Irish Economy: Economist Austin Hughes aching for Eurozone Recession; Clueless Politicians on Auto-Pilot

Brian Fallon, Director, of property website Daft.ie with Austin Hughes, Chief Economist, IIB Bank

"Sitting on the sidelines, cribbing and moaning is a lost opportunity. I don't know how people who engage in that don't commit suicide because frankly the only thing that motivates me is being able to actively change something," so said Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Bertie Ahern, to an Irish trade union conference in July 2007.

If you and your group of 34 other second-rate ministers believed that you invented the Celtic Tiger and had found the philosopher's stone to transmute your creation into a permanent prosperity, then it's easy to understand why you look with disdain on critics, who charge that a US dominated economy, powered domestically by a construction boom, is built on a foundation of quicksand.

Ahern is a pastmaster at speaking through both sides of his mouth and at a press conference in Brussels, on Friday, March 14, 2008, he said:

"Economic forecasting, as we all know, is an uncertain exercise and, for a small, globally-integrated economy such as us, the uncertainties that are out there at the moment are magnified. There's no doubt about that and this is apparent from a whole range of forecasts currently available.

"But they are all very different. I'm not getting into the business of which one is right. NCB (stockbrokers) this week published a forecast of 3.5 per cent of GDP growth for the year so here you see, in the one week, [ forecasts] that are going from 1.8% to 3.5%."

But for the NCB Stockbrokers chop imprinted on the first report, it would be dismissed as a joke.

The second report is from the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), an organisation that almost fifty years ago, was the inspiration of TK Whitaker, eminent civil servant and artchitect of the modern Irish economy. It is independent and publicly funded.

The purpose of the ESRI was to have credible analysis done outside the Department of Finance - to be free of political and commercial influence.

Irish Economy: Housing market not the engine of growth; Exports contribute minimal impact to growth because of high import level - Demographics are the key

Irish Economy: ESRI forecasts growth to plunge to 1.6% in 2008 - lowest in 20 years; Moderate recovery in 2009 but Exchequer deficit will rise to €7.5 billion

Last year, besides Bertie Ahern, there were several others including IIB Bank economist Austin Hughes who excorciated "negative commentators" who were "talking down the economy."

Now that reality has struck home, the tune has changed to a welcome for the arrival of a "sustainable" housing market.

A year ago Dublin property agent Ken MacDonald wrote: Why do we allow scaremongers and doomsayers with unfounded pessimism and unbridled negativity dictate our thinking and blunt consumer confidence? The Irish economy is the envy of the world. Job creation is phenomenal with more than 7,000 new jobs being created each month - despite the gloomy attention given to periodic job losses in some sectors.Unemployment stands at 4.1%, the lowest in Europe; there are 750,000 more people in the workplace than a decade ago. We have revitalised cities and towns, a conveyor belt of entrepreneurial business people operating successfully on a world stage, a rich cultural and artistic heritage, a vibrant talented young population, rising by almost 100,000 per year, confident in their own and their country's destiny. We should be celebrating our success on a daily basis. In any event, the Irish love affair with property will continue undaunted despite the knockers.

A conveyor belt of entrepreneurial business people operating successfully on a world stage? - Buying overseas commercial property maybe but in other sectors, not much to brag about.

Irish investors were the second biggest net investors in commercial property across Europe in 2007

Last month, the Sunday Independent wrote: Ireland's fear that it's headed for an economic downturn could be the decisive factor in making it happen, according to a leading economist.

Austin Hughes, chief economist at IIB Bank, has warned that a self-fulfilling "wall of gloom" is contributing to the recent rise in unemployment.

The economic expert was speaking following the release of latest live register figures, which revealed a 7,800 increase in the jobless total in the past month.

"There is more or less a wall of gloom for the outlook of the economy at the moment and, in those circumstances, the likelihood is that firms in the broader economy where conditions are still okay . . . are probably being more cautious about their hiring plans and particularly in terms of casual and short term labour, they're probably easing back," explained Mr Hughes.

"Firms are being more cautious, consumers are gloomy. "Most media commentary is fairly downbeat so it is understandable if everyone is erring on the side of not hiring and not spending," he added.

It's interesting that the super-optimist on the Irish economy appears to be aching for a Eurozone recession, so that European Central Bank interest rate cuts would jump-start the Irish housing market. Damn the consequences for those who would lose their jobs across Europe.

In February, Hughes speculated that a dramatic deterioration in the Eurozone economy could trigger ECB rate cuts by April if not earlier. Everything appears to be seen through the prism of the Irish mortgage market. The business of his bank is overwhelmingly mortgage lending.

Not all financial service economists are like artists who paint what their patrons like but in recent times, Hughes is acting more as a mortgage marketing man than economist. It hardly matters as he will be sure to get continuing free media exposure from busy journalists in need of a quote from a "leading" or "top" economist.

As for the broadcast media, usually the interviewer has little if any grasp of economics and beyond waffle about the short-term i.e the coming few months, there is seldom a challenging question to deal with. The chief requirement of a good forecaster is a brass neck. Who cares what your past batting average may be or that you cannot offer independent/uncompromised analysis?

Jill Kerby wrote in the Sunday Times on Feb 3rd:

What is it they say about economists? That they make weather forecasters look good?

The mortgage banks just cannot resist sending out their economists at every opportunity , and ideally when a microphone or television camera is in the vicinity, to "reassure" the public that all will be well in the housing market.

Last week it was IIB Bank's turn to tell the nation that once average house price fall another 5%, to make a grand total of 16% since the start of last year, the bottom will have been reached, the "soft landing" achieved.

Would anyone listen let alone believe such a prediction if it was delivered by the bank's mortgage boss or the PR guy? Of course not.

They'd dismiss it as marketing propaganda to drive a few more first time buyers into the jaws of the mortgage monster out there with a sign around its neck that reads "negative equity" if they also happen to be seeking a 100% no-money-down, interest only loan.

Three Irish bank economists on ECB rate outlook: From 3 cuts beginning in June to unchanged benchmark of 4% in December 2008

Comment: Irish Government declares free lunch has not been invented but freeloading continues for ministers

Irish Farmers and Pharmacists Addicted to Public Welfare

Beneficiaries of public handouts over a long period do not give up their privileges when new circumstances warrant it. They become addicted to them and Irish farmers and pharmacists are fighting for a retention of public welfare.

Irish farmers have been the biggest per capita beneficiaries of the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for decades. It's a public welfare system and there is no maximum limit on the direct payment system that is payable for even watching the grass grow.

Multimillionaire beef processor Larry Goodman gets more than €500,000 annually in payments to support his 1,600 estate. Besides the CAP, some farmers who have been fortunate in having land acquired for road building or with potential for development, have also been huge beneficiaries of the system that makes land scare in a country that is 4% urbanised.

Meanwhile, most pharmacists also have been enjoying a public bonanza and those who have cashed in recent years have hit the jackpot. Public payments have risen from €332 million in 1997 to €1.5 billion in 2006. Published Health Service Executive (HSE) figures show that 26 pharmacies received payments of over €1m in 2006. The biggest recipient, Abbey Healthcare in Blackrock, Co Dublin, received over €4m, which was almost twice as much as the next biggest.

-Ireland's 40-year bonanza of foreign aid from the European Union will amount to €41 billion by the time we become a net contributor in 2013

As for farmers, 12 Asian emerging economies accounting for half the world's population, provide a huge potential for food producers and both Australia and New Zealand are gearing up to meet the huge demand for meat, grain and dairy products.

It's news to the Irish Farmers' Association who are stuck in the past trying to keep Brazilian beef out of the EU market and also maintain their existing protections against non-EU producers.

Speaking at an IFA protest outside the EU Commission offices in Dublin last week, IFA President Padraig Walshe said the hit on Ireland from any World Trade Organization (WTO) deal negotiated by EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson would be at least €2billion, with the loss of our suckler cow herd and third country prices and living standards for the few who might survive.

