Govt/EU funds hard to find for laid off Waterford Crystal workers

This comes as no surprise: the EU's much heralded relief for Waterford in the wake of the crystal factory closing down has not worked out the way the workers thought it would. The workers say that "nonsensical rules and regulations" have meant that the advertised €4m relief fund has not materialized.

Those who are best at playing political games and making their lives and work fit specific government guidelines will get money, but most regular people aren't like that. This red tape allows the costs of such golden promises to be kept way below the headline figures that appear at the time of an economic calamity, such as in Waterford or Limerick when Dell closed.

Anglo's building a Celtic Zombie economy

Until I read Ian Kehoe's report in yesterday's Sunday Business Post I was unaware of the great nationalization project that we're currently undertaking.

Thanks to the actions of everyone's favorite state-owned bank, Anglo-Irish, we are in the process of nationalizing all sorts of businesses. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that a nationalized bank would think nothing of nationalizing other businesses, but somehow I'm shocked that this has been allowed.

Many of Anglo's corporate customers are unable to make their loan repayments so Anglo has been doing debt for equity swaps, which means that they're willing to write off loans in order to become owners in these businesses. They've already taken ownership of Arnotts, a number of hotels, golf clubs, service stations, etc. And, of course, there's the Quinn Group, which is the (sort of) sister black hole to Anglo.

Kehoe says that Anglo is well down the road with other businesses, which means that you & I will soon become full or part owners of the following: Calyx (ICT services), Champion Sports (footballs, Manchester United shirts, etc.) and more hotels and, I think, a chain of pharmacies.

All of this is really disturbing because it means that all these companies' employees are now only a small remove from civil service. Sure, they don't have permanent contracts, but you can bet your life that there are opposition TD's or prospective TD's only waiting to denounce any move to close these state-owned "assets" because of all the jobs at stake and what have you. All the political pressure will be to keep these dead businesses alive via artificial life support.

But, of course, keeping those companies alive artificially only threatens other competing businesses that might well survive the current calamity if the competition is thinned out. So, while we're bailing out Champion Sports maybe we're damaging Elvery's (or whomever).

It's one thing to keep Anglo alive - and I don't agree with that - but we must insist that Anglo stop using our money to breathe life into other dead or dying businesses. Or, as Brian Lucey puts it, "You have a zombie bank propping up zombie companies. This creates a zombie economy."

Zombie economy or (I'm sure it's soon to be known as) the "Celtic Zombie."

NRA shows they know salt's not the only answer to snowy/icy roads

I should have waited to see more details. From what I read in today's Irish Independent, the NRA is actually thinking more about clearing snow and ice than yesterday's Evening Herald report implied.

The Independent says that businesses will be compelled to clear the sidewalks in front of their buildings and local groups will be encouraged to clear roads and footpaths themselves, with assistance regarding supplies etc.

Sounds pretty good.

We need a plan as well as salt for winter freeze

"Lesson learned" is the message from the National Roads Authority and they are buying 80,000 tonnes of salt for the coming winter. They want to be ready for the once every 40 years event.

I don't know. To me if that's the only lesson they learned then they've learned little. Salt is not the be all and end of all of winter road maintenance.

First of all, salt ruins the road surface. If all the authorities here are planning to do is dump tons of salt on snow-covered and/or icy roads we'll be left with little segments of roadway to connect our potholes come spring time. Salt really ruins the roads.

Sometimes you have to actually move the snow/ice off the road. And the sooner you do that after a snowfall the better. If the NRA and county councils had reacted quickly when the snow first fell, organized work crews to shovel the little bit of snow off the roads at key intersections and off hilly sections of the roads that would have gone a long way towards keeping these issues to a minimum in January.

They didn't do that, however, and simply relied on salt or "grit" (still not entirely sure what that is). Salt melts snow and ice, but it won't work through a fall of several inches of snow. All that will happen in that case is that salt will melt the snow to slush, which will refreeze at night as the traffic dies down and the temperature falls.

You have to move snow. You can melt the ice, but you have to move snow. And, notice above I said they should organize work crews. I'm not talking about full time employees of the county council, but why not ask for volunteers to clear the key roads in a neighborhood and employ temporary work crews to clear more important routes?

