The devil is always in the detail

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On the radio last week I heard that the Government plans to increase the minimum wage by fifty cent and hour. In theory then, those on the lowest rung of the ladder would at least see an extra €20.00 each week. OK, it's not much but it's something you might say.

More importantly though, from my perspective, I could scarcely believe those political scammers were voluntarily going to do something positive and nice for any of us. My first thought in fact was, what's in it for them? The true details of this announced scam should forewarn you, (before any election), just what they are really like. 

The current rate for a 39-hour week on the minimum wage is €337.35. Then the deductions are, PAYE €4.01, PRSI €0.00 and USC €7.19. That's fine as far as it goes and added to this is the employer's PRSI (at 8.5%) is €28.67 leaving the minimum wager taking home €326.15.

The new rate for a 39-hour week on the minimum wage will be €356.85 gross and because of this, the deductions change. At the new rate, PAYE goes up to €7.91, USC goes up to €8.54 and PRSI now kicks in at €14.27 meaning that the minimum wager then takes home €326.13 or two cents less than before! But it is the employer who is hit the worst. His/Her contribution goes from €28.67 every week to €38.36.

What an absolutely beautiful scam from Enda's point of view. The headlines report a new mood of generosity in our Government with this most welcome gesture to the hardest hit. The truth however is the direct opposite. The shysters are currently raking in a combined €39.87 a week from the minimum wagers and their employers. Under the new structure this will skyrocket to €69.08 a week instead, an increase bordering on 80% …… for the wealthy politicians and nobody else.

They have actually managed to get praised for yet another rip-off.  The minimum wage worker gets nothing, his employer is penalised for employing him and the Government gets some extra millions of hard earned euros to waste, perhaps on a raft of new consultant buddies.

Several years ago, under pressure to cut politician's salaries, Bertie Ahern pulled a masterstroke. At the time, they were due an increase running to several thousands a year extra for themselves. Bertie then publicly announced an across the board 4% cut in politician's salaries and the criticism went away overnight. But an alert investigator followed the money trail to discover that what really happened was that four per cent was taken off the proposed increase instead, leaving the increase at ninety-six per cent of what was due and not affecting their existing salaries at all.

The devil is truly in the detail

Caught off-balance

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Caught off-balance

My Mother used to say, "Your lies will always catch up with you." Given the amount of lies and bullshit this coalition Government have tried to shovel our way regarding Irish Water, the only mystery is that it took so long to catch up with them.

This afternoon, as widely predicted, the Eurostat Agency was the one to expose the lies. In an effort to make themselves look good, the Government pulled a vulgar accountancy trick by pushing the set-up and running costs of Irish Water off the State's balance sheet. They crudely attempted to disguise it as a healthy independent company that mysteriously had access to nearly nine hundred  million euros to spend instead of it being a billion a year liability which was never necessary.  

But the bluff has been called. Eurostat has found that, there was considerable Government control over Irish Water, in particular over board appointments and operations including broad pricing parameters such as price caps for non-domestic users. In the local parlance that would read, "The imprint of big Phil Hogan's hobnail boot was discovered on the seat of the pants of anyone who was in receipt of a bung from the new company."

But there was more from Eurostat. They discovered, "The fact that Irish Water merely reorganizes previously non-market activity carried out by Local Government with Local Government assets being transferred to Irish Water and a large majority of Irish Water staff remaining Local Government employees." This is an example of yet more creative accounting from Enda's mandarins. Who owns what and who's employed by who became a game of 'pass the parcel.' The giggling lads are now discovering that serious Eurocrats don't play pass the parcel.

Eurostat went on to cite, "Significant and continuous Government funding for Irish Water mainly in the form of operational grants and capital funding," as another reason to call the bluff. One can only surmise that those euro-laddies over there must have asked any of our dogs in the street over here for them to come up with that well-known fact. Taxpayers were already paying for water here and always had been and the money to set-up Irish Water came from our Motor Tax, nearly ninety per cent of last year in fact. Like Anglo Irish, Noonan was "pulling figures out of his arse" and blustering his way forward with bullying and hectoring, much like Big Phil in fact.

Of course, Eurostat also points out the defects in the pricing policy, the fact that sales must cover at least fifty per cent of the production costs over a sustained period and the fact that the majority of households simply refuse to pay. In plain english our European masters are saying it didn't work, it is unsustainable and don't pull that trick ever again, (Paddy). You must be thinking the Government lads and lassies are red-faced today? They surely have their heads down in mortal embarrassment? Well, not a bit of it.

Brazen as you like, Noonan dismissed it all on the radio just now. In his infinite wisdom apparently, he had anticipated all of this Euro nonsense and had put the full cost of Irish Water back on the Government balance sheet previous to Eurostat. Well, that's what he said of course and the reason he said it was to assure us all that this calamity would not impact the goodies he plans to give us all at the forthcoming pre-election budget. 

I don't believe a word of it though. The whole farce has been put off for the summer while they frantically scramble around for some half-believable story they can tell us in the autumn as to why the give-away budget has to cancelled. They'll probably blame Fianna Fail or the Shinners for it all.

Meanwhile though, the Government has most definitely been caught off-balance.

The Feminisation of the Male

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The Feminisation of the Male

It is true to say that boys who play sport will rarely get into trouble and I have a theory about that. Sport for boys in Ireland means hurling & football, rugby and soccer in the main. Those four games cover about 95% of all sporting activity for boys and young men.

