Fair play to AIB... they're on the ball! My credit card was used to download a song on Napster today at 3pm and they rang me at 4.30pm to confirm it wasn't me that spent the euro on Napster!
Such a pain in the proverbials though... the credit card has to be reissued and I need a new pin anyway so that will take a week!
It's most annoying that I thought to myself at the time of purchase, well it was more of a renewal, that there was no mention of secure services! So to save myself a few shekels I paid in dollars online instead of paying in euros and sending off all the bumph via snail mail!
Thursday 18 December 2008
Wednesday 10 December 2008
Irish pig industry
I empathise with the Irish pig farmers that have lost their livelihoods over the last number of days through no fault of their own. Having done nothing wrong, if I was in their shoes, I'd be absolutely livid!
The government had no option but to recall all pork meat until they found out the extent of the problem. If they hadn't they would have been charged with not having the interests of the public at heart, so I have no issue there.
There are a number of oddities that stand out for me though.
People are now looking for money from Europe. This makes our nation look ridiculous. While I know the IFA were disappointed with the NO vote, nonetheless the vote was NO. How can we as a nation now ask Europe for money when we need it but have voted NO at the same time? If I was a French bureaucrat in Europe for example, I'd tell the Irish where to go with their requests for money. You can either take it or leave it, and if you've chosen to leave it, you can't then turn around and say "here lads, sure we'll have your money but we don't want the rest of it", which is effectively what we are doing.
Deviating a little and throwing in a bit of anecdotal evidence, I drove around the west coast of France a good bit this summer on holidays. Not dissimilar to our own country there were road works on vast tracts of road. What stood out for me were not big blue signs that said "part financed by the EU" but rather big red signs that translated into "financed by the Vendée". I didn't see one that mentioned the EU. Thus, although I don't know how much of the "part" we receive from the EU, we are still in receipt of substantial sums and the French possibly are not. And while it is not ALL about money at the end of the day, we have received a lot from Europe!
With absolutely no basis whatsoever to back up this statement, I'd say it is because France had these magnificent roads well before us and thus don't need to fund them as they already exist! The long and short of it is, looking at what is emanating from the Irish people, i.e., NO to Europe, if I was from any other part of Europe, I'd say let them get out of this pig mess themselves.
While I'm talking about Europe, I believe a huge issue for many people is the issue of neutrality and would we be forced to send our limited troops into wars we have no reason to be fighting. In my younger days I would have agreed with that view. But recently I've changed my mind. I don't fancy the thoughts of sending our young people off to war but at the same time, I think we have to think about what we believe in and what we stand for. Think of the child being bullied in the playground. The child sitting in the buggy being effed and blinded at by its parent. The woman being bashed around in the house next door. The old person being harassed by young thugs. Do we want to be the person that cowers past them pretending not to see what's going on?
Or do we want to stand up and say that's not right? We're going to try and disseminate the facts, make a reasonable decision and try to help you. And maybe it's time for Ireland as a nation to examine its psyche and reopen a debate on neutrality.
The other query I have is insurance; what role if any does insurance play in this drama? I realise the magnitude of the dilemma faced for the country as a whole, in terms of jobs not just in the pig industry but in our meat export industry in general, which I've only found out in recent days, is massive. So if you are an importer sitting in Japan or China or the US or Germany or Poland or Saudi Arabia, such hugely disparate settings, and you're thinking to yourself, well if there's a problem with their pigs, who's to say there isn't a problem with their sheep or cattle, then that's a pretty big problem for us. That's a large swathe of people to try and convince that the rest of our meat hasn't also been tarnished. BUT, if there are cuts across the board in education, healthcare and all the rest of it, how can we find money for the pig industry?
Back to insurance... If you run a business and are self-employed surely you have some sort of adequate business insurance to protect you from this sort of calamity? Even if you don't have business insurance, to protect yourself, your family and say your mortgage payments, wouldn't you have an income protection plan? Maybe I'm being fiercely naive here, I'm a PAYE worker after all, but isn't one of the first things you learn about going into business on your own is to have adequate insurance?
And what about the rogues who caused this mess? Have they no insurance? And if not, is there no fund like in the automobile industry whereby if a chancer is driving without insurance and paralyses someone, there is at least a massive fund that everybody pays into to ensure that that person is not left out of pocket... If there is not one, should we not now consider implementing one? I suppose it will all come back to costs and this cost will be passed onto the consumer and the farmers are making little enough as it is without further alienating them from the consumer etc. At the end of the day though, the company responsible for this should face massive sanctions. In my view, cutting corners and interfering with the food chain in such a manner should mean that the individuals involved should be cut of the loop and no longer allowed to work anywhere near the food chain. A lot of work has been done to trace all animals and what has been done severely undermines this stellar work. At the end of the day, it is all down to consumer confidence. In my view, the tests that caught the problem should be carried out more frequently, to deter the 5% of individuals who will always try to make a quick buck and to protect the 95% of individuals who are passionate about what they do and would never cut corners with livestock.
