Come and enjoy a bowl of schadenfreude

"Och! Och! Oh mein Gott, 'wotabloomin' lot!"  An old English - not German! - expression which might be suitable as a new anthem to replace "Deutchland, Deutchland, Uber Alles!" and all that sort of thing, given the antics of Herr Markus Braun, the mega-boss of the German mega-company "Wirecard".  No, I have never heard of it, or him, either.  Still 'n' all, as they say 'over there' in the 'Land of Mega Bucks', it takes some doing to, er, mislay 1.9bn euros!  What's the German for, "Look, I just put it down over there for a second and it disappeared"?  Thus, in effect, spake Herr Braun and the German auditor, "EY".

According to Mr. Ben Marlow, the City writer for The Telegraph:

Disappearing acts don’t come much better than that, except perhaps when Wirecard’s own auditor EY admits that it can’t even confirm whether the cash was ever there in the first place. Talk about a twist. EY has been looking after Wirecard’s books for the last 10 years so if it doesn’t know, then the chances of anyone else finding the answer seem remote.

Have they looked under the sofa, one wonders?

 

 

Comments

[JK]

*Reminds me of ….

Peter Gibbons: [Explaining the plan] Alright so when the sub routine compounds the interest it uses all these extra decimal places that just get rounded off. So we simplified the whole thing, we rounded them all down, and drop the remainder into an account we opened.

Joanna: So you’re stealing?

Peter Gibbons: Ah no, you don’t understand. It’s very complicated. It’s uh it’s aggregate, so I’m talking about fractions of a penny here. And over time they add up to a lot.

Joanna: Oh okay. So you’re gonna be making a lot of money, right?

Peter Gibbons: Yeah.

Joanna: Right. It’s not yours?

Peter Gibbons: Well it becomes ours.

Joanna: How is that not stealing?

Peter Gibbons: I don’t think I’m explaining this very well.

Joanna: Okay.

Peter Gibbons: Um… the 7-11. You take a penny from the tray, right?

Joanna: From the cripple children?

Peter Gibbons: No, that’s the jar. I’m talking about the tray. You know the pennies that are for everybody?

Joanna: Oh, for everybody. Okay.

Peter Gibbons: Well those are whole pennies, right? I’m just talking about fractions of a penny here, but we do it from a much bigger tray and we do it a couple a million times.

[Loz]

At least it was only pennies ...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/19/50-years-miserable-spectre-heath-administration-hangs-government/

First MSM to compare BoJo's omnishambles to Ted's Heath's 50 years ago. The similarities are stark.

Here's BoJo ...

A sense of deepening malaise now engulfs the Tory Government. On every front, trouble beckons. The economy is paralysed; the deficit spirals out of control. Incompetence and incoherence appear to characterise the official response to the Covid-19 pandemic, epitomised by the farce of over contact tracing and the confused messages on the lockdown.

Even more chillingly, a wave of cultural vandalism sweeps across the land, leaving monuments defaced and our heritage in danger. As the authorities cower before the mob in this atmosphere of turmoil, essential liberties are under threat.

The Conservatives should be mounting a fierce defence of our culture and history. After all, the clue is in the party’s name. Yet, despite a majority of 80 seats in the Commons, the Government appears weak, distracted. Instead of blasting the trumpet of defiance, Ministers continually sound the muted whistle of retreat. The party lacks confidence, the Cabinet experience.

Boris Johnson himself has lost his ebullience as his popularity declines. At the peak of the Covid-19 crisis, he enjoyed approval ratings between plus 20 and plus 40 per cent. In contrast, one recent poll put the figure at minus seven per cent.

Here's Ted Heath ...

Just four months into his premiership, he declared that he would “embark on a change so radical, a revolution so quiet yet so total, that it will go far beyond the programme for a Parliament.”

But that bold rhetoric could hardly have been more empty. Instead of taking command, Heath soon began to be buffeted by events. His Ministry limped from one catastrophe after another, its authority continuously draining away. Throughout this nightmare, the Prime Minister miserably failed to uphold Tory values. Instead, he behaved liked a progressive mandarin, seeing every problem through the prism of Whitehall bureaucracy instead of his party’s central philosophy.

