Ancient Greece: The Odyssey Christopher Nolan and Elon Musk

Built between 447 BC and 432 BC to honour the goddess Athena (Athenian Calendar) 

AD stands for Anno Domini, a Latin phrase meaning "in the year of our Lord". It refers to the years following the estimated birth of Jesus Christ.

Athens created the world's first direct democracy around 508 BCE under Cleisthenes, which later flourished during the Greek Golden Age (477–431 BCE) under the leadership of Pericles. This era redefined political participation, philosophy, and art.

The "rape of the Parthenon" in Athens, Greece, refers to the removal of its ancient sculptures by the Scottish Lord Elgin in 1801, as well as major military destruction, such as the Venetian bombardment in 1687.

The Ottoman Empire used the Parthenon to store gunpowder during a war, and a Venetian mortar shell hit the building, blowing the roof off and causing massive structural damage.

The Acropolis is the ancient rocky hilltop citadel in Athens, Greece, while the Parthenon is the large, famous marble temple sitting right at the centre of that hilltop.

Lord Elgin, the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, began stripping statues, friezes, and architectural pieces from the Acropolis with official local permission.

Elgin shipped these artefacts to Britain, and they were later acquired by the British Museum in London, where a large portion remains on display today.

 Greece views the removal as an act of pillage and demands the permanent return of the sculptures to be reunited in the Acropolis Museum in Athens. 

From 1801 to 1812, Elgin's agents looted about half the surviving Parthenon sculptures, as well as sculptures from the Erechtheion, the Temple of Athena Nike, and the Propylaia, were sending them to Britain in an effort to establish a private museum. Elgin said he removed the sculptures with permission from the Ottoman officials who exercised authority in Athens at the time.

How Ireland became a hostage of American companies - 3

Ireland, The Netherlands and tiny Luxembourg are Europe's top corporate tax havens - 2

Data compiled by the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (IFAC) has revealed that the top 10 corporate groups accounted for about 59% of all corporation tax receipts [U.S.]

In 2025, foreign-owned multinationals in Ireland paid the bulk of Ireland’s corporation tax receipts: in 2025, they paid 87% of them [U.S.]. 

While 3 countries are in the top 10 corporate tax havens in the world, [U.S.] - 1

Enterprise Ireland, a government unit, said this year that client companies achieved record exports of €38.86bn in 2025 [very poor results].

Exports to Europe and the UK both exceeded €11bn for the first time. Exports to North America grew to €7.34bn in 2025, a 1% increase on the year prior. 

"Enterprise Ireland is very proud of the €43.73bn contribution these companies made to the Irish economy in terms of expenditure last year, equating to almost €120m per day (on payroll, goods, and services), and they now employ 232,425 people in towns and villages around the country," said Enterprise Ireland chief executive Jenny Melia. 

On the contrary, the record is very poor.

Denmark's population is approximately 6,032,900, while Ireland's population is around 5,400,000 to 5,500,000.

Denmark's international goods exports reached €129.59bn ($148.1bn) in 2025, compared with Ireland's €38.86bn. 

Pfizer of the U.S. has a history of secrecy and use tax havens which benefits Ireland : Corporate Tax - 1

Pfizer using Dutch letterbox company to avoid taxes

Pfizer has been the subject of significant controversy regarding both corporate fraud in the United States and aggressive tax avoidance structures that heavily utilise its operations in Ireland.

While the company's multi-billion dollar fraud settlements and its Irish tax strategies are separate legal issues, they collectively highlight how the corporation manages its global legal and financial liabilities. 

It's time for Pfizer, the American company, to get on its bike. By utilising complex international tax rules, the company managed to drop its effective global tax rate down to just 9.3% on those specific earnings. 

One of the first American pharmaceutical companies to establish operations in Ireland (1969), Pfizer has more than 4,500 employees across 4 Irish locations in Cork, Dublin, and Kildare.

In 2026, the total number of employees worldwide is 81,000.

At Pfizer in Ireland, non-management professionals (technicians, analysts) typically earn between €40,000 and €65,000 annually.

Management and senior technical roles command higher bands, ranging from €70,000 to over €130,000 per year, depending on the level of responsibility and experience.

Pfizer salaries vary by location (e.g., Dublin vs. regional sites like Cork or Kildare), role specifics, and annual performance bonuses or stock options.

Pfizer's operations in Ireland accounted for roughly a quarter of the company's total global corporate tax returns in 2025. 

The pharmaceutical giant's Irish tax bill was approximately $1.02 billion, representing more than 25% of its $4.69 billion global corporate tax obligations.

A miracle like the loaves and the fishes in the Bible!