The government had no option but to recall all pork meat until they found out the extent of the problem. If they hadn't they would have been charged with not having the interests of the public at heart, so I have no issue there.
There are a number of oddities that stand out for me though.
People are now looking for money from Europe. This makes our nation look ridiculous. While I know the IFA were disappointed with the NO vote, nonetheless the vote was NO. How can we as a nation now ask Europe for money when we need it but have voted NO at the same time? If I was a French bureaucrat in Europe for example, I'd tell the Irish where to go with their requests for money. You can either take it or leave it, and if you've chosen to leave it, you can't then turn around and say "here lads, sure we'll have your money but we don't want the rest of it", which is effectively what we are doing.
Deviating a little and throwing in a bit of anecdotal evidence, I drove around the west coast of France a good bit this summer on holidays. Not dissimilar to our own country there were road works on vast tracts of road. What stood out for me were not big blue signs that said "part financed by the EU" but rather big red signs that translated into "financed by the Vendée". I didn't see one that mentioned the EU. Thus, although I don't know how much of the "part" we receive from the EU, we are still in receipt of substantial sums and the French possibly are not. And while it is not ALL about money at the end of the day, we have received a lot from Europe!
With absolutely no basis whatsoever to back up this statement, I'd say it is because France had these magnificent roads well before us and thus don't need to fund them as they already exist! The long and short of it is, looking at what is emanating from the Irish people, i.e., NO to Europe, if I was from any other part of Europe, I'd say let them get out of this pig mess themselves.
While I'm talking about Europe, I believe a huge issue for many people is the issue of neutrality and would we be forced to send our limited troops into wars we have no reason to be fighting. In my younger days I would have agreed with that view. But recently I've changed my mind. I don't fancy the thoughts of sending our young people off to war but at the same time, I think we have to think about what we believe in and what we stand for. Think of the child being bullied in the playground. The child sitting in the buggy being effed and blinded at by its parent. The woman being bashed around in the house next door. The old person being harassed by young thugs. Do we want to be the person that cowers past them pretending not to see what's going on?
Or do we want to stand up and say that's not right? We're going to try and disseminate the facts, make a reasonable decision and try to help you. And maybe it's time for Ireland as a nation to examine its psyche and reopen a debate on neutrality.
The other query I have is insurance; what role if any does insurance play in this drama? I realise the magnitude of the dilemma faced for the country as a whole, in terms of jobs not just in the pig industry but in our meat export industry in general, which I've only found out in recent days, is massive. So if you are an importer sitting in Japan or China or the US or Germany or Poland or Saudi Arabia, such hugely disparate settings, and you're thinking to yourself, well if there's a problem with their pigs, who's to say there isn't a problem with their sheep or cattle, then that's a pretty big problem for us. That's a large swathe of people to try and convince that the rest of our meat hasn't also been tarnished. BUT, if there are cuts across the board in education, healthcare and all the rest of it, how can we find money for the pig industry?
Back to insurance... If you run a business and are self-employed surely you have some sort of adequate business insurance to protect you from this sort of calamity? Even if you don't have business insurance, to protect yourself, your family and say your mortgage payments, wouldn't you have an income protection plan? Maybe I'm being fiercely naive here, I'm a PAYE worker after all, but isn't one of the first things you learn about going into business on your own is to have adequate insurance?
And what about the rogues who caused this mess? Have they no insurance? And if not, is there no fund like in the automobile industry whereby if a chancer is driving without insurance and paralyses someone, there is at least a massive fund that everybody pays into to ensure that that person is not left out of pocket... If there is not one, should we not now consider implementing one? I suppose it will all come back to costs and this cost will be passed onto the consumer and the farmers are making little enough as it is without further alienating them from the consumer etc. At the end of the day though, the company responsible for this should face massive sanctions. In my view, cutting corners and interfering with the food chain in such a manner should mean that the individuals involved should be cut of the loop and no longer allowed to work anywhere near the food chain. A lot of work has been done to trace all animals and what has been done severely undermines this stellar work. At the end of the day, it is all down to consumer confidence. In my view, the tests that caught the problem should be carried out more frequently, to deter the 5% of individuals who will always try to make a quick buck and to protect the 95% of individuals who are passionate about what they do and would never cut corners with livestock.
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