We don't have dozens of snow plows and we shouldn't. There would be no point in buying and housing such machines for a once every 40 years event. But, our planners authorities could have hundreds of snow shovels stored for such events. Our planners could have local civic groups prepared to organize the crews - voluntary and paid - to use those shovels to clear the roads.

There is much that should be done to prepare for that rare snow emergency here and we don't have to spend a fortune. Call on the people to contribute. Why is everyone so wary of invoking civic pride and voluntarism for rare events.

How can Democrats sell health care if BP not to blame for al Megrahi prison release?

Of course the Democrats are going to try to blame BP for the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi from prison. If BP's not to blame then the only other possible scapegoat is Britain's NHS. After all, under NHS care al Megrahi had only 3 months to live, but as soon as he was able to avail of Libyan health care his life expectancy expanded by 10 years (or more).

Now how does this help the Democrats sell federalized health care to Americans?

Mortgage bail-out recipients should be publicly named

Just listened to a discussion on Newstalk about a possible plan to bail-out people in difficulties with their mortgages. I'm of two minds on this one: I have a lot of sympathy for those who bought their first homes in the period 2006-2008 and who now can't pay, but I'm loathe to help those who lived (& still live) better than my family & I do in our modest home.

I also have sympathy for those who find themselves out of work and can't afford their mortgage, but again I would like any help that we taxpayers are to provide to be at a flat rate: that is mortgage subsidies should be a set amount for all. I don't want to see taxpayers' money used to pay mortgages for those who live in substantial dwellings that even in a depressed would sell for a fair amount.

I can kind of see how something may have to be done to help people, but I can just as easily see how this could end up being nothing more than a government-mandated attempt to force the prudent to pay to sustain the lifestyles of the imprudent.

One other feature of any bail-out that I'd like to see is that all such payments should be public. That is, all of us should know who among our neighbors is getting money to help them pay their mortgage. We'll be able to assess the size of their home, the quality of their car(s) and the frequency of their vacations, etc. Why not?

I know this runs counter to the way things are generally done here, but too little transparency runs the risk of all sorts of abuse. Publicly naming those who are in receipt of government mortgage assistance might ensure that only those who are really in need avail of such aid.

Capello should encourage wives to join the players

Today's Sun (I know) says that England's manager F. Capello allowed the team to have a few beers on Monday night. The paper says he did this to let the team relax.

This goes right to the heart of something that I can't understand when it comes to the World Cup. Why are the so-called "wags" banned from the England camp? The English players - & I don't know if other nations' do the same - play the full season in a pretty intense league, many also play in the Champions League. High level competition.

Yet, after every game the players head home to their wives or girlfriends or head out on the town with their pals. Why should they behave differently just because it's the World Cup? Why would any manager mess with the formula that they've proven is successful?

If I was managing the English team I'd encourage them to bring their families with them, to as close as possible set up home away from home. I don't know, maybe that would bring all sorts of problems too, but it should be up to the players themselves whether their families join them at the World Cup or not.

A happy side effect is that the wives and girlfriends could give the voracious English press something to write about other than the minutiae of what's going on with the players. Might take some of the pressure off them.

And a side note: I don't equate "wives" with "girlfriends", those are two completely different roles and relationships. Yet, the players' wives definitely, and their girlfriends too, are mistreated and equated with something akin to concubines in the manner they're treated by Capello and written about in the media. That's just plain wrong.

What does bad journalism cost the state?

Today the Irish Times tells us that tax relief on health insurance costs the state around €400m per year. They arrive at that figure by simply producing the total of all tax credits due to taxpayers' health insurance policies.

Okay, that's the amount of relief taxpayers avail of, but is that the total cost? Surely if that relief were eliminated a certain percentage of those taxpayers would find the cost of health insurance prohibitive or simply not worth it. That would mean they would become 100% public patients, which would add to the state's costs.

I can accept that it would be nearly impossible to make a reasonable attempt at quantifying that figure, but to not even mention it is the difference between journalism and activism.

The state again makes the case for its removal from education

Another Leaving Cert blunder. The state makes the best case for getting it out of the education process. Local testing, local standards. This overly centralized system provides too few benefits despite the rigidity and pompous declarations about "fairness."

Peace activist's statement on Palestinian "genocide" is wrong

I don't doubt Nobel Prize winner Mairead Corrigan cared deeply about the Palestinian people. Very deeply. She's emotionally invested in their plight.

