the undertakings offered by the parties mitigate the national security risks identified to an acceptable level. She has therefore accepted the undertakings that were consulted on“, yet there is no protection of data as far as I can tell, the owners can get access to it to the largest degree. Even after Brexit, Advent can sell it to Strasbourg, leaving the UK with less options in the long run, a shortsighted response and I do personally hope that  Andrea Leadsom gets to personally deal with the cloud of angry villagers when failures come out (she is likely to be on the next plane to the US for granting this merger).

I also liked the idea that Mrs Leadsom had added “meticulously thought over” in several places. The consideration of it tends to lead towards parts no one thought off. You see, the fact that an equity firm agrees to a £4,000,000,000 caper indicates that there is a 20%-30% to be gained annually, which in the end in the long lasting set would not have made sense so sell at all, so we go towards other venues that Cobham allows for, data is one (yet not the only one), available stock is the other one. It is called vulturing, yet when we realise that there could be up to £ 6,000,000,000 in valued hardware the 30% is easily reached and over three years Cobham would be in a worse state, that last one is speculation, yet is it far fetched? Consider WHO is buying and the government as well as the stockholders are OK with it does not sit well with me. There is a truckload of value that we underestimate in any firm. We might accept “provide important long-term assurances for both Cobham’s employees and customers, particularly in the UK and also globally“, it sounds nice, but what happens when their workload doubles because Cobham ends up doing service for another player who becomes part of Cobham? Selling off was checked, yet adding inferior players to cobham seemingly was not. I look at it because the buyer is an equity firm and I tend to not trust them, I merely trust their need for greed and when they decide, they have a larger play to make profits, yet in that game there is always a victim, it is close to a given, I merely want to make sure that British defense is not that victim. 

I believe that Cobham grew well beyond the vision of Sir Alan Cobham and that is fine, but I reckon that in this case the UK government did not really “meticulously thought over” several factors and it worries me, whenever greedy firms get into a defense branch defense, the defense group tends to lose and that is never good.

 

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October 30, 2019 · 12:03

And the news is where?

Well there was the news this morning ‘World leaders return to ‘Davos in desert’ a year after Khashoggi boycott‘, but I dealt with that 4 days ago during ‘When we say ‘Ney’ to an event‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/10/24/when-we-say-ney-to-an-event/), complete with the summit time frame, seems like such an interesting delay. Perhaps the entire Nikkei setting is rather more interesting than that. Nikkei review giving us “Mizuho and SMBC among 15 names planned for historic listing“, whilst also giving us “The roster of underwriters could change depending on where Saudi Aramco goes public“, that part will get more visibility in the stage where ‘Aramco proposes two-stage IPO, shunning London and Hong Kong‘, that partially made sense, especially as HSBC took a flounder in the last year, by itself it is not a explanation, yet the events that overlap Jamal Khashoggi and certain times events in that light have not been considered ‘fair play’ by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and in that light the events shunning London would make sense. And this is the direct consequence of certain tasks made by certain elements who thought that jerking off the market because the going was good some kind of thing. Well, yes, that is exactly how I would phrase it, especially over the year when we saw Saudi Arabia being hunted and nagged in three different ways; I think it is fair to call it that. I see no reason to call it any other way. Now that the initial plans for a petrochemical location in China is ready to be mapped out at $10 billion, China will have new options whilst Saudi Arabia is opening a new vat of tactics, the US is now up in arms to sooth their longtime partner and they better pucker up. The US made sure that the Khashoggi matter got light and then the lost track of their novelty, they were not prepared for the windfall others made of it and now we are given: “The crown prince denies involvement, but told US TV last month that he took “full responsibility as a leader in Saudi Arabia”” an issue that was out in the media, but did you not consider the cost involved? Did you think that this comes for free? Even as we were given “it triggered Saudi Arabia’s biggest diplomatic crisis since the 9/11 attacks as world leaders and business executives sought to distance themselves from Riyadh“, it does come at a cost and Aramco is the first to exact the cost of doing business, it is the first of several steps, the deals with India and China are too soon, too visible and it shows a Kingdom who was sick and tired of two faced options in oil, now that we see that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has options, now that the west is about to learn that you cannot play certain games, now they will all be about the ‘miscommunication’, they will be all about the freedom of the press even as we see that the freedom of the press is some convoluted story, some story that we tended to warn scholars about, like we see in Umberto Eco, the name of the Rose (post-glad infringed upon for this event) ““Until then I had thought each preacher spoke of the events, human or economical, that lie outside books not told of. Now I realized that not infrequently books speak of white papers: it is as if they spoke among themselves. In the light of this reflection, the gathering seemed all the more disturbing to me. It was then the place of a long, annual murmuring upon an imperceptible dialogue between one vision debated on and another ones paper, a living thing, a receptacle of powers not to be ruled by any human mind, but the cistern of wealth merely a treasure of ill spoken events emanated by many minds, surviving the death of those who had produced them or had been their conveyors.””