In May 2025, the EU Court ruled in favour of The New York Times in an appeal against the European Commission's decision to withhold text messages exchanged with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla during COVID-19 vaccine negotiations. The Commission faced significant criticism for a lack of transparency

Ireland says Isreal is the last European planter colony and now is an Apartheid Regime

Israel's security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, was filmed taunting Gaza flotilla activists as they knelt on the floor with their hands tied. Photograph: Erik Marmor/Getty Images.

Ben-Gvir was convicted in 2007 of racist incitement and support for groups on terrorism blacklists. For years, he prominently displayed a photo in his living room of Baruch Goldstein, who massacred 29 Muslim worshippers in Hebron in 1994.

'Don't Be Bothered by Their Screams'

Ben-Gvir Posts Video of Police Dragging Detained Gaza Flotilla Activists

The video shows the activists kneeling on a metal floor in an unshaded area while Israel's anthem is playing and armed Border Police officers watch. Later in the video, a woman is heard pleading and screaming, as Ben-Gvir says, 'Don't be bothered by their screams.'

On May 15, more than 50 vessels sailed from the Turkish port city of Marmaris, in what organisers described as the final stage of a journey aimed at challenging Israel’s blockade of the besieged Palestinian enclave.

Israeli forces began storming the boats in international waters off the coast of Cyprus on Monday, organisers said, and abducted activists.

The Israelis called them terrorists, but who were the gagisters 

Xi Jinping of China warns President Trump of the “Thucydides Trap”

On May 14, 2026, President Xi Jinping hosted US President Donald J. Trump for a state visit in Beijing, visiting the historic Temple of Heaven before holding talks at the Great Hall of the People.

The visit aimed to highlight Chinese history and civilisation, with the leaders touring the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests and emphasising harmony and dialogue.

The Thucydides Trap in recent times

The New York Times reported that "As the leaders of the United States and China met in Beijing on Thursday, Xi Jinping had a much older rivalry on his mind.

The Chinese president invoked a warning from the Classical world, when the Greek city-states of Athens and Sparta went to war, saying that the United States and China should beware the “Thucydides Trap” in their own relations.

Malaysia's Highlands and My Mediterranean Diet

Cameron Highlands in Peninsular Malaysia

In 1885, William Cameron, a British colonial government surveyor, "discovered" the plateau that is now known as the Cameron Highlands. 

During a mapping expedition in the Banjaran Titiwangsa area, he stumbled upon the plateau at an elevation of approximately 4,500–5,600 feet above sea level.

William Cameron (1833-1886), along with his assistant, Kulop Riau (a Malay guide and local warrior), who accompanied him when mapping the Pahang-Perak border area (from 1880), eventually discovered the highland plateau for the British Crown.

Together, they reached the peak of Gunung Pondok Challi, where Cameron first sighted the high plateau that now bears his name.

While William Cameron, a British surveyor, is credited with "discovering" and mapping the plateau in 1885, he was not the first to live in or know of the area.

Indigenous peoples, specifically the Orang Asli (Semai people), inhabited the region long before his expedition.

He died in Singapore at the age of 53, reportedly from an accidental overdose of insomnia medication (?).

The Semai people (a subgroup of the Orang Asli) live in the Cameron Highlands region of Pahang, Malaysia.

They are indigenous to the area, with communities located near areas like Kampung Taman and Kampung Kuala Terla. The Semai in this region traditionally practice subsistence farming and rely on the forest.

The normal temperature in Cameron Highlands is significantly cooler than the rest of Malaysia due to its high elevation. 

On average, the daily temperature is about 18°C (64°F).

In the 30s Ameicans discovered oil in Arabia and in the 40s the Zionists ejected Palestions who were there for generations

On February 14, 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) met King Abduaziz Al Saudi Arabia aboard the USS Quincy in Egypt's Great Bitter Lake

The meeting took place immediately after the Yalta Conference, while FDR was returning from a conference with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin.

In modern times, Yalta, along with the rest of Crimea, is internationally recognised as part of Ukraine and is considered part of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

The 1930s in Arabia marked the birth of the modern Saudi state and the dawn of its oil age. 

King Abdulaziz Al Saud unified the kingdom in 1932, bringing stability to the Hejaz [the mountainous region in western Saudi Arabia stretching along the Red Sea coast from Jordan to Asir, encompassing major cities like Jeddah, Mecca, and Medina] and the Najd region [the central area with Riyadh, the capital.] 

In the early 1930s, the economy of the newly formed Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was extremely poor. It relied heavily on revenues from foreign pilgrims visiting the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.

Ireland fifth top investor in US at $389 billion: Leprechaun economics again

Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Micheál Martin of Ireland presents President Trump with the traditional shamrock bowl. 

Ireland is now the fifth-largest source of foreign direct investment in the US, with investment by Irish companies totalling $389 billion (€335 billion), according to Enterprise Ireland, an Irish Government agency.

