Shay Conway

Public Sector Pay Cut Myth

2008-07-08T09:38:00.000-07:00

The Public Sector wages myth really bugs me. The reality is that the wages bill for the public sector is less than one fourteenth of the total spend ( look at any semi state annual report) even a very large cut in wages results in a tiny overall cut. In fact the actual take home pay is about one twentyeighth of the total semi state budget.

A more effective way to cut spending is to stop the mad civil servants putting bonkers suggestions in front of the ministers. I remember an eijit in the late late audience screaming "it's my baby" when talking about the electronic voting, incuring a bill of several hundred million. Would somebody stop that crazed senior civil servant who is introducing "quality standards" all over the public sector with very little return and even less resistance ? The thing about a wage is everyone can relate to it, at a superficial level, but few understand that it is a tiny part of the problem.

Mind you concentrating the mind on a wage is a big part of populace rhetoric, and an abstract of the totality of reality that mindless gobby politicians (Senator Shame) rely on to set one part of society on the other.

Maurice Neligan and green bashing

2008-06-23T06:58:00.000-07:00

On Saturday I read a really "right on" letter in the Irish Times on the damage Neligan did to the "cause" in his article last Tuesday. We are fortunate that all our medical doctors are also trained scientists, and in the main can judge facts or lack of facts when it comes to scientific issues. They are also in general not dependent on research grants which are awarded on paying homage to the new green religion. Thankfully Brian Cowan has appointed Peter Clinch as an advisor. Prof Clinch prides himself on evidence based policy making, he will not find any evidence in any of the IPCC (International Panel for Climate Control) reports linking man made CO2 emissions to climate change.

Cowen Counting on Academics

2008-06-22T02:04:00.000-07:00

So Brian Cowan has appointed Peter Clinch as an advisor according to the Irish Times ( for goodness sake would someone teach their subeditors how to count, there is a difference between 3 and 7, where I eventually found the article, €2 for innumerate babbling). Let’s hope it is not one well intentioned person appointing another. Peter considers him self very good technically, looked up his CV and couldn’t find any science credentials, let’s hope he did chemistry in the leaving.

The appointment of academics especially economic academics worries me. They are in general not used to working with live economic data. Also it brings back uneasy memories of Garret the Good who after running the country for many years and at the tender immature age of sixty something lost his shirt on the GPA floatation.

So we voted NO !

2008-06-16T07:02:00.000-07:00

So what happened ? Bertie put the treaty together, redid it and put it to the people, and we said no. Probably more people than before realised the the powers of the institutions and said "hey they can do that....I didn't know that.", thanks to the straight forward leaflet which we all got. The intention of the treaty was to make the life of the institutions a little easier, a lot of work went into it, so it is not going to happen. It does not mean the end of the EU, at worst ( for the EU) nothing is going to change at best another attempt to speed up the process will be put in place.

I loved the scare tactics "if you vote No you are a shinner" or "if you vote Yes you are an abortionist", but the best one was the Dustin factor, "all those types from the south will vote together".

Change.ie - some comments

2008-05-13T01:59:00.000-07:00

Re: Carbon foolprint

Before y'all go jumpin the gun i'd just like to point out that i'm no tree hugger.

There is no proven link between man generated CO2 emissions and climate change. I am sick of this nonsense and Frank McDonald ( History and Politics degree) in The Irish Tripe. The most significant greenhouse gas is Water (H20) two thirds of the planet is covered by it. Change.ie site is very carefully worded and does not actually say that there is a link between man's activity and global warming, unlike the TV ad last night which was factually wrong.

Just rang the guy in change.ie, ah jaysus felt sorry for the eijit. He hadn't a clue, he thought science was all about having a good argument and persuading people, facts were there alright but they wern't as important as debate. I complained that the ad last night was misleading as it said that there is a direct link between climate change and mans activity which is wrong.

That is an interesting one - do you have an entitlement to believe fiction is fact ? - probably yes - but you have no entitlement to mislead people, especially stupid and ignorant people.

Thinking people always question consensus. Sometimes consensus is right, sometimes it is wrong, sometimes we don't know whether it is right or wrong. I am saying that we don't know whether consensus is right or wrong in the case of the proposed link between global warming and mans activity, because is not proven. To say it is a fact is wrong, that is not saying there is no link, I am saying there is no proven link and I am not wrong when I say this. I have read all the IPCC reports on climate change, they refer vaguely to a likelyhood. Perhaps you could give me a source that proves the link.

There is no need to be surprised when I used the word "vaguely" because the IPCC findings are not unequivocal.

