Collection of Articles. Non Comment Thread

[Mickmack]

Take a 13% pay cut. You know it makes sense


Unlike the whingeing public service unions here, Middle Ireland knows that a secure job is a privilege

Libby Purves Sunday Times



Good morning. Here is the news. Because of the budget deficit, shrinking economy and untenable level of national debt, all public service salaries will be cut by an average of 13.5 per cent, with immediate effect. The charges will appear on your payslip as “government levy”, and will apply to frontline public workers in health, education, transport and local services and also to MPs, Ministers of State and the Attorney-General.

Judges will be, for the moment, exempt, but a mechanism is in place for voluntary payment of this levy. So far 72 judges have paid up. No undertaking can be given about when, or if, take-home pay will return to former levels. The severity of this measure reflects the good levels of public pay, security and pension rights compared with the private sector. Government regrets the pain this will cause, but regards it as essential. Thank you.

Couldn’t happen, could it? Actually it has, and close to home. Having been away from old friends in the Irish Republic for more than a year, a visit last week made me aware of a particular change in the country’s fortunes, little reported here. We knew about the fiscal crisis and how the Celtic Tiger caught the mange. The construction boom slowed to a standstill, and cranes have stood rusting for two years in half-finished speculative estates. House prices fell by a third; Dell Computers of Limerick, the country’s top exporter with 4 per cent of GDP, defected to Eastern Europe.

We know about Ireland’s credit rating losing its third “A”, as indeed we may do any day now. But we have heard little about the most extraordinary street-level change: public sector pay in the Republic has been cut. Not frozen, sharply cut.

The pay cuts began a year ago and are well bedded in. Quite casually, a senior teacher volunteered that it has cost her €10,000 so far, and others chimed in with equal sangfroid. “For a revolutionary people,” said one, “we seem amazingly meek about it.”

That is true: Ireland has not ground to an indignant halt. Union leaders have fulminated, odd work-to-rule sessions have sprung up, some phones have taken longer to answer, and there was a demonstration last year of fully half the size promised by union leaders (whose pay is linked to that of senior public officials).

Scroll back through Irish press reports of the past year and you read plenty of UK-style threats of “strong action” and “serious measures”. Talks are forever “ongoing” . But the bald fact is that, although the payslips have been changed for many months now, the schools are open, the hospitals treat the sick, rubbish is collected and paper pushed around briskly enough in public organisations. Belts are tight all right and pips are squeaking; but the country whose public pay once led the EU league has not imploded into the chaos of suicidal strikes, unburied bodies, closed schools and garbage mountains, which the UK or France would expect as a matter of course if a government did any such thing.

I find this fact — the strike-dog that did not bark in the night — hypnotically interesting. I devoted an unreasonable amount of time in my visit to questioning everyone in sight as to why it is so. It is not that the Irish revere and trust their Government any more than we do. People are fed up of parliamentarians milking their expenses, of fat-cat bonuses, of dodgy bankers who pushed 100 per cent mortgages and misery on unwary families. Irish conversation is not short of ironic, angrily humorous insights into governmental mismanagement, overblown health service bureaucracy and all the ills so familiar to us.

Yet the pay cuts — I say again, 10 to 15 per cent cuts in pay, real and immediate holes in the family budget — have not caused the enraged citizenry to pull down the pillars of the temple around their own heads and everybody else’s. They just haven’t. Why?

Maybe community decency is part of it. It’s a small country still, where everyone is somebody’s cousin and has a friend who lost more in the private sector or who might be redundant if things get worse. Maybe it is just because a startling measure like this persuades people that things really are on an economic war footing.

Maybe the wild Celtic boom was never quite believable, and people always expected it to fade like fairy gold. Or it could be fuelled by pure pragmatism: unlike Britons, most Irish are barely a generation or an in-law away from farming and fishing. So they know in their bones that when the calves die or the fish don’t bite, money dries up and that’s just life. As one expat Irishman wrote on a messageboard: “Rage does not change the facts . . . Rage embraced will lead to the IMF and ten years or more back in hell. Suck it up and it will be over in five . . .”

Another factor, perhaps, is that, unlike the self-righteous whiners who speak for British public service unions, middle-Ireland still knows that a secure and pensionable job is a privilege: that working in the public sector is not an altruistic gift to the nation, but a damn lucky break. I saw a spirited, self-mocking sketch performed by 12-year-olds in a village hall entertainment the other night about “Marty Matchmaker O’Donoghue, where every ould stocking will find an ould shoe”. The girl being advertised to the men is talked up by the matchmaker as having “a Government Job! A clerk at the council office — I tell ye, she’s a laying hen!”

Friends confirm that it’s an old saying: “Marry a teacher or a nurse, you’ve got a laying hen.” It does not seem that way in boom times, but even in the UK it is becoming true.

Or maybe the strange lack of public chaos is just a sign that the Irish are nicer than we are: gentler, more caring of one another’s welfare, better able to take life’s grim little jokes by sounding off over a pot of tea or a pint, cursing the bankers and politicians and heading back to work. I offer no moral, certainly no suggestion that any such cut should enliven Mr Darling’s Budget this week. It’d be mayhem. But we are what we are, and must live with what we have made of ourselves as a nation.

But it’s interesting, isn’t it? And will be even more interesting if Ireland, bless its eccentric green heart, finally climbs out of recession before we do . . .

[kerrygold]

By David McWilliams


Wednesday March 24 2010

I walked by the barbers in Dalkey yesterday and for a split second I was back in the mid-1970s. I was once again the little boy with the flaming red hair, short pants and freckles looking up at the kind barber. The boy had a dilemma and the barber was the only person in the whole world who could solve it.

My earliest memories of Castle Street, Dalkey, were Saturday mornings in Dom McClure's barber shop with my father. Dom cut my grandad's hair, my dad's hair and now he was shearing mine.

Most importantly, everyone in Dalkey knew that Dom McClure understood hair and his magic hair oil could turn my red hair black so that no one in school would ever call me rusty, redser or jaffahead again. Dom was not just a barber, he was my saviour and through Dom I would be redeemed. He promised that by the time I was 10, I'd be jet black. I believed him.

As usual, when I peeked into the shop on a Saturday morning, Dom put on his best Scottish accent which he called "Scotch", gently mocking my grandfather who came from Scotland to Dalkey in the 1920s. According to Dom, both my grandparents had "shocking Scotch accents".

Back then, Dom had a plank that he'd place carefully across the arms of the barber's chair so a young fella could sit up and see himself in the yellowed mirror. I loved the barber, the smell of the hair oil, the wireless in the corner, the copies of the Irish Independent and the football talk. I felt like this was my entree into the world of men. And Dom conferred status on me by handing over the huge brush to sweep up the hair.

The barber, like the grocer, the draper and pub were part of the community and this was where people came to chat and keep up-to-date with what was going on in the town. A few doors up from the barber -- which is still thriving -- my grandfather had a sign-writing shop but he had one fatal flaw as a businessman: he didn't like asking people for money. He went bust in the 1950s, bequeathing me a life-long affinity with struggling traders.

The spectre of the 1950s is once again haunting the businesses of the town. If any small town loses its shops and businesses, it loses what makes the place special. Over the years, people have moved into Dalkey because of its special atmosphere, because it is a living and working town with a community at its core. This could be lost in this recession.

To see how one closure leads to another, you only have to look at the many English villages and towns where there are actually no shops with the exception of one or two chainstores on the outskirts. It is essential to a town's life, atmosphere and community that it survives as a trading hub with its own ecosystem. And for that ecosystem to survive, it needs cobblers and chippers as much as it does boutiques and bars.

The 'Dalkey dilemma' is valid in any town in Ireland. If the heart of the town is thriving or at least surviving, the community can flourish. But, like many towns in Ireland now, the town and the traders of Dalkey are not thriving. In fact, many are barely staying open. In the past 12 months, 10 local businesses have closed down and some traders are saying they are only months away from closure. In fact, the post office on dole day is the only shop with a queue in it. Last Tuesday, the queue was out the door.

This is what the credit crunch means in reality. Small businesses which are the backbone of our economy are being hammered by the banks tightening credit while costs remain stubbornly high. All the while, we the customers -- aware of the dole queues -- are keeping our hands in our pockets and postponing spending because, as prices fall, there are better bargains to be had.

But when a small business closes it doesn't open again in a hurry and something is lost. The lifeblood of any town -- whether it is Dalkey or Drogheda, Listowel or Lahinch -- is the vibrancy of the local shops. If this goes, the town dies. And towns do die. This happens slowly but the pattern is as follows. One or two businesses go bust and then their premises come up for rent. The empty premises decline, become shoddy and this puts off new players who are worried about passing trade. Rents mightn't move because the landlords are in trouble and don't want to admit that they have to mark down the value of their portfolio. The banks get worried and cut back credit. People sense this and a little bit of the town's spark ebbs away. Unless someone shouts stop, this process can become self-fulfilling.

Last night the traders of Dalkey shouted stop and they held an extraordinary meeting in the town hall of small businesses, shopkeepers, hairdressers, pub owners, restaur- ateurs, butchers, the local guards, the hotelier and even the local bank manager. The organisers expected about a dozen people to turn up -- close to a hundred came.

The local traders have decided that there is little point waiting for the recovery; you have to make it happen. If you are concerned about your town and your locality, you have to do something for yourself.

The most exciting aspect of last night's meeting was the pride everyone had in the place and the absolute intention of not letting one more business go to the wall.

The first part of the local fightback is to try to get a few more locals to spend a bit more in the town rather than spend it elsewhere. It is not about huge gestures, just small things -- like maybe a loyalty card for shopping locally. The traders told me that the town was packed during the January snow when local people couldn't drive to the bigger shops out of the town.

If every day we could get one of these local people who normally head out to one of the big supermarkets to stay and shop locally, the difference would be incremental but enormous. All over Ireland, traders are facing the same problem. How do they stay open first and secondly how do they expand? Most of us realise these dilemmas exist but usually we expect someone else will do something and we wait. Then a shop closes and we comment on its passing but do nothing and don't see that it is our spending power, however modest, that is the key. Then the next goes to the wall but we don't act and on it goes until one day the knock comes to your door, the reality comes home to you and you are made redundant and guess what, no one comes to your aid.

To prevent this from happening, it is essential that communities in Ireland come together in the recession. So many towns in our country have so much to offer in terms of festivals, tourism or one-off events. This is the way communities are re-built. I saw the energy in my own home town last night. This can be repeated everywhere all over the country. This is the opportunity in this crisis, the opportunity to come together. Let's get the ball rolling.

By the way, the hair of the young fella in Dom McClure's barber never did go black!

www.davidmcwilliams.ie Small business, big problem: email David McWilliams at [e-mail] with your business query

- David McWilliams

Irish Independent

[glengael]

Labour's election strategy: bring on no-nonsense hard man.

The Guardian Thursday 1 April 2010

Labour strategists are considering a billboard campaign portraying Brown as 'a sort of Dirty Harry figure', in the words of one senior aide. By Olaf Priol



In an audacious new election strategy, Labour is set to embrace Gordon Brown's reputation for anger and physical aggression, presenting the prime minister as a hard man, unafraid of confrontation, who is willing to take on David Cameron in "a bare-knuckle fistfight for the future of Britain", the Guardian has learned.

Following months of allegations about Brown's explosive outbursts and bullying, Downing Street will seize the initiative this week with a national billboard campaign portraying him as "a sort of Dirty Harry figure", in the words of a senior aide. One poster shows a glowering Brown alongside the caption "Step outside, posh boy," while another asks "Do you want some of this?"

Brown aides had worried that his reputation for volatility might torpedo Labour's hopes of re-election, but recent internal polls suggest that, on the contrary, stories of Brown's testosterone-fuelled eruptions have been almost entirely responsible for a recent recovery in the party's popularity. As a result, the aide said, Labour was "going all in", staking the election on the hope that voters will be drawn to an alpha-male personality who "is prepared to pummel, punch or even headbutt the British economy into a new era of jobs and prosperity".

Strategists are even understood to be considering engineering a high-profile incident of violence on the campaign trail, and are in urgent consultations on the matter with John Prescott, whose public image improved in 2001 after he punched an egg-throwing protester.

Possible confrontations under discussion include pushing Andrew Marr out of the way while passing him on a staircase, or thumping the back of Jeremy Paxman's chair so hard that he flinches in shock.

One tactic being discussed involves provoking a physical confrontation at one of the three ground-breaking TV debates between the candidates. In this scenario, Brown, instead of responding to a point made by Cameron, would walk over from his microphone with an exaggerated silent display of self-control, bring his face to within an inch of the Tory leader's, and in a subdued voice, ask "what did you just say?", before delivering a single well-aimed blow to his opponent's face, followed by a headlock if required.

The bloodied and bruised Cameron could then be whisked to a nearby hospital, where a previously briefed team of doctors and nurses would demonstrate the efficiency and compassion of the NHS under a Labour government.

Saatchi & Saatchi, the agency behind the poster campaign, are also considering reworked posters from classic movies, casting Brown as The Gordfather, the Terminator, and "Mr Brown" from Reservoir Dogs, or perhaps linking him to Omar Little, the merciless killer in the TV series The Wire, in order to burnish the prime minister's "gangsta" credentials. Another set of designs appropriates the current Conservative anti-Brown poster campaign, employing adapted slogans such as: "I took billions from pensions. Wanna make something of it?"

The Brown team has been buoyed by focus group results suggesting that an outbreak of physical fighting during the campaign, preferably involving bloodshed and broken limbs, could re-engage an electorate increasingly apathetic about politics. They also hope they can exploit the so-called "Putin effect", and are said to be exploring opportunities for Brown to be photographed killing a wild animal, though advisers have recommended that weather, and other considerations, mean Brown should not remove his shirt.

Labour further hopes to "harness the power of internet folksourcing", the aide explained, encouraging supporters to design their own posters, which could then be showcased online. The "design your own poster" initiative has caught the imagination of Downing Street strategists, the aide said, because it is cheap, fosters engagement among voters and, above all, nothing could possibly go wrong with it.

For their part, Conservative strategists are said to be troubled by internal research suggesting that several members of the shadow cabinet – including Cameron and George Osborne – would in fact not "come here and say that" if challenged by Brown, instead turning pale and running away, or arranging for an older brother to wait outside the Houses of Parliament to attack him when he is least expecting it.

[kerrygold]

By Lise Hand


Friday April 02 2010

AND so the Anglo-Irish War raged on yesterday. It may have been Holy Thursday in the religious calendar, but on the political frontline it was Holey Thursday as the black hole that is the country's most disgraceful bank remained firmly in the opposition's gunsights.

There were Anglo-related skirmishes breaking out all over the place.

The first broadside of the day had been launched by economist Peter Bacon, the main brainbox behind the whole NAMA wheeze, who went on Newstalk and presented the radioactive bank with a brand new nickname -- the 'Celtic Chernobyl'.

Enda Kenny was much taken with this moniker, and wasted no time in trotting it out at the very start of the Order of Business in the Dail.

He -- along with every citizen who has ever had a stern call from a bank manager after slipping into the red -- wanted to discuss the small matter of Anglo's staggering €155m in loans to former bigwigs of the bank, including a piffling €88.7m to the bould Seanie FitzPatrick. "Will the Government respond to the fact that Anglo Irish Bank wrote off €109m in loans for directors?" Enda demanded.

Likewise, Labour's Joan Burton was also on the warpath. She wanted confirmation from the Tanaiste that the 30-minute question-and-answer session on NAMA, which was scheduled for later in the day, wasn't the end of the matter but merely a prelude to more debate after Easter.

"This is war reparations," she thundered, waving around a piece of white paper in a sort of reverse version of Britain's Neville Chamberlain after his meeting with Hitler. "This is similar to what happened after Versailles and after the Franco-Prussian War," she snapped.

But a stern-faced Mary Coughlan wasn't of a mind to act as appeaser.

"We are all appalled at what happened in Anglo Irish Bank. I want to reaffirm to this House and the people that all of the company directors' loans will be vigorously pursued," she stated with grim relish.

However, the Tanaiste had no intention of caving into Joan's demands.

AS far as the Government was concerned, the whopping five hours of time allotted to the Dail to discuss the trifling business of saddling the taxpaying electorate with tens of billions in debt was plenty sufficient. "It is not the intention of Government to provide more time," she stated crisply, and sat down. Case closed. Joan sprang to her feet. "That's a disgraceful answer. No wonder they ruined the country," she roared, but to no avail. Iron Mary wasn't for turning.

It wasn't just in the Dail that shots were being fired at Anglo Irish Bank. At lunchtime yesterday, Socialist Party MEP Joe Higgins held a protest outside the bank's premises on St Stephen's Green.

Given that every newspaper yesterday was emblazoned with lurid headlines about the bank's boggling losses of €12.7bn -- the biggest corporate loss in Irish history -- it wouldn't have been all that surprising to find an angry cast of thousands shaking their fists at the building.