I recently had to revisit an abbey in northern Italy so it made sense as well and the years are actually in several ways applicable. The Divine Comedy (Dante Aliegieri) finishes at this stage, the era was founded by double entry bookkeeping, the Italian bankers who designed it had no idea what impact it would have on accountancy or that the practice would survive until today. Yet, Umberto Eco placed his novella in an interesting time, Yet that time 680 years later we see that the question of wealth is very much at the heart of the matter, yet not in hands of the Christian church, it is there that we see the actions of certain members of coinage to be handled from. Feel free to disagree with me, but when you place the events as they were played over the last year and who exactly started these accusations, with the preemptive part of evidence that cannot have any further meaning, including the UN Essay by A. Callamard, can we answer in any other way that something is apparently wrong?

We merely need to look at the impeachment of a Trump card, a mere clown in the entire financial orchestra, when we see the steps allocated by intelligence and civic groups, whilst a Crown Prince was indited on paper with no resulting evidence, do you really think that it is merely a farce? Now that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has met with two events, it is stronger than ever to settle Aramco, to settle oil disputes and America might not care, but now that their own surpluses and their own economic value is now under attack, its 21 trillion dollar noose will become more than just the chain around a junkyard dog seeking a larger yard to bark in. And now it is only just that I include the bank that was around in the beginning of Umberto Eco’s tale, in 1327, from brothers financing governments the Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (BMPS) would grow and from its acquisitions in 2008, the hidden losses and the bailout in 2013 it never stopped being the BMPS, J.P. Morgan, Mediobanca, Banco Santander, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs had signed a pre-underwriting agreement with BMPS in July, with all kinds of assurances, several of them all now shunned in the Aramco deal.

There is part of it that I cannot prove, I am not stating that I found certain links that are personally as shallow as it gets, yet certain people made transfers to other avenues, and in those positions they would if that deal went through made huge waves, if nothing happened, then they would be in an interesting place, so we cannot go on anything that flimsy (I don’t work for the UN after all), but the time line is weirdly skewed in certain visibility graphs, one would consider that certain acts would have been ‘concidental’ top a fault if it would have happened and it would have been the savior of what would be the “the industrial plan of the bank was approved, which the bank would be re-capitalized for €8.1 billion, but only €3.9 billion would be underwritten by the Ministry of Economy and Finance (excluding additional shares that would be buyback from retail bondholders by the government), with the rest were the “bail-in” of bondholders, mandatorily converted the bond of the bank to shares” Some would ask questions on the grounds of Margrethe Vestager, yet they would be wrong, I believe that certain matters had been in the frying pan a lot longer than that. And the entire Saudi Arabia matter does not stop there, where it stops is up in the air, because both Wall Street and a wealth banker that is above all this would prefer it this way, so when some are stumping their chest giving you the goods on some deal, just be thankful that it is not your coinage that is depending on this deal.

That is the underlying sound of more than just an Aramco deal, it is all over the place and even if my view is not to be seen as the correct one, consider what evidence you are going from, I never told you the little evidence that I have based this on, for the mere reason that two or three memos could be seen as mere typo’s, but how could my story exist?

Consider that I gave visibility to certain parts weeks ago, and that I was ahead of the curve for some time, after which my interest merely grew in other directions, I had finished the puzzle, I had no real reason to watch it unfold until completion, it was merely an exercise at that moment and like all other people, I hate exercises.

Yet I left two parts out, it is not important, but it gives a larger play towards the entirety, consider Davos in the Desert 2015, who was there and who absconded, consider that this was BEFORE Khashoggi and who came out of the woodwork? That is one part; I let you figure out the second hint. Now consider what options the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has left when the table is spread the way it is, I wonder if you can see the irrefutable acts of discrimination.

 

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October 24, 2019 · 11:04

When we say ‘Ney’ to an event

We have all kinds of events going on, some we attend, some we show interest in, some are nice to be at. We have all kinds of events that require our attention. For example if there are 7 events to watch and you can only attend 4, how will you go about it? I for one distinguish it into a whole range of requirements, the first being ‘Have to attend‘, that is number one and in that cadaster 2 of the 7 will be found, then we get the ‘Nice to be at‘ and ‘Show interests in‘, they are of equal footing (in my case), now we have three more and we can settle our differences in to any of the three, it is more of a jumble, for those two out of three we get to watch the travel arrangements, the visitor spectacle and there we are off to the races.