Luas in Terenure - why not put it in a tunnel.

2008-05-09T03:16:00.000-07:00

I read the report - oh my god (OMG) what a dogs dinner. If it wasn't so serious it would be funny. The report divides the Christchurch to Dundrum line into sections at the end of each section there is paragraph entitled Solution, makes an attempt to describe how little difficulties will be overcome in the construction. There are 6 compulsory purchase order (CPO) solutions involving about 70 houses and business directly. Anybody who has been on the receiving end of a CPO knows all about Irish injustice. This is how it works - first a report is issued - the word is out low and behold no one wants to buy or rent your property ( so all the people East of a line from Christchurch to Rathfarnham are stuck) five or six years later the work on the line begins, this work will take up to 4 years you may be lucky and get your CPO in a year or two or you might have to wait three or four years. It is very hard to take an interest in a property if you know it is coming down in a few years of course there is compensation this is very small.

This Luas report is more a Luasish report, cars will be sharing the track in parts, sort of like the old tram system which was ripped up by that philistine Todd Andrews. The Luasish will now have the pleasure of sharing the traffic jams with the cars and the taxis.

Now getting back to the solutions, more specifically the traffic solutions during construction and after construction. Oh those underpaid corpo clerks from Cablas are going have some fun sticking it into the southsiders. This fun has already started "Jaysus lads lets run the feckin Luas up the bleedin gardens in Brighton Road". This will progress to "lets hem all them posh mustards Eaton Square and Rathdown did dat and de other, dose mercs will be feckin useless in a one way on left turn no right turn no reverse traffic treatment".

I remember a representative from Harcourt Street traders association nearly in tears on the TV when the street was closed for over a year laying down a couple of hundred metres of track.
Lots of businesses went under where the Luas went on the road.

I don't buy the "we can't afford to tunnel" argument, they can afford it in Spain China and India (Calcutta), it is not because of cheap labour, tunnelling companies use the same people and equipment all over the world. Ireland is one of the richest countries on the planet. I have looked at tunnelling prices in other countries we can afford it. In fact short term and long term we can't afford not to go underground.

Cricket in Rathmines

2008-04-30T01:41:00.000-07:00

Cricket season starts again on Sunday 4th May. Last year was the highlight of my cricket career, my team won the "Plate" ( came second) in the family fun day in Leinster. I will always treasure my trophy ( a spiral bound bratz notebook) . Click below to see me in action.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/irishcricket/1252059491/

Dublin Underground

2008-04-29T01:52:00.000-07:00

As the first budding independent politician to mention the phrase Dublin Underground in election literature I was very interested in Frank McDonald's piece in The Irish Times on 26th April. Very informative, and despite the strong peppering of bias I was able to complete the read. But sorry Frank 100k of Luas line is not a practical proposition. Reading stuff like this I always wonder at the author's credentials, looked up wiki, degree in in history and politics from UCD. Pity he didn't go to Trinity and take the geography freshman course on the history of Dublin, there he would have learnt about the evolution of parks in Dublin and that they are in a continous state of change. Saint Stephens Green had a ridgid formal layout in Gerogean times. Forty years ago local kids from York Street used to play football there. It is only recently that is has taken its parkland type layout. After the initial works, the subway footprint will be no bigger than the Tone instalation.

There is no real benefit in preserving everything exactly as it was 50, 100 or 150 years ago, things have to be adapted so we can live with them. New things can also have a certain beauty or attraction otherwise Frank wouldn't be living in Temple Bar ( wiki again). I love how beautiful old buildings in Italy contain shops and eateries and are incorporated into daily lives, the Irish tendancy to keep monuments aloof and separate is regretable.

Economic advisors and commentators - who should you listen to

2008-04-22T07:45:00.000-07:00

Dan, David, Brian, Shane, Eddie.

Well you have to look at a few criteria before you can bestow celeb status. No one said it would be pretty so they are all in with a chance on that level. Next thing you have to look at is how much they are exposed to market forces themselves, Brian a full time public servant, Shane is a part time public servant, David's and Eddie's RTE money comes from the public purse, Dan is alone here works full time in a real job. They all worked in financial institutions, Dan still does, all the rest have minor or no role in financial institutions. They all like publicity but Eddie, David and Shane need publicity to stay afloat. Dan and Brian don't. They all have at least some basic training in economics.

The crucial thing is who has access to the most up to date data ? Who can make an informed comment ? Hint: 40% of financial transactions are recorded in The Bank of Ireland. If you have access on day to day data on 40% of all business and professional lodgements and loans in Ireland, my bet is that Dan is fully informed. Brian is worth listening to on employment issues. The rest have entertainment value.