Instead it was a modest crowd gathered on the pavement -- at one stage the protesters were outnumbered by the media and police.

But Joe was undeterred. There were still capitalist running dogs to denounce at a fully amplified decibel level. He proclaimed it would be an "absolute disaster" to "pour money into the bellies of these financial sharks while neglecting our public services".

But he did get a bit of a cheer with his closing denunciation.

"When any reckoning comes, the political leaders of Fianna Fail and the PDs have to be put in the dock alongside FitzPatrick and any financial criminals," he blasted.

There was even one non-Anglo-related dust-up in the Dail when Fine Gael's Padraic McCormack stood up and demanded an apology from the absent Taoiseach who had branded him a "gurrier-in-chief" during the previous day's rowdy set-to in the chamber.

Padraic explained that he had looked up the insult in several dictionaries and found no entry.

"Therefore, it must be an awfully bad word entirely," he concluded. "I have always been very nice to the Taoiseach," added the Galway West deputy, tongue firmly in cheek.

The Ceann Comhairle was flummoxed. "I didn't hear it," he said apologetically. "We had stormy exchanges yesterday."

Indeed. But then Joan Burton, of all people, kindly brokered an end to the standoff.

"I believe 'gurrier' is derived from the French word 'guerre', which means 'war'. Gurrier actually means 'warrior'," she said learnedly.

Padraic beamed. At least there was one happy Easter bunny in the House.

- Lise Hand

Irish Independent

[glengael]

Are your friends making you fat? How can someone you'll never know make you fatter, happier and even sexier? Simon Garfield meets the Harvard professor exploring the amazing power of social connections

The Observer, Sunday 17 January 2010

A couple of months ago, about 80 people – some of whom knew each other and some of whom did not – gathered in a small lecture room at Nuffield College, Oxford, to hear a man give a lecture about how, if one of them suddenly got fat, the chances are that others would get fat, too. The same applied to happiness: if someone in the room spent the next week elated, that joy would probably become infectious. And the same for smoking: if a man in the room finally managed to quit, the chances were good that his friend sitting two rows in front of him would quit as well. And then, a short while later, a friend of his friend whom he didn't know would do the same thing.

The lecture was given by Dr Nicholas Christakis, a professor from Harvard who had flown over to expand on theories that he once thought of as "cockamamie". His talk examined the power of social networks to influence our behaviour, and suggested that our actions were only partly determined by our own free will. Increasingly, something he called "social contagion" seemed to be getting the upper hand.

Some of Dr Christakis's theories seemed obvious – the chances of becoming obese because we hang around with obese friends who like eating cake – but some are more surprising, including his findings that we may become obese just by knowing someone who knows someone who is fat.

One person at the lecture, who's not obese, was Dr Ben Goldacre, author of Bad Science, the bestselling exposure of quackery and lazy research. He kept his mouth shut during the talk, which was not necessarily a sign of approval, but probably indicated a certain level of intrigue in what was being delivered.

Dr Christakis, who is 47 and has grey hair and a gregarious outlook, describes himself "both as someone who craves solitude, but also as someone who is energised by the contact with friends and family; my wife thinks I am an extrovert, and I guess I am". Recently he has become a bit of a media star in the United States, not least upon the publication of his book Connected (written with his colleague James Fowler, a professor of political science at the University of California at San Diego). Connected is one of those popular social science books, like The Tipping Point or Freakonomics, that attempts to explain how we live and how the herding instinct of the crowd influences our actions. It has not yet sold quite as well as the others, although its contents seem to have featured on almost every talk show in the United States as well as the cover of the New York Times Magazine. Last year Time magazine named Dr Christakis in its list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Connected, which is published in the UK next month, makes many claims, and many startling observations. Christakis sums them up thus: "People affect each other even in things [like body size or emotional states] that many readers would not necessarily expect." He calls these things "emotional stampedes" and "a social chain reaction". The authors believe that at least some part of this is deeply embedded in our genetic heritage, which is, as Christakis points out, "a non-trivial finding".

Dr Christakis is nothing if not an entertainer, and Connected is nothing if not diverting. It is not all about getting plump and happy; it is also about sex and making money. At Nuffield, Christakis tells the story of a friend of his, Brian Uzzi, who has used the impact of social networks to analyse the success or otherwise of Broadway musicals. "He finds that if the key players – the director, costume designer, sound person, producer, etc – all worked together before, and everyone knows everyone else, then the show is a flop. He also finds that if you put together a group of people, who have never worked together before, the show is also a flop. But if you put together a group of people some of whom have worked together and some who haven't, then the show is a runaway critical success with enormous financial rewards."

He had told me the same story when we had met a few hours before for a chat in the Nuffield College common room. He picked up his book repeatedly as he spoke, pointing to the coloured diagrams that show the distribution of obesity, happiness, sexual activity and smoking among groups of hundreds or thousands of people. Clusters of red, green and blue nodes spread out seemingly randomly towards the edges of their pages. But they are not random; they are connected and to some extent predetermined, and they are the cause of zealous excitement.

"We're not just social animals in the conventional way that people think," Christakis says. "It's not just a bunch of us who hang out together. We have a very specific pattern of ties, and they have a particular shape and structure that is encoded in our genes. It means that human beings have evolved to live their lives embedded in social networks."

These networks can harbour a flow of generally undesirable things – violence, germs, sexually transmitted diseases, suicide, unhappiness. But good things also flow – happiness, love, altruism, valuable information on how to find a job. "It is the spread of the good things that vindicates the whole reason we live our lives in networks," Christakis says. "If I was always violent to you or gave you germs, you would cut the ties to me and the network would disintegrate. In a deep and fundamental way, networks are connected to goodness, and goodness is required for networks to emerge and spread."

Christakis's work is new in its scope and ingenuity, but his interest in human interaction has many forebears, stretching back at least as far as Aristotle. Academic interest in the impact of social networks goes back at least a century, to the work of Georg Simmel, the German sociologist who became interested in triads, extending the study of relationships between two people to three. From the 1950s to the 70s this interest broadened, and people began to map networks of between 30 to 100 people, most famously studies of how a group of 30 monks in a monastery and 70 people in a karate club interacted with each other.

In the 1990s the study of large US networks took a huge leap forward when a group of physicists began borrowing modelling techniques from social scientists and mathematicians, and turning their gaze towards newly interesting things – neurons, genes, computers. An advance in conceptual ideas accompanied a revolution in statistical tools, not least the worldwide digital traces offered by email and other online activity.

Christakis's multidisciplinary background (he is a qualified clinical doctor as well as a social scientist and healthcare adviser) set him up as an ideal candidate to exploit these developments. For several years he had worked as a hospice doctor in London, examining how doctors made predictions about life expectancy. He was also looking at the health benefits of marriage, and the old problem known as the Widow Effect, first studied in England in the 19th century, asking why an elderly person's death was so frequently swiftly followed by the death of their spouse. This was a non-biological spread of disease from one person to another, and it was crucial in what was to follow. After Christakis had published a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine studying 1 million married couples, it dawned on him that this most basic of social networks could be agglomerated to form structures of greater complexity. "It was the simple idea that I'm connected to you, and you to others, on endlessly into the distance," he remembers. "And then these patterns could branch and form these incredibly complicated networks. I became very interested in this rippling effect – how a health phenomena could affect not just one person, but hundreds or thousands."

In one sense this was a grand extension of Six Degrees of Separation, the concept that we are all just six links away from being connected to everyone else in the world. But now the connections didn't come in straight and direct links but in fuzzy multiples, and Christakis and Fowler were trying to demonstrate something equally stunning: "three degrees of influence". But there was a problem with this thinking: how to prove anything. Christakis needed well-established research groups with hundreds and thousands of people in them. These people should not be lone individuals but somehow linked, and would have to be studied across time. Fortunately, such a group of people already existed.

In Framingham, Massachusetts, the Framingham Heart Study had tracked the cardiovascular health of more than 5,000 people since 1948. It had also kept extensive and interlinking personal records of its patients across three generations.

In 2001, Dr Christakis moved from the University of Chicago to Harvard, and it was here that he met his long-term collaborator James Fowler. Fowler was studying the classic problem of why people vote. (The classic conundrum: everyone knows that a single vote is highly unlikely to have any decisive bearing on an election, so why does anyone bother? The uniform conclusion had been that voting makes no rational sense. Fowler concluded that we vote because other people do – a clear influence of the effects of social connectivity.)

To prove their emerging network theories, the two professors hatched an ambitious plan for a long-term study involving thousands of people, at an estimated cost of $25m. The National Institute on Aging gave them an initial grant of $2m, too little to set up their own new research project but enough to start remodelling what was already out there. So they contacted Framingham, and found its basement records far more useful than its founders had ever anticipated. Every participant had logged their spouse, their children, their friends and their work details, and by doing so had also logged their ties with others in the study. "Previously they had only been examined as individuals," Christakis says, "but our insight was that you could take that population and reconstruct the network. I knew that [from these records] we could get 32 years of social network data if we just spent the money." In 2004 they began the digital reconstruction of about 50,000 social network ties involving 5,000 people.

The digitisation of the records began in 2004, and the reconstruction of the links among the participants began to take shape. The network pictures in Christakis and Fowler's book all originate from the Framingham Heart Study, and have since become famous.

"This is a social cluster of 22,000, mapping obesity," Dr Christakis says, pointing to an illustration. "Or this image here is one of my favourites – mapping happiness. We think of happiness being an individual phenomenon, but think about this: why do you show your emotions? Evolutionarily it would be to our advantage to hide fear or sadness. But we show those emotions on our faces, and surprise and joy, and not only do you read it on my face, but you copy it. An emotional contagion takes place. This suggests that emotion should have a collective existence." The picture shows clusters of happy and unhappy people within the network, and suggests that our happiness is connected with the happiness of people three degrees removed from us; whether we're happy or not depends in part on our friends' friends' friends.

The author's first paper on obesity was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2007 and was downloaded 120,000 times. No wonder: the research contained some remarkable figures. If someone on the Framingham study became clinically obese, their friends were 57% more likely also to become obese. A friend of a friend of that obese person was about 20% more likely to become fat, and this was the case even if the weight of the linking friend remained unaltered.

A year later came their paper on smoking, which contained similarly arresting ties. If a person began to smoke for the first time, the chances of their friend doing the same increased by 36%. "The impact surprised us," Christakis says. "We got very lucky."

Christakis and Fowler suggest that human beings in many ways behave like the flocking of birds and the schooling of fish – changing direction all of a sudden. "It's not always explicable in terms of individual actions," Christakis argues. "It would make as much sense to ask an individual smoker: 'Why did you quit?' as it would to ask a single buffalo in a stampeding herd: 'Why are you running to the left?'"

I suggested that a group of people who suddenly quit smoking might have other external causes – an advertising campaign, perhaps, or a plot in a popular soap opera. "Overall, smoking is in decline," Christakis concedes. "But it's patchy. We are often misunderstood in our work. Just because we say networks are important doesn't mean that networks explain everything. We're just adding additional information. Networks don't work like a match – they work like a magnifying glass."

Dr Christakis is keen to emphasise that not everything spreads in networks, and that not everything that spreads in networks spreads the same way. Germs spread differently to emotions, which spread differently to ideas. And online ties spread differently to those we encounter face to face. Christakis has done less conclusive work here, hampered partly by the fact that the definition of "friend" is very different online, and connections tend to be accumulated and then rarely abandoned. But he has produced one intriguing bit of research about Facebook. If a member lists a favourite musical artist on their page, it is unlikely to influence or reflect the choices of their friends. But there are two exceptions. List the Beatles or the Killers, and their popularity on your friends' lists will increase crazily overnight.

Recently, Christakis and Fowler have begun to wonder if we have purposely evolved to live in certain networks. Last year, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published its first study of the network genetics, suggesting that about 30% of our social ties to others may be embedded in our DNA. This is a profound claim, with a number of implications, and it has led to a search for possible genetic determinants. The authors suggest there may be three: sociability, transitivity and centrality.

The first concerns how many friends we have. "People are genetically programmed to vary in this," Christakis suggests. "Some people are shy, others outgoing. Historically it could be valuable to have more or less friends. Sometimes having more can be very useful – to your health, finding a job. But it can also be costly – they make demands on you, they might want you to lend them money, they can be a pain in the butt." Transitivity is concerned with whether one's friends know each other. Christakis and Fowler contend that people have a genetic predilection to introduce their friends or not, and this too has a basis in evolution. "If you want to hunt a mastodon," Christakis says, "it's really good if all your friends know each other because you can work closely together to kill it. But if you want to find a mastodon, it's much better if your friends don't know each other – because they'll all have the same information. If you don't know your friend's friend, the chances are he will be able to tap more distant regions of the network." Finally, the notion of centrality defines where you are in a network. If a germ enters a connected group, it is preferable to be a loner on the periphery; but if you want to be in on the gossip, its helps to be with more friends in the middle.

Critical reaction to Christakis and Fowler's work has been generally enthusiastic. Reviews of Connected have called it "obvious and brilliant" (New York Times) "unsettling" (FT) and "alluring… another way of seeing the world" (New Scientist). Online criticisms tend to focus on cause and effects, suggesting that their findings are predominantly caused by factors other than our social ties. "The social network wasn't needed to make people fat," one person observed on Wired.com. "The high fructose corn syrup did that for them."

Robin Dunbar, professor of evolutionary biology at Oxford, told me in an email that he found the work of Christakis and Fowler "absolutely fascinating". He believed that healthcare educators have "completely ignored the extraordinarily strong effect of very close relationships in influencing our actions. This effect must apply more widely – to, for example, antisocial behaviour as well as health patterns." Sanjeev Goyal, the professor of economics at Cambridge who has conducted his own pioneering work into networks, also told me that Connected raises timely and fundamental questions about public health policies. If further research proves the author's work to be true, Goyal suggests that our provision of healthcare may have to be reformulated.

At the end of his lecture in Oxford, Dr Christakis put up a final slide of the jacket of his book. The UK title of Connected has changed slightly from the US one, and will now appear with a deftly hyped-up sub-heading: "The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks" has become "The Amazing Power of Our Social Networks". But ultimately its success will depend not on hyperbole, but on something far more embedded in the reading public's natural habits: the amazing power of word-of-mouth. If one of your friends' friends reads the book, it may be only a matter of time before you read it, too – the social network effect that extends as far back as Gutenberg.

[Corner Back]

This article appeared in the Sunday Independent
4th April 2010


THERE are those who accuse me of being too partisan in my belief in Kerry football, but I'm afraid the signs so far this year are ominous.

It's true that it's only the league, but the gaps in the Kerry team are so big and their form has been so patchy that, right now, I wouldn't have a bet on them winning the Sam Maguire.

There could well be, however, a renaissance in the west and if the All-Ireland final were played next week, I would put my money on Mayo.

People ask me every day whether Mayo are merely flattering to deceive. They are certainly in superb form at the moment and it is my opinion that all they have to do is to break through the psychological barrier of nearly 60 years in the wilderness, after which, like Roger Bannister beating four minutes for the mile, a wealth of success could follow.

I don't have to remind readers of the great Mayo teams in the 1950-'51 halcyon period, with players like Seán Flanagan, the 'flying doctor' Pádraig Carney and Tom Langan. But in football terms, this Mayo team is probably as good as they were and all they need now is the confidence and mindset to do it. As always, success breeds success and I feel in my bones that Mayo are going to break that jinx this year.

The interesting thing about this Mayo team is that the emphasis is on the collective. Too often in the past, Mayo have had a couple of gifted players and when they have bombed, the whole team has too. Now, there doesn't appear to be that reliance -- even though they have the likes of Conor Mortimer and Aidan O'Shea to produce flashes of brilliance too.

Galway have been stop-start in the league, but I'm sure they will give Mayo a thorough testing in the Connacht championship. Roscommon are another side starved of the sweet elixir of success, but at least they should be good enough to make sure that, whatever team comes out of the west this year will have been thoroughly tested. (One of Roscommon's greatest footballers of all time is army chief of staff, my friend Dermot Earley, who has been ill recently and for whom I wish a strong return to full health.)

In Leinster, Dublin have been working very hard, but I feel they put too much emphasis on physical training at the expense of ball work. If a team is not able to do the ABC things, good catching, accurate kicking and the ability to pull the trigger from 30 yards out, all the training in the world is of little use. It is quality, not quantity, that counts.

Mick O'Connell had a great philosophy -- leave the table with just enough eaten and leave the training ground before you're trained into the ground. It is all very well to train until you're at the point of collapse, but there should be a clinical self-questioning: what has been the benefit?

Tom O'Riordan, the athlete, once told me that, when he was feeling stale and listless for a period of months, he took a short break in Ardfert, near his native Tralee, and returned after a complete break from training to break the All-Ireland record in the Phoenix Park that Friday night.

That elusive freshness of mind and body is the holy grail and there has to be a proper and wise balance in training methods if that is to be achieved and reproduced when needed on the big occasion. Great horse trainers know a lot about this, as do great football managers.