However, her emotional investment doesn't change the fact that she should - as a Nobel Prize winner - avoid factually suspect, but highly emotive statements on the situation in the Middle East and/or Gaza.

The other day Corrigan said the Palestinian people were experiencing a "slow genocide." Genocide is pretty clear cut - an ethnic or religious group is being exterminated. Now if the Palestinians were indeed being slowly exterminated we would see evidence of that. At a minimum the Palestinian population would be in decline.

However, on the West Bank the population is increasing at a 2.13% rate. That's a fairly healthy growth rate. More than Ireland at 1.10% and America at 0.97%. That's just the West Bank.

In Gaza the population growth rate is 3.29%, which is the 6th highest population growth rate in the world. Israel's own population growth rate is about 1.6%, which is less than the West Bank/Gaza combined rate (roughly 2.6%). That's not genocide.

I won't dispute that life in Gaza is extremely unpleasant and unfair on the vast majority of people living there, but genocide it is not.

I'd love to see that remedied and for peace to break out suddenly in the region, but we're not going to get there if Nobel Peace Prize winners feel free to toss linguistic gasoline on the fire.

When did lesbians take over softball?

It's been nearly 20 years since I lived in America. Lots of things have changed. Still, I find it hard to accept that these days only lesbian women play softball because it wasn't the case in the 1980s.

This all goes back to that Wall Street Journal picture of Elena Kagan. Apparently anyone looking at that picture would have known that Kagan is a lesbian. Why? Because she's playing softball, that's why. I just don't know.

I didn't see the picture before I heard about the controversy, but I would not have associated a woman playing softball with lesbianism. Softball is not a tough game; you do not have to be 'butch' to play. I played quite a bit in the late 80s/early 90s in the mixed-sex company league when I was working for Citibank. I don't think any of the women I played with were lesbians.

When I look at the picture of Kagan all I see is a woman playing in a game at an office picnic or something like that. No uniform shirt or proper footware. Why read anything more than that into the picture?

Of course, the Irish media has picked up on all this nonsense and regurgitated what they're reading in the American press. As far as I can tell not a single Irish journalist has bothered to contact Softball Ireland, despite the fact that there are dozens of teams playing the game here, almost all in mixed-sex leagues. They might have been able to help the Irish Times by explaining that the women who play softball don't fit that or any stereotype.

Maybe there's a grain of truth to this whole 'women who play softball' thing, but all I can imagine is that this will make it that bit tougher to convince women in the office to turn out for the summer softball league.

No shortage of public money in Bray

Aren't we in a severe budget crisis? Aren't government bodies cutting back everywhere? I only ask because I've been wondering for the past few weeks where the money came from to re-landscape the roundabouts in south Bray? They used to be grassy areas, but now they're like half desert and half prairie with a small woodlands area.



Truth is, I don't know which public body paid for these 'upgrades', but it hardly matters. Money's supposedly tight and one of our local authorities - Bray Town Council, Wicklow County Council - thought this a wise investment. I liked the old style roundabouts better. And how long had it been since the last upgrade?

Walking away from mortgages will be Irish emigrants' revenge

{Posted in wrong spot. Click here for this post.}

Leaving cert students should have option to take 2 math exams

The Tainaiste has suggested that universities accept students who fail the Honours Leaving Cert in Mathematics. That doesn't seem quite right to me, although I understand where she's coming from - too many students are bailing out of the honours paper and settling for the pass paper.

A simple and equitable solution would be to do the following: let all students take both the pass and honours paper (with an option to skip either). That's not feasible at the moment because the two exams are held simultaneously, but they could be held on different days.

That way any student who was afraid of losing out on a college place all together for failing honours math could take the pass paper as a fall back. There'd be no extra studying required as anyone who has put the work into an honours level course should have no difficulty passing the pass level paper.

We should follow Minister's logic and scrap TV license

The Minister for Comms says the TV license won't exist in 2020. Well, why don't we follow the Minister's logic on the electric cars - be first in Europe to force pace of change - why don't we scrap license as of 2012. That would have the effect of focusing minds at RTE and open up television production & distribution to all sorts of creative people here.

There's absolutely no reason Irish cultural products can't compete in a free market in our wired world. Irish authors, playwrights, songwriters, actors, etc. all manage well, why not those who create digital media? Oh yeah, we also have some excellent games and other software producers.