How much could your house value fall by ?

2007-09-22T05:51:00.000-07:00

Hard landing, soft landing, 10% fall or 50% fall, you are probably sick of all this economic gobbledygook. There are three parameters that determine house prices, rental value, interest rate and sentiment. To calculate the minimum value of your house, first find out how much you would get for renting it out for a year ( say €2,000 per month or €24,000 p.a.). Now find out how much you could borrow where the yearly interest would equate to the rental value. In this case €24,000 would pay the interest on €480,000 at 5%.

The difference between the calculated value and the market value is determined by sentiment. Sentiment for investors is mainly driven by the expected rise in value over time. Investors were prepared to pay stamp duty and other buying costs on the basis that that this money would be recouped over time, and also that that buying and selling costs are deductible against capital gains tax. Any long term appreciation is only subject to a maximum capital gains tax of 20%.

Sentiment for home owners is mainly driven by status in society, stability in family life not being at the beck and call of the evil landlord. There are other sentimental reasons for paying over the odds for a home.

So what are the rules of falling house prices. Rule one house price reduction is slow and sticky, no one wants to believe that they are losing thousands of euro per week. Rule two the bigger they are the harder they fall, who is going to pay €8,000 per month rent for a €2,000,000 house? More expensive houses lose a bigger proportion of their value.

Who wins ? People moving up the value chain, more specifically those who have sold and are prepared rent for a year as house prices drop.

Who loses ? Those who have bought houses in the past two years. Those who are renting. And last but not least the parasitic auctioneers.

www.shayconway.org

Review of Senate Election - Part 1

2007-09-21T20:06:00.000-07:00

This years general election was my first attempt at getting a Trinity seat in the Seanad. I considered trying in 2002 but decided not to as the three incumbents were fairly active. In the intervening years I got no literature from Mary Henry and I had heard that David Norris had retired from his lecturing job in Trinity and had moved to Cyprus, so it looked like a vacancy was coming up. As it happened Mary decided not to run again, so who was going to replace her another doctor, a scientist who new about climate change and earth science (me), or another woman?

Given that all politics is local I decided to write to all my neighbours ( or more specifically those with Terenure in their address) and asked for support. I was fairly shocked when I one of the recipients ( someone I knew vaguely) started to snub me. I not sure what the complaint was, my discovery of a less than grand address, misconstruing my letter seeking support as a begging letter, or maybe my letter arrived at a bad personal time. Most people greeted the news with delight. One neighbour suffering from the Bolton Street Complex was masquerading as a Trinity graduate and the only time he spent in Trinity was picking up a DU building degree.

After introducing to my neighbours I wrote to a sample of 3,000 electors and introduced myself. I followed these letters up with a call to try and find out what the issues that concerned them were. I only had one negative response ( a relative of a well known Nazi), I now regret not giving her an earful. I had a very enjoyable conversation with Professor Luce who was the Dean of Science when I was a Junior Freshman Natural Science student. He made me aware that my academic prowess was being badmouthed by other contenders and that he was impressed by my approach to the campaign. The Luce family was one of the first victims of drug violence in Dublin, Professor Luce's brother was savagely murdered in his home by an intruder in the late seventies.

http://www.shayconway.org/

The Generation Game

2007-09-20T12:04:00.000-07:00

I missed the programme on Monday night, Dan's unmeasured comment (ridiculous) on Tuesday's Prime Time prompted me look at the programme on the internet today. Definitely not ridiculous, more "why let the facts get in the way of a good story" sort of programme or an abstract of the totality of reality.

A few assumptions about the growing Chinese economy have to to be looked at. The main one is that the growth will continue at the same exponential rate for twenty years, this is not a reasonable assumption it has to taper off. We have to draw parallels with the growth of the Russian economy, communist background and no real understanding of the free market, Felicity was working in the IFSC when the Russian foreign minister singlehandedly destroyed the Russian economy with one well intentioned but naive speech. The communist party is still in control in China, this is not going to change and they can do as they please.

A few positive things about the Irish economy have to be mentioned, overall the number of people at work in Ireland will increase next year. Salary is not the only competitiveness factor, tax regime especially corporation tax is more important. Access to and support of the European Market and the Euro are also important, as well as political stability and accountability.

The notion that products must be made only of bits, widgets and goo is a falacy, computer programs are also products.

So what if the young are giving to the old. In previous eras everyone was handing taxes over to London, up to recently almost everyone in the population handed over money, land and buildings to the church. Least the old are spending the money their money here.

www.shayconway.org