Without a firm political anchor, he was tossed on the turbulent seas of discord. Having come to power promising to crack down on public expenditure, he moved in exactly the opposite direction. Vast sums of taxpayers money were lavished on health, housing, welfare and education, with the result that inflation shot up to record levels. He said he would take on the militant trade unions, but he ended up presiding over a catalogue of retreats, like his 1973 surrender to the National Union of Mineworkers.

During the election, he had presented himself as the champion of free enterprise who would oppose the extension of state control. He was soon executing more dramatic U-turns, as he introduced a prices and incomes policy, nationalised Rolls-Royce, and bailed out a number of “lame duck” companies like the Upper Clyde shipbuilders.

The political storms were relentless. He had to introduce a three-day week because of energy shortages, cope with the Arab oil price hike and deal with soaring unemployment. During his premiership, Northern Ireland went through the most violent period of the Troubles, characterised by internment, Bloody Sunday and the collapse of Stormont. The attempt to reach a settlement through the power-sharing Sunningdale Agreement failed broke on the diehard opposition of unionists and loyalists, whom the Government failed to challenge.

A brusque, cold personality with a streak of egotistical arrogance, Heath struggled to establish any connection with the public or rapport with his party. But his other key flaw is that he failed to act like a Conservative. It is telling that two of his most important measures represented an attack on British tradition, the very opposite of the impulse to conserve. One was his vast reorganisation of local government, which saw the destruction of numerous cherished municipalities and the creation of artificial new monoliths like the West Midlands County Council or Humberside.

Both fail to act like conservatives - blue socialists coated with Libertarian bravado. Both an omnishambles, seemingly disaster magnets with their own incompetence amplification.

The only differences between the two are the "warmth" of BoJo's personality, humour and joviality and their opposite stances on Europe ...

The fundamental lesson of Heath’s demise was that, in graphic contrast to Mrs Thatcher, he never really tried to govern as a Tory. Every administration is bound to involve major compromises – Mrs Thatcher herself had a gradualist approach to trade union reform – but Heath actively seemed to despise Conservatism. Boris Johnson is of course a very different figure: warm-hearted, humorous and jovial, with a natural gift for campaigning.

As the reality of 60,000 negligent killings sinks in that warmth and humour is wearing thin. The public are already extremely sceptical as evidenced by those awful public opinion polls.

And if BoJo bottles Brexit and doesn't go the full Singapore-on-Thames the empirical results will be disastrous for Blighty, and the political ones worse as he falls between two stools, Theresa May style. The options are not Brexit or Remain now, but No Deal or Deal. A Deal would be a disaster because it would rule out Singapore-on-Thames - the only model that works for Blighty outside of the EU. Even No Deal does not guarantee Singapore-on-Thames because of BoJo's endemic blue socialism - they'll just try and run the People's Republic of Blighty with all the protectionism and public sectorism layered on top of WTO tariffs and border frictions.

Well you've heard all this back to the 1970's stuff before from me over the last 4 years, but nice to see the MSM analysis catching up.

SoD

[Bob]

Bah. The Germans are pikers with chump change. US officials along with subcontractors and local lackeys "lost" about 8x as much in Iraq, counting only paper currency:

"BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq’s parliament is chasing about $17 billion of Iraqi oil money it says was stolen after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and has asked the United Nations for help to track it down.

The missing money was shipped to Iraq from the United States to help with reconstruction after the ouster of Saddam Hussein."

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-usa-money/iraq-hunting-17-billion-missing-after-u-s-invasion-idUSTRE75I20S20110619

You might remember video of pallets of shrink wrapped, brand new bills being loaded onto carrier planes bound for Baghdad.

On the home front there are the effects of little regulation along with lots of high-priced corporate tax lawyers and overseas bank accounts, as in this example where about $60 billion "disappeared":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_scandal

Then there's this legendary thief, who disappeared another $65 billion:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Madoff

I could go on ...

[JK]

https://www.amazon.com/We-Meant-Well-American-Project/dp/0805096817

No need for you to 'go on' Bob there's a book!

[JK]

Yo Bob!