Back in Munster, if Cork win the league, as I think they will, it will have immeasurable benefit for their self-confidence.

I anticipate that Kerry will be given buckets of attrition from Cork in the Munster championship and that, if they're there

at the shake-up, it will be through the backdoor. Kerry's defeat at the hands of Tipperary in the Munster U21 final last Wednesday night in Tralee is another poor omen.

I had a few players on that team earmarked as potential seniors this year. Edmund Walsh from Knocknagoshel, whose grandfather Eddie Walsh played in the 1946 All-Ireland, did well, as did Paul Geaney from Dingle. But another of my tips for the top, Johnny Buckley of the Crokes, will have to step up on this performance if he is to make it this year.

One intangible asset in Kerry that must never be left out of our assessment is the depth of football wisdom in the county. I believe that, in this tradition, the management will not be too overwhelmed by the U21 setback and, if they feel a player is good enough, they'll bring him on.

All in all, though, these are interesting times.

Paidi O'Se
Sunday Independent

4th April 2010

[kerrygold]

The Irish Times - Monday, April 5, 2010Tiger long ago abandoned a greater role
LOCKER ROOM: He was reared, bred and honed not just to be a golfer but to have a larger social impact, writes TOM HUMPHRIES

TIGER. TIGER. The circus hits the road again and, unlikely as it seems, the second act in this American life is likely to make for more compulsive viewing than the first.

There are those of us who lament the missed opportunity that has been Tiger Woods’ dominance of the game of golf since his late teens. And there are those who argue that there is no onus on Tiger, merely by dint of being a black sportsperson, to exhibit any special sensibilities or political awareness: being good at golf is enough.

It’s not, and in Woods’ heart of hearts he knows it. His father knew it too.

Fourteen years ago the great American sportswriter Gary Smith penned a wonderful piece on the young phenomenon. It was called “The Chosen One”, and it limned out the early years of an amazing life and prophesised with some acuity what was to come.

Earl Woods outlined what his son had been raised for. Not just to be a sportsman who served as corporate shill, but to make a difference.

“The world will be a better place to live in by virtue of his existence,” said Earl. His son would make a “contribution to humanity”.

And Smith, with the scepticism of his profession, asked if Tiger Woods could do more for humanity than, say, Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali or Arthur Ashe. And Earl said his son would do “more than any of them. Because he is more charismatic, more educated, more prepared for this than anybody”.

Of course we suspected then, and with respect still do, that Earl Woods was half crazy. The point, though, is his immense and undoubted influence on his son and the fact Tiger was reared, bred and honed not just to be a golfer but to have a larger social impact.

“This is my purpose,” confirmed Tiger. “It will unfold.”

And beneath the applause and the clamour, Gary Smith detected something which fed his doubts.

“Can you hear the grinding?” he wrote. “That’s the relentless churning mechanism of fame girding to grind the purity and the promise to dust . . . it is a fitting moment to pose a question. Who will win? The machine . . . or the youth who has just entered its maw?”

Four months after the piece appeared Tiger Woods gave us the last true glimpse of himself before the machine swallowed him. Woods gave an interview to Charles Pierce, another great sportswriting stylist. The piece ran in GQ magazine.

(Pierce began with a rather good joke, the punch line of which is still apposite for Tiger. God and St Peter playing golf. Peter tees off. Callaway club. Titleist ball. Perfect shot splices fairway and comes to a halt setting up a short iron to the green. God steps up. Winks. Draws out a bit of bamboo with a rock tied to end. A range ball. Takes swipe. Ball shoots straight up, is caught in mouth of a passing woodpecker who carries it to fringe of green whereupon he has a heart attack and drops ball which lands on the back of a passing box turtle who proceeds to ramble towards the hole with the ball on his back. Inches away he sneezes, ball runs down turtle, creeps to lip of hole and drops in. Peter to God: “You gonna play golf or you gonna f*** around.”)

The GQ interview revealed Woods as a callow enough man, who told dirty jokes and chatted up the photographer’s assistants and had an existence and personality separate and apart from the image which was being constructed for him. Pretty soon afterwards he disappeared into the machine.

From that time until his automobile accident and the great spillage of his private life into the public domain, Woods has been the opposite of what he was raised to be. That which he promised would unfold never fully did.

He did win golf tournaments and created a legacy of success which will never be equalled in the modern game.

He has also been the world’s first billion-dollar slave, a grim irony for a man whose success might have had such a liberating effect on people. Signed up by the world’s biggest sports management agency, he was immediately strait-jacketed, given a monochromed personality and sent out to serve capitalism and sell stuff as best he could.

He stopped doing interviews and disappeared behind a cordon sanitaire which kept the world away from Tiger and Tiger away from the world. His press conferences at events were studies in controlled blandness. The only colour emanating from his long-running success was the red tops he wore on Sundays. What Tiger Woods thought or felt about anything more significant than pin placements nobody knew.

The market couldn’t be offended. And opinions and a real life were bound to offend some people. So they took away a few dimensions of a young man’s personality and put a cardboard cut-out in the shop window for the passing trade.

It was sad to see an obviously intelligent man decline to offer a view on just about anything. Money and victories are common enough lusts, but gathered in sufficient quantity they seldom amount to personal fulfilment. There was scarcely an element of Woods’ life which wasn’t controlled and retailable. And we know now that the part which was his own was a sort of lonely chaos.

He comes back to golf not because he has to but because he knows nothing else and because fame is a strange class of drug. Not many can handle it. Not many who have experienced it can live without it. Tiger was never really going to disappear into the sort of obscurity his old rival David Duval visited in the years after his British Open win, and, even if he wanted to, it is doubtful if he would be allowed.

Some corporate “partners” have dropped him for strategic reasons in the past few months, but too many others have too much tied up in him to let him go free. Ditto the game of pro golf itself.

So they will be fitting the old straitjacket again with rather less ceremony than they fit the green blazer in the lodge in Augusta. And Tiger will mind his Ps and take care of his Qs and be rehabilitated into the market.

And sometimes he will wonder about that life which he thought would unfold. Where he wasn’t just a golfer but a human being who made a difference. He’ll look back at the young man and the machine and know that the machine won with strokes to spare.

[kerrygold]

By David McWilliams

David McWilliams: Government has sold us out to neo-gombeen man


Wednesday April 07 2010

Over 100 years ago, JM Synge described the gombeen man as follows, "groggy patriot/publican/ge-neral shopman who is married to the priest's half-sister and is a second cousin once removed of the dispensary doctor ... the type that is running the United Irish League anti-grazier campaign, while at the same time they are swindling the people themselves in a dozen ways and buying back their holdings and packing off whole families to America".

When we see the closing of businesses and the emigration of our neighbours and relations while deeply entrenched "insiders" disguise national robbery in the emotional language of patriotism, it is not difficult to conclude that the gombeen man never went away.

Even in terms of the detail of Synge's gombeen man buying up the peasants' holdings, it is obvious that, for NAMA to work, the State will have to trade land cheaply at some stage in the future. And guess what? To get the market going it will have to sell stuff at way below the price NAMA bought the stuff for in the first place -- that's how to generate liquidity. So like Synge's gombeen, the very people who caused the mess will be given the opportunity to buy the stuff back cheaply in a few years' time.

Let us examine the bailout of Anglo/NAMA through the prism of the late 19th century and early 20th century politics of rural Ireland -- where most of us came from. It is easy to see the direct link between the ways and wiles of the post-Famine gombeen man and the instruments and choices made by this Government.

We see the return of the gombeen tactic of saying one thing and doing quite another, terrifying the people into believing that we have no option but at the same time, setting aside €2.5bn in fees to make sure the gombeen's pockets are lined with silk despite the people's misery.

We are seeing not the return of the traditional gombeen but the emergence of his direct descendent, the neo-gombeen, who is a traditional gombeen hiding behind the international lexicon of high finance. The neo-gombeen thinks that if he uses the language of the 'Financial Times', as opposed to the 'Skibbereen Eagle', he can get away with it.

Given the pliant nature of the national reaction to the Anglo/NAMA business, the neo-gombeen's plan might seem to be working. But, in reality, it matters not a jot how many references the neo-gombeen makes to "bond market spreads", "basis points" or "rating agencies", the game is the same; the players are probably better dressed but that's about it.

In Parnell's Ireland, the traditional gombeen man thrived by lending money to the peasants, charging huge interest rates and when the peasant couldn't pay, the gombeen man repossessed his neighbour's holding and moved on to the next debtor.

A recurring feature of the post-Famine gombeen man was his willingness to put his fellow Irishmen in debt in order to make a few quid for himself and, more significantly, to please his foreign bankers who lent him the cash in the first place. Does this sound familiar?

Today we see a repetition of this pattern. The middlemen in Ireland who will make money from the bank bailout are salivating at the fees they are about to earn, and scaremongering the rest of us into believing that "there is no alternative". But of course there is.

Letting Anglo go bust is what free market capitalism is all about. Failure is punished and success rewarded -- these are the rules of free-market capitalism. It is about risk and return and a corporate default in Anglo wouldn't make one bit of difference to Ireland's creditworthiness. It wouldn't affect our reputation because we have no reputation to defend. In fact, a default in Anglo would signal that this is a proper capitalist country, not a "gombeen capitalist" country.

But even if neo-gombeenism wins, the victory will prove to be short-lived -- a sort of smart arse victory which has no substance. The reason is simple: the world has moved on. The rest of the world is getting on with creating wealth from new and viable businesses. This wealth generation is in direct contrast to the favoured method of the gombeen man, which is stroking a few quid from wealth that has already been generated. This is why it is so crucial for neo-gombeenism that the Irish status quo and land/credit/banking oligarchy remains intact.

Gombeen capitalism is never about generating new, real wealth from innovation, hard work and trade. It is about taking a cut. Central to it is land and property. If the gombeen can engineer an increase in the perceived value of land, then he can get a small slice and that prevents him having to go to work or trade.

Keep this in mind and think about the core contradiction at the heart of this Government's economic policy. On the one hand we have the deep-rooted gombeen capitalism of Anglo/ NAMA and on the other we have the ambitious, but achievable, "smart economy" idea.

The Anglo/NAMA strategy encourages what is called "rent seeking" in economics. This is where the professions see something that they can milk fees out of, and rather than create proper business, they trouser fees which ultimately come from the general public's taxes.

Therefore lawyers, accountants, stockbrokers, estate agents, valuers, senior civil servants and politicians are all behind the NAMA/Anglo stroke. As long as this structure stays in place, it replicates itself. It makes sense for the mammies of Ireland to urge their smart kids to join the professions, why wouldn't they?

Now contrast this with the smart economy idea, which -- at its purest -- is an effort to create a Silicon Valley here, where capital and brains come together to build a new economy.

But this takes money. The Government has said it will set aside €500m to help create this economy. This sounds like a lot -- until you think that it is putting 44 times more money into the Anglo black hole. So it is spending 44 times more to keep one fetid bank from the gombeen economy afloat than it is in trying to make this economy work properly.

Now, with the new education-based innovative economy in mind, think about how much of a competitive kick we could get for the money we are wasting in Anglo. There are 22 universities and third-level institutes in the country so they could get a billion each for a start. And they could get a thousand new professors working on research projects for 10 years. Now imagine going out and telling the world about that and see how much capital and expertise would flow in.

Or maybe we'd like to spend the Anglo swag on students. There are 146,000 full-time students here at the moment. So we could spend €38,000 per student; imagine what sort of education that would give them. Or what about spending some on early intervention in children's education? Or what about the new Science Gallery in Trinity? It cost €100m. We could build 223 of them all around the country. That's a possible future.

So who is going to win -- Old Ireland or New Ireland?

David McWilliams hosts the Leviathan political cabaret tomorrow night in the Button Factory, Dublin. www.leviathan.ie

- David McWilliams

Irish Independent

[glengael]

Ryanair set to earn €23m from €5 baggage charge during peak season
By Niamh Hennessy

Irish Examiner Thursday, April 08, 2010

RYANAIR could rake in €23 million with its€5 hike on checked-in luggage during the peak summer months.

This news comes as the airline reported that the number of passengers it carried in March increased to 5.3 million from 4.7m in the same month a year earlier. The company’s load factor or percentage of seats filled rose to 79% from 77%.
It is increasing the charge on checked-in baggage from €15 to €20 during July and August, its two busiest months.

Goodbody analyst Eamonn Hughes said assuming a 30% penetration rate on checked-in baggage the move could see the airline generate €23m. Bloxham’s Joe Gill agrees and said it equates to about 7% of net profits produced in the year to March 2010. The shares closed down less than 1% at €3.95.

However, travelsupermarket.com’s Bob Atkinson said the baggage charges increase will be "a real blow for families travelling on a budget".

"Far from being the ‘world’s favourite airline’, Ryanair is in danger of alienating its customers. Whilst there are ways to travel lighter, a family of four going away for a week would struggle not to put at least one or two pieces of luggage in the hold, especially bearing in mind that the weight allowance is lower than other airlines at only 15kg per bag. So potentially that could add at least £70 (€80) to a return flight with the low-cost airline.

"However if a family of four were to forget to check their hold luggage in online, it could them an up to an outrageous £320 for a return trip."

Meanwhile, US airline Spirit Air has announced it will start charging as much as $45 (€34) for carry-on bags. It said the new charge will help the airline lower base air fares. The fee applies to carry-ons placed in overhead bins, while personal items placed under the seat remain free.

Mr Hughes said Ryanair will likely be watching consumer reaction to Spirit Air.

"We are not so sure Ryanair will necessarily follow suit given that its decision to charge for checked-in luggage was led by a move to reduce airport handling charges as well as a revenue source," he said.

[glengael]

You're not a feminist, but … what? Many young women embrace the ideas of feminism but are reluctant to use the 'f-word' for fear of rocking the boat

Chloe Angyal guardian.co.uk,
Wednesday 7 April 2010 14.00

If you were to ask most young American women if they believe in equal rights for women, the answer would no doubt be a resounding "yes". When it comes to voting or being able to get an education, women of my generation are in little doubt as to our rights. When it comes to injustice against women abroad, from acid attacks and female genital mutilation, we are similarly unconflicted.

The young women of my generation are driven and outspoken. We start blogs and play on athletic teams and run student theatre companies. We are more likely to graduate from high school and college than the boys in our cohort, and we enter professional and graduate school at a comparable rate, too. We look forward to full and busy lives made possible in part by the progress made by our mothers and grandmothers. We are heirs to a legacy built by the women's libbers who came before us and the suffragettes who came before them. And yet, if you ask the average young American woman if she is a feminist, the answer isn't often a resounding "yes". The answer is usually, "I'm not a feminist, but …"


What follows will be the profession of a feminist view, like her belief in equal pay for equal work or in a woman's right to choose. But, she will add, this doesn't make her a feminist. In an age when feminist beliefs are almost a given for young women, the word "feminist" has become quite the opposite and many are shunning the label.

It's hardly surprising. After all, feminism has a pretty dreadful reputation. In her landmark book Backlash, Susan Faludi painstakingly chronicled over a century of scare tactics designed to deter women from embracing the ideas of feminism. Fortunately, those tactics were ultimately unsuccessful: most women of my generation embrace feminist ideas. What the backlash has succeeded in doing is making feminists, and the idea of being a feminist, unappealing. Faludi's book was written in 1991 but almost 20 years later, too little has changed. In the popular imagination, feminists are still the ugly, angry extremists who killed chivalry and who seek not gender equality, but world domination. Calling yourself a feminist carries with it the risk of having any one of these labels slapped on your forehead.

It's also unsurprising that women of my generation feel that the feminist movement hasn't made room for them: for a long time, it didn't. But thankfully, feminism has now recognised that young women's voices matter, and that young women's leadership is valuable. The website that I write for, Feministing, is devoted to giving young feminist women a platform, and it's not the only one. There are thousands of young women out there who proudly wear that label, and I'm grateful every day for the hard work that they do: none of them would deny that being a feminist is hard work. Feminism demands a complete overhaul of how we think, how we behave, how we talk, where we work, what media we consume, how we vote and how we raise our families. For women and for men, feminism is a dramatic shift away from the way things have always been. That's why it's so thrilling – and so threatening.

Unfortunately, despite the enormous strides we have made towards gender equality, that overhaul is far from complete. In a country where only 17% of Congress is female, where women – with or without children – make 77% what men make a decade after finishing their education and where only 6% of rapists will serve jail time, we can't afford "not a feminist, but …" – a disclaimer that signals to the world that we're willing to settle for an incomplete overhaul.

"I'm not a feminist, but …" is a way of telling the world that we don't pose too much of a threat. It's a way of saying that we don't plan to rock the boat too much, that we will play nice. And yet, feminists are people who dare to imagine a world in which women are 50% of Congress, where women are paid 100% of what their male colleagues earn and where every person who violates another human being is reported, prosecuted and convicted.

It's tempting to hide behind this disclaimer, this shield. But it is feminism which got us where we are today and without action and leadership from unabashed young feminists, we won't get much further. So step out from behind your shield and say it: "I am a feminist." No ifs, ands or buts.

