31 thoughts on “Friday’s Papers

    1. :-Joe

      He makes a number of good points, the main one being remember to remain skeptical with every minute-by-minute “breaking” news story… Any obvious biases or corporate influence going on with the critic?.. How reputable do you think it is in your experience?..

      If our cumulative test positivity rate is less than one in ten or below 10% then following the mostly uncommunicated(thanks again F-f/g), unknown or ignored best practices and procedures around masks, distancing and hygene should be fine for everone to start mingling again and even going back to a much closer to normal way of life asap than is being said… IMHO.. what would I know etc..?

      WHO wouldn’t love a good anonymous mingle in the time of covid19?..

      :-J – https://www.privacytools.io

      1. Cian

        “mostly uncommunicated(thanks again F-f/g), unknown or ignored best practices and procedures around masks, distancing and hygene “
        Have you been under a rock for the last 3 months? With the exception of masks – where there is still no consensus on their effectiveness. The State has been banging the drum non-stop on hygiene and social distancing.

  1. GiggidyGoo

    Simple Simon makes another boo boo. No inpatient beds being used in the Bon Secours, Linerick yet the lad tells us that 30% of them are in use as inpatient beds. Boy waster.

  2. SOQ

    70% of those who test positive for CoVid-19 are asymptomatic, and like most others they will clear it within two weeks- so what is the point of contact tracing?

      1. GiggidyGoo

        Maybe they’re in the airy fairy hospital beds that Harris is saying are being used?

  3. goldenbrown

    CU in difficulty? on those fundamentals I doubt the Banks are in any much better shape

    1. V'ness

      Far worse actually – for banks
      But they have gotten covid concessions from the Central Bank to relax their Regulatory Reserves if they have to, so they can sway from the (rounded) 6% without the Central Bank sending in a PRISM inspection and tacking on a few sanctions.

      The Credit Union Movement haven’t got a bit from them – we’re still handcuffed to (rounded) 10%, (6% in NI & USA btw) which is already, in itself and in normal trading, a significant form of discrimination against the Cooperative Banking Model.

      With no, none, zero, concession from the Central Bank, or the Minister, not even now at the very time the Government are calling for communities to come together with them, but not so much for your local Common Bond Credit Union, even though we remain open with all the same services available as any other time.

      Winning the CX Customer Experience Award again, for the fifth time in a row was no mistake or surprise. We never needed a call for solidarity with our communities.

      For info only – those regulatory reserve pillars that are required to be held as ready-to-call-up-cash are held in current accounts
      mostly at Negative Interest rates
      With the Retail Banks
      Now who does that help out? How’s that for Solidarity from the Credit Union Movement.

      Yet according to his interview in the Sunday Business Post a few weeks ago the Governor of the Central Bank appeared to forget we even exist along side Banks and Insurance Companies, you’d think he could have found the manners to thank us for helping the same banks generate a few bob; to supplement their recently approved increased fees. Bless. (Credit Unions do not charge their members fees btw.)

      The Central Bank of Ireland currently regulate six banks.
      And 241 Credit Unions. 241 Member Owned Cooperative Finance Institutions.
      And yet Gabriel Makhlouf forgot to recognise we exist at all.
      Ah shur he’s new in the job. Maybe he’s been too busy listening to ex Fine Gael MEP Brian Hayes now on behalf of the Bankers Federation.

      It’s worth mentioning now that I’m at it I suppose,
      That the average reserves held throughout the Irish league of Credit Unions members is 16%, and we’re actually a few ticks higher in my own CU, St Agnes’
      This is in addition to the League of Credit Unions own SPS fund (current value circa 96 million) that we support, manage and administer ourselves, which comes to the rescue BEFORE the Central Bank’s own Deposit Guarantee Scheme, Credit Institutions Resolution Fund and Credit Union Stabilisation Scheme (that we pay into too btw.)

      On the matter of the Costs being charged and collected by the Central Bank of Ireland from the Credit Unions they regulate, and I’ll only speak for my own Credit Union only here;
      Including our subs to the above noted CB managed funds , we also pay two separate Industry Funding Levies (Credit Union and Retail Intermediary)
      In the five Financial Years from 2018 to 2022, the funding levy payable to the Central Bank of Ireland by the members of St Agnes’ will have multiplied x 5. Actually slightly more than five times more.
      Over Five Years.

      I’m not afraid to say this, The Central Bank with the permission and oversight of the Minister for Finance are practising an regulatory apartheid regime on the regulation of financial institutions within the State.
      In addition to their mandate to regulate and enforce same on the Financial Services Sector in Ireland, they also are required to ensure a competitive Financial Services market in Ireland – yet they make it to much easier for some.

      You should know I have only highlighted two particular regulatory requirements that deliberately enhance the Banks ability to operate to the benefit of their shareholders, than the Credit Union Movement can achieve for their members. Make no mistake lads, I can list many more.

      Meanwhile, holding the Banks handies during this Pandemic, actively enabling different playing rules for users of a Cooperative Financial Services Model, and enforcing levies on a Volunteer led organisation that only two weeks ago won the 2020 RepTrek Award for Governance – if its not a practice of Apartheid then it is a profound policy of Affirmative Action that denies their obligation to ensure competitive financial services in the State.

      The Irish Independent were hardly going to host a Headline
      Massive collapse in lending threatens our Banks
      or
      Massive collapse in lending threatens our Financial Services Sector

      Jaysus, they wouldn’t be allowed

      and it hasn’t collapsed btw, largly frozen, but we expect it to explode, in any event, don’t worry we will be there for the Back to School crush. We didn’t need to be deemed an essential services, 3.4 million members already know we are.