Walshe said farmers had gathered to keep up the pressure against Mandelson and remind him that his concessions to the Brazilians and other South Americans on beef would wipe out the suckler cow herd across Europe and in Ireland.

“The Irish beef and livestock sector has faced many challenges over the years, but it was never in such a dangerous situation as it is facing over the next 3 months. The WTO negotiations are in a perilous phase and if Mandelson is not stopped in his tracks, all the indications are that he will concede even more to try and pull together a deal,” he said.

Padraig Walshe said “Mandelson is working behind closed doors in Geneva in a reckless destruction of the CAP. He is prepared to sell out the beef industry in Ireland, to get a deal at any cost. He is engaged in a race to the bottom, to the lowest standards of food safety, animal welfare and the environment. The only winners in Mandelson’s agenda are the multinationals, commodity traders and corporate ranchers.”

IFA’s assessment is that the situation is now so critical that Ireland must declare a vital national interest to stop the Mandelson sellout. The only option open to the Government is to use the Veto. Walshe said “the bottom line is that Irish farmers could be facing a halving of cattle prices to €1.60/kg (that is below 60 pence/lb.) in the next few years if Mandelson is not stopped.”

In a country that depends on exports more than any other with foreign-owned companies being responsible for 90% of exports, the Minister for Agriculture has called for a complete ban on Brazilian imports into the EU.

-Foreign-owned firms were responsible for 90.2% of Irish exports in 2006 - including both merchandise goods and internationally traded services

Pandering to the farm lobby, Irish Minister of State for Trade and Commerce, John McGuinness TD recently met with the EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson in Brussels, to discuss recent developments in the current round of WTO (World Trade Organization) talks on the Doha agenda. The Minister said that he "outlined clearly Irish concerns on the direction the talks are taking that affect Irish Business and Agriculture."

The Minister "emphasised to Commissioner Mandelson the necessity that negotiations deliver real and clearly positive outcomes for Ireland."

- UN's World Food Programme considers rationing food aid: Irish Minister "robustly" defends agriculture protections apparently oblivious to the rapid changes in world markets

Pharmacists and Taxpayer funded Drugs

The Irish Independent reports that the cost of drugs to the health service reached almost €1.75bn last year, of which a quarter -- €370m -- went to the country's pharmacists, preliminary, unpublished figures show.

The battle between the Health Service Executive and the pharmacists over plans to reduce this bill reach a decisive stage this week, with an emergency meeting of the Irish Pharmacy Union on Wednesday to discuss the latest moves.

IPU president Michael Guckian says there is no prospect of finding an agreed solution to the dispute on the HSE's plan to cut margins on the cost of drugs by more than half, from almost 18pc to 8pc.

He has called on chemists not to carry out a threat to refuse prescription drugs to medical card patients while the IPU considers its next moves. Minister for Health Mary Harney is has assured such patients they will still get their prescription medicines if their pharmacist withdraws from the medical card scheme.

Brendan Keenan writes that the figures for last year show that drugs cost 45% more by the time they reached the patient than when they left the drug companies' factories. The latest row began after the HSE got agreement from the manufacturers to cut the cost of medicines by €260m over the next four years, and moved to get €100m in savings from wholesalers and pharmacists.

The figures show that wholesalers last year continued the practice of transferring half of their 17.7% mark-up to the pharmacists in the form of €100m in discounts.

Of the big wholesalers, Uniphar is owned by 400 pharmacists, Cahill May Roberts owns 72 retail chemists and United Drug has invested €300m in community pharmacies. UK chain Boot's has a target of 100 stores in Ireland.

Brendan Keenan says that as well as the €100m discount, chemists received €238m in fees and charged a €131m markup of their own last year. Published HSE figures show that 26 pharmacies received payments of over €1m in 2006. The biggest recipient, Abbey Healthcare in Blackrock, Co Dublin, received over €4m, which was almost twice as much as the next biggest.

It is estimated that the average pharmacy has a total turnover of €1.5m. The IPU argues that such averages hide the plight of the smaller pharmacies, especially those in rural areas, which will be hit disproportionately hard by the planned savings and some may go out of business.

-Pharmacy survey suggests over 300 Irish pharmacies "could" close as a result of threatened HSE cuts in payment; State payments have jumped from €332 million in 1997 to €1.5 billion in 2006

The IFA never complains about the land rezoning bonanza and the pharmacists pleading the Béal Bocht (poor mouth) belies the reality of the good times that both they and the farmers have enjoyed on public welfare.

There is a common mentaility in Ireland that public funds are for milking and there's no shortage of vested interests looking for part of the action.

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern isn't the only socialist left in Ireland!

Irish journalist Tom McGurk pays tribute to Fidel Castro

Apologists for communism living in democratic countries, have been common through the decades and Vladimir Lenin apparently termed the early admirers of the brutal experiment, "useful idiots."

The biggest prison in the world, North Korea and the island of Cuba are the remnants of the failed experiment that was a Gulag Archipelago.

It's easy to forget that in the heart of Europe until 1989, people risked summary execution for trying to leave their country without State authorisation.

This week, the Wall Street Journal reported that South Korea's decision to return 22 North Koreans who may have tried to defect is drawing criticism from defector groups, human-rights activists and some politicians who say government agencies acted too hastily.

The North Koreans -- 14 females and eight males, three teenagers among them -- floated to South Korea on two small boats, and were repatriated 13 hours after being found Feb. 8 near an island off South Korea's northwest coast. South Korean authorities usually hold North Koreans who venture across the border for several days and conduct lengthy, individual interviews.

The situation gained urgency early this week after several South Korean news outlets, citing government sources anonymously, reported that some, and perhaps all, of the 22 people were executed after their return to the North.

Irish journalist Tom McGurk, afflicted by blinkered anti-Americanism, pays tribute in the Sunday Business Post to Fidel Castro, following the announcement by the Cuban dictator this week of his retirement.

Extract from How Castro showed up Uncle Sam:

Today, the average Cuban has a long life expectancy, free education up to university level and levels of public health services and literacy better than the average citizen of the US. This speaks volumes for Castro’s experiment. Any predictions about what will happen to Cuba must now take account of the huge pride Cubans have in this, their truly remarkable achievement.

Of course, the average Cuban has little material wealth, and the Party remains at the centre of everything. But, then, this is a society where, with food, housing and transport so cheap, and education and health free, material wealth is largely irrelevant. Anyway, since the state owns all the shops, goods are the same price everywhere.

To be in Cuba is to experience the wonder of a society where the tyranny of consumerism does not exist. There is no advertising at all and individualism comes second to the common good. Cuban television is like a community channel - devoted to education and sport.

Unlike the Soviet empire, there is no evidence of either party corruption or the power of apparatchiks - communist party officials seem to live in much the same manner as everyone else. And, of course - importantly, in the greater scheme of things – unlike much of the rest of the Americas, Cubans have enjoyed half a century of relative peace.

The wealthy McGurk's armchair concern about the "tyranny of consumerism" should be contrasted with the real tyranny of Castro.

On March 05, 2007, we published the following tribute to Mario Chanes de Armas, one of Castro's earliest and closest companions in the fight against the Battista dictatorship:

The founding father of Soviet communism Vladimir Lenin may or may not have coined the term "useful idiots" to describe Western reporters and travellers who endorsed the Soviet Union and its policies in the West.

The ailing leader of Cuba Fidel Castro, has similar admirers who conveniently downplay the dark side of his rule

Mario Chanes de Armas, who died last week at the age of 80, was one of Fidel Castro's earliest and closest companions. He fought alongside Castro in the 1953 attack on the Moncada army barracks and helped launch Cuba's guerrilla war in 1956.