These are contact sports and are, in reality, damned rough too. There is kicking, punching, head-butting and wrestling and what may come as news to some people, is the fact that boys love it. I believe that it is in the DNA of all boys to get physically violent. It is hard wired in and no amount of denying it will make it go away. Boys like fighting and competitive physical force where there are clear winners and losers. As a boy myself, I loved the rough and tumble of it and friendships were made that lasted a lifetime back then in the heat of battle. And a battle was what it was. The friendships emerged through the shared experience of battle scars, simple as that.

Today, society now views these natural tendencies as inappropriate and it frowns on 'dirty play' on the pitch. In one notable period, we had sight of Paul O'Connell kicking the head off Dave Kearney, (Munster V Leinster), and Luis Suarez biting the Chelsea centre-back. The former didn't mean it and the latter most certainly did, but that doesn't matter. Women in general and little men in particular, are appalled at the sight of a six foot six Limerick man stampeding around kicking the little fellow on the ground. O'Connell appeared to be trying to move Kearney out of his way without politely asking the flying winger to move. 

In rugby, the little guys learn early to stay out of the way of the trundling forwards or else. Training sessions can leave as many marks as an actual game and boys instinctively know that it is the price to be paid for the pleasure of partaking in the first place. Soccer is a team sport as well and Luis's little bite will be remembered long after his incredible pass that led to Liverpool's equalizer in that match. Both Paul and Luis went on to better things but both still have that" edge" to them and we love them for it.

It is my theory now though, that boys are being feminized and their natural hardy natures are under threat of being watered down or swept under the carpet. The young male finds a natural outlet for his aggression among his immediate peer group on the field of play. But, with rules and a referee, it becomes "controlled" aggression, and that is the vital distinction. You see, contact sports allow the young male to express himself in an orderly fashion, giving as good as he gets. He has the narrow window of opportunity during the period of any game to push himself to his limits and by the final whistle, he is exhausted and placid as well. He can shake hands with a guy he was trying to beat the head off only minutes earlier. He will have pitched his skill and strength against the other guy in the fight and win or lose, he will have given his all.

Hours after such a game, there is a gentle glow of satisfaction that precludes the need to fight or cause trouble. Boys who play sports do not end up in street gangs that terrorise neighbourhoods in a cowardly fashion. In fact, the sporting boy is the enemy of the street bullies. The sporting boy is trained and fit and he is, by definition, strong to survive on the field. The neighborhood bully is a physical and mental weakling and he understands the inherent danger of taking on the team player. One punch could leave the bully marked for life.

The feminisation of boys seeks to see this behavior on the field as barbaric and sees the street gangs as a matter for the Gardai. Feminists are appalled by the antics on the field and fear the dangers on their own streets due to wild young boys roaming about. The feminine nature would like to see boys playing happily with no physical contact and in the end, everyone wins and everyone gets a prize. That is pure and unadulterated horseshit. What the feminist fails to see when she looks at the big powerful young male, is that he is the gentle protector, not a threat.

The young male needs the outlet for his natural aggression and when you deny it in a controlled environment, it will come out instead in an uncontrolled environment. A young GAA player will not drag you down the street by your handbag. A young boxer will not punch you in the face on the street. A young rugby player will not pick you up and throw you across the room either. They neither need to nor want to. 

I fear for a society that it is seeking to make the natural urge for rough physical contact in the young male appear to be something 'abnormal.' For a growing lad, it is as natural as having his dinner. And weirdly for young boys and men, the very society that frowns on them now for their rough play will have a high expectation in war that they will go in their droves to kill the enemies who threaten our society. Boys who have had their natural aggression trained out of them will hear those very trainers refer to them then as cowards.

I wonder will that make those sporting boys angry?

Cars have personality

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Cars often evoke happy memories in me. I started driving back in 1974 and like all of you, I was and am a great driver! (arf, arf.)

My brother was ten years older than me and he had a love/hate relationship with cars – he loved driving them and just hated crashing them all the time. You see, Michael was a very fast driver and a pretty heavy drinker too. One morning he gave me the thrill-seeker ride into school and, at one point, we had to stop at traffic lights. Facing us on the far side was a Jaguar XJ12, a growling steel beast straight from a young boy’s wet dreams. I was goggle-eyed.

Spotting this my brother said casually, “See the Jag?” and I mumbled awe-struck that I did. “See the guy in it?” and I shifted my gaze to the fat balding man in pinstripe peeping up from behind the steering wheel. I mumbled that I did. Then Michael delivered one of life’s great lessons to me. “He doesn’t see you.”
It says a lot that I understood perfectly what he meant when he said that at fifteen years of age. The great and the good just don’t see us and there is an inherent snobbery in car ownership.

I started with a Mini, moved to an Escort, onto a Renault 6 and from there to a Renault 16. A series of new vans came along courtesy of self-employment and a Rover 3500 was bought from the profits of same. Business closure saw me back in van in gainful employment and then the GTI showed up outside my door. There were Toyotas and Cortinas in the mix as well before a family sized Opel Omega Estate parked its brown bulk outside the new home. A new job then brought another Omega with it and then some big Saabs before the brutish 5-series BMW.

Going right back to the mini, each and every single motor has memories, mostly good. I had one crash when I was twenty-one and didn’t have another until well into my fifties and that was when I reversed into a parked car. For many years I was clocking up 1,000 – 1,200 miles a week so I reckon I did damned well to avoid the claim forms for so long. But those two accidents aside, all of the cherished memories are good. When I think of happy memories now going back over thirty years, some car took me there and got me back. Some of the happy memories even took place inside the car up dark country lanes at night too.

Over time I will write about some of these because many are hilarious and some even thought-provoking. For now though when I think back to those cars I owned I visualize the personalities of each one of them because to me, they all had a personality.

Did you ever have a car with a personality?