That is how it goes into the normal realm of opportunity, so as I look at ‘Davos in the Desert‘ it would be one in the ‘Have to attend’ group. The heads of states are there, my Trademarks office could optionally score one large fish, the tranquility of having one corporate trademarks revenue is just too lard to pass up on. And that is before we consider the opportunity that trademarks in the Middle East and predominantly Saudi Arabia with companies like SAMA, SAMI, Aramco could have over a much larger setting, apart from the IP that I am holding on to. For Bloomberg this is what I call a ‘must attend’ kind of a show, so as we are given: “Axios reported earlier on Wednesday that Bloomberg reporters were scheduled to moderate nine of the panels in a draft of the program. Ty Trippet, a Bloomberg spokesman, told Axios that “Bloomberg is not sponsoring the event or participating in the program. We will be covering news from the conference, as we did last year.”” gives a stemming sound, a ‘we are there but we are not‘ kind of hustling in the woodwork. For a show like “Davos in the Desert“, seeing Bloomberg to remain absent is almost like a denial of the importance of “Davos in the Desert“. I see it in a larger frame, Bloomberg is doing the bidding of its corner office, Bloomberg called back like the little dog it is, the wonder of this chihuahua would be the Wall Street pound, they want the world to know that they are upset that Aramco went to the Japanese. A given 3.54% of every ticket sold that would be the income of most hedge funds managers who saw Aramco as a nice on the side grown food, now going towards the Nikkei, there is a larger game afoot and Bloomberg gets to be the messenger. I wonder how many US newspapers will hold some kind of a Khashoggi reverent during the October 28–31 window, I wonder how many newspapers will call upon the dead reporter, all whilst the events in Turkey will not call for any events, will they. Yes, the death of one journalist against the bombing of an entire group of people is so much more justified. Yet there is a large group of US people in attendance, we see Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and White House senior adviser Jared Kushner. Former Treasury undersecretary David Malpass, now the president of the World Bank, is also on the list, as is former White House communications chief Anthony Scaramucci. Then there are the top financiers  Michael Corbat, CEO of Citigroup, Tidjane Thiam, CEO of Credit Suisse, and Noel Quinn, CEO of HSBC. Fund managers include Ray Dalio of Bridgewater, Robert Smith of Vista, Stephen Schwarzman of Blackstone, Larry Fink of BlackRock, Daniel Loeb of Third Point, and Barry Sternlicht of Starwood. Even Masayoshi Son of Softbank is there and so is Will.i.am. The British entertainer and part of the Black Eyed Peas, beyond that he is a rapper, DJ, songwriter, record producer as well as a philantropist. He gets to be there, yet Bloomberg is calling ‘no show’?

I have no goal or esparations perse, but I would go there because one customer from that isle means that I would not have to go scrapping for customers for at least 8-12 years for 50% of the time. The rewards are that impressive, also the foundation of IP laws would be sought after in such a place, and being one of less than 20 attendance given IP lawyers, it would be interesting, even if a dozen of them end up with my business card, it will gradually mean that business comes my way, now for me it is not a given but for someone like Bloomberg it very much means that the larger corporations will be setting meetings with someone like Bloomberg, but now, we see “the State Department recently booked 45 rooms at Riyadh’s Burj Rafal Hotel in support of the two “VVIP visitors” taking part in the kingdom’s third annual Future Investment Initiative, as the event is officially known“, as well as “including representatives from Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and BlackRock, according to a guest list” and some of these parties will get to grow to a rather large setting especially now that Bloomberg is not appearing.

And when you look at the event: PDF DavosintheDeseert2019

You’ll see that anyone with commercial aspirations would want to attend, which beckons the question why would Bloomberg not attend? More worrying is the setting of making this blaze about a week ahead of schedule. From the very beginning when H.E. Yasir O. Al-Rumayyan, Advisor to the General Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers, Governor of the Public Investment Fund, KSA opens the event, until the final event where H.E. Bassem Awadallah, CEO, Tomoh Advisory, UAE moderates the final event, namely the G20, a setting I would presume that Bloomberg has vested interest in, but they give way to absentee. 70 events over 3 days, with all kinds of interim discussion options, yet the absentee of Bloomberg make perfect sense, does it not?

 

 

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October 8, 2019 · 11:22

When the cure is part of the disease

Have you seen that issue in your life, the claim that the cure is worse than the disease, or perhaps that the cure is not worth the disease. There are medical situations where this applies and they are usually used in cases of huge risks, but it is always in a stage where it is about optionally curing the person who got that winning lottery ticket, and the cure will hit him or her full on. It happens, yet what is the stage where the cure is the disease? I am not talking about a vaccine where we are making the body stronger by fighting a weaker version of the disease, no this is a stage where we give the person Ebola or Hantavirus to let the body cure it. The problem becomes that once you have the virus you are actually sick and the complications start from that point onward.