Castro won power in 1959 and Mario Chanes de Armas could have had a key position in the new regime but opted to return to his job in a family brewery. For two years he watched Castro restrict liberties and human rights while increasingly embracing communism. Chanes was tried as a "counterrevolutionary," and on July 17, 1961, was imprisoned for 30 years. He spent six years of those years in solitary confinement in a windowless room.

Chanes de Armas' son was born while he was in prison and died at 24 without his father being able to attend his funeral.

On his decades in jail Chanes said: “I watched men get shot, point blank, beaten with bayonets, arbitrarily pulled out and punished. But we were alone. The world didn’t know.”

Even after his release in 1991, aged 64, Castro refused his former comrade permission to leave the country.

Chanes never showed bitterness about his years in Castro’s jails, saying they had never crushed his spirit. “After my release, during my two years in Cuba, I realized that no-one on the island was free anyway. I don’t have feelings of hatred or vengeance. Vengeance is for cowards.”

Mario Chanes de Armas arrived in Miami on July 21, 1993. He wrote an article for The Miami Herald's "Hemispheric Dialogue," an occasional series in which heads of state and other principal figures in the hemisphere discussed issues from their own perspective.

I BARELY remember youth and tranquillity. A brief part of my adolescence was spent in the waning years of Cuba's last democratic government, on the eve of general elections that never took place because the coup d'etat of March 10, 1952 abruptly interrupted the electoral process. The nation then fell under a dictatorial regime that soon became tyranny.

I belonged to a generation of young people who rebelled against the usurpers of power. We had no alternative but to confront dictatorship head on, to act to give back to our nation the freedom and the democratic institutions that Gen. Fulgencio Batista's coup had abrogated.

Getting acquainted and getting together were not difficult. Young people with patriotic sensibilities recognize each other by a simple exchange of opinions. I found my colleagues in the work place, the school room, the trades hall. Soon we formed a nucleus of people cognizant of what we condemned and what we fought for.

Standing out from all the rest, a young lawyer, Fidel Castro, was the man who most clearly expressed our ideas and harmonized our differing opinions.

Against the frustration and impotence that shrouded Cuba's society, we brought confidence and a fighting spirit. We founded a modest but effective publication, The Accuser, which we distributed secretly among the population.

I don't want to rewrite a novel that has more than enough protagonists and that I've lived intensely until today. If I left my youth behind the bars of a political prison constructed by my own companions; if I endured imprisonment under two political tyrannies; if I never accepted the birth of an authoritarian regime that -- far from installing the righteous government we had fought for -- hastened to bar the return of our institutions and freedoms from the very moment it seized power; if I did all this, it's not because I'm an exceptional man.

That, I am not. I consider myself the simplest of persons. I did it because some of us react viscerally to the betrayal of principles that are a revolutionary movement's reason for existence. We had not struggled merely to exacerbate a class struggle that only led to hatred. We were not deposing a dictatorship merely to impose our ideas.

When Castro's campaign against the independent media began, I believed that our government was entitled to express its opinion -- but only if it respected others' opinions. In 1959, when I left prison -- where I had been sent for taking part in the Granma landing and for my overall revolutionary activities -- Fidel Castro was the supreme authority. His incendiary, nine- hour speeches had a vehement irrationality I wouldn't have expected from my former comrade-in-arms. The democratic nature of our discussions, which led to the raid on the Moncada barracks, was gone from his new harangues.

The young man who chose the 26th of July to break into the military fortress at Santiago de Cuba and seize the weapons to place in the hands of the people now addressed an abstract, invisible audience. He was only waiting for the masses' applause and support to activate a machinery of vengeance and terror. Discontent spread through the revolutionary rank-and-file as the Popular Socialist (Communist) Party expanded its participation in government. The party -- which had publicly condemned our objectives and our methods, and which had refused to participate in our acts of insurrection -- became, at Fidel Castro's behest, his sole and trusted ally.

For a while, anyway. At the end, its leaders suffered the same fate of all those whom Castro utilized while pursuing his monomaniac political agenda. Swiftly, the old communists who edged out our colleagues became themselves a thing of the past: members of "the first Marxist party of Cuba," a rhetorical entity. The "true" Marxist-Leninist party would be his creation alone. More

The Economist's Obituary

McCreevy's one stroke in 2003 that paid off

Charlie McCreevy, EU Commissioner for Internal Market and Services Photo: Construct Ireland

Charlie McCreevy, Minister for Finance in 2003 and currently European Commissioner for the Internal Market and Services, pulled two strokes in that year and one of them has worked as intended.

The biggest public sector restructuring plan in thirty years was the rabbit-out-of-the-hat announcement in December 2003, that 10,000 civil servants were to be moved out of Dublin and in true Tammany Hall style, ministers got the first choices in picking departments and agencies for relocation to their constituencies. It was all to be completed by 2007 and while the scam hasn't worked, it is still promoted as a success because the revised date for completion is whenever that target is met.

Fine Gael TD Lucinda Creighton has been advised that the number of Freedom of Information requests received by the Department of Finance dropped by up to 78 per cent from 2003-2007 following amendments to the FOI Act in 2003.

The Irish Times quotes an unnamed spokesman for the Department of Finance who said the €15 fee was necessary as time and money was being spent by departments to track paperwork and other extensive documentation in each case.

It's not as simple as that and McCreevy can claim credit for drawing a shadow over the very limited transparency in the very British system that his anti-Brit party Fianna Fáil, has left essentially unreformed over the decades.

I was told by the Procurement/Tenders Unit in the Department of Finance last year, that information on annual procurement would have to be requested from 15 individual Government Departments and the catch is that at their discretion, each of them can charge for the cost of providing the information, after the event. What that would be or include, would be unknown in advance.

Anyway, haven't we sufficient oversight with 23 Oireachtas committees - complete with 69 TDs/Senators getting additional salaries, research staff and so on?

Yes, indeed!

Obama the Messiah

Senator Barack Obama may well seize the Democratic Party presidential nomination on his message of change delivered in oratory that has won him many supporters.

Obama has acknowledged the transformational impact of President Ronald Reagan but the former two-term successful Governor of California, in 1980, had domestic and foreign policy platforms that offered significant change.

Caroline Kennedy daughter of the 35th President last month wrote an article for the New York Times titled: A President like my Father.

If the Kennedy Administration had survived beyond 1,000 days, who knows if the quagmire that involvement in Vietnam became, would have been the same or the high risk behaviour such as having sex with an East German spy in the White House, would have doomed his presidency?

Kennedy had said in his Inaugural Address: "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

This much we pledge—and more."

Obama recently said: "We know that what began as a whisper has now swelled to a chorus that cannot be ignored, that will not be deterred, that will ring out across this land as a hymn that will heal this nation, repair this world, make this time different than all the rest.”

Being a beacon to the world, has always been part of the moral underpinning of American foreign policy and Ronald Reagan used to often talk about "building a shining white city on a hill."

The genesis of this metaphor dates back to 1630, when the first Governor of Massachusetts John Winthrop penned his sermon A Model of Christian Charity, as his ship the Arbella, approached Boston Harbor.

We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies; when He shall make us a praise and glory that men shall say of succeeding plantations, "may the Lord make it like that of New England." For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. We shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God, and all professors for God's sake. We shall shame the faces of many of God's worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us till we be consumed out of the good land whither we are going.

The world will welcome the passing of George W. Bush with acclaim but silver words won't kill all the Anti-Americanism that's about.

Edward Luce of the Financial Times recently wrote about Obama: Each of his three central messages is as old as the Republic – the promise of bipartisanship (“to put an end to the bickering and the partisan ways of Washington”), an ethical foreign policy (“to restore America’s moral place in the world”) and delivering change through unity (“to stand up and say we are one nation; we are one people; and our time for change has come”).

Each of these themes also share two traits. First they are drawn from the school of “American exceptionalism” – the belief that America offers a uniquely moral beacon to the world. And second, they are virtually impossible to accomplish.