[kerrygold]

By Eamonn Sweeney


Sunday April 11 2010

Sometimes I regret that so many great sporting moments took place before my time.

I'm not old enough to remember the Brazil 1970 team, to have seen Christy Ring play or watched the 1971 British Lions. I'm just old enough to have seen the try scored by Gareth Edwards for the Barbarians against the All Blacks in 1973, Ali beating Foreman in Kinshasa and the Dubs winning the 1977 All-Ireland semi-final against Kerry, but I'm sure there are readers of this column for whom these events are part of history rather than memory.

Not to worry. The well never runs dry. After all, on Tuesday night we were lucky enough to see what I think was the greatest individual performance ever given by a footballer and one which confirmed that Lionel Messi is the game's Mozart, its Shakespeare, its Michelangelo. It is a privilege to be able to watch him.

Messi's four-goal haul against Arsenal brought his total to 39 goals in 43 games this season, an extraordinary total for a man who

is not exactly an out-and-out striker. And the goals themselves almost seemed designed to show particular facets of his genius. There was the awesome power of his drive from outside the box for the first one, his quickness to swoop on a loose ball and the calmness of his finish for the second, the audacious chip over Manuel Almunia for the third and the way he weaved through the Arsenal defence for the final one.

It beggars belief that in recent weeks the British media have been speculating as to whether Wayne Rooney is better than Messi. Rooney is a very good player as are the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka, Xavi and Didier Drogba. But Messi's talent is of an altogether different order. They are Salieris to his Mozart.

The only apposite comparison is with Maradona from 1985 to 1988 and Pele from 1958 to 1965. Yet Pele's peak years at Santos are known to us only by repute while the magnificent football Maradona played with Napoli in Serie A only came to us in highlights. Thanks to the enormous increase in the amount of football on television, we can watch Messi almost every week.

What we see is a player who looks as though he's cracked some code which gives him access to the secret of how exactly the game is played. Football is a language which Messi speaks more fluently than anyone else. And perhaps the most special thing about him is that he conforms to our most innocent ideas of what being a good footballer is all about.

When we're kids kicking our first ball around the yard, the garden or the field, we imagine ourselves dribbling past player after player and scoring spectacular goals because that's the part of the game which first catches our eye and makes us want to be footballers and to watch football. And this is precisely how Messi plays the game, his third goal on Tuesday for example was pure schoolyard in its cheek and effrontery. It's impossible to keep a smile off your face when you're watching him. Like all great artists, his work seems to spring from the expression of his personality. Messi is all exuberance and we react to that.

We react to it because, no matter how often the television pundits tell us that games are won by tracking back or making the simple passes or marking up at set-pieces or all the other utilitarian considerations which make those who constantly insist on their importance sound like peculiarly cheerless Dickensian schoolmasters, our hearts tell us something different. To love football is to remain in touch with the decent childish part of your nature, the one which tells you that the game is won by talented players doing spectacular and outrageous deeds. Messi gives you a glimpse at a simpler world where the good guys always win and sport is about beauty and nothing else, a world bereft of cynicism and calculation.

What's great about this is that we could have another ten years looking at the little man. Messi is only 22. At that age, Maradona had endured severe disappointment in the 1982 World Cup and his truly great years were ahead of him. It is almost impossible to imagine how much better Messi could be but chances are that we'll find out. The advantage he has over Pele and Maradona is that referees these days give little latitude to the type of hatchet men who kicked the Brazilian out of the 1966 World Cup and dogged Maradona's steps in the 1980s.

In recent years a cult of denigration has sprung up with regard to footballers. It's considered quite the thing to sneer at their supposed intellectual defects, their wives and girlfriends, their enormous wages which are apparently an obscenity even though the men who own their clubs are much richer and don't have to cope with the same jealous comments.

But that is to miss the point. Lampooning a footballer for not being an intellectual is a bit like criticising John Banville's heading ability or wondering why Don DeLillo can't hit a crossfield pass. Because the best footballers do what they do much better than most of us can do anything.

And when they play in a game like the one on Tuesday night they are doing us the service of creating a bit of beauty in the world that was not there previously. I am not a confessional writer and I don't believe in confessional writing, but personal reasons meant that this week I was in the kind of form which made Samuel Beckett's most depressing plays look like a KC and the Sunshine Band concert by comparison.

But on Tuesday night I was able to watch Lionel Messi doing his thing and for 90 minutes nothing else mattered. Nothing else, not books nor music nor art, could have had the same visceral effect that those four goals did. They were things which made the spirit soar and, for a brief spell, made all other considerations seem unimportant. And a man who can do that for people is a member of society to be cherished.

There will come a day when your grandkids ask if Lionel Messi was really that good. And you'll say to them, "You have no idea," and smile because the thought of one of those goals has just popped into your head. As his team-mate Gerard Pique said this week, Messi has us spoiled.

[e-mail]

- Eamonn Sweeney

Sunday Independent

[bluearmy]

what a load of bull....

[kerrygold]

Ben Macintyre.


Tuesday April 13 2010

IN 1943 Poland's wartime leader accused Moscow of ordering the Katyn massacre, the systematic murder of 22,000 Polish officers and intellectuals. A few months later he was dead, the victim of an air crash. Was it murder? Almost certainly not, but Poland's painful past, combined with official secrecy, created precisely the muggy conditions in which conspiracy theories thrive.

In 2010 another Polish leader, President Lech Kaczynski, heads to Katyn to commemorate the appalling massacre that took place there. Within hours he too is dead, along with his wife and 94 other members of Poland's elite, the victims of another air crash. Was this coincidence? Almost certainly, but a similar climate of suspicion ensures that the conspiracies are already sprouting.The thread connecting these events is secrecy, for it is concealment that turns a tragedy into a festering historical sore.

Britain still has not released all the files on the death in 1943 of General Wladyslaw Sikorski, Prime Minister of the Polish Government-in-exile.

For decades Moscow declined to admit what had happened at Katyn, and Vladimir Putin still refuses to apologise.

In the confusion and grief following the Smolensk air crash on Saturday, the whispers, rumours and accusations began to circulate. The Polish president's plane was Russian-made and recently serviced in Russia. The Russian Government disliked President Kaczynski, who had criticised Russia's "new imperialism". Moscow declined to invite him to a ceremony at Katyn last Wednesday -- so Kaczynski decided to hold a second memorial service, and was killed en route.

Initial reports have ruled out mechanical failure, so was the pilot pressurised to make the landing by his august passengers? Polish conspiracists are already blaming the Russian secret service, while others suggest that Russian hardliners may have sought to undermine Mr Putin by sabotaging the plane.

Poland has a deeply emotional, almost mystical relationship with the story of tragedy, rebellion, courage and repression that is Polish history. The present is permanently refracted through the past. "The place is cursed," declared Aleksander Kwasniewski, the former president, after the latest tragedy associated with Katyn.

Lech Walesa's remark was even more telling: "This is the second Katyn tragedy; the first time they tried to cut our head off, and now again the elite of our country has perished." Implicit is the assumption that "they", unnamed enemies, must also lie behind Poland's latest national calamity.

The only way to ensure against wild conspiracy theories is to conduct the crash investigation in the sunlight, to eschew the secrecy that is Moscow's natural instinct and to ensure that the historical verdict on this episode is provided, or at least believed, by Poles. To do, in short, everything that Britain failed to do when investigating the death of another Polish leader, 67 years ago.

Sabotage

On July 4, 1943, General Sikorski, the Polish commander-in-chief of land under Nazi occupation, took off from Gibraltar in a converted RAF Liberator bomber, bound for England. A few minutes later the plane plummeted into the harbour, killing 16 passengers on board including Sikorski's daughter, Zofia. The Czech pilot was the sole survivor.

A British court of inquiry conducted a swift and secret investigation, which ruled out sabotage but failed to establish the cause of the crash. The pilot said his controls had jammed.

The conspiracy theories erupted almost immediately and have continued ever since. One held that the Nazis had orchestrated the crash, determined to remove a popular Polish figurehead. Even greater suspicion fell on Stalin, who had most to gain from eliminating the troublesome general. Three months earlier Sikorski had called for a Red Cross investigation into the Katyn massacres, prompting a furious Stalin to break off relations with the Polish Government-in-exile.

Alternative theories claimed that the assassination was the work of a Polish faction, or the British, keen to remove an impediment to good relations with its Soviet ally. Many British documents relating to the crash remain classified, and for nearly seven decades the conspiracists have been allowed virtually free rein. Kim Philby, then head of MI6 counterintelligence for the Iberian Peninsula, was said to have had a hand in organising Sikorski's death on behalf of his Moscow spymasters.

Sikorski's daughter was allegedly spotted in a Soviet gulag many years later. Sikorski himself was variously said to have been poisoned, strangled, suffocated or shot before being loaded on to the doomed plane.

Last year Polish forensic scientists exhumed the general's corpse from a crypt in Cracow and concluded that he had died in the air crash after all. But, as Polish historians pointed out at the time, until or unless all the British and Soviet archives are released, the fate of Poland's wartime leader will continue to be a source of friction and fantasy.

Sikorski's plane probably crashed because someone accidentally placed luggage on the steering mechanism. An equally simple explanation -- most likely pilot error -- may lie behind the Smolensk accident last weekend.

Enemies

If so, it is essential that the Polish people themselves see the truth being revealed. So far, Russia has made the right noises, promising an open investigation and agreeing to leave the aircraft at the scene.

But so long as Mr Putin heads the commission investigating the crash, Poles will wonder about the truth of its findings. Russia should invite Polish experts to take part in, and witness, every aspect of the investigation.

Mr Putin has gone some way towards building a historical consensus about Katyn, even making a personal appearance at the service last week. This is another opportunity for him to demonstrate that history, as it unfolds, can bring old enemies together.

Like the Katyn massacre and the death of General Sikorski, the Smolensk crash will come to represent another tragic milestone in Poland's history.

The horror of Katyn was hidden for half a century behind Soviet lies; the fate of Sikorski was obscured, for far too long, by British secrecy. This time Poland itself should have the right to decide what really happened. (© The Times, London)

[Laoch na hImeartha]

These were a few of my favourite things . . .

TOM HUMPHRIES

LOCKERROOM: Hooped Cork goalies’ jerseys, Des Lynam when he was funny, Páidí Ó Sé’s hair-cut ...

THINGS I miss . . . crepe paper hats. Cheap, fashionable, recyclable. Where did we lose our way as a society? The red-and-white-hooped jerseys that Cork goalies used to wear. Design classic. Why tamper? Why, Why, Why?

Three castles on the Dubs’ jersey. Simple. Meaningful.

Big-time boxing on the television. Well, big-time boxing, full stop. It’s all small time now.

Saturday afternoon wrestling. Sport as performance comedy. Always thought I could make it in that game.

Fat full forwards. Stout goalies. Psychopathic full backs.

Characters in GAA. Modern managers are so windy and wussy they gag and straitjacket any fella who might say something funny, honest or interesting in the papers or radio.

The days when I could recognise the top 10 snooker players in the world. That time when they were all real people rather than pencil-thin etiolated machines.

Being hated rather than pitied for following Leeds United.

Going to the odd Bohs game.

Stadiums with real character.

Soccer teams going whole seasons putting out the same line up plus one sub (Mick Bates of Leeds, David Fairclough of Liverpool: kings of the bench where are ye now?)

Having older people to slag and imitate in the press box. Now everybody is younger. They don’t, do they? Bastards.

Believing in athletics. Knowing the Aga Khan Cup was on. Caring about swimming.

Grandstand on Saturday afternoons. They promised a smorgasbord of delights every week and then they delivered. I saw sports on Grandstand I have never seen since.

Sportsnight on Wednesdays. Des Lynam when he was funny.

Lar Foley.

Crystal Palace being in the Premiership. They’re so louche they seem sinful.

The odd game of golf on a public course like Corballis. The cries of “Heads, lads!”, “Duck!” “Jaysus!” “FORE!” The young entrepreneurs selling you back your own Penfold Commandos which they fished handfuls of out of plastic shopping bags.

Hurlers without helmets. Post-match pitch invasions. Do insurance nerds run the whole country now? Viva Plan B.

Childhood summers. Road leagues. Five half-time and 10 the winner. Three and in. Pitch and putt. Give us a backer on your bike.

Being permitted to go into team dressingrooms after matches to get some meaningful quotes and colour people might actually read rather than the two minutes of industrial strength banality we get in the Croke Park press room.

Superstars. From Kevin Keegan to Pat Spillane to little known judo players or cyclists, the test of all rounders before they got to rich to be bothered.

Phillip Greene’s mellifluous radio commentaries.

Being excited about National League finals.

Strong feature photos with sports interviews in papers.

All sports being free to air.

Dublin being in All-Ireland finals. From 1974 to 1995 we had 12 September Sundays where we hung the bunting out and hoped for the best. And since 1995? A biblical famine.

The excitement and fun which surrounded Irish youth teams when Brian Kerr and the late Noel O’Reilly had charge of them.

Thinking Páirc Uí Chaoimh was state of the art.

Eamon Dunphy writing seriously for a major Sunday paper. Decentskinmanship. Official Ireland. The Liam Brady vendetta. McLuhan was right. Television is a cool medium. Newspapers are a hot medium.

Playing snooker drunk in the Cosmo or Jasons at two in the morning. Whispering like somebody who learned to whisper in a helicopter. Oooh, bit of backspin there. Doesn’t quite come off. The white grazes his opponent’s forehead. This could turn ugly

Gambling on episodes of One Man and His Dog .

The FA Cup meaning something. The Uefa Cup just being there. England v Scotland in the Home Nations. Scotland qualifying for every single World Cup and coming home after the first round every time. Watching Brazil being just like watching Brazil.

Having to be truly exceptional before taking the decision to wear football boots any colour other than black.

The days when rugby players were out of shape and more renowned for their feats at the bar than on the pitch.

Serge Blanco. Dominique Rocheteau. Yannick Noah. Marie-José Pérec. When will we freckled, sweaty Paddies start producing cool competitors as a matter of priority?

Rule 21 and Rule 42. Never liked them but it was so good to feel like a besieged minority for being a GAA person.

Believing in the Tour de France. The awe of those long summer afternoons with Phil Ligget and the peleton.

Individualistic haircuts. Early Páidí Ó Sé. Noel Lynch of Westmeath and his Valderrama. The John O’Leary Fringe for the Ages. Various Kieran McDonald incarnations. We’re left with Conor Mortimer and Mugsy Mulligan to carry the torch.

Jumping in the lineouts. Okay, don’t lose a lot of sleep over it but this lifting looks like it will be all fun and games till somebody loses an eye.

Sonia O’Sullivan, Eamon Coghlan and John Treacy. I know, I know, they keep selling us new Irish athletes to follow. They do well in the European Indoors and other such events. We want fourth place at the Olympics. Second even. We want the real deal.

Pro-celebrity golf. A pro. A celebrity. Peter Aliss. All coming in under the budget to play 18 holes and listen to harmless questions from Aliss.

Meath being strong at Leinster football. The insipidness of recent teams is a plot to undermine Dublin football. Two can play at that. We’ll undermine ourselves thank you.

Stadiums with real names. From the Aviva to the Stadium of Light we are getting short change.

Not finding Maradona to be a figure of fun.

Being young and optimistic about those things coming back.

[glengael]

The Irish Times - Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Life after redundancy: 'You're not just your old job'

Despite our high unemployment rate, being made “redundant” can still carry a stigma. But some people use their enforced time off to take stock – and then take off in a new direction, writes KATE HOLMQUIST

MOST PEOPLE are familiar with the effects of redundancy by now. Considering that the unemployment rate is now 13.1 per cent – double the EU average – if it hasn’t happened to you, it’s likely to have happened to a friend or family member. This is the second major recession in less than 30 years, so even if today’s teenagers don’t remember recession, their parents and grandparents surely do.

Yet it’s an experience that many people are afraid to talk about. There is an unjustified shame attached to being made “redundant”. The very word is synonymous in the dictionary with “superfluous” and “exceeding what is natural or required”. The word “redundant” carries negative meanings, but so do its kinder variations “jobseeking” and “unemployed”.

As I sought people to share their experiences for this article, many who hadn’t a new project under way were too embarrassed to go on the record. One man said that only his close family knew he had lost his job and that he was keeping up a front for everyone else.

Another man saw his unemployment as an opportunity to be a better father, although he didn’t want to be named in this article: “I was laid off from a circa 100k salary position. I spent a decade on the treadmill – to the detriment of my spirit. I have so I opted to spend a year getting to know them and be a hands-on dad.

“This past 18 months is the best and most valuable time I ever spent and will stand us as a family in good stead, though it’s been quite rubbish financially. However it’s important to realise that you are not just your old job.”

What happens to your perception of work and of yourself when you lose your job through no fault of your own? Some see the crisis as an opportunity to reinvent themselves and start new enterprises. Others fear that they will never work again.

