CVByrne

People don't understand that due to proportional representation Sinn Fein get very little seats in the Republic as Labour Fine Gael and Fianna Fail voters give eachother 2nd and 3rd votes. Sinn Fein are the scum of the earth. Despised down here by almost everyone bar their largley criminal and militant supporters. Not only that but 80% of the country think their policies are moronic, communist and totally incompatable with the 3 main parties policies. Also the reputational damage done by any party going into government with Sinn Fein would be huge. That's why parties have to say they will never ever go into government with Sinn Fein. It will never ever happen and I wis people would stop giving their nut jobs air time. I will always fill out my voting slip with numbers in every candidate bar Sinn Fein so no matter what my vote will count against them.

You do know the police are on the side of the protesters so no point lying about the the figures. "Gardaí said that around 10,000 people started the march, however the crowd swelled to around 50,000 people as it moved down the quays." Up to 50,000 people is nothing, it's a non event. There are 300,000 people in the public sector. This is a nothing protest it proves the majority are in acceptance of our fate. Make the 6bln cuts and get a new government in in January then move on.

Depends on what you want, Desire has the slick HTC Sense UI which is the best UI there is out there. The Galaxy S has unmatched hardware and a simply awesome screen. The thing is what one man considers a pro another will see as a con. For example it being light is a huge plus imo, while it's a turn off for others, same thing with big screens, some people want smallers screens others larger. So on and so forth. My only little worry about buying the Desire is it's getting on now, HTC will surly be brining out it's replacement in Q1 next year. While the SGS2 is going to be a different size with a 4.3 inch screen and wont be out until Q2 and going up against the Desire HD. I'd really wish for Techradar to redo their Galaxy S review like they did with the Desire to take account of the benefits of Froyo upgrade as I think it's solved pretty much all the problems I've had with the software and certainly resolves many of their criticisms in the original review. Anyway, The Galaxy S, Desire and Desire HD are easily the top of the Android tree.

Animal Kingdom is excellent, highly recommend.

Watched The New World again last night. My gushing praise about the film after my first viewing was totally warranted and is now, in my opinion the best movie of the post decade. Bonafide masterpiece. I'm watching a film a night so will be reading and posting in this thread a lot.

No, it would be better for Ireland to refuse point blank to bail out any of the banks, but make it clear that it will not default on sovereign debt; withdraw from the euro; and launch immediate measures to create employment domestically, using its new-found powers and its suddenly unencumbered spending power to do so. It would also help to have some criminal prosecutions of several high-placed bankers to boot. We need captain hindsight for this. Well letting than banks go under would have been a catastrophe of epic proportions. People and companies lose everything. I think you mean nationalise AIB and BOI, default on their debt, run them as semi state for a few years and then sell them back into the open market. Obviously it would have been better. But at the time they had to do the guarantee, to stop a run on the banks. They never ever should have given the guarantee to Anglo Irish Bank, and the people responsibly for that should fi too jail. Also, as you know I work for AIB, but in the capital markets division so total other area from property lending, but my mate works for the back too, involved in the moving loans to nama part. He told me that there has been deliberate lying going on, the valuations they priced the loans at have gone up from what they reported to their boss and what came out in the half year results. Someone needs to go to jail for that. There are criminals in the banks, they should have cleared out all the bank boards in the beginning and put honest people in charge.

For example it would be far better for Ireland to have defaulted on everything. But it would do reputational damage. The same thing applies to Germany and France with their beloved euro. They will prop everything up. They can prop everything up too.

Very interested to hear your reasoning for that, CV. The damage it would do to Germany and France amd the euro zone is too much, it would be better for Germany to keep propping up the likes of Greece, Ireland and Portugal than it would to break up the euro zone. Also they will refuse to have the euro experiment fail. Nobody inside the euro zone wants it to fail, only countries outside it.

Well, at the risk of randomly quoting the media despite not living there, I read here that Fine Gael have received assurances that the budget details are not seen by the EU as binding on them. Having sought and received that specific assurance, and publicised it, it would be very hard to disclaim responsibility for whatever budget exists should they win the election. The thing is, they accept the same view as the current lot, and the discussion appears to be about detail rather than the bigger questions about default, withdrawal from the euro, whether the banks should be baled out and so on. And if that's the case, then the differences between the main policy positions which will be placed before the electorate will be trivial. Other arguments are being made, for example on Tonight with Vincent Brown (Sorry! More random quoting!), but they don't appear to be reflected in what the main parties are saying. Pity. Basically they are right, the most unpopular parts of the budget and 4 year plan can be changed, but overall it will be pretty much unchanged. Only cosmetic changes really. Fine Gael want 75% cuts 25% taxes, Labour want 50% 50%, and as if by coincidence fianna fail's is 66% 33%. So that makes the new coalition governments 66% 33% too. Basically everything said in the media now is campaigning, the level of cuts and the areas cut will not change much after the election. As for the euro there is zero chance it will fail. There is also zero chance ireland would ever leave the euro.

peterms you don't live here so randomly quoting media is inaccurate. The budget will 100% go through, what politicians are doing is covering their asses and already campaigning for the elections in january. The opposition want the government to put through the budget but want to look like they oppose it. They don't want to be the ones making these cuts. Also as for acceptance of our fate. We all were greedy, down to a man. People didn't buy houses as somewhere to live they bought them to get on the "property ladder" and to "trade up". Yeah they were lied to by incompetent government and greedy bank boards. But the country bought into the whole thing, you have to remember we were incredibly poor, we'd never had a boom busy situation. So at this stage people have stopped the ranting and raving and finger pointing to a degree and accept that to have a property bubble you need lots of people buying property and those people were us. Plain and simple.