The extent of the inevitable disillusionment that would follow from the wide gulf between the rhetoric and reality, would depend on good luck that would come the way of a President Obama in particular with the US economy.

There would be no bipartisanship and the reprise of winning "Obama Republicans" similar to the "Reagan Democrats" in Congress - Conservative Democrats who supported Reagan's program - would not happen.

Most people have forgotten that Bill Clinton's first six months as President were a disaster and the first controversy was on gays in the military. Besides policy implementations, more than 3,000 positions have to be filled by the new president.

James Fallows of the Washington Monthly wrote in 1994: Four months after Bill Clinton's inauguration, the verdicts were in: He had failed disastrously as a leader and his administration was for all practical purposes at an end. In early June, Time published its cover story on "The Incredible Shrinking Presidency," and Newsweek's cover showed a picture of Clinton with the caption, "What's Wrong?"

The Washington Post ran a front page story presenting Clinton as a case study of what it means to use up your "political capital." A New York Times editorial asked "Can the Democrats Govern?" and a Times columnist wrote, "Four months into a new presidency, people who voted for it are wondering if it can be saved." The weekend talk shows rang with schadenfreude-edged dissections of "another failed presidency." Even David Broder, usually the soul of sobriety, weighed in with a column calling Clinton's performance a "calamity that reached beyond our borders." This column ended, "That this is happening to a man who will remain as president for the next 43 months is an international disaster."

Last week, New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote: There’s a big difference between the Republican and Democratic campaigns: The Republicans have split on policy grounds; the Democrats haven’t. There’s been a Republican divide between center and right, yet no Democratic divide between center and left.

But when you think about it, the Democratic policy unity is a mirage. If the Democrats actually win the White House, the tensions would resurface with a vengeance.

The first big rift would involve Iraq. Both Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have seductively hinted that they would withdraw almost all troops within 12 to 16 months. But if either of them actually did that, he or she would instantly make Iraq the consuming partisan fight of their presidency.

There would be private but powerful opposition from Arab leaders, who would fear a return to 2006 chaos. There would be irate opposition from important sections of the military, who would feel that the was squandering the gains of the previous year. A Democratic president with few military credentials would confront outraged and highly photogenic colonels screaming betrayal.

There would be important criticism from nonpartisan military experts. In his latest report, the much-cited Anthony Cordesman describes an improving Iraqi security situation that still requires “strategic patience” and another five years to become self-sustaining.

There would be furious opposition from Republicans and many independents. They would argue that you can’t evacuate troops just as Iraqis are about to hold national elections and tensions are at their highest. They would point out that it’s insanity to end local reconstruction and Iraqi training efforts just when they are producing results. They would accuse the new administration of reverse-Rumsfeldism, of ignoring postsurge realities and of imposing an ideological solution on a complex situation.

All dreams of changing the tone in Washington would be gone. All of Obama’s unity hopes would evaporate. And if the situation did deteriorate after a quick withdrawal, as the National Intelligence Estimate warns, the bloodshed would be on the new president’s head.

Either the election of a woman or black as President of the United States would be historic milestones but a campaign theme "Yes, we can! Yes, we can!" without much substance, will flounder in the real world of politics.

David Henninger of The Wall Street Journal provided an edited version of an Obama speech this week, "stripped of the flying surfboard":

"Our road will not be easy . . . the cynics. . . where lobbyists write check after check and Exxon turns record profits . . . That's what happens when lobbyists set the agenda. . . It's a game where trade deals like Nafta ship jobs overseas and force parents to compete with their teenagers to work for minimum wage at Wal-Mart . . . It's a game . . . CEO bonuses . . . while another mother goes without health care for her sick child . . . We can't keep driving a wider and wider gap between the few who are rich and the rest who struggle to keep pace . . . even if they're not rich . . ."

Here's his America: "lies awake at night wondering how he's going to pay the bills . . . she works the night shift after a full day of college and still can't afford health care for a sister who's ill . . . the senior I met who lost his pension when the company he gave his life to went bankrupt . . . the teacher who works at Dunkin' Donuts after school just to make ends meet . . . I was not born into money or status . . . I've fought to bring jobs to the jobless in the shadow of a shuttered steel plant . . . to make sure people weren't denied their rights because of what they looked like or where they came from . . . Now we carry our message to farms and factories."

It ends: "We can cast off our doubts and fears and cynicism because our dream will not be deferred; our future will not be denied; and our time for change has come."

Henninger wrote that odds are that he will ride it to the nomination among Democrats for whom America can never quite escape the Depression. Hillary Clinton can only offer what she's got -- a clear-eyed ambition to get, and use, Democratic power.

Henninger said everything in life has a top -- stocks, football teams and political phenoms, as she well knows. Though down, Hillary ought to suck it up for Ohio and Texas and hope the Obama wave starts to break. On current course, it will.

There is still an election to be held in November and on Friday Bloomberg highlighted that the "Republican Attack Machine" is ready to tarnish the preacher of change, if he is their opponent.

Obama has conceded it was ``boneheaded'' of him to buy a home in June 2005 for $1.65 million with the involvement of a shady associate Antoin Rezko, who was under federal investigation at the time. Rezko was indicted 16 months later on unrelated corruption charges, and is awaiting trial in jail. Over the past year, Obama, has returned about $85,000 in campaign contributions given or raised by Rezko.

When Obama bought the home in Chicago's Kenwood neighborhood, Rezko's wife, Rita, purchased, for $625,000, adjoining land that the house's owners insisted on selling at the same time. Seven months later, she sold the Obamas one-sixth of her lot, for $105,000, so they could expand their yard.

Senator John McCain has his own skeletons and was among five senators who took contributions from savings- and-loan executive Charles Keating and were then accused of seeking favors from regulators for him. The Senate Ethics Committee reprimanded McCain, though it cleared him of wrongdoing.

On Thursday in Ohio, Senator Hillary Clinton said she offered "solutions" rather than the "speeches". On Friday in Wisconsin, Obama said that Mrs Clinton's "solutions" were beholden to Washington lobby groups.

"In this campaign, Senator Clinton has taken nearly double the amount of money from lobbyists than any Democrat or Republican running for president," he said. "That's not being a part of the solutions business. That's being a part of business-as-usual in Washington. And that is what we are trying to change."

The only certainty is that business-as-usual in Washington will remain as business-as-usual in Washington.

Dr. Peter Morici: Challenges for the New US President - - Voters are focusing too much on personalities and not enough on issues

Irish Politicians and Fact-Finding Junkets

Mary Harney, T.D, then Tánaiste, Leader of the Progressive Democrats and Minister for Health and Children addressing the 2nd Annual Conference of the Rehabilitation and Therapy Research Society at UCD on Friday, May 26th 2006

I had a boss once who liked to send floral bouquets to business contacts' wives but when he was signing off on a petty cash list with a £5 contribution that was made to two nuns who had called at the office, it was as if someone had given away the company cheque book.

It struck me that it's always easy to be generous with other people's money and "fact-finding" trips by Irish politicians are obvious examples.

Eleven years as a minister with all and sundry tugging the forelock, it's not surprising that the sense of entitlement grows bigger the longer the tenure lasts.

Health Minister Mary Harney presumably had her staff pulling the levers with the US embassy for Super Bowl tickets prior to last week's junket trip to the United States. It's hard enough for the average punter to get tickets for an All-Ireland at home but Harney and her entourage that was ferried from places like Washington DC to Arizona on the Government jet, managed to get tickets for herself, her husband, press secretary and special adviser.

The rest of the trip to cancer and dentistry facilities by the former school teacher and the rest of the non-medical professionals, was simply a freebie week away from grim Dublin in cold February.

Irish-born Tom Keane has been recruited from Canada to establish Irish "centres of excellence" for cancer treatment. So what benefit could Harney garner from visiting American centres for the well-off?

Wouldn't it have been a surprise if a medical centre in some place like East LA, was on the schedule of the junket?