Scrap the license and free the market now - we'll be ahead of the curve as other countries are forced to do likewise.

Euro's crisis is thanks to hubris of European elites

I missed most of the 9:00 news tonight and so didn't see how (or if) RTE reported on today's news on the euro, but it's gotten a lot more serious. Greek debt is now junk, the euro fell by more than 2¢ against the dollar (a currency with its own concerns) and today a member of the FDP - junior coalition partner in the German Government - said Greece might have to "leave the euro zone for a time."

The German and Greek peoples are pulling in opposite directions. The Germans don't want to bail out the Greeks (or any other errant euro members) and the Greeks don't want to endure the pain required to get their government spending under control to German satisfaction.

Are we approaching the moment of truth for the euro (& the EU)? I've said before that I'm not anti-EU, but I've never understood why the European elite kept plowing on with their political project when the people were so far behind. The European project was too important to allow it be forced on people, but never sufficiently explained.

Now you see the results. First real difficult moment arrives and the various peoples of Europe are pulling apart. The Greek & German governments are like rubber bands stretching, stretching trying to keep holding hands with each other while their respective voters pull them back from any sense of European solidarity.

How do you think this image from Athens on Die Zeit's web site plays with the German people?

The stupid things is, if the euro disintegrates, the European Union will follow. It should never have come to this. The hubris of the Europhiles was as great, maybe greater, than that of the bankers who are public enemy number one today.

Maol Muire Tynan - still can't pronounce it

Maol Muire Tynan is a name I used to see regularly in the Irish Times. It also stuck in my head because I always used to wonder how you pronounced the name. I could probably have a stab at it now having lived her for 20 years, but from the day I moved here the name was just a mystery to me. In fact, for a while I didn't even know if the name belonged to a man or woman (woman, if you don't know).

I only mention her name because I just stumbled across it. She's now the Public Affairs Manager at ESB. Good for her. I'm sure it's a better paying job than journalist at the Irish Times. Probably less pressure too - at least until we start having rolling strikes and electricity cuts that I keep hearing about.

If Fianna Fáil used "deem and pass" ...

Just imagine the reaction of Fintan O'Toole and Vincent Browne if Fianna Fáil ever tried a stunt like deem and pass? Just imagine the tut-tutting of Pat Kenny and George Hook. Just imagine.

I hadn't been paying much attention to America's health care debate and I still don't have a firm grasp what exactly it is Congress may pass, but using this "deem and pass" method is outrageous.

First, what is "deem and pass"?

... the health-care bill would be voted on INDIRECTLY, tucked into what's known as "the rule." The rule essentially outlines the rules for an upcoming vote -- in this case, it would be the vote on the package of reconciliation fixes.

By passing "the rule," the House also would "deem" the Senate bill passed (with a "hereby" statement. "We hereby deem..."). The House would then vote on the package of reconciliation fixes. But the Senate health-care bill would be considered passed even if they never vote on the reconciliation fixes.

Get that? No, well basically it's a trick where the health care package is passed, but nobody has to be tarred as having voted for it.

I like how David Brooks sums up what this means.

Deem and pass? Are you kidding me? Is this what the Revolutionary War was fought for? Is this what the boys on Normandy beach were trying to defend? Is this where we thought we would end up when Obama was speaking so beautifully in Iowa or promising to put away childish things?

... This is the largest piece of legislation in a generation and Pelosi wants to pass it without a vote. It’s unbelievable that people even talk about this with a straight face.

And he voted for Obama.

This will be Barak Obama's legacy.

Night in Dublin's new theater will cost you

Dublin's new Grand Canal Theatre opened last night. I presume it's as spectacular inside as outside (eh, no, I don't know what's going on with those red things).

It sure will be a pricey experience to go to the new theater. My wife and daughters were looking at tickets for Hairspray later this year. The cost of the tickets - including booking charge - was a lot more than they paid last summer for flight to London, train journey into the city and tickets to the show there.

American troops don't "stop off" in tax havens

President Obama thanked Brian Cowen for allowing American troops use Shannon as a transit stop on the way to Iraq and Afghanistan. That's the insurance policy against being tagged as a tax haven. Avoiding tax haven designation is one of the keys to economic recovery.