CVByrne

Without speaking for CV it's clear why helping Ireland can be interpreted as in our direct national interest, although part of me thinks we are: a) Helping to condemn Ireland to EU servitude. Throwing good money (we haven't got) after bad in a futile attempt to stop the rot in the eurozone. As I've already said I think withdrawal from the Euro and default is Ireland's best option, despite the consequences for the banking system generally. Despite the bilateral trade links between the Republic and the UK, bailing out Ireland is still more important from the Eurozone perspective than ours. For them it's existential. When it comes to Portugal, Spain, Italy et al we shouldn't be putting a bean in because it simply can't work. That is also the strongest common sense arguent for not giving 7 billion to Ireland now, but clearly our politicos are planning to go down with the ship. PS - 5.8%? I've read that anything over 2% was going to be unsustainable. Isn't it also 0.6% higher than the Greek loan? Withdrawing from the Euro and defaulting would be the end for Ireland. We have so many multinationals here on the basis that we are in the Eurozone and have 12.5% corporate tax. Change either of those ever and we damage our no1 selling point permanently.

Of course, self interest is/was a big part of their decision making process. Do you mean more in our interest to help Ireland out than for other countries to help Ireland out or more in our interest to help Ireland out than for us to help out other countries? It was more in your interest to help Ireland out than it is for other countries to help us out.

Will I'd like to point out that myself and others have owned Galaxy S phones for awhile now almost half a year and it it in mint condition. I have no screen protector or anything like that. Just the phone as it came and nothing is loose, nothing is scratched not even a slight scratch on the screen. This phone is superbly made, the build quality is exceptional plastic or not. So yes it feels like plastic because it is plastic. But I'd not under any circumstances want Samsung to go make this phone heavier just to make it metal and give it a premium feel. Premium feel means squat to me, if it has no benefits. Which given my use of this phone to date it would have, absolutely zero benefits. So if the feel is important to you, and it clearly is to you Chindie then don't get it. But don't for one second think it you are getting a better built phone that will last longer by buying a HTC Deisre. You are not, they are both excellent in their build quality. They will last longer than you have the phone. I cannot stress that point enough. Go read techradars review of the phone, they stress the build quality is excellent. If you want a phone that is durable and will survive a bit of dropping etc then go buy Motorola's new phone which is made for that.

I was more responding to the fact you make out like it's built cheap and mykeyb picks up on that by saying HTC has better build quality. It doesn't, they are both exceptional in their build quaity. Different materials yes, better build quality no. Also agree baffling lack of a camera flash. Though it is true to say a remarkable number of people don't use their cameras at all yet rate having a decent one pretty high, myself included hence my purchase of an X10 originally. Nexus S though is like taking a Galaxy S and fixing all the problems with it. Shaping up to be the perfect Android phone.

Possibly, but given how big of a trading partner Ireland is with the UK it was more in your interest to help us out than it is most other European countries.

Exactly Chindie, each person will have a different opinion on things. You may say the Galaxy S feels cheap, while I think it feels fine and would much prefer it made out of plastic to keep the weight down than metal to give it a better feel. Like I pick up a Desire and think it's heavy, despite a smaller screen. One thing I must stress is that the build quality of the Galaxy S is superb, the materials were consciously chosen to keep the weight down, not to save money. The phone is packed full of top of the line expensive tech, they were not making it to a budget. Anyway that's the thing, Android gives you the choice of many phones. So people can make up their own minds on every aspect. Screen size, weight, feel, screen type etc.. there is no right and wrong only opinion. Anyway at this stage mykeyb both the Desire and Galaxy S are running Froyo, so the software will only become an issue when they are upgraded to Gingerbread. But if you are happy to mess about with your phone Samsung have an unlocked bootloader, meaning they let you do what you want with the ROM you run. So you can flash any roms you like on there. As you'll have known Dirk has had froyo on his SGS since August. He flashed early firmware and some custom fixes from lads at XDA.

Is there zero chance of us not getting it back? Nope, but it's highly likely you will see every bit of it back and it will cost you nothing. The 7bln will be the least of your worries if we default as that would mean a wide scale European default by Greece and Portugal too and a very large recession.