As for Harney's husband who retired in 2006 from the business lobby group IBEC, being on the junket, a spokeman was quoted as saying that when a minister is on a long overseas trip i.e a week, it's normal for the spouse to tag along.

Harney who was awarded a 12% special salary increase last October, should bother to check out how life in the private sector is sometime, for both most SME owners and employees. Up to 900,000 workers don't even have a basic occupational pension.

We have 35 ministers and four in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. Most of them have non-jobs and while the great unwashed can worry about greenhouse gases, the big ministerial getaway for St. Patrick's Day is already being planned.

Besides the overworked politicians dividing up the destinations across the globe, it's a handy number for all the hanger-ons that they will have in tow.

Where is the Outrage? Gombeenism thrives at home while in Paris, OECD staff work on proposals for Irish public service reform

Optimist on Irish Economy; Pessimist on Eurozone Economy

The Sunday Independent reported on Sunday that Ireland's fear that it's headed for an economic downturn could be the decisive factor in making it happen, according to who it termed "a leading economist."

Austin Hughes, Chief Economist at IIB Bank, was reported to have warned that a self-fulfilling "wall of gloom" is contributing to the recent rise in unemployment.

"The economic expert was speaking following the release of latest live register figures, which revealed a 7,800 increase in the jobless total in the past month," the report said

"There is more or less a wall of gloom for the outlook of the economy at the moment and, in those circumstances, the likelihood is that firms in the broader economy where conditions are still okay . . . are probably being more cautious about their hiring plans and particularly in terms of casual and short term labour, they're probably easing back," explained Hughes.

"Firms are being more cautious, consumers are gloomy.

"Most media commentary is fairly downbeat so it is understandable if everyone is erring on the side of not hiring and not spending," he added.

Austin Hughes has been playing a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde on this issue.

Hughes forecast that the European Central Bank would cut its benchmark rate twice in the first half of 2008. He expected that a rapid deterioration of the Eurozone economy would force the ECB to reverse gears.

A fellow economist had termed his position as "wishful thinking."

The Eurozone economy is slowing but very few economists are expecting a slide that would prompt early interest rate cuts.

There may well be interest rate cuts later in 2008 but they will be prompted by bad gloomy news in both the US and Europe.

A recession in Europe could boost the Irish housing market if the ECB was to emulate the US Federal Reserve but how many European jobs should be sacrificed?

Rudolph Giuliani - the President-reject?

In one of the Letter from America broadcasts - the BBC radio programme that was the longest enduring in the history of broadcasting - the late Alistair Cooke recounted how in the US presidential election of 1916, the Republican challenger, Charles Evans Hughes, to the incumbent president Woodrow Wilson, was thought to have won on election night.

Before heading for the scratcher, Hughes left a message for his butler that "the President-elect" wasn't to be awakened until 8:00 am the following morning.

Alistair Cooke told how the results from California came in overnight - Wilson won by only 3,800 votes out of nearly a million cast -and Cooke said that Hughes woke up as the "President-reject."

Fast-forward to 2008 and the Republican frontrunner for most of the past twelve months is likely to wake up like Hughes, in New York sometime soon, and wonder what could have been?

The American way of selecting a president can sometimes appear weird but on occasion it does serve as a useful weeding process and helps to illustrate judgment skills.

Rudy Giuliani in what looks like a monumental blunder, decided to defy conventional wisdom and not participate in the early primaries while banking all on the Florida primary, where many former New Yorkers live.

He is running behind in the latest polls in the state and today, in a national NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, McCain is the choice of 29 percent of Republicans. Next comes Huckabee at 23 percent, followed by Romney at 20 percent and Giuliani at 15 percent.

In the Democratic race, Clinton is leading Obama nationally, 47-32 percent, with Edwards third at 12 percent. A month ago, when there were more candidates in the field, Clinton had a 45-23 percent advantage over Obama.

Also today, the New York Times endorses Hillary Clinton and John McCain and delivers a blistering blast to the campaign of the former Mayor of New York City:

Why, as a New York-based paper, are we not backing Rudolph Giuliani? Why not choose the man we endorsed for re-election in 1997 after a first term in which he showed that a dirty, dangerous, supposedly ungovernable city could become clean, safe and orderly? What about the man who stood fast on Sept. 11, when others, including President Bush, went AWOL?

That man is not running for president.

The real Mr. Giuliani, whom many New Yorkers came to know and mistrust, is a narrow, obsessively secretive, vindictive man who saw no need to limit police power. Racial polarization was as much a legacy of his tenure as the rebirth of Times Square.

Mr. Giuliani’s arrogance and bad judgment are breathtaking. When he claims fiscal prudence, we remember how he ran through surpluses without a thought to the inevitable downturn and bequeathed huge deficits to his successor. He fired Police Commissioner William Bratton, the architect of the drop in crime, because he couldn’t share the limelight. He later gave the job to Bernard Kerik, who has now been indicted on fraud and corruption charges.

The Rudolph Giuliani of 2008 first shamelessly turned the horror of 9/11 into a lucrative business, with a secret client list, then exploited his city’s and the country’s nightmare to promote his presidential campaign.

Earlier this week, the Times reported how in August 1997, James Schillaci, a rough-hewn chauffeur from the Bronx, dialed Mayor Giuliani’s radio program on WABC-AM to complain about a red-light sting run by the police near the Bronx Zoo. When the call yielded no results, Schillaci turned to The Daily News, which then ran a photo of the red light and this front page headline: “GOTCHA!”

That morning, police officers appeared on Schillaci’s doorstep. What are you going to do, Schillaci asked, arrest me? He was joking, but the officers were not.

The report says that the police slapped on handcuffs and took him to court on a 13-year-old traffic warrant. A judge threw out the charge. A police spokeswoman later read Schillaci’s decades-old criminal rap sheet to a reporter for The Daily News, a move of questionable legality because the state restricts how such information is released. She said, falsely, that he had been convicted of sodomy.

Then Giuliani took up the cudgel.

“Mr. Schillaci was posing as an altruistic whistle-blower,” the mayor told reporters at the time. “Maybe he’s dishonest enough to lie about police officers.”

Schillaci suffered an emotional breakdown, was briefly hospitalized and later received a $290,000 legal settlement from the city. “It really damaged me,” said Schillaci, now 60, massaging his face with thick hands. “I thought I was doing something good for once, my civic duty and all. Then he steps on me.”

The Times says that Giuliani was a pugilist in a city of political brawlers. But far more than his predecessors, historians and politicians say, his toughness edged toward ruthlessness and became a defining aspect of his mayoralty.

One result: New York City spent at least $7 million in settling civil rights lawsuits and paying retaliatory damages during the Giuliani years.

After AIDS activists with Housing Works loudly challenged the mayor, city officials sabotaged the group’s application for a federal housing grant. A caseworker who spoke of missteps in the death of a child was fired. After unidentified city workers complained of pressure to hand contracts to Giuliani-favored organizations, investigators examined not the charges but the identity of the leakers.

“There were constant loyalty tests: ‘Will you shoot your brother?’ ” said Marilyn Gelber, who served as environmental commissioner under Giuliani. “People were marked for destruction for disloyal jokes.”

Sounds a little like a man who did become president - Richard Nixon who like Giuliani also had a positive side to him.

Last year, Rudy Giuliani was in Los Angeles and paid a courtesy call to the office of the City Police Commissioner.

William Bratton, the man who had been fired by Giuliani, met the candidate, who was clearly on a mission to defuse potential fallout from his past.

Full marks for keeping cool and in control during a crisis but at what cost would George W. Bush with a brain be?

Red China and the Year of the Rat

Shoppers choose Chinese Lunar New Year decorations at Bo'ai Road in Haikou, capital of south China's Hainan Province, Jan. 20, 2008. Photo: Xinhua Photo

American comedian Rich Little became famous for his impersonation of President Ronald Reagan and in one news conference sketch, a reporter from the Wichita Lineman asks: "Mr. President, what's your policy towards Red China?"

