Economic clear losers - those in education

Primary Schools - Up to now schools could allow teachers to do further education studies in areas such as special needs, language development skills, this required that the teacher worked and studied part time or studied full time ( at the teacher's expense ), teachers could take up tempoarary posts in the department of Ed. or in teacher training schools. This is now stopped as teachers have to return to their posts as vacancies created by their absences can not now be filled. Temporary teachers will lose their jobs. Primary school teachers once qualified have to work one years under the supervision of the department of education, this is known as the "dip year" and has to be passed within five years of qualification, there are now no temporary posts for new teachers to do the "dip year". Gradually learning support teachers will be absorbed into classroom teaching, learners with problems will suffer, and classes will grow in size.

Secondary Schools - The same array of non replacement of temorary and retired teachers applies. The first service to fall victim to this will be Transition Year. 50,000 did it last year the numbers will drop to 10,000 over the next five years. Adding 10,000 a year to Leavng Cert. numbers, this will push points up dramatically.
On the subject of inflated points, over the last seven years 6,000 boys per annum with Leaving Cert will now no longer find an an apprenticeship these will have to be absorbed into the third level system ( many apprentices over the last for or five years had over 400 points).

Private Catholic secondary schools will see a drop in numbers. There are a few major drivers here - The most immediate is that less people will have the money, secondly there will be a preference for parents spending the money on third level.

Third Level - Local third level establishments will gain, less locals can afford to go up to Dublin. The entrance exibition examination in Trinity has stopped, thanks to an old guy who with the benefit of a degree from Geneva University got it in the late 70's. The real losers with the reintroduction of fees for third level are rural based students who may have just been able to afford accomodation costs are now knocked off the ladder with the fees and impossibility of getting a part time job while studying.

Those emerging from education are the most likely to become unemployed.

Irish Economic Depression who is winning

Or who is losing the least. State pensioners and public sector pensioners have only lost on the income levy, 20,000 Irish pensioners with a gross income over €30,000 have lost the medical card. Irish property has halved and will probably half again in the next year, U.K property has stablised and gives a steady rental 5% return. The Ennis wind farm will produce a constant gross profit of 15% (10% after costs) over the next 15 years.

A lot of middle income Ireland has lost on bank shares, those who had the shares for 20 to 30 years have probably made four times their original investment in the long run.

Mortgages have dropped considerably in the last year, Irish mortgage holders in stable employment, despite loss of relief are still about 10% better off in terms of disposable income. UK property investors have seen the costs of interest dropping to one third of last year's cost eg an IIB mortgage of £85,000 cost £699 (€1050) per month this time last year it now costs £179 (€200). The Manchester rental market has improved.

Back to the losers - almost anybody with anything to do with construction. Seventy five percent of members of the royal institute are unemployed - in reality 90% are not working fully. There are more solicitors unemployed now than electricians. this hasn't been the case since 1982 when I knew a solicitor who was very happy to work as a night shift cleaner in Donnybrook bus station. I know three chartered accountants who are now unemployed - this never happened before in Ireland.

Economic Recession Winners and Losers

It is clear who the losers are - the new unemployed. Those who are in the system for a while have established themselves, mortgage interest subsity or rent allowance, living allowance in place, the shock has worn off a bit and are slightly better off. For everyone else it is a case of relative poverty. Low paid civil and public servants have probably suffered a quadruple double whammy, decided to take a low risk low pay job, then lost out on the second round of benchmarking "because they had a good pension", lost out on property because they couldn't afford to buy with low pay, had to pay the pension levy "because they had a good pension", then had to pay the employment levy, no further staff being recruited and extra demand on social welfare services. Non commercial public sector are slightly worse off as they have to contribute (or pay for) their pensions. Most earn less than €37,000 pa , so they pay PRSI, Pension, Employment Levy and PAYE. The sad thing is that those paying little or no PAYE are hit harder.

The winners are keeping quiet.

Should Cowen nationalise the rest of the banks ?

Previously a question only posed by lefties and shinners with the clear intention of expanding the public service and impoverishing the fat cats. The issues of how to restructure and who takes the losses (previously profits) still exist. The sad fact is that we are the banks and no punishment can be meted out without a cost to the ordinary punter.