The rogue trader is an interesting one. It seems there was little management oversight and internal audit was ineffective, with the trader being dealt with on the basis that his employers should trust him. This was several years after Nick Leeson, when you'd think banks would have learned lessons and put proper management systems in place. I gather Societe Generale have been hit more recently with another one. Well the problem with the trader was he worked in a small subsidiary in New York. They managed their own risk, which changed in the afermath with risk centralised in Dublin. Then there was a huge failure on the part of Bank of America who let him, a trader, settle his own tickets. Hence AIB suing BOA for damages relating to the trading loss. How they let a trader settle his own trade tickets is a baffling. That was a serious serious failure on their part.

I'd hold off until the new year mykeyb, there will be a raft of new announcements after Christmas. I'd think it'd be a no brainer getting the Nexus S, it'll always have the quickest updates as it's a Google phone. Samsung hardware, Google do the software and it'll ship with Gingerbread. You'll always be the first to have the latest version of Android. I'd say if we had a poll on here Desire, Galaxy S or Nexus S the latter would get well over half the votes, hell possibly 3/4rs. But HTC seem to release a phone every 3 months so I'm sure they'll have a 4inch Gingerbread phone lined up for a Q1 release which is always going to be top notch given it's HTC. As for Samsung, excellent hardware but they need to get the delays with the software worked out. They might just do that, you never know. We'll see how long it takes them to release Gingerbread in relation to HTC. But the Froyo release is very good, late but it is much quicker and bug free so far. You want a mid range screen size I'd take it 3.7-4inch?

It was started by a Englishman who is definitely not a socialist and it is intended to address a far wider issue than your country alone. Besides we are affected, to the tune of 7 billion pounds that we'll never see again. That's the same as all welfare cuts over here combined. I'd say that at least entitles us non-Irish folk to an opinion. You will see the 7bln again. Also I meant the comment as the thread is more driven by English about the 7bln loan and the state of the Irish economey than it is by Irish people about the upcoming budget and how it will effect us and our future. Get what I mean, it moved to people's political views.

I also agree with the comments on Regulation. The head of our department Global Treasury Risk too over in mid 2008 and had said in a Department update that the previous head had never ever met anyone from the Regulators office in his 4 years in charge. Never once, the head of the Risk Department never once met anyone from the Regulator. What a disgrace.

I'm not familiar with the staffing structure of banks, but I would have thought the issues I listed cover a range of parts of the business, involving different groups of staff. That's why it sounds like a problem with culture, not just a localised problem (nor a problem to do with one bank). Well Capital Markets is a separate division, different building and completely separate from the rest of the bank. We have a different culture, for example we work 7:15hours a day and have an hour for lunch. The rest of the bank get two 20min breaks and an hour lunch and work 7 hour days. They also get paid over time we get unpaid over time. Our division has never made a loss. So in essence our side of the bank has had nothing to do with any of the banks woes. But since we are all under the AIB name we are tarred with the same brush. It's hard to explain to people how we are different. That it's a credit to our divisions Risk management that we never made a loss, we don't have loans that can have creative incorrect pricing. Pricing is done on the current trading prices available on the stock exchange. But as you'll see none of those problems you have pointed out in the banks history bar the American rogue trader have anything to do with Capital Markets Division. And even so I have worked for the bank less than 4 years, so I've only ever known the economic turmoil stricken bank, not any of the time before that.

So it's the level of lending on property determined by bank boards that's the problem? Not the risk management undertaken by bank staff in making the loans? Again implying I'm in someway at fault. Do you know what Capital Markets is? Nothing to do with loans. The former head of my Division has been on record voicing his concerns about the level of domestic property lending but was over ruled. The people in charge were told time and again that this was too risky, yet they continued to insist on more lending. The fact that they get away with this neglegance is a disgrace. On the culture I'd agree, I don't like the culture at management level and above. There is this horrible arrogance, indifference and in many cases laziness. I, like many people who work for the bank am young I'm 28, I joined in 2007 when the credit crunch started. The culture of us young college graduates is one of hard work. I am saying we and ordinary branch staff are as much to blame for this as a teacher or builder. Also the 2002 loss due to Rusnack was in American Subsidary.

Who are these socialists from England? You have very extreme views about everything. Pointless really discussing stuff with you. Can't see what good it will do, especially when it has to deal with my country and not yours. You seem to think that your views are easily transferable to here, but they're not. We have a totally different mentality, the majority grew up poor and then the boom years came and now we have a huge middle class. So pretty much 80% of the electorate vote for centre parties, with pretty much very similar views on how the country should be run. I don't care much for the Socialists, or Sinn Fein. They are the two groups where your opinions would be closely tied. They represent the minority of opinion.