"Red China," the President says and pauses. "It shouldn't be used on a blue tablecloth," he then says.

With the Chinese Lunar New Year due to begin on February 7, red is currently a very ubiquitous colour where thee are big concentrations of Chinese people.

The year of the rat will likely be another good one for the Chinese economy despite a recession in the US.

China's State news agency Xinhua, reports that the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) released a book on the 129 languages spoken by Chinese.

The book, "China's Languages," features 129 languages and gives an introduction to each in English, according to CASS.

Sun Hongkai, chief editor of the seven-chapter book, said the content was based on an investigation of Chinese languages started in the 1950s.

"Although China only has 56 official ethnic groups, some ethnic groups use two or more languages. This is the reason why we have collected so many languages," he said.

China is home to 56 ethnic groups. Han people, the largest group, make up about 92 percent of the country's population. The rest, the 55 ethnic minorities, share China's vast land and maintain their own traditions and customs.

Mandarin is the official language of China and the Cantonese dialect which is common in southern China including Hong Kong, is the main spoken dialect of the Chinese diaspora.

President Ronald Reagan, Nancy Reagan and comedian Rich Little.

China becomes world's top Gold producer ending South African dominance dating from 1905

China is reported to have ended more than a century of South African dominance of the gold mining industry to become the world’s biggest producer of the precious metal.

South Africa had been the world’s largest gold producer since 1905.

Chinese gold output rose to a record high of 276 tonnes in 2007, a 12% rise over 2006, while South Africa produced 272 tonnes, the UK-based precious metal consultancy, GFMS, announced on Thursday.

China's gold output has risen 70% in the past decade at a time when the gold price has surged to reach an all-time high of $914 a troy ounce this weak at a time of a fall in the value of the US dollar.

However, despite the jump in price, global gold production is falling and in South Africa, output has halved in the past decade amid higher production costs, tougher safety regulations and more depleted mines.

Philip Klapwijk, GFMS Executive Chairman, said the drop in output in South Africa and other traditional producers, such as the US and Australia, was the main reason why “global gold production is not raising in reaction to record gold prices”.

In the period 2000 and 2007, global mined gold fell by 6.7% despite bullion prices rising from about $270 an ounce to more than $850 an ounce.

South Africa has 160,000 employed in gold mining and the industry dates back to the discovery of the Witwatersrand reef in 1886. In the 1970's South Africa was producing almost four times the output of gold it is producing today.

Gold at $1,000 "A Clear Possibility" in 2008 as Investor Enthusiasm Pushes Aside Forecast Slump in Fabrication & Higher Scrap

GFMS released Gold Survey 2007 - Update 2 on Thursday, their latest report on the gold market. A summary of the findings of the report was given by Philip Klapwijk, Executive Chairman of GFMS, at a seminar in Toronto organised by the precious metals consultancy.

A key aspect of the Update is the forecast for the supply and demand variables moving forward and, based on that, the outlook for the price itself. This the consultancy has projected to average $840 over the first half, with further increases indicated as a possibility for later in the year.

Klapwijk commented, "investor appetite for gold at the moment seems undimmed and this should push gold higher over the year. Predicting the top is never easy but we always thought the $900 barrier could easily fall quite soon and then we have to start viewing $1,000 as a clear possibility for later this year".

GFMS expect the surge in investment to be driven by those factors that fuelled the boom witnessed in the final four months of 2007, namely a weak dollar, record oil prices and their inflationary consequences, the US sub-prime crisis and its threat to GDP growth in the United States, and perhaps elsewhere, and lastly geopolitical tensions. Klapwijk continued, "it’s far easier to argue that we’re at the start of a period of higher inflation and lower US growth, rather than we’re emerging from the worst. All that is strongly pro-gold moving forward. And we can easily see higher gold prices without fireworks in the Middle East or Pakistan, though any political drama there or elsewhere is highly likely to rally the price yet further".

The report does caution, however, that a short to medium term correction is possible, chiefly as a result of the speed of the recent price rise and the huge fund overhang on Comex.

Should a retreat occur, it was thought a slide back to the low $800s might occur, partly as physical buyers are not expected to rush back in the face of such price volatility at elevated levels. Klapwijk noted, "this temporary fall back explains why our forecast average for the first half at $840 could seem a bit low in light of current levels. But that’s still up almost 30% year-on-year and, with this period of consolidation out the way and the funds in a position to expand their net long again, that’s when we should see the convincing drive towards $1,000".

High prices and volatility were the two chief reasons that the consultancy expects fabrication to slump by almost a fifth in the first half this year. Less marked gains for local prices due to dollar weakness and continued robust GDP growth in many emerging economies were expected to partially mitigate the impact of the expected gold rally. Such factors explain why GFMS see the ‘jewellery floor’ (the level deemed fair and sustainable at which physical buyers return) as having moved up to the low $800s, a result which the consultancy feels to be "remarkable".

However, doubt was cast on the solidity of prices moving forward, given the huge volumes investors would have to pick up to keep the market in balance as jewellery demand slips well under mine production.

The report also outlines how there is little else on the demand side to push prices higher. Producer de-hedging, for example, is expected to contract sharply in the first half to levels roughly a third of those a year prior and, given the GFMS estimate of the hedge book now being under 1,000 tonnes, the scope for support from this area is becoming limited. Few signs were at least said to have been seen of any desire by producers to undertake any major fresh hedging.

GFMS believe that investment should still be in a position to easily drive prices higher with poor demand elsewhere thanks to a relatively limited supply reaction. Mine production, for example, is forecast to increase, but by only a few percent. In contrast, official sector sales are expected to slip and that result is chiefly driven by changes to sales by signatories to the Central Bank Gold Agreement - gross purchases outside this group are thought likely to remain modest. Klapwijk added, "we’re not expecting any of the major US dollar holders to appear on the buy-side in a major way any time soon. But any whiff they were about to would no doubt be interpreted as strongly bullish".

The only major supply response that GFMS expect is for scrap, though even with the consultancy’s forecast 15% rise, first half 2008 volumes would remain well under the first half 2006 record, illustrating just how much near-market supply has already appeared and how high price expectations have already risen.

Supply Highlights

Mine production in 2007 fell by just over 1%, partly through delays to development and expansion projects. Losses centred on South Africa, Peru and the United States, while gains focused on Indonesia and, in particular, China whose increase knocked South Africa off the top spot to become the world’s largest producer. Output in the first half of 2008 is forecast to grow by just over 2%.

Global cash costs rose a dramatic 24% year-on-year for January-September and hit a record level just over $400/oz in the third quarter. The rise was driven by such factors as US dollar weakness, higher royalty payments and mine development work.

Net official sector sales in 2007 rose by a third to 488 tonnes. The rise was driven by sales from signatories to the Central Bank Gold Agreement (CBGA) returning to ‘normal’ levels after the low levels seen in 2006. Those outside the CBGA saw modest net purchases in 2007. First half 2008 sales are forecast to contract slightly to just over 200 tonnes.

Old scrap supply contracted by almost a fifth to just under 900 tonnes, chiefly as much of the loosely held supplies in price sensitive countries had been shaken out in 2006 and there was little repeat of the heavy trade inventory clear-out seen in the western world the year prior. Scrap in the first half of 2008 is projected to increase by around 15% to safely over 500 tonnes.

Demand Highlights

Jewellery fabrication in 2007 grew by 5% though, in terms excluding scrap, it rose 11%. This occurred despite the gold rally, as gains in the more stable first half outweighed second half losses when yet higher prices and volatility took their toll, with these swings largely driven by India. Elsewhere, China and Turkey saw strong growth, Italy near stability but US consumption fell heavily.

Price damage in first half 2008 is forecast to slash demand by around a fifth to almost 1,000 tonnes.

