For those who haven’t got it yet, the Water charges are just another ‘Stealth’ Tax. It was NEVER intended to fund water services. It was an excuse to tax the people of Ireland, suggested to them by the Troikia to pay for the Bank Bailout.
If you think that 0.005€ per liter is magiclly derived from average water usage, to arrive at ~280€ per month you would have been shocked if it had been 1.00€ per liter to arrive at that same monthly figure had the usage data been lower.
The entire Garth Brooks debacle is an example of Irish ‘Wink and a Handshake‘ culture. I have absolutly no doubt that the concert series was ALWAYS for 5 shows, but that the promoter thought they could make more money by promoting only the first three, then adding on the additional two shows, with the full support and agreement of the GAA and Dublin City Council.
The promoter KNEW he could not get 5 nights, but thought that they could ‘work around‘ the issues in back room deals the the GAA and Councils. The issue is that they were NOT required to get a license BEFORE promoting the concerts.
This is the same issue that the building boom had, that collapsed the Irish Economy, get the planning permission AFTER you completed the building. Bass Ackwards!
While the wife is trying to formulate a final post on her blog to end the year. I thought I’d take a different tack so here are my predictions for next year.
1) The World as we know it, will NOT end. (as in period)
2) The Euro (system) for Europe will NOT collapse.
3) I will get another year older.
Now here’s a cat picture.
So tuck in, and wait it out.
I heard all the arguments, and if I were in a position to actually have made the decisions, or been allowed to tender an opinion on the actions taken. I know I would have made different choices. But in the end;
If you think that your vote doesn’t count, just remember that there are Libyans dying today that WANT to vote today, instead of dying.
Don’t be a langer, VOTE.
George Carlin on the “American dream, outlines why WiKileaks is being assaulted. And why we have such rotten governments around the world.
Additional Material: Amnesia as a Way of Life: WikiLeaks Amid the “Careless People”
We should sell a passport and an Irish Citizenship to everyone who believes they belong to the Irish diaspora! If we charged them all 100€ or maybe 1,000€ then we might have a hope to buy back the Irish sovereignty lost by Fianna Fáil.
The future of Irish unemployment, or for that matter, unemployment anywhere, may involve re-establishing a medieval apprenticeship, where students, or other unemployed IT/Scientific/Technical workers live with those in the same industry who ARE working, and learn the business from them, as MASTERS of the craft.
Apprentice – A Medieval Guild Apprentice was sent to work for a ‘Master’ during his early teens. The Apprenticeship lasted between 5 and 9 years depending on the trade. During this time the apprentice received no wages – just his board, lodging and training. An Apprentice was not allowed to marry until he reached the status of a Journeyman.
While all of these requirements need not be followed, it might alleviate homeless students or other tradesmen.
All the bad news,
Nokia smartphones dumb down profits
Nokia releases Q2 2010 results; profits down, market share flat
Nokia Q2 2010 results – profits down but smartphone sales up
So lets do a reality check on the facts; Nokia profits are Down 40%, but are still making a Profit. Which means they are in the green economically, and are making a Profit of €221M Euros (285M$). But 40% less than last quarter, meaning that they are only making 60% of the profit they made last quarter, during the worst recession in over 100 years And everyone is complaining?
The only thing this tells me, is that a manufacture like Apple who makes more profit on their iPhone 4, is ripping off their customers by charging a premium price for a Smartphone and Nokia does not!
If you haven’t heard there is a vote in The Dáil on Tuesday, A No Confidence Vote against the Fianna Fáil Government. But listening to RTE and the Newspapers, you would only hear about Fine Gael frontbenchers ousting Kenny . What? No! We are voting AGAINST Fianna Fáil ! Where did all the kerfuffle about Kenny come about. In a word Fianna Fáil! It’s a ploy augmented by the gullible and lazy press to deflect attention away from the Tuesday No Confidence Vote. A lame attempt to displace attention away from their criminal activities which created the Irish Banking Crisis and to make a mockery of the Vote.
I’ve being rude at Gateway Ireland I’m an Ass H__e. But I’m a Ass h__e that gets things done! I have spent my whole life moving from project to project simply on my reputation of being a high tech firefighter. I stomp out project fires, and make things work. I complete projects that are spinning out of control and either cash in the reality check and close them, or bring them to fruition. And the one thing that gets my blood up are projects without any clear goal, or ones that have floating goals. This Gateway Ireland project sounds great, but is clearly unfocused and directionless. Doomed to failure, much like the Mobhaile.ie project which I could see from it’s outset would fail. And the aftermath shows that there had to be ulterior motives at work here. Observing the expense items listed, points directly at a government rip off, a government money laundering operation. Clearly meant as a payoff to political friends.
What Ireland needs now, is a clearly defined, and completed project to demonstrate real Irish skills, not another political farce to act the maggot. Real developers, operating on clearly defined goals to solve clearly defined problems. There is no such thing as an all encompassing solution in this recessionary environment. Fix as many of the small problems, the big ones will take care of themselves.
That headline isn’t really news, at least to the people of Ireland. And only the, very disconnected, Irish Government believe that their spinning of any other message has changed that public attitude.
But here is another one, Rent, the very nature of the overinflated rents, which are driving companies out of business. This has only one value, and that is to the Banks which are utilizing the higher rents to increase the apparent value of their holding before passing them on to NAMA. In any other country, this is called Fraud
Accounting fraud
In order to hide serious financial problems, some businesses have been known to use fraudulent bookkeeping to overstate sales and income, inflate the worth of the company’s assets or state a profit when the company is operating at a loss. These tampered records are then used to seek investment in the company’s bond or security issues or to make fraudulent loan applications in a final attempt to obtain more money to delay the inevitable collapse of an unprofitable or mismanaged firm.
While this deceit may be well know to many, it was new to be. I could not understand why anyone would increase rents which were driving out tenants. Or how the rents were still overinflated with all the empty property’s currently on the markets. This more or less points to a second issue, that of Price Fixing and is, in reality, another for form anti-competitive fraud.
And there is no revolution yet? I suppose the bankers can have, and eat your cake too…
A fellow Blogger at A Networked World made the connection with another blogger. And Got me thinking about The Real, Next Big Question! He states;
It can’t really be the same as it was before. We have to seek new things, new jobs, and a different way of life than that which was before. That world is gone! IT will NEVER return, or better yet, SHOULD NEVER be allowed to return. It’s unsustainable and WILL collapse again (for the worst) should we ever ‘Recover’ it.
What’s needed is Vision and leadership, something sorely missing in the Irish mindset, let alone the mindless Government mindset.
If anyone wants to know the benefits of having an Internet connected population only needs to skim this article Economic Benefit of Getting Everyone Online in the UK
– Digitally excluded households are missing out on average savings of
GBP560 per year from shopping and paying bills online– The most economically disadvantaged families are missing out on savings
of over GBP1billion– 1.6 million children in digitally excluded families could increase
their lifetime earnings by GBP10.8billion– Unemployed people who get online could increase their lifetime earnings
by over GBP12,000– If 5% of digitally excluded unemployed could find work by using job
websites it would deliver an estimated GBP560million to the UK economy– Internet savvy workers can earn an average increase in lifetime
earnings of over GBP8,000– Government could save at least GBP900 million a year in customer
contact costs if all digitally excluded adults got online and made just
one electronic contact per month
and while the amounts will be different in Ireland, the benefits will be similar, maybe even better.