This is the stage we are confronted with in ‘IMF accused of ‘reckless lending’ to debt-troubled states‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/oct/07/imf-accused-of-reckless-lending-to-debt-troubled-states). It is not merely “the Fund broke its own rules by not ensuring sustainable debt burden“, I personally believe it to be a much larger problem in all this. It is also not merely: “encouraging reckless lending by extending $93bn of loans to 18 financially troubled countries without a debt restructuring programme first“, I believe it to be a larger play to push revenue away from vulture funds to create a systemic problem for these nations to become part of the consumer feeding frenzy to banks for generations. when we see: “Debt sustainability has come into the spotlight over the past year after the IMF controversially lent a record $56bn to Argentina even though its annual debt repayments far exceeded the Fund’s own limit” the given excuse ‘The IMF said Argentina, the second biggest economy in South America, was a special case‘ the handed excuse should be casted aside and given no value at all. the supporting evidence is seen in “The crisis intensified when, on 5 December 2001, the IMF refused to release a US$1.3 billion tranche of its loan, citing the failure of the Argentine government to reach its budget deficit targets” (source: https://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/11/business/argentina-scrambles-for-imf-loans.html). When I asked about the situation about 5 years ago from these so called Australian ‘economic reporters’, none of them had any level of a clear answer for me. The case was clear 5 years ago when certain vulture funds issues got to the surface, and now 17 years later they are giving out $56 billion, whilst refusing a $1.3 billion option 17 years earlier. There is a much larger flaw in all this and there have been whispers (read: gossip) that the IMF is very much into facilitating towards the needs of Wall Street and the financial operators out there. The bottom dollar line of Wall Street needs to be met and no one cares how it is done.

the stage becomes a lot less acceptable when we consider the stage Afghanistan; Angola; Cameroon; Central African Republic; Chad; Ecuador; Egypt; Ghana; Jordan; Mauritania; Mongolia; Pakistan; São Tomé and Príncipe; Sierra Leone; Sri Lanka; Tunisia; and Ukraine, all whilst Egypt, Pakistan and Ecuador are regarded as high risk, I personally feel that the risk factors of Ukraine, Sri Lanka and Jordan are also way above normal with only Jordan being in a better long term position however, if Jordan does not address its water shortage issues, Jordan could drop into the ultra-high risk group a lot faster than anyone could state: ‘Would you like a glass of water?‘, and in all this we see a larger failing.

It becomes a more visible issue when we see the IMF spin doctors at work. We partially accept the statement: “More than half that amount is accounted for by one programme – Argentina, which has unique circumstances“, yet I am much less forgiving when I see: “We have clear guidelines about not lending into unsustainable debt situations and all programmes require approval by the IMF’s executive board“. It is my response that they publish clearly all their guidelines (and policies), but we will not ever get that. In addition, the Argentina matter after the Vultures were done with it is also a failing of the highest degree, the fact that over 17 years $1.3 billion has required $56 billion implies more than merely 4,300% more funds needed. It gives rise that over 17 years a debt increase of 23% year on year was accumulated one way or another. It is a direct optional sign of complete and utter governmental financial malfeasance. It is a failure on a scale never seen before and the fact that no one stepped in shows the larger failure by the IMF. You see, the overall lack of illumination also constitutes evidence that the players wanted this to be kept out of the lime lights.

In addition, when we look at the 17 nations, when we ignore the obvious three, we see a larger issue in Jordan. Jordan stepped up and towards the issue that there are well over 1.4 million refugees in Jordan and Jordan was not ready in any way shape or form to deal with that. In their current state the Jordan desalination plants will not be able to keep up (so far it cannot keep up) and the fact that the Jordan population grew by 14% in 2-3 years due to the refugees was never clearly illuminated and now Jordan has a larger issue, even if another desalination plant is added in the Gulf of Aqaba, the issue will not diminish and the loans towards Jordan would become unsustainable. In addition, when you consider Sri Lanka, the newspapers all gave the same quote a month ago: ‘Sri Lanka’s economy has shown a ‘fair bit of resilience’‘, they quoted that to the letter, yet who was feeding them that information? Only 14 hours ago we see: “Sri Lanka’s tourist arrivals in September were down 27.2% from a year earlier“, those factors did not really change did they? When we consider a month ago, we see an economy that is getting hit hard, especially when Reuters gives us: “a sixth consecutive monthly fall“. It seems to me that Sri Lanka are betting on the required roll of the dice, when we get the clear indication that the dice are loaded and it seems that they are loaded towards the needs of the IMF/Wall Street and not in favour of Sri Lanka.