Other fabrication in 2007 rose by 2%, thanks to gains for medals and electronics, whereas in first half 2008 it is expected to see a decline of over 10%.

Producer de-hedging in 2007 rose by a provisional 14% to within a whisker of the 2004 record of 422 tonnes, with the bulk of activity taking place in the first half. Initial expectations for levels in the first half of 2008 are a fall to just under 100 tonnes.

For the full year 2007, implied net investment stood at a perhaps surprisingly restrained level of only just over 100 tonnes.

However, this masks a major swing from disinvestment of around 200 tonnes in the first half to investment of around 300 tonnes in the second as a result of such factors as a weak dollar, energy price gains and the US sub-prime crisis.

In first half 2008, implied investment is forecast to grow yet further to well over 400 tonnes. Bar hoarding rose by a modest 3% last year, despite major price-led second half losses, while official coin fabrication fell by 3%. World Investment (the sum of bar hoarding, coin demand and the implied figure) totalled 465 tonnes last year, which represented a drop of just over 40%.

Finfacts Gold 1800-2008 Page

In January 2008, 28 years after the all-time record high of price of $850 in January 1980, the nominal price broke the record. In inflation adjusted US dollars, the price would have to reach about $2,200 to break the record in real terms.

Bill Gates

Bill Gates' Last Days - Consumer Electronics Show 2008

Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Bono, Al Gore and more..

Chairman and co-Founder Microsoft - intensely competitive but he is the model for a super-billionaire with a public persona, which is the antithesis of the arrogance, that is so often the handmaiden of riches.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has an endowment of $30 billion and has provided billions of dollars for the funding of immunization programs in poor countries and research into diseases such as malaria that is not commercially attractive for Big Pharma.

In 2006, the legendary American investor Warren Buffett pledged$31 billion of his fortune to the only person in the world with more money, his good friend Bill Gates.

From a Time Magazine profile in 1997:

When Bill Gates was in the sixth grade, his parents decided he needed counseling. He was at war with his mother Mary, an outgoing woman who harbored the belief that he should do what she told him. She would call him to dinner from his basement bedroom, which she had given up trying to make him clean, and he wouldn't respond. "What are you doing?" she once demanded over the intercom

"I'm thinking," he shouted back

"You're thinking?"

"Yes, Mom, I'm thinking," he said fiercely. "Have you ever tried thinking?"

The psychologist they sent him to "was a really cool guy," Gates recalls. "He gave me books to read after each session, Freud stuff, and I really got into psychology theory." After a year of sessions and a battery of tests, the counselor reached his conclusion. "You're going to lose," he told Mary. "You had better just adjust to it because there's no use trying to beat him." Mary was strong-willed and intelligent herself, her husband recalls, "but she came around to accepting that it was futile trying to compete with him."

Bill Gates new life from July 2008

MICROSOFT 1978: Top row: Steve Wood (left), Bob Wallace, Jim Lane. Middle row: Bob O'Rear, Bob Greenberg, Marc McDonald, Gordon Letwin. Bottom row: Bill Gates, Andrea Lewis, Marla Wood, Paul Allen. December 7, 1978.

On June 15, 2006, Microsoft announced that effective July 2008 Gates will transition out of a day-to-day role in the company to spend more time on his global health and education work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. After July 2008 Gates will continue to serve as Microsoft’s chairman and an advisor on key development projects. The two-year transition process is to ensure that there is a smooth and orderly transfer of Gates’ daily responsibilities.

Effective June 2006, Ray Ozzie had assumed Gates’ previous title as chief software architect and is working side by side with Gates on all technical architecture and product oversight responsibilities at Microsoft. Craig Mundie assumed the new title of chief research and strategy officer at Microsoft and is working closely with Gates to assume his responsibility for the company’s research and incubation efforts.

Born on Oct. 28, 1955, Gates grew up in Seattle with his two sisters. Their father, William H. Gates II, is a Seattle attorney. Their late mother, Mary Gates, was a schoolteacher, University of Washington regent, and chairwoman of charity United Way International.

Gates attended public elementary school and the private Lakeside School.

There, he discovered his interest in software and began programming computers at age 13.

In 1973, Gates entered Harvard University as a freshman, where he lived down

the hall from Steve Ballmer, now Microsoft's chief executive officer. While at Harvard, Gates developed a version of the programming language BASIC for the first microcomputer - the MITS Altair.

In his junior year, Gates left Harvard to devote his energies to Microsoft, a company he had begun in 1975 with his childhood friend Paul Allen. Guided by a belief that the computer would be a valuable tool on every office desktop and inevery home, they began developing software for personal computers. Gates' foresight and his vision for personal computing have been central to the success of Microsoft and the software industry.

Bill Gates may not have invented the DOS operating system but he together with Steve Jobs of Apple, are the titans of the modern computer age.

At the end of May 2007, the two co-founders of the of the PC industry, Bill Gates of Microsoft and Steve Jobs of Apple, who have been fierce rivals for thirty years, appeared jointly at in a public forum for the first time in twenty years.

The forum was organised by Walter Mossberg and Katherine Boehret.

"Bill built the first software company in the industry," Apple co-founder Jobs said. "Bill focused on software before anyone."

Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, hailed Jobs for taking big risks and developing products with "incredible taste and elegance".

What Steve has done is quite phenomenal," Gates said in reference to Jobs' eye for design that resonates with the public . "The way he does things is just different. It's magical."

Steve Jobs said he admired Microsoft's ability to collaborate with other technology companies.

"They learned how to partner with people really well, and I think if Apple could have had a little more of that in its DNA, it would have served it extremely well," he said.

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates speaking at The Wall Street Journal’s D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, California in May 2007

Toyota has 110,000 temporary workers in Japan on $10.50 an hour as Annual Dividend payout exceeds 20%

The new Corolla Axio, as the 10th generation Corolla sedan launched in October 2006 - - The new Corolla models were the first since 2000. Since its debut in 1966, Toyota says "the Corolla, through an automobile production approach that has anticipated the demands of the times, has gained the favor of millions of users, playing a key role in driving motorization forward. The Corolla is currently sold in more than 140 countries and regions, and cumulative sales have exceeded 30 million vehicles, making it a best-selling vehicle positioned to lead the 21st century."

Japan's vehicle sales are forecast to fall for a fourth straight year to their lowest in 26 years, as falling wages and population make the fortunes of the country's car makers increasingly dependent on foreign markets.

Domestic sales of cars, minicars, trucks and buses may fall 1.25 to about 5.32 million vehicles in 2008 from 5.38 million in 2007, the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association said in December. Passenger-car sales will fall 0.3% the group forecast.

In 2006, China overtook Japan as the world's second-biggest car market after the US. Japan's demand for vehicles peaked at 7.78 million in 1990.

Since 2001, Japanese car makers have increased their market share in China from about 15% to 25.7% in 2006. European car makers market share in China has fallen from 53.8% to 24.4% in the same period.

Japanese domestic vehicle sales excluding minicars, which are powered by engines no larger than 0.66 liters, increased in October and November but the monthly declines to September was the second-longest period after a 31-month drop that started in April 1997.

The 2006 sales total, excluding mincars, were the lowest since 3.56 million vehicles were sold in the year started April 1977.

Japan is the world's second biggest economy and the cost of living in its main cities are among the top in global rankings. It is joint sixth with the UK among the most expensive countries in the world (see below).

Wages in October 2007, were unchanged from a year earlier after declining in nine of the previous 10 months, Japan's labor ministry said.

While unemployment has fallen from 5.4% in 2002 to 4.1% at the end of 2006, wages have not moved. Statistics published by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare show that the average Japanese made $2,881 a month in 2002. For most of 2006, the average monthly wage was only $2,749.Japanese companies have kept wages in check in part by shifting more work to part-time employees, who now constitute over 33% of Japan's workforce, up from 20% in 1992 and 18% in 1987.