      1. V'ness

        BTW
        Apologies for the long post but I forgot to add a disclosure or two
        I am both a director of St Agnes’ Credit Union
        And a Director of the Irish League of Credit Unions

        Only to inform, should there be any criticim of my own very public bias, and conflict of interest on any matter that discusses the Credit Union and Cooperative Movement
        thats all, have a good one

        Normally this Bank Holiday Weekend Friday every year, I’d say, Hon Cork around this time ╯︿╰

          1. Johnny

            -congrats on capturing Charlie- his whole piece read like PR to relax standard for CU’s:)

          2. V'ness

            In substance
            Yes that’s what it is
            PR

            And there’s no denying Charlie Weston has made a name for himself out of the Credit Union Movement’s difficulties and struggles, especially in the Indo offices
            So quid pro quo n’ all that
            Its not like he’s a financial analyst giving powerful stock tips that produce more wins than tips for Cheltenham from one of the Walshes

            As one of a number of leading activists in the cooperative movement I wasn’t going to let that Headline sit all on its own without colouring it in
            In full
            Not matter the motivation of the writer

          3. Johnny

            Its Friday having bit fun V, I’m a big supporter Credit Unions as they one the few financial institutions in states to deal with cannabis in a professional manner.

            They have funded and ‘banked’ the majority of smaller operators in the space and I personally have found them great work with.

            We use Union/Labor Pension funds as the SAFE ACT still hasn’t passed the senate, but thats a whole other story,good luck with this V.

          4. V'ness

            Thanks Johnny

            You’re right
            In large parts of ‘Merica Credit Unions have replaced the Retail Banks

            And any form of farm production has always worked better as a Cooperative

            In Ireland we have a group of CUs that came together to create a specialist loan for the Agri borrower
            The Cultivate Loan group of CUs

            It was my intention to put together and host a seminar on Hemp & Cannabis production with the Cultivate group, alongside an All Ireland Brexit Assembly event
            after our AGM

            However when all that happens now
            Or how
            Is anyone’s guess

  4. :-Joe

    Anyone else listening to R B Barrett / PBP on the radio a few minutes ago?.. On the pat(awkward creepy)kenny(prime Oirish media mercenary defender of the establishment state narrative) show?…

    Barrett was reasonably questioning and exposing the not-so subtle hypocrasy of der leodar(the undemocratically elected failure of a pseudo-taoiseach) and the current temporary scam F-f/g system refusing to answer enquiries and requests for basic information about healthcare decisions being made, mostly in private for the past three months… Three months?

    Also he was explaining and not for the first time(more like the thousand and first time) that they were told multiple times that information would be forthcoming but time after time still nothing after repeated requests.. After three months in the middlle of a pandemic with no official government elected where everybody is supposed to be working together and would expect full disclosure of information as a minimum?…

    After a very mild and reasonable discussion without any real animosity or agressiive tone. and despite kenny’s usual overtly defensive stance on behalf of his personal and professional biases in favour of F-f/g…
    Just to top it all off, supposedly(strange even if true) the most important listeners to be heard that texted in to the show wanted to call Barrett a communist… the same kind of smear as usual and after he’s off-air as a little kick’er, the icing on top to protect the F-f/g agenda… a la fearmongering, 20th-century, cold-war, “red scare”-esque propaganda 101…

    The F-f/g non-government, the state/establishment corporate newsderp style dominated media and the dumb eejit 50% of voters who swallow this muck are a massive F-ing joke… – You’re the root cause of problems, holding back progress and dragging us all down with you…
    – BTW: I’m not even mildly surprised or irritated by this everyday Oirish occurence…

    Also btw.. Anyone remember any studies or analysis into media biases done on newsderp showing patterns of behaviour on responses in certain types of segments or by certain people in the media?.. Anyone?..
    – It’s been going on for far too long for there not to have been at least one or two, surely?…

    Be careful in the sun folks, even half an hour in it’s glare is melting the face off some people….
    – I’m already looking like a traffic light frozen on stop.

    :-J – https://www.privacytools.io

    1. Johnny

      Great post Joe-I feel you,Doherty asked a perfectly reasonable question about nursing care and homes in his constituency, the very people he’s elected to represent and it was…go way out that you murdering fenian b***ard.

      The GFA was signed over 25 years ago with little or no accusations by the brits or their forces and enablers in Ireland that it’s been broken, was anyone asking Dev how much blood he had on his hands in the 50’s from the 1920’s?

      I remember some work done on media bias and the property boom, there was a ‘Julius’ I think at UCD doing some research,probably had his funding cut and left town….

      The Irish Newspapers and the Residential Property Price Boom
      https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/zvZs4D34GmFEuCMMd4bq/full

        1. SOQ

          Naa the drag queen thing is well over- there are a few decent professionals but it is mainly bricklayers in frocks miming to poo pop songs.

          Their main purpose now a days is to remind straight tourists that they have wandered into a gay venue.

  5. Johnny

    In 2011, LA’s MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) held the first survey of the history of street art to be held in a museum.

    Its now online if you missed it, featuring work by Os Gemeos, Banksy, Shepard Fairey, RETNA and Swoon.

    Banksy participated in the show with two conditions, at least one day free admission and photos allowed, resulting in a show within a show.

    https://artinthestreets.org

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