FROM CABIN CREW TO RESTAURANT PROPRIETOR

Stephen O’Donnell (39), Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan.

Voluntary redundancy Aer Lingus, October 2009

His own secret-recipe crust and sauce are going to be Stephen O’Donnell’s means of doing well in the recession. He left Aer Lingus after 12 years with the airline. “Even though I know we are in a recession I feel very positive and upbeat,” he says.

He invested all his redundancy money in setting up the Pizza Snug – a pizza, sandwich, cake and coffee house in Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan, where he lives, after he saw “a gap in the market” for sensibly priced food made on the premises. His experience at Aer Lingus and years of travelling gave him insights into how to achieve high standards of customer service. He wants to apply that knowledge now.

“When I spend my money, even if it’s €10, I went to be sure that it’s appreciated. Your message has to be ‘we value your custom’.” Researching the market in his home town of Carrickmacross, he learned that “people still will spend money but they want to get value”.

FROM AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE EXPERT TO JOBSEEKER

Kieran O’Brien (57), Skerries.

Made redundant from SR Technics, April 2009

Kieran O’Brien has been looking for jobs “here, there and everywhere” but most jobs are filled by word of mouth before they’re even advertised, he says. After 31 years with SR Technics, he was made compulsorily redundant a year ago, along with nearly 900 others, most of whom are now unemployed in Skerries and Balbriggan. His wife, Marie, is a civil servant who took a substantial paycut, “so it’s sit tight and hope it does not get too down,” he says.

He has applied for six jobs with written applications and for many others on the internet, but has yet to be called to interview. “Sometimes you don’t even get an acknowledgement,” he says. O’Brien has a BA in industrial relations and personnel management and “two drawersful” of certifications in aircraft maintenance. Since the aircraft maintenance business has been “wiped out”, he has been looking for less well-paid work that he never would have considered before – “wherever my skills can translate and in some cases my skills are substantially more advanced than required”.

At 57, he was just four years off his retirement age of 61 and had been looking forward to a pension to which he had made voluntary contributions. Now he is subsisting on jobseeker’s allowance of €196 per week. “We’re watching everything much more carefully and making more decisions about paying for things.”

The couple have paid off their mortgage, have no children and enjoy good health, which makes them fortunate, he thinks.

Is he optimistic or is he keeping up a brave face? “That’s the type of person I am. People ask me how I’m getting on and I say ‘as good as can be expected’. I’m trying to keep as calm and collected as possible.” If nothing else works out, he plans to update his driving qualifications to become a heavy goods vehicle driving instructor.

FROM MACHINE OPERATOR TO FÁS COURSE

Ray Stanley (37), Tallaght

Made redundant from Irish Biscuits, May 2009

“I’ve lost count of the number of jobs I’ve applied for – about 500.” Since being made redundant, Stanley has been on the internet daily applying for jobs and has been called to only one interview. “A lot of the time people don’t bother to send an email back; you just hear nothing. There are thousands of people like me, applying for jobs and not getting work, all just doing courses.”

He’s kept himself busy upskilling in computers on Fás courses, and he and his wife, Catherine (33), have managed to keep their heads “just above water”.

The couple have four children, one 13, one five and two-year-old twins. Catherine is not working either; she took voluntary redundancy from Irish Biscuits nearly four years ago and since then has completed a payroll course.

“I’m not feeling down. It’s just frustrating when you don’t hear anything back – not even an acknowledgement. I’m not the type of person who would let it get to me. You have to keep plodding along and stay hopeful,” he says.

FROM “LINE LEADER” IN SHIPPING TO WORKERS’ REPRESENTATIVE VOLUNTEER

Gerry Hinchy (56), Limerick

Made redundant from Dell , June 2009

Of the 1,300 people made redundant by Dell last year, Hinchy knows not one who has subsequently found a replacement job. He meets many of them every day in his new role as unpaid treasurer with Dell Redundant Workers Association (DRWA).

“People had the confidence sucked out of them. Some have put out up to 30 CVs and in many cases haven’t even got the courtesy of an answer. That heightens their anxiety when they go through that. Highly skilled people came out [of Dell] with no self-esteem whatsoever. It makes it much more difficult to put yourself out there to get another job,” he says.

“People can’t feed their families. The redundancy payment only lasts so long, only a few weeks in some cases because some people have used their redundancy to pay bills, to pay-off car loans, to reduce top-up mortgages – money they owed through the false economy that was there.” Hinchy says that he hasn’t met former co-workers suffering from depression yet, “but if something doesn’t happen soon, you are going to have marriages in trouble. People say money doesn’t matter, but money can cause an awful lot of arguments and hassle when it’s not there”. Hinchy’s current income is “almost impossible to live on”, he says. His Dell redundancy payment is gone, and he is living on social welfare benefit of €198 per week, while his wife, Elisabeth, receives an invalidity benefit of €220 per week. Hinchy’s monthly income pays the couple’s top-up mortgage (€780 monthly), leaving the couple with €880 per month to live on, along with their 17-year-old son, Cian, who is doing his Leaving Cert this year.

Their 22-year-old daughter, Caoimhe, also lives with them and has a six-month-old baby, so she receives some benefit as well.

“We’ve had to cut down on everything – there are no luxuries, no going out, no eating out. We started shopping at Lidl and Aldi – the food is very good. What makes me very surprised is to see offering two for one, three for two – what profits were they making all along?”

Hinchy’s wife has had breast cancer and still “has issues arising out of that. My wife has a positive attitude – you won’t beat cancer without a positive attitude.” Teenagers may not be coping as well, he thinks. “Teenagers don’t do recession. I blame us: what we never had, we made sure they had. Kids are in for a shock in the next year or so – the money won’t be there and this country will take longer to get out of recession than others.”

“Even coming in here [the DRWA] to have a chat with us is a way to get out of the house and not be arguing with your wife or your family. You can physically see people uplifted a little bit when they come out of here. We’re a one-stop shop offering a bit of chat. The people here are brilliant – and it’s all voluntary.”

Hinchy says he will eventually get a paid job out of his voluntary work, but adds: “I was never materially motivated, as long as I had enough to feed the family. Your job is done once your family are happy.”

FROM CORPORATE PROGRAMME MANAGER TO HOLISTIC THERAPIST AND PAINTER

Dervla Wyley (38), from Sandyford

Made redundant from Empower, December 2007

“A part of my job was letting people go. I knew practically what had to happen, so when it happened to me I never took it as personally as others did – some people fall apart completely. After being made redundant three times in six years, twice in the one building, it was almost comical to me. It was just a sign telling me ‘this isn’t for you’. I had already on some level been preparing for it when I went down the holistic route.”

In 2008, after she’d been made redundant, Wyley applied for many corporate jobs but kept being told she was overqualified. Meanwhile, she was also pursuing her personal interests in holistic therapy and painting. A period of ill-health due to overwork and 16-hour days while she was in her 20s had prompted her to seek out complementary medicine. She felt her own health transformed as a result of Total Body Modification (TBM), a detoxification process, and Reiki. So, after being employed for a total of 20 years, starting out in the Bank of Ireland, then moving to Smart Telecom and Empower, she qualified in TBM and Reiki herself.

She now practises out of her apartment and says that children with autism have been transformed into completely different and “normal” kids back in normal schools after having toxins cleared from their bodies. She is also a painter, creating colourful “healing” work. “You have to be practical – integrating all the knowledge of all the different modalities you have done. It’s an interesting journey for sure,” she says.

Getting to this point was a long road, taking about two years after her redundancy and initial “signing on”.

Starting off on jobseekers’ benefit, she gradually moved from being totally reliant on social welfare to becoming more independent, although she still receives some benefit. She did a Start Your Own Business course, then applied to become a sole trader to officially start her company. Getting a back-to-work grant with the Enterprise Board took months of getting though the red tape but eventually she got an e-commerce grant of €750. She used this to pay a “techie” friend to design her website, which in the boom-times would have cost €7,000, she says.

She was “discovered” by actor Jim Carrey and his then partner Jenny McCarthy’s international autism support organisation, Generation Rescue (their motto is “autism can be reversed”). The couple brought her paintings to a wider audience and now sell them on their website, with a percentage going to autism research. She has a website – dervlawyley.com – where she advertises her healing methods as well as her paintings.

“It’s all about networking as well as reinventing yourself,” she says. “It’s a great time. The recession has given Ireland the kick up the arse it needed – people were sluggish, it’s getting people thinking again and getting ideas flowing again and, like everything else, the recession will pass. Getting into doom and gloom and fear gets you nowhere.”

FROM CORPORATE EXECUTIVE TO SOFTWARE ENTREPRENEUR

John Quigley (38), Dublin

Made redundant from Input Systems, July 2009

When he lost his job, Quigley’s confidence was “knocked quite a bit”. But by October 2009 he had realised that the crisis was the catalyst he needed to set up an innovative new software company, Biggdogg Technology (“like an ebay for procurement”), based in DCU’s incubation centre, Invent. He has also begun blogging on joe.ie.

“In my lifetime I have earned tens of millions of euro for other people and I found myself in a weird position because I had a relatively new-born son (Noah, now a year-and-a-half old). I decided to take stock and give myself a bit of time to get my head around what was going to happen. I knew that I would like to set my own company. I wanted to get involved in an organisation that was the opposite of everything I had seen up until that point.”

A former professional basketball player who was educated in the US on a scholarship, Quigley thinks he was protected from feeling too down because he has always kept his mind and body relatively healthy. “I remember that after some time I went down the road of jobseekers’ benefit – I’m still almost ashamed to say it. Then I looked back on my last five years of employment and I saw that I had paid over €120,000 in tax.”

Quigley won’t start paying himself a salary until later this spring, so he and his wife, Mary, have scraped by, keeping up with their mortgage payments, selling a car and not eating out or taking holidays. Quigley has plenty of experience being prudent. He grew up in Darndale, one of Dublin’s most disadvantaged areas, as the son of a lone mother. “I’m quite clear about where I’m going for once in my life and I’m pretty excited about the prospect,” he says.

“When I went to college in the US, I had to take a part-time job to afford basketball shoes until I was sponsored by sports companies and got all the shoes I could eat –and then it didn’t mean as much. Retrospectively, there will always be enough. I will always be OK. I always have been. I worry as much as the next person but the bedsheets are not out the window yet. Since Noah came along, it’s given me a completely different perspective a sense of calmness around what I need to be doing and what the really important things in life are.

“Being a millionaire doesn’t drive me, it’s the sense of achievement that’s driving me. In 12 months time, I can turn around and say look what we did with nothing from scratch, taking on the big boys.”

[kerrygold]

By Colm O'Rourke


Sunday April 18 2010

LAST week quite a lot of people got a little hot under the collar after I made a few observations on modern Ireland. The balance of personal response was obviously a bit negative as I work in the public sector with a lot of people whom I admire greatly for their general attitude to their work. Coming from a house with a daughter who is a teacher and a son who will be one, did not add to my popularity either.

The best comments, as always in these cases, were made by those who did not read the article at all but had heard about it. That is why the Irish phrase was invented, Duirt bean liom gur duirt bean lei.

Yet the basic tenet of the argument remains. A loud and intransigent public sector is out of synch with reality. At the height of the employment boom there were about six times more private sector workers than in the public sector. That ratio has disimproved as the recession has hit, yet those losing jobs have often no voice as very many don't belong to a trade union.

It was very apparent from watching last Monday night's Frontline programme that a lot of people who are losing their jobs are getting rather annoyed with those in the secure public sector who feel that the recent Croke Park deal is one they cannot accept. This divisiveness is quite unhelpful. The union side was out of touch, there was nothing to offer except 'No' to all reasonable argument.

Those who plead that because they had no hand, act or part in the problems and therefore should not be penalised are living in cloud-cuckoo land. Even worse they don't spell out any alternative. The alternative to peace is war; the alternative to not accepting this deal is to ultimately go on strike in pursuit of the return of the money that the Government took through a pension levy and a direct cut in salary.

This is not a runner and everyone with an ounce of sense knows that. There is no stomach for strike action among most teachers I know. They rightly feel annoyed over the way things have gone but until people stop rounding on the usual targets of banks and developers there can be no sorting out of the future. And creating a racket at their annual conferences was quite embarrassing and not something most teachers were happy about.

Of greatest concern from Monday night's programme is the obvious rift that is developing between those in private business and those who work for the Government in some shape or form. The pain in the private sector is felt in both wage cuts and unemployment, in the public sector it is in wage cuts alone.

That is why a guarantee of four years without wage cuts as negotiated in Croke Park was a great deal. What is the alternative? Would some leader of the unions who opposes this please spell out exactly what they see as a better approach, without the nonsense of saying a complete restoration of the cut pay.. That is not a runner for the foreseeable future.

Getting back that money is a long way off and workers should not hold their breath. Everyone, whether a family or a government must live within their budget; if your personal income drops there are two ways out, either borrow or spend less. As a national economy we have an income of roughly €30bn and are spending roughly €50bn. Cutting spending will be painful as it means reducing services and increasing tax.

What we should be looking for is greater efficiencies from the available money. Last week I pointed out that in-service training for new courses is a scourge in schools and should be done outside school hours. When a teacher goes on in-service a substitute is paid in their place for that day. For many years I have pointed out to the relevant authorities that a more efficient way to do this was to organise in-service at night or during holidays and give the teachers the same money in expenses as is being paid to their sub. I understand teachers' concerns in one area. Throwing in a new teachers' contract in these negotiations is asking people to buy a pig in a poke. That should be spelled out in advance. There are a lot of other efficiencies that could be covered in a new teaching contract, much of which teachers would have no problem with. But all cards should be on the table.

Yet even with all that, the demonisation of many honourable people who worked hard during the boom and now have lost most should stop. Very many builders did good work, they created employment and wealth for others. Without ambition we would still be travelling on an ass and cart but one man's ambition is another man's greed.

In that context nobody should take any satisfaction from the present troubles of men like Sean Quinn and Brendan Murtagh of Kingspan. They created thousands of well-paid jobs in the traditionally poorer parts of the country and reversed decades of forced emigration. Men like those with entrepreneurial skill will be needed to rebuild a new society which needs to be a different form of social capitalism.

We all know now that the bank practices were reckless but that was then and this is now. I lost on bank shares and want to move on. To do that we need leadership and vision. What is needed immediately is an election to give a mandate to a government to take on the problems which were not apparent at the last election.

An election campaign will give all parties a chance to set out their views and all bluffers would be exposed. At least then the way forward would be plotted out. And if things improve those on lowest incomes should benefit first. Even I would agree with the unions on that.

- Colm O'Rourke

Sunday Independent

[hamish]

The Irish Times - Wednesday, April 14, 2010

An Irishman's Diary

FRANK McNALLY

AT THE JARVEY STAND in glorious Killarney last Sunday, the horses were still shedding their winter coats. For an impatient crow, however, the process was not quick enough. Other crows might be happy to pick up loose hair where it fell. But with mating season imminent, this was a crow in a hurry.

The cheeky bird was helping itself to mouthfuls of nest-lining, straight from the horse’s back, while his host appeared indifferent. It was a symbiotic relationship, I suppose. The horse may have appreciated the haircut, as summer looms. Or perhaps it was just the noble stoicism of the breed. “Take what you need,” he may have been telling the crow. “I’ll still have enough.”

In the time it took to admire the scene, a persuasive jarvey talked us into a short tour, promising we’d be back well in time for the afternoon football match at Fitzgerald Stadium.
He was, we soon learned, a Corkman, who for the sins of a previous incarnation, had been condemned to live in a Killarney exile. “Are ye Monaghan supporters?” he asked, noting the jerseys. “I hope ye win. Ye can relegate them today – wouldn’t that be great?” His life’s mission, jarveying apart, was to take a rise out of the locals, whenever possible. But from what we could see, they enjoyed him too much. Maybe this was a symbiotic relationship too. With 36 All-Ireland titles, Kerry people probably need help to stay humble.

En route to Ross Castle, for example, we passed the former Kerry manager, Pat O’Shea, on his bike. “Look at that, Pat,” said the driver, jerking a thumb back at his supposedly scary passengers. “They’re down to beat ye today. It’ll be Division Two for ye lads next season.” O’Shea just smiled and waved. He did not look scared.

I suspect that, from his years in Kerry, the Corkman had gone native in one respect. He had learned the art of flattering visitors, especially about football.

We had already been exposed to this tactic on the train the previous night when, as chance would have it, we found ourselves seated next to the Christy Mahon of Gaelic football: Paul Galvin himself.
Galvin’s wild-man image seemed at odds with the gentle soul we met. When we asked him to “go easy” on our lads the following day, he laughed and suggested that, if either team had reason to be fearful, it was Kerry. Of course we knew it wasn’t true, but it was nice to hear anyway.