When we add the Reuters information: “Arrivals in the five months from May to September were down 44.4% to 468,737 from 843,569 a year earlier” we get a level of clear indication that the quote: ‘Sri Lanka’s economy has shown a ‘fair bit of resilience’‘ should be seen as media BS. And there is more regarding Sri Lanka, the quote less than 24 hours ago is “Sri Lanka’s Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera said all the money the current government has borrowed since 2016 was to repay the loans of the previous government of Mahinda Rajapaksa“, if that is true, then there are additional questions towards the IMF in regards to their spin doctors giving us: “Our decisions to lend to countries are not simply based on numerical thresholds, but on comprehensive debt sustainability analyses and policies needed to address economic imbalances and debt burdens“, which in the case of Sri Lanka shows a much larger issue, the fact that the quote on repaying from a previous government and that loan has been in place for 3 years shows a larger problem, so how much was given to them? In addition to this I wonder how much of the $56 billion is going to Elliott Advisors, so much is the IMF helping out Manhattan bad boy Paul Singer? In my view, the question becomes: ‘How much of the $56 billion goes to Hedge funds manager Paul Singer?‘ Under those conditions I reckon anyone could get their fingers on the penthouse in Sky Lofts building in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighbourhood. If it is good enough for Bobby Axelrod (Damian Lewis), it is good enough for the Lawlordtobe (Lawrence van Rijn), and I could do with a change of scenery, especially if Google buys my 5G IP portfolio.

So if my new address becomes 145 Hudson St New York, NY 10013, I promise that I will not consider the ’13’ in my zip code to be a bad omen and at least I will not have used the IMF to gain my fortune (although I will admit that I am perfectly willing to do that too #weallneedtoeat).

When we see these two issues and we see that I have not even looked at the 12 others (three were known issues) I wonder when any reporter will give us the entire down low on these so called analyses and policies that the IMF has in place, I feel with some level of certain ty that I will find a lot more issues under the waterline than the IMF spin doctors will be able to hide. Especially when we realise the quote in the Guardian: “concerns that a general election later this month will oust incumbent president, Mauricio Macri, in favour of the populist Alberto Fernández and his running mate, the former president Cristina de Kirchner, triggered a flight of investors, a run on the currency and sent the interest rate on the country’s publicly traded debts soaring“, more important, under that change the entire case which would have been part of the $56 billion ‘donation’ that we see through “Argentina agreed to reduce its fiscal deficit to 1.3% of GDP this year, down from 2.2% previously and a balanced budget next year“, especially when we see the required drop of 0.9% deficit, I cannot remember any elected official making that part of their campaign, it tends to leave them unelected at the polls, so in all this, not only does the JDC have a point, we see that Sarah-Jayne Clifton, director of Jubilee Debt Campaign should be considered to be a lot more serious and is in my personal view entitled to massive dose of limelight from the global media, so that she can ask the questions that the IMF would have to explain in a clear and transparent way, would you like to take a bet on the chance of that actually happening?

I believe that people like Paul Singer will set that bet to an estimated 250:1 chance (of it not happening), and as he personally was able to acquire $3.5 billion, I am not putting my hopes on high here. I merely wonder if the people in Argentina have any decent level of Christmas to look forward to this year and the many years that follow.

 

 

 

 

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September 30, 2019 · 12:23

Mad(e) in Sweden

We have seen the news for weeks now on how one activist named Greta Thunberg, one activist who will be exactly 201 months old in 3 days is shaming politicians all over the world on environmental issues, and she is 100% correct. Even now as I see how she privately met with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and how she is urging to do more for the environment, the media is eating it up and spewing how one girl is fighting the established order like David met Goliath, yet that is not what is in play is it?

When we see the tweeting sarcasms giving us ‘Make America Greta Again‘, we see what happens but we ignore the issues at hand; as does the media to the largest degree. In all the news articles I read there is one massive part missing, one part that is at the foundation of environmental failure, from Southern California to northern Canada, from the East of China to the West of Russia, they all accomplish the not mentioning of the one element that has been the foundation of this failure.

The non-politicians

We see that the noted climate change sceptics are all doing someone’s biding, yet we do not see who they are ‘fighting’ for. We have entered an age of Corporatocracy, they are the powers in the US, in Canada, and they seemingly have the largest sway in France, Germany, Italy and Spain. They have large footing in most monarchies and for the most they have a larger iron grip in Russia to the degree we never fathomed. Through Corporatocracy the growth of billionaires has never been stronger and they want their wealth and they need it to keep on growing. Over the last 8 years their combined wealth went from $2 trillion to $8 trillion whilst the amount of billionaires dipped a little, it is harder to enter that pool whilst those in that pond are growing fatter day by day, in that pool the premise of environment has no hope of survival and until these governments take back the power from these corporatocratics and give it back to the people and the established order there will be no change, it will only get worse.