The Government provides a breakdown of the information. It lists 10 Irish countounties that employ 125,000 people, and there has been a blank on Tax Inversions.

Irish Investment in the United States Reaches Historic Levels

Apart from the 10 Irish companies, there is no reference to where the remaining $389 billion is coming from.

This is Leprechaun economics again.

In 2024, Enterprise Ireland reported that worldwide, the value of goods was € 36.75 billion, with only € 7.3 billion in North America. 

We sell goods valued at about €5.5 billion to the U.S. in 2024, but Irish companies spend $389 billion there?????

Most Irish people would say: "What a load of Bollocks." 

Between 1946 and 2024, the U.S. gifted $330 billion to Israel in 2024 terms

The revolutionaries of the 19th Century in Europe: Marx and Engels

According to Karl Marx's theory of historical materialism, societies pass through Six Stages — 1) Primitive Communism 2) Slave Society 3) Feudalism 4) Capitalism 5) Socialism and finally 6) Global Stateless Communism.

The Communist Manifesto, originally the Manifesto of the Communist Party, is a political pamphlet written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It was commissioned by the Communist League and published in London.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published their work in German in London in February 1848. 

While they commissioned and wrote the text, Marx and Engels were not present at the publication, as they were active in revolutionary movements elsewhere, with Marx being expelled from Belgium around the same time

The word "communism" was coined around 1840 in Paris, France. It emerged from French revolutionary, utopian, and socialist circles (such as those around Étienne Cabet) to describe a society based on common ownership. 

Americans are paying 94% for Trump's Tarfifs' hoax

The 47th and 25th presidents of the United States 

A study by the New York Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Columbia University found that, from January 2024 to November 2025, the bulk of the tariff costs was borne by US firms and consumers.

In the first eight months of 2025, 94% of the tariff incidence was borne by the United States, they said.

“In sum, US firms and consumers continue to bear the bulk of the economic burden of the high tariffs imposed in 2025,” the study found.

Results were published February 12, 2026

Who Is Paying for the 2025 U.S. Tariffs?

“I am a Tariff Man,” Trump tweeted in 2018. “When people or countries come in to raid the great wealth of our Nation, I want them to pay for the privilege of doing so.”

According to the Commerce Department report released on February 20, 2026, the U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 1.4% in the fourth quarter of 2025.

Donald Trump told the World Economic Forum in Davos in January: Growth is exploding, Productivity is surging, Investment is soaring...we are the hottest countries anywhere in the world."    

New York Times Feb 19, 2026

"U.S. Imports Grew in 2025, as Trump’s Tariffs Reshuffled Global Trade

Data released Thursday by the Census Bureau showed the overall trade deficit with the world narrowed, the result of an expanding trade surplus in services. The trade deficit in goods was the highest on record..."

Growth in manufacturing output also hasn’t yet translated into more jobs. American manufacturers cut more than 80,000 jobs in the past year. The president has ignored any data that does not fit his message. This past week, Mr. Trump had claimed on Truth Social that the trade deficit had “BEEN REDUCED BY 78% BECAUSE OF THE TARIFFS BEING CHARGED TO OTHER COMPANIES AND COUNTRIES. IT WILL GO INTO POSITIVE TERRITORY DURING THIS YEAR, FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MANY DECADES.”

The newspaper says  "It’s not clear what metrics the president was referring to, and the White House did not clarify."

On Friday, after the slapdown on tariffs by the Supreme Court, Trump signed a temporary 10% duty on imports under the Trade Act of 1974, which allows the president to set import restrictions for up to 150 days. Later Friday, the Wizard of Tariffs decided to jack them up to 15%.

Leprechaun Economics with Ireland at top FDI in US but a tax haven can fall for a mirage

Foreign multinationals paid roughly 88% of all Irish corporate tax in 2024, with the top 10 firms contributing over half of the total.

The real Irish GDP Per Capita in 2024 was at €40,000, similar to Italy.    

—— Ireland: 5th source of US FDI: tax inversions + small number of Irish firms ——

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the total monetary value of all final goods and services produced within a country's borders during a specific period, typically a year or quarter. 

It acts as a primary indicator of a nation's economic health, measuring size, growth rate, and overall economic activity.

Let's ignore the Duchy of Luxembourg, where near 50% of the workforce comes from adjacent countries. The population is almost 700,000 people.

Ireland has 2 Annual GDP Per Capita Results: 

In 2024, the level was ILLION.108.9K per US dollar /  €104.6 K per euro. It, in effect, was at the top.

1) The Main Annual Accounts include tax haven data for international consumption: €562.8 billion 

2) The Second set of Annual Accounts includes: €321.1 billion

The Modified GNI (GNI*), including:

• factor income of Redomiciled Companies
• depreciation on R&D Service Imports and Trade in Intellectual Property (IP)
• depreciation on Aircraft Leasing

 Per Capita was €59,000, but there is another fiction (see below further).