A Japanese Cabinet Office survey in early 2007, showed that people felt a high level of anxiety about their daily —the highest angst level recorded since the poll began nearly 40 years ago despite a recovery in the economy.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday Jan 04, 2008 that one reason Japan isn't growing faster than its current 1.5% annualized rate lies in a shift in hiring by companies like Hino Motors Ltd. The truck-making unit of Toyota Motor Corp. is paying record dividends this year. But it also has been filling thousands of factory jobs with a new kind of employee: temporary workers who are paid as little as 1,150 yen, or $10.50, an hour and get few benefits.

The Irish minimum hourly wage is €8.65 - $12.75.

According to a World Bank study that was published in December 2007, the most expensive economies are Iceland, Denmark, Switzerland, Norway, and Ireland with indices ranging from 154 to 127. The United States ranked 20th in the world with a base index of 100, lower than most other high-income economies, including France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Ireland's index was 127 compared with Japan's 118.

"I always look for the cheapest meat to cook with, usually ground chicken or shreds of pork," says Ikkei Ikeda, 28 years old, who worked as a temp at Hino setting heavy metal discs onto machines for 2½ years before quitting in August. He also he rode his bike wherever he could to save train fare, because his monthly take-home pay averaged just 143,000 yen, or $1,300. In other words, though Ikeda was employed, he wasn't doing much to boost consumer demand.

The Journal says that in the past decade, average wages in Japan have fallen every year except two because of an increase in temps and stagnant wages for full-timers. Consumption by working families declined on a year-to-year basis in six out of the past eight quarters, even though the Japanese are also saving less. A Bank of Japan survey showed that some 23% of households had no savings last year, compared with just 10% in 1996.

At Toyota and its subsidiaries and affiliates in Japan, 110,000 people now work as temps or part-timers, according to the Federation of All Toyota Workers' Unions, which has 290,000 full-timers as members.

Among Japanese workers aged 25 to 34, about 26% are temps, compared with 14% a decade ago.

In the US, where only about 4% of the work force in 2005, were classified as temps in a US Labor Department survey, the gap between rich and poor has been growing wider since the 1970s. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the wealthiest 20% of households accounted for 45.4% of total US income in 1979, but claimed 53.5% in 2004.

Households in the bottom fifth dropped from 5.8 to 4.1% over the same period."Sometime in the 1970s, the market turned ferociously against the less skilled and the less educated," Alan S. Blinder, a Princeton University economist and the former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors told a hearing of the congressional Joint Economic Committee.

But that is not likely to change in the future, he said, as globalization and technological advances begin to trigger the same kind of upheaval in the service sector as has hit manufacturing.

In Japan, temps earn about two-thirds of what full-timers do, enjoy less benefits and can often be hired and fired with just a few days' notice. The temp phenomenon covers much more than the unskilled and the resultant stagnation of wages is keeping consumer spending down.

What would life be like there without the US and Chinese markets?

Toyota Dividend Policy - March 31, 2007 Statement

One of Toyota's key management policies is to prioritize returns to shareholders, and while improving and strengthening our corporate culture we are aggressively expanding our business in order to continue increasing earnings per share. With respect to the dividends, we are targeting a consolidated dividend payout ratio to 30% in the medium - to long term and a greater distribution of the earnings by taking into consideration various factors, including the business results for each fiscal year and new investment plans. In addition to responding to changes in the business conditions, we have also acquired our shares in order to increase improve capital efficiency.

Although we expect to see growth in the global auto market going forward, we will use our internal fund reserves for securing a stable operating base, as well as for up-front investments to improve our product strengths, develop next-generation technologies, deploy domestic and overseas production and sales infrastructure. Regarding the dividends for the last term, the interim dividend in November 2006 was 50 yen per share, and the dividend at the end of the fiscal year was 70 yen per share, which resulted in an annual dividend of 120 yen per share and a total dividend value that amounted to 384.665 billion yen. As a result, our consolidated dividend payout ratio reached 23.4%.

Economist Pocket World in Figures 2008: Quality of life best in cold Norway and Iceland - Ireland 4th and Japan 7th where domestic car sales have hit 30-year low and high level of anxiety about daily lives is at 40-year high

Irish Planning Corruption Tribunal and Land Rezoning

Dublin Castle, the location of public corruption tribunals -Politicians were revealed to have sold their integrity for as low as €3,000. The corrupt land rezoning system that makes multi-millionaire of farmers and others, is immune from reform. Irish politicians are not known for political courage or conviction, whether in the area of social policy that is left to the Courts or economic issues that would challenge vested interests.

The Irish planning corruption tribunal, which was established in 1997, has been the focus of attention in recent times because of an allegation that the owner of a Cork construction company had said that he had paid bribes totalling £80,000 - Irish pounds - made up of two payments - of £30,000 and £50,000 (€101,600) to Taoiseach Bertie Ahern in 1994 when he was Minister for Finance - a total amount that was in excess of his annual salary.

In April 1994, developer Owen O'Callaghan together with Cork TD Micheál Martin, T.D., who is currently Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, met Ahern at an officially logged meeting in Dublin. In the same month Ahern, lodged £30,000 to a bank account.

The tribunal is focusing on large amounts lodged to Ahern's bank account, following a period when he operated on a cash basis for seven years, including an amount of £5,000 apparently provided by a 28-year old wage slave, who had met Ahern in a pub 3 times and had the money available in cash when the proverbial hat was passed around by Ahern's solicitor, to pay for marital separation legal fees. Whether or not the tribunal accepts Ahern's story of building a cache of cash amounting to £50,000, and businessmen in Dublin and Manchester contributing more than £45,000 years in "dig-outs," years after a separation, there is another key aspect of the planning corruption tribunal that is ignored.

Land Rezoning

The Irish land rezoning system that makes multimillionaires of owners of land that has the prospect of being used for development, need not fear any change in this bonanza system as the issue of changing the system is a taboo subject for the majority of Irish politicians.

Lucky farmers who get up to 80% of their incomes from European taxpayers benefit from what is a tax on non-owners of land. They then become landlords both in Ireland and overseas. Do not fall for the speil that the Irish are obsessed with property because of the British - SEE: Irish Property Obsession, British Landlordism and Myths

In December 2006, it was reported that up to €4.6bn of the €18.5bn of taxpayers' money that will be spent on new main roads over the next decade will go into the pockets of landowners.Fred Barry, chief executive of the National Roads Authority is reported as saying that the increases in the cost of land for major roads projects as "disturbing".

Land acquisition accounts for 23% of the cost of roads projects in Ireland, but just 12% in England, 10% in Denmark, 9.4% in Greece and 1% in Iceland. A further 2% of the €18.5bn provided in the Government's Transport 21 for road building over the next decade will go to archaeologists.

Six years ago, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern asked the Committee on the Constitution to examine the issue of the pricing of development land. In 2004, it concluded that Mr Justice Kenny's recommendation in 1973 that development land should be priced with a 25% mark-up on agricultural land prices, could be introduced by legislation, and without amending the Constitution.

So, after almost ten years of stories of endemic corruption, what changes have been made in the system that spawned it? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

The Green Party believes that it is likely to have a bigger impact on saving the polar ice caps than getting its partners in Government to agree on worthwhile reform.

Change does happen eventually in Ireland but don't doubt that it's at a slower pace than the glacial speed in the Arctic and the penny may well drop at some point for the Dr Faustus of modern Irish politics - John Gormley.

John Gormley's Planet Bertie Speech Feb 2007

Irish Politics and the Value of "Values" - - Minister for the Environment and Green Party leader says in Feb 2007 that the Fianna Fáil party is "without vision or values" and that Michael McDowell, then PD leader was Bertie Ahern's Tammy Wynette - Stand by your Man - a role Gormley plays months later. Gormley may well have done more damage to the reputation of Irish politics than Bertie Ahern because of the huge gulf between his words and actions.