The fact that the EU gravy train can continue almost completely unhindered is evidence still to a failing much larger that anyone fathoms and as these corporations are shareholders, stake holders and advertisers, the media will only respond to actions that the controlling corporatocratics find acceptable. That is the failing in this entire matter and the fact that the media is ‘catering’ to her is only a viewpoint towards populist stages that are under control of the corporations, it will instil them to make ‘environmental’ donations, but only as long as it can be wielded as a form of advertisement and exploitation down the road. For them it is a double whammy, because Greta Thunberg is doing the right thing and she is fighting all the right windmills, as she is seen as a larger greater good, the people will herald her, yet in their hearts they know that almost nothing will come of it. For the ruling of Corporatocracy is bound to the needs of Wall Street and surpassing those set markers. As they play their games they basically surpassed the Gnomes of Zurich, the Swiss bankers that dictated economic policies for decades, yet as economic dictates moved more and more towards Wall Street and as the Gnomes of Zurich revoked their legendary discretion matters we see that Wall Street becomes the more powerful voice and without the balance that the Gnomes of Zurich brought to some degree we see that only the bottom line remains, a bottom line that is about profit and set on a stage of ‘contribution’ (a better stage of profit metrics), as such the environmental stage was mostly removed and in Sweden it is still at an all-time high because monarchies are about the whole nations, not just the actual consumers and facilitators, like New Zealand their environment needs are among the highest. So whilst the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/27/greta-thunberg-justin-trudeau-meeting-climate-strikes) gave us: “I really believe in Greta’s movement. She is doing amazing things and it’s great that she’s able to press politicians to act on climate change, during an election“, the quoted was 13 year old Annabelle Vellend, the reality is that whatever gain she makes, it will be small and optionally overturned within 2-4 years. In the end when it crosses the needs of Wall Street hard choices will have to be made and in that stage there is a close to 100% certainty that the environment loses.

That is the reality of the matter and the media knows this, they merely like to sprout the fairy tail (pun intended) and when that tail gets shortened it was not due to a young lady of 200 months, it was merely the heart of the economic matter, yet it will be voiced in such a way that it still reads lovely, because that is how the shareholders, stake holders and advertisers need it to be, and as long as the corporatocratic engine is not shown in the out and open this game continues.

In the end Corporations will claim that the desire from Sweden was nice, but in the end not attainable, it was mad to think it ever was, when you see those words consider who you elected and who they enabled in the process, it does not matter which side you elect, corporations have elected beneficiaries on both sides of the political line, it makes continuation a certainty. And whilst we see the positive spark of ‘planting of 2,000,000,000 trees‘ consider what some forests will be valued at for cutting in 3-5 years, and who gets that profit?

In the end this is not a failure of Greta Thunberg, it merely shows the world where the media is at, did you consider that part of the equation?

 

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September 17, 2019 · 11:44

What mattered most

I refrained from giving a view for two days, I saw the attacks on Sunday and I was ready to give voice, but then something happened, a change in the wind was there and it was important to look at that side of the equation. It all started on Sunday (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-49699429) with ‘Saudi Arabia oil facilities ablaze after drone strikes‘, yet that was not the real trigger for the west, there had been other attacks and the west ignored them, as I reported in several articles. It was: “Oil prices ended nearly 15% higher on Monday, with the Brent benchmark seeing its biggest jump in about 30 years” that woke people up, now there was finally a reason to report it, not the fact that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia had been under attack for a month, it was the fact that fuel prices were going to rise.

And of couirse, the US ever willing to be late to a party gives us: ‘Attack on a major Saudi oil facility originated in Iran, U.S. intelligence indicates‘, which is weird as I had handed out evidence out weeks ago to show that Iran had been facilitating resources to attack Saudi Arabia, yet for me it is nice to know that I am more able in intelligence after 3 decades than the US has ever been. As such it is not interesting to read: “American intelligence indicates that the attack on a major Saudi oil facility originated in Iran, three people familiar with the intelligence told NBC News“, that part is not interesting, it is the part where we have known that Iran had been supplying drones to Houthi forces for the longest time, for many months, it would have been nice for US intelligence to hand out that information months ago, but I reckon until the prices of fuel soared there was no reason to show support for an ally, they claimed to be an ally of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, yet they never released the intelligence giving rise to lash out at Iran to any degree. That does not make for an ally that is the foundation for being an exploitation tool (at best).