By a dramatic coincidence, the train’s other passengers included the Sam Maguire Cup: being escorted home after a public engagement somewhere. Naturally we wanted a photograph. And despite being plagued by similar requests, the cup’s guardian fetched it from its hiding place again, without protest.
This is noblesse oblige for Kerry GAA officials. Allowing people from counties with special needs (including my 10-year-old, Dublin-supporting son) to hold the cup probably qualifies as charity work. So we posed with the famous trophy, which is of course named after a Corkman but – like the jarvey – has spent so long in Kerry as to have picked up local mannerisms.
“Are ye Monaghan supporters?” the cup would probably have asked us, if it could talk. Then it would have mentioned how it expected to be spending a year in that part of the world soon and, excusing its ignorance, would have asked if we could recommend places to stay.

So by throw-in time at Fitzgerald Stadium on Sunday, after all the plámás, the visiting supporters had reason to feel vaguely threatening. Then the game started and reality reinstated itself. The truth was that being involved in a Division One relegation dogfight represented dizzying new heights for Monaghan. Whereas it was only a temporary indignity for Kerry, to be disposed of without fuss.

Galvin – curse him (and we did) – was imperious: conducting the team like an orchestra, while also playing lead violin. Monaghan were typically brave, but outclassed. By half-time, hopes of a famous victory had dimmed. The more likely range of results ran from being merely beaten, to being hammered.

In the end, this was a key distinction. During the game’s frantic last moments, with Kerry leading by four points – even the score-line flattered us – Monaghan supporters were simultaneously shouting and listening to radios for the scores elsewhere.
Tyrone were down, we learned, but Derry were winning and could still pip us on points difference.

In the on-and-off-field frenzy, it wasn’t clear whether our team should be kicking Hail Mary passes in the hope of a goal, or just holding onto the ball so Kerry couldn’t score again. Then, in one last melee, the game ended. The shouting stopped.

The radio listening continued. And suddenly, bizarrely, it was the losing supporters who were celebrating. The four-point defeat had saved us, condemning Derry. Five would have reversed the order.

When the situation was explained to our puzzled hosts, they seemed genuinely happy for us. There could never have been any question of Kerry going down, of course. But if they could do us a favour while surviving, so much the better.

They were the horses in the relationship: we were the crows. We left Killarney with our Division One nest lined for another year. And if Kerry had gained anything from the experience, it was that they were looking in slightly better shape for the serious business of summer.

[kerrygold]

By Vincent Hogan


Monday April 19 2010

I've been to see the new Aviva Stadium and, rest assured, it is every bit as breathtaking as they promised. The intimacy of the old Lansdowne has been preserved with stands that bank up in dramatic green tiers from the apron of an already seeded pitch.

When I was there, a few workmen dangled from the pipe-cleaner webbing of the roof like spiders doing their knitting, but the heavy lifting is all but finished now.

Health and Safety insisted that we dressed appropriately for the visit, so we were bibbed, gloved, hatted and goggled like a bunch of bee-keepers going to tend hives. But the builders are pretty much just tightening fittings and preparing to remove the cellophane from the seats now. It's like a new house about to be dusted down for its owners.

snag list

The keys get handed over at the end of this month and, after that, it'll just be a case of getting that big lawn up to scratch. That and dealing with the snag list which, for a 50,000-seater stadium, presumably runs to the length of a clothes-line.

I was astonished to hear they had still to decide whether to insert soccer-style dug-outs at the expense of roughly 50 prime seats at the front of what used to be the old West Stand. Apparently, it was left to Giovanni Trapattoni to make that call which, I imagine, had a few blazers tapping their gout-ridden feet in impatient hope that he considered the arithmetic.

The IRFU and FAI are, of course, equal tenants here, but -- in 50 years' time (considered the natural life-span of a stadium) -- the site reverts to exclusive rugby ownership. It's essentially time-share with a twist.

They say irony is over-rated, but did you not detect an almost mischievous symmetry to the timing of the GAA's decision on Croke Park last weekend? Just a fortnight before the Aviva gets handed over, Congress decided that -- rather than re-chain Croker with ugly padlocks -- discretion for its use would be left permanently with Central Council.

In other words, the gates stay open. So, just as the Aviva gets a final clean, the very reason for building it went up in a puff of smoke. It's a bit like investing your life savings in a splendid house only to discover that you've inherited an even bigger one.

The relevant bodies will, naturally, argue to the contrary. But the Aviva, essentially, became unnecessary last Saturday, just as they got ready to tie the bunting. Now Bertie Ahern's taste for fine architecture is well documented, indeed his designs on a rather large pile in the Phoenix Park have been signposted for some time. But maybe nothing defines the chutzpah of the Celtic Tiger years quite like his determination to build a great Taj Mahal at the bottom of the M50. Remember his little gift of €60m to the GAA on the eve of their 2001 Congress?

Back then, a national stadium in Abbotstown was the Taoiseach's pet ambition, with just a single oily cloud spoiling his perfect landscape. That GAA Congress was about to vote on a motion relating to Rule 42, the rule debarring the Association from opening its doors to other sports. If the motion was successful, Croke Park was, effectively, in a position to host international soccer and rugby.

Good news if you liked the idea of sporting ecumenism. Rather bad if you were trying to justify the building of a second vast stadium in Dublin.

Of course, the Government's 'gift' was delivered without conditions, but there weren't many who interpreted it as anything but a nudge towards retaining the status quo. And that motion fell by a single vote the following day, the verdict delivered in a controversially shambolic 'show of hands'.

Had Croke Park opened its doors in 2001, the Aviva would almost certainly never have been built.

Instead, five years of hopeless inertia passed, in which time the IRFU and FAI had no option, but to make their own arrangements. And, when Rule 42 was eventually suspended in 2006, it was only to facilitate the redevelopment on Lansdowne Road. The Aviva has cost €390 million then and, believe me, the finished product is spectacular. But three of years of construction have, of course, coincided with the slow diagnosis of our national economy as a basket case.

If the IRFU had the good fortune to sell all their ten-year tickets before the sirens went off in the asylum, the FAI hasn't been so lucky. I don't pretend to know if they are still on track to meet their obligations. If not, they'd hardly be unique.

But there has certainly been the sense of an Association cutting its cloth to a radically different measure in recent months. The Brazil game at the Emirates was passed off as some kind of consolation for supporters 'cheated' of their World Cup dream by Thierry Henry in Paris. Yet, quite what consolation lay in inviting people to north London on a Tuesday night in February was never quite identified.

discount

Of course, the GAA argued that they had made Croke Park available at a discount price, but maybe they were wildly over-pricing it to begin with. And, with the Emirates hosting, the FAI could at least ring-fence a clean profit of £250,000.

Such things matter in a time of deep recession and now I see that this year's 'warm-weather' venue for Trapattoni and his players -- prior to those friendlies against Algeria and Paraguay at the RDS in May -- has been revealed as Gannon Park in Malahide. It's like cutting back from Saint-Tropez to Butlins.

Yet, if that's what it takes to pay for the Aviva, they shouldn't be faulted for it. And, for those little sacrifices, they're certainly getting a nice new place to call their own.

But it may just be the most expensive second home in history.

- Vincent Hogan

Irish Independent

[glengael]

Westwood to play Irish Open in Killarney
PAUL GALLAGHER Irish times 20th April

Golf: World number four Lee Westwood is the latest player signed up for this year’s 3 Irish Open at Killarney Golf and Fishing Club over the August Bank Holiday weekend.

Westwood has fond memories of his time competing on Irish soil after the 36-year-old won back-to-back European Open titles at the K-Club in 1999 and again in 2000 when he also finished the season as European number one. At the same venue he was also part of the victorious European Ryder Cup team in 2006 and was undefeated.

He has returned to top form over the last 12 months and at the end of last season pipped Rory McIlroy to the number one spot on the European Tour order of merit – otherwise known as the Race to Dubai – after winning the season-ending Dubai World Championship.

Winner of 31 professional tournaments worldwide, Westwood has also featured strongly in the majors, most recently when he finished second to Phil Mickelson in the Masters at Augusta earlier this month.

“I’ve always enjoyed playing in Ireland and have done well there over the years so I’m optimistic about my chances of more success in the 3 Irish Open,” said Westwood, who was in contention at Baltray last year but fell away over the weekend before Shane Lowry memorably won as an amateur.

“I’m in great form at the moment and playing some of the best golf of my career so hopefully that will continue throughout the remainder of the season.
“I’ve won the European Open and obviously the Ryder Cup in Ireland so it would be fantastic to add Ireland’s national Open to that list. Hopefully with the Bank Holiday slot we will attract a large crowd at Killarney.”

Westwood will attempt to follow in the footsteps of fellow Englishman Nick Faldo after the six-time major winner won the Irish Open on the two previous occasions the national championship was staged in Killarney in 1991 and 1992.

“Lee Westwood’s performance at the Masters further underlined his status among the elite players in world golf,” said George O’Grady, European Tour chief executive. “Only an inspired and, at times, mesmerising Phil Mickelson stopped Lee winning his first major at Augusta, and, with two more majors to be contested before the 3 Irish Open, it would surprise no-one if he arrives (in Killarney) as a major champion.

This is second year 3 are on board as title sponsors of the €3million event following last year's hugely successful staging at Baltray Golf Club in County Louth. The tournament has a new slot on the European Tour schedule and takes place from July 29th-August 1st, 2010.

[Mickmack]

When labor becomes a commodity

by Martin HutchinsonApril 12, 2010

The extraordinary rise in commodity prices, at the beginning of a global cyclical upswing, is beginning to reorder the pecking order of the world economy. Together with the advances made by China and India in the last decade, it is producing an entirely new world order, which many will find uncomfortable. In it, commodities, derided for decades as unimportant, have become scarce resources, to be guarded and managed with the utmost care. Conversely human labor and skill, on the basis of which the glories of human civilization were built, is entering into a state of gigantic glut.

The current commodities boom is qualitatively different from those of the past. In previous commodities booms, such as those of 1972-73 or 2006-08, the global economy was operating close to capacity, and indeed the boom was an important indicator that full capacity was about to be reached. The booms were accompanied by wage inflation and in both cases resulted in price inflation, although in 2007-08 the price inflation was aborted by the financial crash before it could really get hold.

This time, a commodities boom is occurring while the global economy is still far from full capacity and unemployment worldwide remains high. There are two reasons for this. First, a number of governments have engaged in irresponsible fiscal “stimulus,” running budget deficits unprecedented in peacetime. This has tended to prop up demand for the kinds of commodities that are used in infrastructure, especially iron ore and copper – think for example of China’s $100 billion railroad building program. Second, Chinese and Indian demand, which did no more than dip for a few months in 2008-09 before rebounding strongly, has driven up the global consumption of commodities to unprecedented levels. 1.3 billion Chinese, each with less than one fourth of the consumption propensity of each of 300 million Americans or 400 million Europeans, nevertheless between them consume a lot more materials in their expenditure, because their consumption mix is more oriented towards foods and physically bulky goods. With the Chinese automobile market now exceeding the US one in terms of units sold, it’s not surprising that Chinese steel consumption has soared.

What has not yet been fully realized is that this change is likely to be more or less permanent. We had grown used in the last half century to a world in which only about 700 million of the world’s 6.8 billion inhabitants enjoyed Western living standards, with automobiles and home appliances ubiquitous. In such a world, with extraction techniques ever improving, energy prices rose only slowly in real terms, while minerals prices actually declined. Now, with consumer demand growing at 6-10% annually among 2.5 billion consumers, the upward trend in energy and minerals usage has become much more rapid than we were used to.

We are not about to run out of either energy or minerals. Oil sands, viable at $40 per barrel, contain at least double the conventional reserves of petroleum and most metals are even further from supply exhaustion, provided the price is high enough. However, there will be continual pressure on supplies, as there are not only limits to physical supply but also on how quickly output can be ramped up by bringing new supplies online. The gigantic Tupi oil fields in Brazil, for example, will come on stream only around 2013, six years after their discovery, while the lead time for tar sands oil production is at least as long, particularly given the agonizing environmental hoops new projects must jump through.

The excessive global monetary ease of the last decade has contributed to the secular change in commodities’ position, but is not solely responsible for it. Easy money encouraged speculators and made the transition to emerging markets manufacturing happen more quickly than would have been natural. However that transition, which has been the primary cause of the upsurge in Chinese and Indian commodities demand, was far more directly the result of the Internet and modern communications than of monetary policy alone. Likewise, the current upwards blip in demand has been caused as much by fiscal as by monetary excess. Conversely the inevitable tightening in global monetary policy, which in any case may only get serious 18-24 months from now, will not return commodities prices to their historic levels, even though the immediate bubble will burst. In 2020, if the world economy is in a healthy state, it will have much higher commodities prices, in terms of purchasing power, than in 2005.

The secular change in commodities prices has immense geopolitical consequences. The decline of Europe will accelerate, as most EU countries lack commodities wealth, have a surplus of labor and will incur vast debts in the attempt to prop up living standards that are no longer viable. Canada and Australia will prosper, becoming richer than the United States, as their commodities endowment is comparable with the U.S. and their populations very much less. The decently run parts of Latin America and Africa will flourish, as their commodities wealth allows them to improve living standards. However, the majority of those continents will remain mired in socialist kleptocracy as their commodities wealth is siphoned off by corrupt politicians or wasted in hopelessly counterproductive welfare and subsidy schemes.

The corollary of the geopolitical growth of the commodities-rich will be the geopolitical decline of the commodities-impoverished. Japan’s relative economic decline has been ubiquitously commented on, but one factor that has not been noted is that its demographic decline is entirely appropriate and indeed beneficial given its commodity-impoverished status.

Indeed, it is notable that the rich countries with very low fertility rates such as Japan, South Korea and Italy are also those with especially poor commodity endowments. An 18th century writer would have used this as a demonstration of the workings of Divine Providence; in secular 2010, I can only comment that it’s a very odd coincidence indeed.

However, it’s not only the slow-growing rich countries that will suffer from the elevation of commodities prices: popular success stories such as China and India, with huge populations but only moderately large commodity endowments, will find their continued success much more difficult to achieve. That makes sense; if Chinese and Indian emergence into economic takeoff has warped the entire global economic fabric into a new shape, then it makes sense that such warping would exert a significant restraint upon those nations’ economic growth.

Needless to say, the worst affected countries will be those poor countries with very large, dense populations and few commodity resources. Bangladesh certainly qualifies, but so do such countries as Kenya and Nigeria, traditionally thought to be well endowed with commodities, but whose excessive population growth has outrun their commodities endowment, condemning them to continuing impoverishment and misery.

Overall, rapid economic development has thrust commodities from a position of glut into a position of relative scarcity. Conversely, the emergence of modern telecoms, the globalization of markets and the increasing wealth and education levels of billions in China, India and elsewhere, has transferred human labor, even skilled human labor, from a position of relative scarcity into a position of glut. That’s not surprising – when the number of full participants in the global economy quadruples from 700 million to 3 billion over a period of less than 20 years, those participants are likely to face an over-supply problem. It’s also not unusual – as Thomas Malthus would have told you in 1798, the periods when human labor is worth more than bare subsistence have historically been few and far between.

This glut does not merely apply to the unskilled; with India graduating 350,000 engineers per annum, it applies to all but the most highly-skilled workers and you can see the effects of it everywhere. Only a few highly cartelized occupations such as legal work, which can keep out foreign competition through regulation, or investment banking, which can design new financial products to increase its “rents” extracted from the system, are immune to the immiseration produced by global competition.

In Europe, rates of unemployment among those under 30 have been running around 20% for a decade. Contrary to media opinion, those young people’s educations are not markedly inferior to their predecessors’ and their adaptability to the demands of today’s labor market is significantly greater. However, in societies where the costs of laying off experienced workers is great, both financially and in terms of public esteem, and wage and benefit rates are sticky, the new global competition from workers based in India and China is reflected in young workers’ inability to move into steady employment.

High immigration worsens this problem, since it provides direct competitive pressure on European youth from well qualified, cheaper labor within the system, as well as indirect competition from manufacturers abroad. Moderate immigration increases the skills diversification of a wealthy country without unduly impoverishing its people, but high immigration, whether skilled or unskilled, legal or illegal, impoverishes more than it diversifies.

The solution is not to erect trade barriers, artificially balkanizing the global market. That would reduce global wealth still further, impoverishing everybody in the long run. In any case with commodities now scarce the low-endowment “wealthy” countries no longer have the political or economic power to impose unilateral barriers effectively.

In summary, in today’s world, commodities have become scarce and labor has become commoditized, unless fenced in by artificial restraints. With the global supply of commodities finite, this problem can only worsen if population is allowed to continue growing. A world with 10 billion people, all able to compete on an equal basis in a globalized labor market and desiring commodity-intensive modern mechanical marvels, would be a world of ever-increasing scarcity and impoverishment, besides its adverse environmental effects.

Hence population reduction programs, aiming to reduce global population to a level at which labor once more becomes more valuable than commodities, should be given the highest priority at a global level. Otherwise, with the labor supply unlimited and the skills supply nearly so, and commodities supply relatively restricted, the only wealthy people will be those who own mines or oil wells.