Do us both a favor?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRCzZp1J0v0

Push that up to the 1:46:00 timeline and you'll find the talk begins to focus on Covid-19 (and except for a relatively brief excursion to do the obligatory TDS remains along the subject of Covid)

But it's at the, about, 1:59:00 where I'd importune you begin "really" paying attention especially at the segment which begins at about 2:03:20 to an arbitrary say, 2:17:00.

You may find yourself interested to the point, as I find I find myself, to continue (while at least the focus remains on Covid) listening to the end. It's just that as my ears had perked up it occurred to me this was something you'n me could probably go on arguing so unproductively about.

C'mon Bob, what can taking 20 minutes or so outta your (if Indiana's anything like Arkansas this fine sunny Saturday) hot afternoon harm you?

[Bob]

JK,

I don't disagree with the guest. If you listen carefully you'll notice he qualifies everything he says. That's scientist talk, or as some uncharitable people call it "weasel wording".

About the only way I'd criticize him is by way of his credentials:

"Bret Weinstein was a biology professor at Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA. He is now hosting "Bret Weinstein's Dark Horse Podcast" available on Apple Podcasts and YouTube."

So he's an ex-prof with a podcast who wants to have interesting things to say. The majority of working virologists seem sure covid was assembled by nature, but science works through argument:

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/virologists-vigorously-debunk-study-origins-coronavirus/story?id=71097846

[JK]

Nah Bob really all I had in mind was there was an actual company doing research involving UV light to disinfect within the body. Rogan brought that up, not the scientist. Mentioning something along the lines of "because Trump" there was an immediate shut-down (lock-down?) of mentions within polite society. An embargo if you will.

[JK]

It occurred Bob I needed to read your link.

"It is absolutely 100% impossible that SARS-CoV-2 was made in a laboratory. The elements in the virus, SARS-CoV-2, all came from bat SARS-like CoVs that circulate in nature," Racaniello told ABC News."

No weaselly there Bob, you sure that Racaniello guy can possibly be an actual scientist seeing as how he so 'un-scientifically' carelessly tosses around stuff like '100% impossible'? Nevermind his being associated with such an obviously white supremacist institution that it carries on its masthead the name Columbia?

Referencing folks such as that Bob you risk losing your Good People passport.

[Bob]

JK,

Maybe Racaniello doesn't feel any need to moderate his findings. Scientists are people too. If someone proves the virus is artificial later, he'll just have to feel stupid.

Not being an electrical biology type, I can't really comment on the UV idea. As far as I know, though, the human body is opaque to UV and UV can damage tissue. It causes skin cancer, and skin is an organ that's evolved to withstand sunlight.

I am good people.

[JK]

I question then Bob whether you actually listened to the segment.

You know of course what 'intubation' is - at any rate before a person can be placed on a ventilator a tube is inserted into the endotracheal tube and passed down into the lungs; the research company's process involves, along with the air-carrying tube an additional tube (boroscope/endoscope?) capable of delivering UV directly into the lungs thus disinfection takes place.

No Clorox involved. Also, as Trump included in the statement you Wokesters have gotten y'alls panties in such a twist over was this sentence "... So you're going to have to use medical doctors, but it sounds interesting to me, so we'll see. But the whole concept of the light, the way it goes in one minute, that's pretty powerful."

And yes Bob in most cases of ventilator use MDs are involved. With intubation solely not necessarily so always - one example off the top of my head sometimes occurs in combat when 'establishing an airway' is necessary. Admitting in such circumstance as that visible light only can be helpful.

[Bob]

JK,

Yes, I watched the 20 minutes you mentioned. The UV/intubation idea didn't impress me much. It sounds like something someone is experimenting with. Again, I wasn't an electrical bio engineer, but my first take is the idea would have too many limitations to make it worth spending much development on. The UV could lessen infection in the immediate area of the tube, but covid spreads through the entire body, so I can't see how the device would be all that helpful. Again, UV isn't friendly to the body, which would be another limit.

If your intent is to show that Trump is somehow wise because he mentioned putting UV into the body, you haven't succeeded with me. I stopped listening to anything he has to say months ago. That's why I watch Haystack now and have Trump tuned out. I'm not concerned about him personally or any of his ideas. There are plenty of interesting things happening in the world.