And it gets to be worse, when you consider NBC News. The quote: “Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted Saturday that Iran “launched” what he called “an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply.”” seems nice, but it only seems so. I wonder if the US officials are really about the ‘world energy supply‘ or the consequences of oil price hikes and the increased value it has on Aramco? It is the impact of the headline ‘Saudi Arabia oil and gas production reduced by drone strikes‘ that is scary to Wall Street, as production reduces, prices go up, the need increases and it changes the economic models for Wall Street, so again it is not really about the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, or about being their ally, is it? It is about the profit margins everywhere else that is the actual debate behind closed doors.

So when the Wall Street Journal (at https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-tells-saudi-arabia-oil-attacks-were-launched-from-iran-11568644126) gives us ‘U.S. Tells Saudi Arabia Oil Attacks Were Launched From Iran‘ we do not see anything new here. The issue is how the drones get moved from Iran to Yemen. We also see through the faded “Monday’s assessment, which the U.S. hasn’t shared publicly, came as President Trump said he hoped to avoid a war with Iran and Saudi Arabia asked United Nations experts to help determine who was responsible for the airstrikes“, just a moment to delay moments of decision making. The culprits are known. It is not the real fear, the real fear is “Higher fuel prices pose another threat to the world economy” and that is the real issue for the US and for Europe. The response: “Saudi officials said the U.S. didn’t provide enough proof to conclude that the attack was launched from Iran, indicating the U.S. information wasn’t definitive. U.S. officials said they planned to share more information with the Saudis in the coming days” makes perfect sense. As the attack was claimed by Yemeni Houthi, the proxy war stage stays intact, it is the intelligence on how the drones get into Yemen that counts and so far (until now) the US, UK and French have not been overly willing to keep closer eyes on it, they all need degrees of freedom to deal with Iran and their so called Nuclear treaty, that has been in the way for the longest of times.

There are two parts in this and both came from CNN. Part 1 gives us: “A Yemen armed forces spokesman was quoted by the agency as saying the Houthis successfully carried out a “large-scale” operation with 10 drones targeting Saudi Aramco oil facilities in Abqaiq and Khurais“, part 2 gives us “CNN National Security Analyst Peter Bergen said there have been more than 200 drone attacks launched by Houthi rebels from Yemen into Saudi Arabia, and none have been as effective as Saturday’s attack, lending credence to the belief that the attack did not originate from Yemen“, I personally agree with both. From my point of view the attack on Khurais has too many issues. It is close to twice the distance getting the attack from Yemen instead of from Iraq. It is dangerously close to Riyadh and when we look at the track record from Houthi attacks, we see a very different pattern. There are more reliable parts in all this when we consider Hezbollah or Iran to be the direct acting agent here. I have to mention Hezbollah as they have been involved in the past with attacks on Saudi Arabia. Abqaiq is right on the border of Bahrain and close to Qatar. The Houthi skillset does not give us any credibility on their actions, yet they claimed it, as a tool for Iran that could have been done to muddy the waters more, yet there is another matter in all this. I believe that there is a larger concern that is not open for viewing. We see this in the quote: ““It is quite an impressive, yet worrying, technological feat,” he said. “Long-range precision strikes are not easy to achieve and to cause the substantial fires in Abqaiq and Khurais highlights that this drone has a large explosive yield.”” The part not seen or spoken of is not that the attack happened, but it was completed with assistance nearby. The precision is not from the drones, it was most likely achieved as someone used a laser to paint the targets (one of a few optional examples) in the final minute. If the laser was small enough it would not be noticed, but for the drones it is like a searchlight guiding them to the explosive points. That part would make sense in more than one way, and it is the foundation that counts. The claims that were made by Yemen make sense and grow in validity when they have resources on the ground. That part is not merely on the stage of drones, there is a larger concern for Saudi Intelligence now. When they accept that the drones got their final guidance on the ground nearby, we see the impact that explosive drones would have and will have again. Iran has been staging this proxy war for the longest time and it is time for us to consider doing something about it in a more serious way (that is when Canada is done selling intelligence data to interested third parties that is).

There is additional support for my view and it comes from the BBC. They gave us: “One official said there were 19 points of impact on the targets and the attacks had come from a west-north-west direction – not Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen, which lies to the south-west of the Saudi oil facilities” to be this precise requires drone technology only the largest players have (like the US and the UK), Iran does not have software that sophisticated and to succeed to this degree required the most likely culprit Iran to have assistance nearby. Painting the targets makes the most sense, but it is not the only option, merely the most likely one. It there were 19 base stations guiding a drone, it would require resources Yemen does not have, it has merely attacks in small clusters of less than 5, the images from the US government satellites involved showed the spread and size of the targets, when you consider resources required to be this precise and the pilot skills involved the shift towards support teams nearby becomes a clear issue. Still there are gaps in the intelligence I admit to that, however, when we look at the maps, the size of the attacks and aligned parameters, an attack from Iraq or Iran are the only options remaining. That in itself is not evidence, yet the premise of what was required is clear and even as we can prove that more basic drone attacks could not have been done by Houthi forces because they lack all levels of infrastructure to create and guide drones to the degree required, we see Iran to be guilty by elimination of other players. The precision requires well trained pilots which the Houthi are not; again we are left with Iran. Actually Iraq might have been party to this, but their drone abilities (read: with additional lacking skill sets to consider) are nowhere near the level required.