That's pretty spot on. People in negative equity who still have the same jobs should have no problem paying their mortgage, public sector are fine too, no compulsory job cuts, minimal wage cuts. It's only the people who lost their jobs that have suffered real hardship that wasn't their own making. Which is 120,000 people in the past two years. So for all the bitching and moaning people do on tv, it's these people who are suffering, not anyone still in work. These people who are silent and unemployed.

Yeah there are protests but considering the state of our country the protests are only token, very civil and 90% made up of public sector workers who to be fair have become very content and very silent in the post half year as the true scale of the mess becomes apparent. It was the foreign press who were over when the imf and eu were meeting the government last week that quizzed our journalists as to why there were only very small protests at government buildings (basically just the nut jobs and scum like sinn fein). But they are right, there is no riots, there is not strikes, there is little civil unrest. Only in ireland could this government last this long. So I'm right, we are in acceptance of our fate because we are not going back to the 80's, we've had a party now we're during the hangover. Also I suppose given our very high social welfare payments (single person on the dole gets €870 or £740 a month before other benefits like rent relief, mortgage relief etc.) would make unemployment more bearable than many other countries too. Also the Public sector have no compulsory redundancies and have on the majority have taken pay cuts that are less than the level of deflation. All these contribute to the low level of unrest. People are angry but not angry enough to do much.

The point is only people from abroad will care about rubbish like that. I think you'll find we are rather acceptance with our fate. We know we caused it ourselves. That is why there are nothing more than token demonstrations. As said above, "**** it, hit the pub."

I watched The American, it's pretty damn boring with little payoff and doesn't even feel original.

The American, Worlds Greatest Dad or Toy Story 3 which will I watch tonight?

It's hardly the end of the world. That's why there are is no big civil unrest, we're all new to money anyway. Everyone who is working now grew up in the 80's or earlier when we were all piss poor. We all grew up in far worse times than this. We'll recover, we have the three things needed, EU membership, the euro and 12.5% corporation tax.

Sorry to hear that. I suppose I'd classify as polar opposite to you being an AIB employee renting and with savings. The level of mis management of this country by so few. It's staggering. I think the imf will be what the country needs. The fact there is no accountability is pretty hard to take.

We're making settlements with subordinated bond holders. Many hedge funds bought up subordinated debt on the cheap after the bank guarantee thinking they will get all of it back. So they bought at 30c on the euro and expected to get 100 back. We're basically telling them they will get their 30c back or nothing. Choose.

I think it would be more interesting for you to explain why the Irish and the German economies are similar. Hmmm let me think Both in the EU Both part of the "west" Both have multi-nationals as part of its infrastructure Both do a great deal of trade with others around the world Both are impacted by world events Both have a reliance on High-Tech industries etc etc etc Irish Main industries steel, lead, zinc, silver, aluminium, barite, and gypsum mining processing; food, brewing, textiles, clothing; chemicals, pharmacology; machinery, rail transportation equipment, passenger and commercial vehicles, ship construction and refurbishment; glass and crystal; computer software, tourism German Main industries iron, steel, coal, cement, chemicals, machinery, vehicles, machine tools, electronics, food and beverages, shipbuilding, textiles Now Ads, I am very interested to see your thinking why they are not alike. (and P.S. good to see you are a mod and tell us what we can and cannot post) Differing culture. Irish & British people have a strong drive to own their own home while German and French are happy to rent far more. This results in Irish and British being more indebted while Germans and French would be better savers. Recessions have more impact on sentiment and spending for us than it does them as they can weather these events better. That the difference.

It is borrowed ib the international markets and Ireland pays the interest. So it does not effect the UK budget. The threat is Ireland defaulting and a possible slight increase in the UK's own bond spread. So no direct tax revenue goes to servicing this 7bln debt.

Pretty much nail on the head. The first part was a great idea the second part is what took the country down. The fact that so many people bought into this property ladder nonsense means half the country is at fault yet people want to blame someone else instead of the cold hard truth that almost everyone is at fault for the countries woes.

^ Elaborate, they all use the same capacative touchscreen technology. Should be no difference.

You know what I mean. No matter if android phones were free, never ran out of batteries, could grant wishes. Loads of people, mainly women would still want an iphone simply because it is an iphone. It is a fashion accessory, it has this desirability. That's why I give up when out comes to women and the iphone. Like mykeyb if you had to choose between a desire a galaxy s or the old 3GS. You'd pick the android phone. The 3GS had what 6 mouths or so of apple support left before it is completely obsolete. You'd pick the android phone

Sell your iphone 4 if you only use or want a smartphone for mobile internet. But most iphone users want iphones to show off as much as actually using them. Same way I buy nice onitsuka trainers. Personally I want a bigger screen, I only use my phone for mobile internet. Apps can be helpful but I never browse the market, and could easily live without getting another app ever. I want a light phone with a massive super amoled or better screen. That's it really. No1 selling point for new phone.

Most of the android market apps are free. So you don't need a google checkout account to access the market. Angry birds is free, a huge amount of popular stuff like that will be free due to advertising revenue generated from such a popular app.