Share prices have collapsed, even though they are mainly owned pensions and pensioners, and sadly that is what shareholders are for. Since most of the banks assets are funded through borrowing not equity, should the taxpayer instead of creditors now take the losses through nationalisation?

If the taxpayer funds the banks, the cost of the banks failing becomes greater, but there is an upside – old shareholders have the possibility of getting some of their money back and new shareholders will make money.

Garret the Good wants more economists

I laughed til' I cried when I read in this morning's Irish Tripe, Garret twittering on about the need for loads and loads more economists in the Department of Finance. Maybe I have become harsh and maybe he is trying to be kind pretenting that there is a skill shortage in that area which is being ignored to soften the blow for the scores of unemployed economics graduates their sad parents.

Garret explained that he didn't have his usual Data Bank (no doubt electronic and very complicated and can only be operated by very intelligent people like him) so he could now give an opinion about the important and complicated work that economists him do ( in between betting their shirts on disasterous floatations like GPA and forgetting about valuable art work in the attic). There are lots of economists around, well there were up to a few weeks ago, Dan and gang have gone into hiding, some have been laid off, others are seeking refuge in academia with a few government nixers, poor old Leo is hoarse can't get anyone to do a vox pop.

You have to hand it to them, they predicted the end of the construction boom ( now we all know how complicated, technical and sophisticated that was), pity none of them predicted a global downturn. The fact is they are only sure something is going to happen after it happens.

New Year's Eve in Harare

Electricity goes again, off we go to the substation where we were sent to yet another industrial estate. We easily find where the action is a man holding court at a desk in the yard, major discussions with a well dressed man pleading his case as to why his electricity should be turned back on. We clearly had what was required so Gaza (a great footballer appearently ) and Shazmo were dispatched with us. We quickly found our local junction box, Gaza opens it half the innards were melted with a quick insertion of a piece of wire the necessary sparks and we with power again. Gaza's phone rang (the mobile network is still quite good) it was the ministers office and off he had to go and fix a diplomats electricity, not before accepting a gift of a few dollars. Single US dollars are in short supply and are very useful in situations like this.

Best to cook in future at midday too much demand on the electricity in the evening. Still can get over the girls' names Sudden, Storm, Marvellous, I have not come across River and Leaf yet.

The architecture in Harare is superb, red brick columns and cast iron and of course like Belfast during the troubles there are well to do suberbs. I feel a lot safer here than in Dorset Street. Climate is also superb does'nt have oppressive heat due to the elevation. Only when you are on the ground that you realise than the Mozambique coastline is only five hours drive away, if you feel like a swim in the Ocean.

I met John Malone from Finglas, he has been here since 1970, has all the angles on how to make a living out here. A bit like a Buy n'Sell lifestyle in a nicer climate.
Zimbabwe is still one of the most comfortable places to live in Africa.


The battery is runnng low so I'll exit and return to this wireless area shortly.

Carbon Dioxide and Sceulionics

Not long after first graduating from Trinity, a fellow Trinity graduate on the AnCO course we were all on posed the question "how could anyone tell if you were a science graduate ?", "easy" we said, all scientists know about Carbon Dioxide, some even know it as CO2 and some even know about the small figure 2, plant life can't exist without it. No one thought of asking the question, "what if everyone thought they knew about carbon dioxide and they were only just pretending ?", some would say it is sort of like a toxic loan, others would say lets lets drill a hole is the ground and pump it beneath impervious rock, others would say lets put a value on it and trade in it, others would say it is changing the earth's climate. But that was 25years ago and while there was less to do (19% unemployment) nobody went around inventing science. Alas I have given up on facts and I have decided to come up with a new theory, "Sceulionics". It took a bit of time to come up with a new word but with the help of Google, frionics, scionics (the SC for Shay Conway)already existed, finally I settled on sceulionics (school with a dublin accent, ionic to make it sound scientific). This is a theory on the development and transmission of ideas over time. We are all familiar with the concept of ideas passing forward in time, this theory postulates that ideas pass both forward and backwards through time.