Archive for April 15th, 2007

Sunday Night Mini Rants

Sunday, April 15th, 2007
  • Why can’t I buy a childs ticket on DART  automated ticket machines? If I was dishonest I wouldn’t pay at all on a Sunday as the gates are open and their is nobody at the ticket office. As it is, my honesty means I have to pay an extra tax if my children are to travel with a ticket.
  • Why in 2007 can’t I register and pay for membership of the Irish Software Association online!
  • Why does the Irish Software Association have the dumbest website URL in the world (www.software.ie!)
  • Why will the poxy, shitty, fucked up, dire, “somebody put the poor thing out of its misery”,  visual editor in WordPress not leave my hand coded HTML alone.
  • Why does Dell insist on shipping VISTA ready PCs with 512MB of  memory when Vista scarfs up a whooping 600MB of physical memory (Vista Home Basic mind you) just to give you an explorer window?
  • Why in 2007 does Microsoft Word still bale out when writing something as simple as a one page letter?

Arrrghh, kill ‘em all and let god sort them out!

Posted in pissing_and_moaning | 2 Comments »

Perfect Storm or Soft Landing

Sunday, April 15th, 2007

Morgan Kelly (Prof of Economics UCD) and Pat McArdle (Chief Economist, Ulster Bank) debate the likelihood of a property crash (Kelly) or a soft landing in todays Sunday Business Post. I’m no economist, but Morgan’s side of the debate seemed more compelling and was more concerned with presenting real data to support his position. For instance the average rent on a 1m euro property is about 2000 euros a month, while the mortgage repayments now stand at around  4000 a month for the interest alone. Those economics demand high capital growth.

Pat on the other hand seems preoccupied with debunking common “myths” regarding the likelihood of an Irish property crash. As he admits himself, ( and I was thinking) , you would say that, wouldn’t you.

The full paper behind Morgan’s thinking is on his website.

Posted in ireland, property | 5 Comments »