GREETINGS HUMANS !! I WAS JUST SAYING THE OTHER DAY HOW NICE IT IS TO BE ABLE TO CONVERSE WITH SOME HUMANS AND NOT WORRY ABOUT WHETHER OR NOT THEY ARE THINKING OF ME IN HAM OR BACON TERMS. THE PIG HAD QUITE A BIT OF MAIL THIS WEEK. HE APOLOGIZES FOR THE DELAY IN RETURNING THE MAIL. SEEMS AS THOUGH THE MAIL SYSTEM HAS SOME ISSUES DEALING WITH A PIG. THE PIG HAD TO SET THE MEGACORP STRAIGHT. NOW DONE, WE CAN GET ON TO THE ISSUES AT HAND.
SOME OF YOU HUMANS WANTED TO KNOW WHAT IT WAS THE PIG WAS GOING FOR IN HIS DAILY PIG PICKS. THE MAIN ANGLE OF THE PIG IS TO GET THIS SCANNER MACHINE WORKING AT A HIGH ODDS RATE. THEN ONCE WE HAVE THESE PENNY PIGLETS MAPPED OUT WITH THE DATA, INTERPRET THE DATA, AND PICK THE PIGS PICKS BASED ON THESE NUMBERS. GETTING IN EARLY, RIDING A WAVE OR TWO, AND OUT. MOVING ON TO THE NEXT ONE SO AS TO MAXIMIZE RETURNS ON CASH AND REDUCE RISK OF HAVING CASH STAGNATING. A PIG CAN ALWAYS COME BACK TO THE ORIGINAL STOCK ONCE THE SPEC CYCLE STARTS AGAIN. THE PIG CONSIDERS HIMSELF, ALL OF YOU, AS PIONEERS IN A NEW SYSTEM DESIGNED FOR YOU, AT NO COST TO YOU, AND TO MAKE MONEY FOR YOU.YES THE PIG TRADES SOME OF HIS PICKS, AND ONLY AS MANY AS TIME AND MONEY WILL PERMIT. THE PIG WILL NEVER PUT MORE THAN $1500/$2000 IN A TRADE. SMALL BITES MAKE SMALL PROFITS THAT ADD UP TO A BIG PROFIT AT YEAR END. THE PIG PREACHES A NUMBER, CHART AND PATIENCE BASED APPROACH TO ANY TRADE THAT YOU DO. LETS HOPE WE CAN ALL BE SUCCESSFUL TOGETHER !
DRL.V....ONE OF THE HIGH SCANNERS OF THE NIGHT. NO STORY AS YET BUT MONEY HAS BEEN FLOWING IN FOR A BIT AND IT HAS A VERY TIGHT FLOAT. THE HIGH SCORES IN MOMENTUM AND MOVING AVERAGES AND ABOVE AVERAGE VELOCITIES IN SENTIMENTS AND VOLUME DISTRIBUTION HAS THE PIG WONDERING WHATS UP ? IS THERE MORE UP ? AND WHEN ?.........WATCH IT LIKE A FOX....A PIG FOX....AND MAYBE TAKE A FEW FOR THE PENDING RIDE......
MNL.V...ANOTHER BIG SCANNER OF THE NIGHT. NO STORY YET, BIG INSIDER BUYS ACCORDING TO CANADIAN INSIDER, SOME BOFFO PORK SCANS ON MOMENTUM, ACCUMULATION AND VOLUME DISTRIBUTION VECTORS ! MUST BE SOMETHING COMING DOWN THE PIPE.......THE PIG SAYS NIBBLE A FEW FOR THE RIDE THAT SEEMS TO BE COMING IN OUR DIRECTION.......
ABE.V...LAST OF THE SELECT GROUP OF HERCULEAN SCANNERS TONIGHT. RUMOURS OF BIG GOLD HAVE THIS PIG PRIMED FOR PORK PROSPERITY. NICE ROUND NUMBERS TONIGHT AND GREAT VALUES IN MOST OF OUR 10 VECTOR AREAS. ACCUMULATION BEEN HAPPENING, REASONABLE FLOAT AND COMPETENT MANAGEMENT AND NICE ENTRY PRICE ESPECIALLY !.......ALL THIS HAS THE PIG WONDERING....WHEN ?
Opening Ceremony attracts record viewers
13.3 million Canadians watched the entire 3 1/2-hour ceremony from beginning to end
Fireworks explode above Vancouver 2010 Olympic cauldron the end of the opening ceremonies for the 2010 games, Vancouver, February 12.
Photograph by: Gerry Kahrmann, Canwest News Service
A record 13.3 million Canadian viewers watched the entire 3 1/2-hour ceremony from beginning to end, according to CTV.
That figure eclipses the previous benchmark of 10.3 million viewers, set by the Olympic gold-medal hockey game between Canada and the United States at the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, Utah.