This now gets us to the New York Times part which gave us: “Administration officials, in a background briefing for reporters as well as in separate interviews on Sunday, also said a combination of drones and cruise missiles — “both and a lot of them,” as one senior United States official put it — might have been used. That would indicate a degree of scope, precision and sophistication beyond the ability of the Houthi rebels alone” it is the ‘a combination of drones and cruise missiles‘ that pushes Iraq out of the consideration circle leaving Iran all alone. We should consider the skills Iran shows here, and it will also be their undoing. When we consider that only Iran remains as an optional player to do this and when we see that Europe and the US will not actually act, but ‘force’ talks, that is the first instance when Saudi Arabia needs to consider that their allies are nothing more than paper tigers, pussycats that make a lot of noise, but when you know they are sculptures the enemies will come, Saudi Arabia needs to realise this fast and we need to consider that the EU, the US and the commonwealth needs to create an actual plan of attack on Iran. This evidence was handed to us almost 2 weeks ago when we were given ‘Iran puts pressure on Europe to save nuclear deal within 60-day deadline‘, Iran keeps on holding the Nuclear deal as a juicy carrot and will use it to stop a direct attack on them, a path that should now be considered to be totally unacceptable. I for one would like to ‘loan’ a Saudi Eurofighter Typhoon (EF2000) and see if all my hours on a Microprose flight simulator (knights of the sky) were well spent and let’s face it, I do have a quirky sense of humour. I would be able to test my knowledge in guiding that Typhoon to Tehran and level a military building or two, on the other hand seeing their oil fields burn might feel equally rewarding. And there is the optional reward to answer the eternal outstanding question: Can you hear the GBU-16 Paveway II bomb explode whilst you fly a plane?

You think that I am making light of the situation and to some degree I am, the basic need for everyone to realise that Iran has been steering towards war whilst employing the oldest Italian excuse (read: It was not me, I know nothing); This stage has been months in the making and now that the drums of combat are approaching, we will see more and more politicians peaking up offering to start talks. I believe it is too late for that, it is almost 6 months too late for that, but that might just be me.

Yet there is one other voice we need to consider. It is the voice of Fabian Hinz, a research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at Monterey (via the Washington Post). Here we get: “photos of the remnants of a missile in Saudi Arabia show a weapon both too sophisticated to be produced domestically by the Houthis and never seen in Iran“, I only partially agree here. ‘Photos of the remnants of a missile‘ is merely partial evidence that should not be ignored. A multi-tiered attack makes perfect sense, it is the scope of the attack and patterns used that makes Iran stand out; it also gives a larger consideration that their new drones are a lot more powerful. There is also his quote “Is Iran secretly designing, testing and producing missile systems for exclusive use by its proxies?” A quote that is not accurate and not wrong. I believe that earlier evidence showed the need for Iran to scrap all identifiers form their electronics, make clean system boards, in addition, it altered the export drones to trade accuracy in for yield (which maximises the Houthi outstanding debt to Iran), in addition to that they had to make a more idiot proof operating system (the Yemeni are nowhere near the academics they need to be to pilot drones). This is not because I want Iran to be guilty; this is because the elements are so overwhelmingly clear that Iran could not be innocent. There are too many parts in play that require the war machine that Iran has to develop what we see in action at present. And there is every indication that the 60 day nuclear deal deadline is used to stage more and more attacks whilst the indecision of Europe and the US remains in place. If there is one small blessing than it is the stage where the Israeli Defence Forces have even less consideration for Iran than Saudi Arabia has and there is every indication that what is created now in Iran will be shipped to Hezbollah soon enough; forcing Israel to act as well.

When this escalates beyond a point of no return the people in Washington, Wall Street, Brussels and Strasbourg need to consider that when they have no options left and they are no longer considered a voice on the issue: ‘What mattered most to them?‘

Because these considerations with the inaction we see is what drives the war no one can prevent. Saudi Arabia has a clear right, Israel has a duty to its citizens and Iran never cared for anyone but themselves. So when we see cries for talks when the bombs fall, remember that this did not start last Sunday, this has been going on for well over 6 months. The news merely decided not to report on much of it that was until the fuel prices went up, now they are all over it, but way too late.

 

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