[kerrygold]

By David McWilliams


Wednesday April 21 2010

They're back! The creeps, the snake-oil salesmen and spoofers who condemned a generation to negative equity are cheerleading again.

The advertisers are salivating too because the "property porn" industry sees a chance to sell its fantasy again. The papers are once more displaying "dream homes" replete with doctored photographs and Mediterranean blue skies -- all at "knock down" prices. It's time to buy again, or so I'm reliably told by those who were so reliable last time that they gave us NAMA!

I am not saying that property won't recover ever, of course it will; but not from here. Irish property is still extortionately expensive. It is expensive not just on a comparative basis but, more crucially, it is expensive on the basis of what is happening in the economy. Any government that is urging people to buy houses right now clearly has no intention of learning anything from the mistakes of the past few years and therefore is condemned to repeat them -- with catastrophic results.

If you were a Martian economist and were asked to put together a blueprint for how Ireland can learn from this boom/bust travesty, the first point on the list would be that Ireland should try to 'lock in' the competitive gain that cheap property gives a country.

We should let property fall to a level that we can all afford and then start again. As well as a labour force that is willing and educated, low taxes and cheap land should be part of our competitive offering. In that way, we can afford to pay our workers more, because we are paying our landlords less.

But that isn't happening. And worse still, the property hoodlums are back on the street again. To have been ripped off by the property scamsters once is bad enough, to be ripped off twice is a travesty.

Buying a house now makes absolutely no economic, financial or social sense because prices are condemned to fall much further and anyone who buys now will be suckered into the false rally, known as a 'dead cat bounce'. Given what we now know about the boom, it's hard to feel sorry for someone who believes the hype-property brigade. But even a cursory glance at the financial numbers today -- just a little bit of due diligence -- suggests that we have a long, long way to go before house prices reach the bottom. So beware, see through the glossy brochures and don't say you weren't warned . . . again.

Here is the nub of the issue. The reason the property merchants are back is because over the past 24 months, Ireland has been turned from a democracy to a 'bankocracy'. A bankocracy is a country in which every major decision is taken to bolster the interests of the banks.

A democracy was one of those quaint ideas, like the notion that a state would be governed according to the interests of the citizens. In this 'bankocracy', because Irish banks can only be saved if the property market rises, the State will do everything in its power to extort cash from the citizen to give it to the banks via the property market one more time.

Everything the State has done so far has been to promote a bankocracy over democracy. It is far from clear why it is doing this. What is obvious is that the politicians who presided over this mess have no intention of learning from it. Initially, the guarantee -- which I was a supporter of -- was about containing the crisis. If you see a contagious bank crisis as a forest fire, doing nothing in the chaos of September 2008 and allowing the banks to go under would have been like a firefighter letting a forest fire blaze out of control, irrespective of what was burned in its wake. The State had to do something at the time.

However, the initial advice was to limit the guarantee to two years and then let it lapse. In this way, you could contain the crisis, see how bad the banks were and step back, giving the problem back to the banks and their creditors who had (a) caused it in the first place but also (b) are best placed to unravel it.

We are now being told that if we were to take the guarantee away now, the banks would collapse because of their funding difficulties. Well if a bank, as a business, can't survive without government support, then it ceases to be a proper business and should be given to a liquidator to get the best price for any assets it has. The deposits can be guaranteed, transferred and form the capital base of a new or existing bank and away we go. No old bank, no old problem.

But that is how a capitalist democracy works. However, Ireland is not a capitalist democracy; it is a cronyist bankocracy where the government has tied the interests of the citizen to the interests of the bankers with calamitous results.

The government believed the banks' hostage-taking stance. The banks claimed that they had a hostage called 'the economy' and that if the government didn't give them the cash they would pull the trigger and sink everything. Now that the hostage-takers have been rewarded with a huge ransom, we face a concerted effort to inflate the property market again. Having given 'cash for trash' via NAMA, the only way that the ransom can be validated is through inflating the market again. But it won't work. Prices will keep falling.

Look at the chart to see why. For the market in Ireland to clear, investors have to take up most of the slack. This means in people's heads they need to have a profit model, which validates why they are buying property. In the commercial world, the yield -- which is how much rent the property makes -- is the crucial barometer.

Let's say the yield on property has to be 7pc at least to make it worthwhile investing in property, then we can see with some clarity how much prices are still overvalued. The average cost of a house in Ireland is €250,000. The average rent per month is €863. This gives a paltry yield of 3.48pc per year. Now to get the yield up to 7pc, either rents have to double -- which is not going to happen because wages are falling, taxes rising, unemployment rising and emigration is back -- or prices have to fall. So average house prices must fall by another 45pc to reach fair value of €135,620. Unless prices fall back dramatically, you would be mad to buy because you would simply be paying the banks a subsidy on top of the tax you are going to pay to bail them out!

Another way of looking at how overvalued houses are is to examine the chart. The chart shows how much out-of-whack houses prices still are with respect to the average wage. Up until 1996, house prices and wages moved in tandem. After that, house prices moved out of synch. By 1999/2000 there was a clear bubble emerging and the rest is history. But as you can see, if rises in house prices are to get back to where they bear some relation to rises in wages, house prices have to fall back dramatically. In fact, to get back to a proper yield, house prices must tumble.

Anyone tempted to buy now should try to see through the spin that says: "Now is time to buy". But this shouldn't be that difficult. After all, who is saying that now is the time to buy? The sellers! Enough said.

www.davidmcwilliams.ie

- David McWilliams

Irish Independent

[kerrygold]

Davis stuns Higgins at the Crucible
Saturday, 24 April 2010 21:32
Steve Davis pulled off the greatest shock of the Betfred.com World Championship when he sent last year's winner John Higgins out of the tournament.

Backed by massive support this year at the Crucible, on his 30th appearance, Davis followed up his final-frame win over Mark King in the first round with the biggest scalp possible.

Higgins, who was a 13-year-old when Davis won his sixth and most recent world title in 1989, played a poor match by his standards.

But Davis still had to take the chances when they came his way and, at the age of 52, he has a quarter-final to look forward to after a magnificent 13-11 victory.

Davis received a standing ovation as he exited the arena.

'I just cannot really believe that I played strongly enough to beat John,' Davis said. 'I knew I was playing well in the build-up to the World Championship.

'I hoped I would play well in the first round and I fancied that I was playing okay but you never know until you actually get here.'

Today he managed to hold off Higgins and said: 'I suppose the inner belief grew as the match went closer and closer.

'Then of course the nerves kicked in and until I potted the final pink and held myself together while I was shaking like a leaf, perhaps I didn't believe it was going to happen.'

Davis had a tear in his eye as he left the arena, and added: 'It feels just amazing, just amazing. To beat John Higgins, one of the greatest players to ever hold a cue, at the World Championship, as champion - quite amazing.'

When he survived the nerve-jangling process of qualifying for the tournament, Davis called himself the 'last of the Mohicans', given he is the only player from his generation still playing at the highest level.

He has found the competitive drive which made him such a hard player to beat in the 1980s - his decade of dominance on the baize - and the spark has come from his manager Barry Hearn's grand plan to reinvigorate the game.

Hearn was the man who could not watch 25 years ago when Davis lost on the final-frame black to Dennis Taylor in the greatest Crucible final.

As Taylor spent time backstage today, out on the table Davis was rolling back the years.

Davis won many matches as favourite at the Crucible in his prime, but he was a massive underdog against Higgins.

Higgins trailed 6-2 after the opening session and 9-7 after the second, and after each session the bookmakers still made him favourite.

This morning he stepped up his fightback with breaks of 70 and 115 - his 100th career Crucible century - to make it 9-9.

With four more frames needed for victory, the momentum looked to be firmly with the 34-year-old.

Davis reached 37 on a break in the next frame before missing a difficult red, and it looked set to be a costly mistake before Higgins fluffed blue to middle.

Rather than Higgins moving into the lead for the first time in the match, Davis calmly put away 46 points to edge 10-9 in front.

The underdog then gunned in a 49 break in the 20th frame of the match before missing a routine red when he should have seized the chance to win the frame in one visit.

Higgins responded with 41, foiled from clearing up by running up tight to the blue.

When the next chance came, Higgins missed the blue, left it for Davis, and the man who made his Crucible debut in 1979 wrapped up the frame to lead 11-9 at the interval.

Higgins found a way back to 11-11, but runs of 26 and 35 inched Davis back ahead.

Then Higgins led 43-1 in the next frame, but contrived to allow Davis a path back.

Davis closed the gap to nine, but Higgins missed an easy red when he should have pulled himself level.

Then came the most magical break of the match as Davis took on the colours. He had to double the brown and nudge the blue over the pocket in the same shot, and executed it to perfection, a masterful shot from snooker's ultimate technician.

In went the blue, and then Davis rolled the pink into the middle pocket.

The Crucible erupted, and now the talk of a seventh world title can start.

Davis' feat put the other match in the shade, but Scotland's Graeme Dott, the 2006 champion, was in supreme form as he opened up a 12-4 lead over his good friend Stephen Maguire, firing in breaks of 127 and 130.

Higgins offered Davis warm congratulations.

He said: 'I would love him to go on and maybe play wee Graeme (Dott) or another fellow Scotsman in the final. He's a great champion.

'It's going to be tough for him, at 52 years of age. Last year I had some monumental clashes and I was dead on my feet near the end but he's probably fitter than me.'


Half-joking, Higgins said: 'I hated him out there. I was looking at him, despising him, and hoping he would collapse or something.


'But at the end I wished him all the best and that's what you've got to do.'


Discussing his own performance, Higgins said: 'The balls never forgive you in this game and I missed some crucial pots out there today.

'Last year I managed to hold myself well under pressure but this year I was all over the place.'

[kerrygold]

By David McWilliams


Wednesday April 28 2010

Will Britain be the first country to go bust or at least have a run on its currency before, not after, the Olympics?

Traditionally, countries and cities host the Olympics with great fanfare, expecting great things from tourism and then, when the marathon finishes and the clean-up begins, they are left with a nasty bill. However, such is the 'feel-good' factor associated with the prestige of the games that the bill is rarely presented before the opening ceremony.

But this time it might be different. Britain is in a precarious financial position, but at least it is exceedingly lucky in that it can print its own currency. However, while devaluation saves parts of the economy, it almost guarantees a run on the currency, particularly now that Britain faces a hung parliament.

Its deficits are huge and there is real angst across the water as to what Britain can do. What industries does it have that can, in the years ahead, save it from being a chronic deficit country?

Not that you would feel this angst in London. In fact, the place seems giddy. Anyone who has sat on the Tube in recent days and read the 'Evening Standard' over the shoulder of their neighbour will know that London is in the grip of Cleggmania. There is not much else being talked about and as the election approaches Nick Clegg is the man to beat.

If you doubt this, just read the Tory press, which is spewing out as much bilious gunk as it can find in an effort to smear this guy simply because he does a better imitation of Tony Blair than David Cameron.

But the Tories are stuck, as are Labour, because the people are responding as they have responded politically in the past two years -- they want change. They want the outsider. They are sick of the two-party system; and the more the press and political opponents throw at Clegg, the stronger he gets.

I have been spending a few days in London and the place is buzzing with politics. So much so that no one is discussing the underlying economic challenge facing whoever wins the election, which will be massive cuts in spending.

For example, last night I found myself in an old London institution, Bloom's Restaurant in Golders Green. The place is one of the few authentic kosher restaurants in London and well worth a visit -- if not for the food, just for the people watching.

Last night the place was hopping. As the only man without a yarmulke, I stood out a mile. The tables were full of old Jewish ladies, nattering about their daughters-in-law, elderly couples sharing desserts with two spoons, bearded men on mobiles and my own raucous table deep in heated debate.

My hosts were worried. We tucked into some Yiddish specialties all washed down with Maccabi beer. The conversation moved quickly with no one agreeing with anyone else. You could have been in an east European shtetl before the war -- all exaggerated hand gestures and dramatic sweeping statements with warnings of the impending disaster that awaits Britain if the Liberals and Labour do a deal. This Armageddon was only marginally more treacherous than the one that faces us if the Liberals and the Conservatives do a deal.

We spoke of the euro too, which they all agreed was going through the mill. Some of these guys had years of financial experience and they were in no doubt that Greece would blow, followed by Portugal and then on to Ireland. They explained to me something I had forgotten which was how profits, not ECB press statements, embolden market players.

So today the Greek bond yields are out at 16pc. This means that the markets who bet when Greek bond yields were at 5pc that there would be a crisis can now make a tidy profit. This money that they make in Greece will now be banked and deployed against the next country.

I left the restaurant more confused than when I had arrived and hopped on the 328 bus to Notting Hill. As the bus left the predominantly Jewish Golders Green so too did the Jews who were on the bus. They were replaced by Indians and Chinese.

The bus moved towards Kilburn. At Kilburn High Road, the bus filled up with older Irish people, immigrants from the 1950s and 1960s. Out the window the corner shops sold the 'Limerick Leader', the 'Sligo Champion', the 'Leitrim Observer' and, of course, 'The Irish Post'.

By the time the bus pulled into Westborne Park Station, most of the Irish had got off, replaced by younger Middle Eastern and Asian migrants.

The bus captured the essence of London; transient, mixed, still territorial. I had started in pre-war Poland and ended up in 21st century Bangladesh via 1950s Mohill.

This is the country that Nick Clegg is connecting with. This is the place that is fed up with the two old parties. For Ireland, the next few weeks in Britain will be crucial. The UK is still our biggest trading partner and it is where we are most likely to go to as our recession drags on.

It is also the place that we have to be competitive with. As the Greek crisis reaches its endgame with either Greece leaving the euro or defaulting, Ireland will come under severe pressure. Markets will look for reasons to validate selling Irish bonds. Most obviously the enormous NAMA debts to bail out the banks will tip us over, but so too will our competitive position with Britain.

Think about the following: Clegg and the Lib Dems do very well. He holds the balance of power and has a big spending agenda, plus the added spice of wanting a PR system. It will mean that the new coalition will be unstable and unable to rein in the public deficit. The markets will do what they always do -- sell sterling. Sterling falls even against a weak euro, which is being hammered against the dollar because of bond crises in Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland.

Sterling's fall means that in Dundalk, Cavan, Letterkenny and all across the country north of Athlone, the retail trade seizes up. People go north for bargains, but also retailers here who expanded in the boom see their credit cut off by the banks, who are suffering because our bond market is in freefall.

Then the true lunacy of our Government's policy becomes apparent. We are trying to slash prices and wages in the euro at a time when we are papering over the cracks with massive borrowing to save the banks. In the process, we strangle domestic indigenous exporters -- who are supposed to be the saviours.

It won't be just Britain who has its day of reckoning before the Olympics.

David McWilliams performs 'Outsiders' at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, from June 9. www.abbeytheatre.ie

- David McWilliams

Irish Independent

[glengael]

Martina Devlin: Seeking salvation in a new political messiah

Thursday April 29 2010

THINGS have reached such as state that I woke up yesterday to an email criticising my description of Maire Geoghegan-Quinn as a once talented politician turned greedy and aloof by the European gravy train.

"What's with the talented?" complained the reader.

It's official: politicians are pan-national villain number one. You might think it should be bankers, but the rosette has been awarded to politicians because they let the bankers get away with it. And they're still going easy on the Michael Fingletons of corporate Ireland.

Politicians can seem to do nothing right, even when they do the right thing -- whether lickety-split or dawdling. Even when they behave with honour and work diligently, as some do. En masse they are now dismissed as having buried their snouts in the public trough for too long. One consequence of the financial collapse has been to bring the body politic into disrepute, and members are at a loss about how to restore its reputation. This is a pity because democracy may be a flawed enterprise in the Irish context -- colour-coded by brown envelopes and golden circles -- but it remains preferable to the alternative that preceded it.

Our politicians are floundering, slow to grasp how the public regards them as a problem rather than problem-solvers. The opposition waits for a general election, the Government hopes for a miracle, and the electorate fumes. More explosions of the Richie Boucher, Maire Geoghegan-Quinn variety are inevitable.

The country is seething with malcontent. I'm not talking about kvetching, which everyone does occasionally, but chronic, dilating dissatisfaction.

We see the burden is not equally shared: opt-out judges and senior civil servants, and wealthy entrepreneurs availing of non-resident tax status loopholes, all activate specific discontent. But there is also free-floating discontent: a general sense, in our troubled little republic, that a range of institutions have betrayed us and that recovery is hampered by incompetence.

Leadership would help to dampen the flames under this cauldron. But leadership is as absent as Fingleton's €1m bonus. Brian Lenihan does his best, and all credit to him, but the man clearly has other battles to fight. At this time, he cannot be the leader we need.

I detect no leadership qualities in the ministers who queued up to dispute Brian Cowen's contention that pensions were a matter for the individual. They only followed where others led.