**** spot on. Ray would start building a gaff and cooking nice feasts. Bear would get you the **** out of there sharpish.

Anyway, discussion about my countries woes with Socialists from England isn't going to do much good, nor be in anyway insightful. I'd rather discuss it with the people effected, the people from my own country but it seems we are all in agreement on here. The thread seems driven by non Irish.

The Galaxy S2 is rumoured to be out in April/May next year. It'll be a 4.3 or even 4.5inch screen.

That makes no sense snowy. ^

Didn't you tell us, before all this blew up, that you work in a bank on derivatives, trying to make them sufficiently obscure that the regulators wouldn't be able to understand them and therefore would be unable to control them? Are you still doing that, or has that stuff been stopped? Do you think this activity was any part of the problem? No that is a lie you have made up. That I work to try and fool regulator. I said the level of Auditors knowledge of our modles was poor and it was frustrating trying to teach an accountant about mathematical models they didn't have the knowledge to understand. So refrain from lying next time. I work in Global Treasury Risk a division that has never lost money during the crisis, so I'd like to think in our respect we did an excellent job. Not one irregularity, and excellent level of risk management. Unlike banks in England where their losses came from the Capital Markets division and sub prime debt. The losses incurred by Irish banks are down to levels of domestic property lending, levels of lending that were decided at Boardroom level. An employee in a bank is no more to blame for this crisis than a teacher or builder is. Government, Bank Boards, Property Developers and incompetent and neglegent regulators are to blame.

So it only becomes an event when 50.01% of the population turn out? Or it only becomes an event when/if policy changes? That's completely arse about face, really. Still, move on, eh? Line in the sand, eh? There is no problem. The system is fine. You're all great. No one is struggling. You're all right and you appear to be the self-appointed spokesperson for the silent majority (the same majority about whom you were less than complimentary before - especially about their (economic) decisions and opinions). No, you are 'all' (who is this 'all'?) of the opinion that this needs to happen. No one knows even your 'Captain Hindsight' fellow. Ok, the people speaking at the event were, Sinn Fein councillors and Joe Higgins of the socialist party. Plus the Trade Union heads. Combined they represent a minority of people in this country. Next the 6bln cuts are what all three majory parties agree needs to be made in the budget. They represent well over 80% of the countries voters. So when I say all, I mean the government and the next government agree we need 6bln in cuts and taxes.

If only someone could invent something that allowed people outside of the country the ability to access the media inside the country. There is a huge huge difference between the amount of reading and exposure to the situation abroad as there is to people living here, is there not? Yes you can access it, but you have your own news to absorb too. I'm sure you are not devoting all your time to the irish economic mess. Nor do you know the feeling in the country from the mainly silent majority.

Yep, they will still get 30% of the vote. There are those core voters who will always vote for them no matter what. I've always voted Fine Gael while my Father votes Labour. But the problem now is Fine Gael are run by a clueless buffoon and Labour as more and more like communists and very dangerous in they get a majority. I think Fine Gael Labour is what we'll get. I just hope they are any better than Fianna Fail have been in the past 2 years.

Also you'd swear the banks were a person. All the people who ran the banks into he ground have been removed and the Government has put their people in place to try run the banks. The banks couldn't sort out their problems, they were bankrupt. But you cant have clearing banks like AIB and BOI go under, it would take almost every company in the country who banks with them under. Peoples savings would go under. They should have been nationalised and the Government should have defaulted on the banks debt, Anglo and other should have been left to go under. But this is all captain hindsight territory. What we should have done, not what we any of the politicians wanted to do back in 2008.

I mean a non event as it it will not achieve what the protesters wished. The majority of Irish people accept we need 6lbn in cuts. The protesters are not the majority

It is not an astonishing number of people, you are talking utter rubbish, you don;t know shit about my country yet try to pretend you have some wonderful insight. You put your own spin on the bits you read in your media. 50,000 is a terrible turn out it'll do nothing to change the budget. Double that amount turned out in a protest early last year. So the numbers have halved when the cuts have more than doubled. Total sum of nothing will come from this protest and not a single Irishman (ie people who know what they are talking about) will post in this thread saying that protest will change the budget. We all know we need to make cuts and it has to come from Social Welfare and Public Sector Pay as they make up 80% of expenditure. We all know we need to increase taxes and we will. People are angry and have a right to protest. But it was a paltry protest by the usual section of the population. It will achieve nothing.