Europe is home to 6 of the globe’s top 10 tax havens, and Ireland tops the list

In 2024, Ireland recorded the highest value of EU exports of services to non-member countries, reaching €334 billion????

A banana republic with nukes: Trump says he will move on Greenland "whether they like it or not" — Beware of him and his Cronies

President Donald Trump holds a press conference following a U.S. strike on Venezuela, where President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were captured on January 3, 2026.

Relating to China, Iran and Russia's involvement in the oil industry in Venezuela,  Trump said, "All of these actions were in gross violation of the core principles of American foreign policy, dating back more than two centuries."

"All the way back, dated to the Monroe Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine is a significant development, but it has been superseded substantially."

"They now call it the Donroe Doctrine," Trump said. 

Ireland's Foreign—Born Population at 26% in the year of centerary of 1926 Census

National Archives: The 1926 Census with over 700,000 individual household returns

The first Census of the Irish Free State (Saorstát Eireann)

The first census of the Irish Free State, taken on April 18, 1926, recorded a total population of 2,971,992 persons. 

This figure represented a population decrease of 5.3% from the last all-Ireland census in 1911, under British rule. The data from the 1926 census provides a detailed snapshot of the newly independent nation, with statistics on various aspects of life.

The 1922 establishment of the Irish Free State marked the first significant self-rule for most of Ireland since the English conquest, following centuries of domination, culminating in defeat at Kinsale in 1601 during the Nine Years' War, which ended Gaelic Ireland's last major resistance against English rule, paving the way for English colonisation.

It was 321 bitter years of English/British rule over the Irish, spanning from the defeat at Kinsale to the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922.

Kinsale, Ireland, became a medieval walled town in the 13th century under Anglo-Norman control, strategically built around a sheltered harbour for trade, defence, and customs collection.

"On 21 September 1601, a Spanish fleet of twenty-eight sail occupied the Irish port at Kinsale with about 3,300 men, disembarking in a badly victualled and furnished condition under the maestro de campo general, Don Juan del Águila....Lord Deputy Mountjoy’s response was rapid and decisive; he arrived in Cork on 27 September with a small force, leaving his main army to follow. He locked up the Spaniards in Kinsale, seized the forts around the harbour and sealed off the haven. But in doing so, he weakened his forces in the north and left the Pale unprotected....."`

The Battle of Kinsale, 1601

In 1926, the first Census of the Irish Free State recorded a Foreign—Born population of approximately 67,076 people, representing 2.5% of the total population.

"We are led by the most loathsome human being ever to occupy the White House"

 

Bret Stephens

Our Petty, Hollow, Squalid Ogre in Chief

                                            Dec. 16, 2025

Bret Stephens, an opinion columnist for The New York Times, says, "I’m often described as a conservative, though I’ve been a harsh critic of the direction of the Republican Party. I believe in free enterprise, free trade, free speech, and the need to safeguard the institutions of democracy at home and abroad. I also think it’s healthy to be able to change your mind and to say so publicly — as I have about Trump voters and climate change."

"Though I tend to think it’s usually a waste of space to devote a column to President Trump’s personality — what more is there to say about the character of this petty, hollow, squalid, overstuffed man? — sometimes the point bears stressing:" 

"We are led by the most loathsome human being ever to occupy the White House."

After Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner were found stabbed to death in their home in Los Angeles,  at the hands of their troubled son Nick, Trump ridiculed the Hollywood director.

The US president told reporters the director was "very bad for our country," having earlier written on Truth Social (Trump, self-styled "free-speech" alternative to mainstream platforms) that Reiner's death was linked to "Trump derangement syndrome" — a term he often uses to describe his critics.

The Gilded Age, Political Corruption and Genocide of Native Americans

Joseph Keppler, The Bosses of the Senate.

‘'The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today' was a satirical novel written by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, which was first published in 1873. The book’s title became synonymous with graft, materialism, and corruption in American public life in the years after the end of the Civil War.

Here is the approximate percentage of total U.S. wealth held by different groups:

Top 1%: Held about 31% of the total net worth in Q2 2025.

 Top 10%: Held approximately 69% to 70% of the total wealth (this includes the top 1%, the 90th-99th percentile, which holds about 36.4%, and the 50th-90th percentile, which holds 30.3% - the calculation is derived from combining data snippets for specific percentiles as the 10% figure isn't explicitly stated as a single data point in the 2025 results). 

Older data from 2016 and 2022 suggest this figure has been consistently high, around 68% to 70%. 

Bottom 50%: Held only about 2.5% of the total U.S. wealth in Q1 2025.