Posts from ‘Play’
Monaghan Cinema
The other night i went to see ‘Inception’ with my girlfriend in our local cinema (Monaghan cinema). It’s 10.10pm on Saturday, the movie starts on schedule… the usual trailers and ads etc… we then see some sand and Leonardo Di Caprio on a beach and then darkness… but still sound… “hmm… this is a pretty crap introduction” i’m saying to myself as the screen is black for about 30 seconds. A look up at the back of the room (Monaghan cinema has old style projectors) told us the projector was dead. Great….
Just over 4 years ago, i was getting ready to sit my leaving cert exams and i bought my first car. A 2000 renault megane hatchback. Now, that car is 10 years old and past it’s sell by date. Not the sort of car i can rely on to complete a 70 mile round trip to college every day. That said, ironically, it never let me down getting to or from college over the last 3 years…
Today i went up to Dublin hoping to get a few things for Christmas. Didn’t happen. It was uncomfortably busy and this time of year everyone is very business like.
There were also dozens of charity collections scattered all over the place. Small armies of them. Some are genuine and not in your face, others are not so genuine. If i hear about ‘The Hanly Center’ one more time… these guys are what i call undercover charity workers. Just like an unmarked garda car, they blend in and then pounce from close range.
Anyway, this reminded me about charitybypass.com – i must do something more with it and try to keep it alive.
Earlier today, Paul Gogarty got a little carried away with himself in the Dáil…
Politicians usually crack jokes and take swipes at each other without doing any real damage. It’s almost as if they’re all pals and ‘act’ for the cameras and because they’re paid to.
But Gogarty obviously didn’t read today’s script and despite his party being in government, he made it clear he’d go down on the sinking ship, but not defending his comrades who ran it up on to the rocks in the first place.
Whilst that clip will haunt him for the rest of his career, on the plus side he’ll also become an instant e-celebrity in Ireland. Expect to see that clip to get edited, remixed & thrown around in emails for months to come 
edit: there’s some up already!
What do you do if an entire public sector goes on strike indefinitely?
- You can’t sack them all, because they can simply sign on for social welfare and end up getting paid by the state for not working.
- You can’t negotiate because there is nobody to negotiate with – only a brick wall which holds thousands of people behind it.
- You can’t let it happen for any length of time because it means the state starts losing serious money and stops functioning.
- You can’t change law to engineer a fix because you need the consent of other parties who won’t support you because they want you out and enjoy watching you in this mess.
photo credit: University Radio Falmer
That’s the situation our current government will be in shortly if everyone sticks to their word. The 2010 irish budget is announced tomorrow and as a government, they should be finished, surely – but then again the people have voted for these guys not so long ago… Under normal circumstances, a manager gets sacked when a side loses too often. What did we do? We offered them a 4 year contract when we were so obviously failing to perform.
It’s at times like this where you also have to question the value of unions. Even if they defend their members and get what they want, they’ll ultimately lose it in other ways or else pass the cuts on to people who have no representation or influence. Nobody can beat the government and that’s the way it should be, unless of course the government is corrupt (we’re not quite there yet).
If public sector wages don’t get cut by 6% and save €x billion, it means spending will be cut further which in turn leads to job losses and lack of job creation which in turn results in less revenue for government and increased social welfare costs.
Look at it however you want – unless we borrow, more jobs will be lost and cuts will happen. We won’t /can’t borrow, so that means cuts will happen and if they don’t, it means jobs will be lost. If any of us were in the government’s position, we’d probably do the exact same. Anything else is too attacking and too risky and won’t get support.
We’d look to borrow first. But we’d be refused loans. We’d then look to cut spending. If we couldn’t cut any more spending we’d try to work another job or work longer hours (for more income). If we couldn’t do that, it’s KO and rather than ‘look’ at spending cuts, we’d just have to cut them ruthlessly based on what’s least important, which is the equivilent of cutting jobs for the government. Start off with part timers, contract workers, look for people who’ll leave voluntarily… etc…
Sympathy is a word which cannot have any meaning if you’re balancing books. You make the decisions and stick by them and accept the consequences. If the government cave in now, they’re showing great weakness. They said they would make unpopular decisions for the good of the country, so i fully expect them to cut ruthlessly and in doing so derail the train they’ve pilotted for so many years. Starting tomorrow, we can sit back with popcorn and watch the fireworks go off…