As for the electorate, some watch for a messiah in the Obama mould. Others believe a new political party is the magic wand solution. I've lost count of the people saying yearningly: "If only a new party would come along." We tried that experiment already, it was called the PDs. They delivered no eureka moment. Personally, I believe Eamon Gilmore has potential but for now we remain trapped by the Greens' refusal to pull on the superhero tights and save the country from Fianna Fail. And, more specifically, from Brian Cowen.

At this stage, pointing out his shortcomings feels like kicking a man who's face down in the mud. Yet he continually falls short of our lowest expectations. It's like watching an excruciating sitcom which everyone knows is doomed to be axed. Doesn't anyone in his party mind? Or do they mind a bit, but not enough to mount a heave? Only a fool gives blind loyalty to an uncommunicative bungler who daily bruises public morale. When admirers called him a bruiser in his up-and-coming period, I doubt if this was what they had in mind.

Now Cowen's administration is telling us we must conjure up another €450m, borrowed at gyrating interest rates, to rescue Greece. But bailout figures have a history of mounting. Even now, there is no consensus on how much our EU partner needs. Figures range from €45bn to €80bn to €145bn -- take your pick, we're on safe ground if we call it squillions.

It's highly unlikely the money will ever be repaid. Who talks about rescheduling debt repayments before cash is even advanced? That's markets-speak for don't expect this back any time soon -- if at all.

STILL, our leaders tell us we have no alternative except to pay up. But the politicians were wrong about Richie Boucher, and wrong again about pensions. There must be other ways to make a contribution to Greece. How about a commitment to holiday on a Greek island instead? If 250,000 of us promise to visit for a week every year over the next three years, would that do? And we'll also undertake to eat more Greek honey and yogurt.

Mind you, we can't leave Spain and Portugal out of our holiday plans or we'll have to give them bailout money too. Perhaps the eurocrats might work out a quota system, so that all vulnerable members (Ireland included) are guaranteed a certain number of EU tourists annually. That way everybody gets something for their money, and no more of these Alice in Wonderland economics proposing a country borrowed to the hilt should tap lenders yet again.

Incidentally, the only leadership we've experienced in recent days has come from RTE's Dublin correspondent John Kilraine, who asked our EU Commissioner to hand back her pensions. It precipitated a chain of returns, with urgently needed savings for the Exchequer. John Kilraine didn't set out to offer leadership, but that's what his journalism achieved. Now I'm not suggesting he run for election, because we all know how well that turned out in his colleague's case.

But it just shows what can be accomplished with a little initiative -- and exposes how it's missing elsewhere.

Irish Independent

[glengael]

General election 2010: Brown's 'bigot' episode shows him acting not out of character, but in it on the Brownout Scale of volcanic eruptions this was only a three or four.

By Andrew Rawnsley

I would not have wanted to be the seat upholstery of Gordon Brown's car when he was told the radio microphone on his lapel was live. Nor would I fancy being within lapel-grabbing, pen-stabbing or cup-hurling range of the prime minister when the postmortem is conducted.

However depressing the polls, Brown has tried to maintain a cheerful mask on the fouler side of his temper when conducting the public rituals of electioneering. "Very nice to see you, take care," is his parting blandishment to Mrs Duffy before he gets into the back of his limo and complains: "That was a disaster … She is just a sort of bigoted woman."

Wearing two faces is not, of course, a hypocrisy unique to Brown. I'd wager a decent sum that both David Cameron and Nick Clegg have blown off to aides after awkward encounters with voters. They just haven't been caught at it.

Brown's problem is that this episode shows him acting not out of character, but entirely in it. It will be rightly taken as evidence of the less attractive dimensions of his personality. Note that it happens because he stresses over the trivial and becomes infuriated by anything or anybody that disturbs his idea of himself as a man in iron control. Mrs Duffy was far from the most tricky customer ever to confront a politician. In fact, he dealt with the initial encounter reasonably well. She even said she was going to vote Labour. Calling it "a disaster" was an over-reaction to a fairly humdrum moment on the campaign trail.

We see also a glimpse of Brown's tendency to instantly assign fault for a setback to someone else. "You should never have put me with that woman," he complains to his aides. "Whose idea was that?" This too fits a pattern common to many of the temper episodes that I revealed in The End of the Party. When he was accused of plagiarising Al Gore and Bill Clinton, he turned on his advisers. "How could you do this to me?" he raged. When Revenue & Customs lost the notorious data disks, the prime minister instantly saw himself as the victim. He grabbed his startled deputy chief of staff by the lapels and snarled: "They're out to get me!"

One of the most unattractive aspects of Brown's premiership has been a blame culture at the heart of government. One target was Alistair Darling, who was on the receiving end of the "forces from hell" when he was more candid about the economy than his next-door neighbour could stand.

I found a constant theme among interviewees for the book, whether ministers, civil servants or No 10 officials. Those who work closely with the prime minister often feel too intimidated to be honest with him, too fearful of an ugly reaction to confront him with difficult truths.

On this occasion, at least he was not in denial about the need to move swiftly to try to contain the damage. Mrs Duffy deserves an entry in Guinness World Records for extracting the quickest ever apology from Gordon Brown, followed by his penitential pilgrimage to her home to grovel in person.

If there is one consolation for Labour, it is that this could have been so much worse. To Justin Forsyth, the long-serving aide at whom the prime minister was venting in the back of car, this would have seemed a very mild example of Grumpy Gordon. Mercifully for Labour, this was not one of the expletive-rich explosions to which he is prone when really frustrated and angry. The microphone did not capture him using the F-word or pummelling the car seat in front of him. On the Brownout Scale of volcanic eruptions this was only a three or four. For that small mercy, at least, Labour can be grateful.

• Andrew Rawnsley is the author of The End of the Party, available from guardianbooks.co.uk

The Guardian newspaper

[glengael]

Ageism can be a barrier to organisations benefiting from wisdom and late-life creativity, writes JAMIE SMYTH , Social Affairs Correspondent

OLDER WORKERS are an increasingly important resource for employers, who can benefit from the “late-life creativity” and wisdom they bring to their work. But they face many barriers to employment that reflect ageism in society, according to a new report entitled Ageing, the Demographic Dividend and Work.

“It is a sign of an ageist society that we nearly always assume that cognitive changes with ageing are all negative – in fact late-life creativity reminds us that there are positive cognitive changes with ageing – wisdom, strategic thinking, reasoning,” says the report by Prof Desmond O’Neill, Centre of Ageing, Neuroscience and the Humanities at Tallaght hospital.

Prof O’Neill highlights several masterpieces by artists and composers such as Matisse, Monet and Handel, which were completed in old age to demonstrate the concept of late-life creativity. He says societies with a high proportion of older people maintain and support complexity, and become economically more productive. He argues that there is accumulating evidence of a major demographic dividend for ageing, contrary to many negative news headlines.

“By restricting recruitment to so-called ‘prime age’ workers, many organisations have prevented themselves from maximising their human resources potential,” says Prof O’Neill.

The report disputes common perceptions about the decline in cognitive skills of older workers, noting that it is now recognised through research that age is not an issue in acquiring new technological skills.

It says general health in later life is improving, citing a US study that found disability rates among older people in the US have fallen by 1.5 per cent per year over the past decade.

This result was achieved through better health literacy, opportunistic screening and more diagnostics and seems to be replicated in other developed countries.

“These improvements in the general health and wellbeing of older people may lead to significant opportunities for continued working for older people in the workforce,” says the report.

The report also focuses on “Europe-wide discrimination” against older workers that creates barriers to their full inclusion in the workforce. Prof O’Neill highlights “push” factors, which represent a failure of workplaces to engage with ageing – through ageist recruitment policies and negative perceptions of older workers and inflexible working practices. He also identifies “pull” factors such as financial incentives to retire early but notes these lie outside the scope of the current report.

The report warns a policy of extending the retirement age without providing life-long training, age-friendly workplaces and eliminating ageism represents a double-threat to older people.

It concludes the Government, education and training bodies, businesses, unions and age advocacy groups need to work together to create a new framework for developing workplaces and policies supportive of working later life in Ireland.

Irish times May 13th

[glengael]

Lise Hand: Society slowly sinking beneath 'abysmal, truly shocking' losses

Thursday May 13 2010

The bank-related gathering in the RDS in Ballsbridge yesterday could not have been in more stark contrast to the unruly bank-inspired melee outside the gates of Leinster House the previous night. There was no roaring or jostling or tangling with the gardai at the annual general meeting of Irish Nationwide Building Society.

No flying eggs, no hurled recriminations -- and for that matter -- no cast of thousands. The most damning criticism in the meeting -- describing the society's losses over the last year as "abysmal, truly shocking" -- came not from a shareholder but from the lips of the man in the hot-seat, Irish Nationwide's chairman, Danny Kitchen.

The hall wasn't even half full, with less than 200 of the seats occupied by predominantly elderly shareholders, overlooked from the stage by the usual row of middle-aged males that sit on the boards of our financial institutions.

Some of the vacant seats may have been down to the fact that the agm was taking place in the morning, rather than in its traditional afternoon slot. "It shows great disrespect to people who live in the country," grumbled one man.

"We'll take it on board for next year," replied Mr Kitchen. It seems to be one of the few things the once-powerful bigwigs can do these days without having to first ask permission Brian Lenihan, Baron of the Banks.

On more than one occasion, Danny's answer to a question from a shareholder contained the explanation that it's "the minister who has control of the Society," or "the minister calls the shots".

Moreover, there simply wasn't any baddie on the stage for the crowd to boo. The former emperor of Irish Nationwide, Michael Fingleton, was proved to have no clothes and has now exited stage left, pursued by a bear market.

Of course Fingers also exited with a hefty bonus of €1m under his oxter, and the fate of this hefty sum was exercising the minds of some of the shareholders. "The society has no legal redress in this matter," explained Danny.

But there was little anger in the room, more a sense of dejection and frustration. One woman worked herself up into a bit of a rage during a lengthy narration of a conspiracy theory which took in golden circles and the IMF -- although the effect was ruined when a mobile phone close to her suddenly began playing the 'duelling banjos' music from creepy film 'Deliverance'.

But the shareholders had that sinking feeling that nothing could deliver them from the ongoing evil financial crisis in the banking sector.

"I feel I have been fooled," one woman who had held shares in the society since the mid-Sixties told the chairman. She couldn't understand why the bank's senior management needed "exorbitant wages" and told the line of chaps, "You can only wear one pair of shoes and sleep in one bed at a time".

Unable to vent their collective spleen at the absent Fingers, the only real ripple of anger was directed at the building society's independent auditors, KPMG, who had delivered the annual report to be put before the shareholders.

In protest, the crowd voted down a motion put forward by the board on the KPMG report. After the show of hands was counted and the motion defeated, Danny moved smoothly onwards.

"Excuse me, but what does that no vote mean?" enquired one man. The chairman didn't miss a beat. "It doesn't really have any significance, to be honest," he admitted.

There was a splendid silence, swiftly followed by cackles of dark mirth. One had to laugh, really. Otherwise one would weep at the sheer ridiculousness of it all.

Afterwards, the chairman elaborated on the ongoing stand-off between the building society and Michael Fingleton over the €1m scoots.

"There was never anything we could do. What he's got he's quite entitled to," explained Danny. "We have no legal case. We've taken two senior counsel's opinion, and they've basically said, 'there's nothing you can do'."

But they do keep in touch, which is nice. "I write to him periodically and ask him has anything changed, am I likely to see the money, and he writes back and says no, nothing has changed, and you're not likely to see the money. So it's a bit of a dialogue of the deaf to be honest with you," said a rueful Danny.

Honestly, is anyone listening to anyone these days?

Irish Independent.

[glengael]

Mother's phone call as comforting as a hug, says oxytocin study. US scientists believe hearing your mother's voice on the telephone has same stress-busting effect as a cuddle

Hearing your mother's voice on the telephone has the same stress-busting effect as a cuddle, say US scientists. Children know that mum's got the words when life seems to be getting too much.

Now it seems her voice on the phone can work the same soothing magic as when she is there to give her offspring a comforting cuddle. US scientists believe hearing mother down the line produces the same stress-busting effect on her daughter as physical contact such as a hug or a loving arm round the shoulder.

In a study that will send phone companies into their own comfort zone, researchers found mothers' calls released similar levels of the social bonding hormone oxytocin in girls as when they were in close proximity. Writing in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the scientists report how they deliberately raised the stress levels of 61 girls aged seven to 12. The children had to make an impromptu speech and solve maths problems in front of strangers. This sent their hearts racing and levels of stress hormone cortisol higher.

The girls were then divided into three groups, one comforted by physical contact with their mothers, another by phone calls from their mothers and a third by watching a film deemed emotionally neutral, the March of the Penguins.

Oxytocin rose to similar levels in the first two groups and did not increase in the third, saliva and urine tests revealed. As this hormone's presence grew, cortisol faded.

Leslie Seltzer, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who led the research, said: "The children who got to interact with their mothers had virtually the same hormonal response, whether they interacted in person or over the phone.

"It was understood that oxytocin release in the context of social bonding usually required physical contact. But it's clear from these results that a mother's voice can have the same effect as a hug, even if they're not standing there."

The effects lingered too, said another member of the team. "It stays well beyond the stressful task," said Professor Seth Pollak, from the university's child emotion laboratory. "By the time the children go home they're still enjoying the benefits of this relief and their cortisol levels are still low. That a simple telephone call could have this physiological effect on oxytocin is really exciting."

Girls were used in the study because oxytocin responses are stronger in females than in males. In adult women the hormone plays a role in labour, preparing for birth and breastfeeding.

There might be an evolutionary reason for other responses, experts believe. A threatened male is free to choose between "fight or flight", but this may not be so easy for a female who is pregnant or caring for offspring. It might be that females alleviate stress by making the peace.

Seltzer is investigating whether other forms of communication, such as text messaging, have an effect on oxytocin and hopes to expand the research into animals.

"Lots of very social species vocalise," she said. "On the one hand we're curious to see if this effect is unique to humans. On the other we're hoping researchers who study vocal communication will consider looking at oxytocin release in other animals and applying it to broader questions of social behaviour and evolutionary biology."

The Guardian May 12th 2010

[Seoirse Ui Duic]

www.independent.ie/national-news/up-on-the-roof-croker-to-offer-birds-eye-tours-2179674.html

THE GAA is to offer rooftop walking tours of Dublin's Croke Park from early next year which will offer visitors panoramic views over the capital.

A walkway will be built on the roof of the stadium and tours will be offered from next January, costing in the region of €100.

Based on the Sydney Harbour Bridge climb, the walkway will be 35 metres above ground.

It will give visitors a bird's eye view of the capital, with uninterrupted 360 degree views of Dublin Bay, the mountains, the Spire on O'Connell Street, the Obelisk in the Phoenix Park and Liberty Hall.

The plan was announced yesterday morning as daredevil Eskil Ronningsbakken balanced on a giant, wire figure '3' some 60 metres above the ground to advertise a mobile phone company's new branding slogan "Do things you never thought possible".

He appeared at the home of the GAA to help advertise the new rooftop walking tours of Croke Park.

Around 80,000 people a year already visit the Croke Park museum, and the rooftop tours are expected to swell numbers. The GAA will shortly begin building the walkway, with a view to opening it next January.

"The walkway will be around the entire stadium, and it will take about four hours to complete the tour," a spokesman said.

"There's fairly stringent safety measures, so they have to be gone through, which will take about 30 minutes. The tour itself will be about an hour, and then two-and-a-half hours for the history of Croke Park.

"They will have to make sure people are fit and able to do it," the spokesman said. "There will be five platforms with views of Dublin and one pitchside viewing platform.

"It's the first stadium in the world to have such a tour and is modelled on the Sydney Harbour Bridge climb. The tours could be under €100, but the fee has yet to be decided and will be based on construction costs, safety equipment and the cost of stewards."

[Seoirse Ui Duic]

Top GAA club must pay for flood damage to neighbour's home
By Tim Healy
Friday May 14 2010

ONE of country's biggest GAA clubs is facing a large bill after the High Court ruled it was responsible for flood damage to a neighbouring family home.

Dublin club Kilmacud Crokes is liable for damages caused by flooding to a couple's home and garden beside the Leopardstown club's lands, the court ruled.

Nigel and Frances Grennan, of Torquay Road, Foxrock, claimed that as a result of the clearing and compacting of the club's pitches in 1998, their garden was repeatedly flooded and their home also damaged.

The club denied the flooding was the result of works carried out by them.

In a reserved judgment, Mr Justice John MacMenamin ruled the club was liable for the nuisance and negligence caused to the Grennans. The court will assess damages later.

In 1998, the level of the club's land was altered. As a result, the Grennans suffered their first flooding incident during heavy rain in 2000 when water came into the house.

Despite this and a number of other occasions when the garden was flooded, nothing was done by the club for a number of years, the judge said. In 2004, the club built a "berm wall" to deal with the problem but it was "ineptly constructed", he added.

www.independent.ie/national-news/courts/top-gaa-club-must-pay-for-flood-damage-to-neighbours-home-2179621.html?service=Print