About 23 million viewers - or two out of three Canadians - watched at least some of the Olympic Opening Ceremony on CTV or one of the other 10 networks that aired the event live. The opening ceremony was broadcast in Canada in 11 languages.
Friday's TV audience far outstrips those for previous opening ceremonies. Slightly more than four million viewers watched the 1988 opening ceremony in Calgary. Another four million watched the opening for the Salt Lake Games in 2002. And 1.6 million viewers watched 2008's opening ceremony at the Beijing Olympics, while slightly more than one million viewers watched the opening for the last Winter Games, in Turin in 2006.
Another 33 million viewers watched the opening ceremony in the U.S. on NBC and its sister channels. That is the most-watched opening ceremony for a non-U.S. based Winter Games, second only to the U.S. audience that watched the opening of the Salt Lake City Games in 2002.
© Copyright (c) CW Media Inc.
The New Generation Leaving Ireland
Some 170,000 jobs vanished last year, and the lack of employment is driving a generation away
Dublin - When Simon Phelan started a civil engineering degree at Dublin's Trinity College four years ago, he figured his biggest problem upon graduation would be deciding which job to choose. Ireland's economy was growing at 5.4%, unemployment was a mere 4.4%, and construction was booming.Today, with graduation fast approaching, only two of Phelan's 100 classmates have even had interviews. Worse, in these recession-scarred times, just two people from the class ahead of him are employed. So Phelan and many contemporaries see emigration as the only option. "The lack of jobs is driving people away," the 20-year-old Dubliner says after trawling through the meager offerings at Trinity's career office, a small building tucked off the school's cobblestoned quadrangle. "Ireland will lose a whole generation of graduates."
It's a scenario most Irish thought had gone the way of the potato famine and two-shilling pints of Guinness. Two decades of prosperity had transformed the island nation of 4.5 million from a European laggard into the so-called Celtic Tiger. After a century and a half in which Ireland's young and energetic routinely fled to South Boston or London's Kilburn, today's twentysomethings grew up expecting to live and work at home. But with one in three males under age 25 out of work, their confidence seems to have been misplaced. "It used to be employers were fighting over graduates," says Shane King, a 22-year-old Trinity senior from County Mayo on Ireland's west coast. "Now graduates are fighting each other for jobs."
The country's budget swung from a surplus in 2007 to a deficit of nearly 12% of gross domestic product last year as the economy shrank by 7.5%. A decade-long property bubble, which saw real estate prices triple, led to a banking crisis that Standard & Poor's estimates could cost taxpayers as much as $34 billion. "Everything we have is being spent on the banks," says David Begg, head of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.
Drive the 10 miles from central Dublin to Citywest, an industrial park near the border of County Kildare, and you'll see ample evidence of overbuilding. On the banks of the Liffey River, there's the half-finished shell of Anglo Irish Bank's new headquarters. Farther on, "for sale" signs dot posh developments where new homes stand unoccupied.
AUSTRALIA BOUND?
Many would-be emigrants have made the same trip. On a chilly Sunday, hundreds of people gather in a conference room at the Citywest Hotel for a seminar on emigrating Down Under. Representatives of several Aussie states sit behind foldable tables stacked with pamphlets extolling Australia's low unemployment and "no worries" outlook. Carpenter Michael McGerr, 38, drove more than 100 miles with his wife and toddler to attend. "Our goal is to go away for good," he says.Last year emigration exceeded immigration for the first time in 15 years as 65,100 people left, outpacing arrivals by nearly 8,000. Almost half of those who decamped were recent immigrants from Eastern Europe. But with few opportunities at home, growing numbers of native Irish are also headed for the exit. "There was loads of work three years ago, then it just dried up," says Patrick Maye, an unemployed bricklayer who traveled to the Aussie seminar from Carlow, some 50 miles south of Dublin. The 22-year-old hopes to move to Australia once he finishes retraining as a fitness instructor.
With unemployment set to hit 13.8% this year, things are sure to get worse. The Economic & Social Research Institute (ESRI), an independent think tank in Dublin, predicts net outward migration of 40,000 for the year ending in April, the highest level in more than 20 years. "We are right back to the 1980s," says Piaras Mac Éinrí, a lecturer at University College Cork.
Back then, unemployment soared to 18% as the economy took a dive. Then in the 1990s, a wave of foreign investment swept Ireland, lured by low corporate taxes and inexpensive workers. Now the blue chips are scaling way back. In the past year, Intel (INTC), Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), and Waterford Wedgwood have downsized; Dell (DELL) moved PC production from Limerick to lower-wage Poland; and some 1,500 smaller companies have folded. Last year 170,000 Irish jobs vanished, and ESRI predicts 76,000 more will be lost in 2010.
One problem is that Ireland got too pricey. The American Chamber of Commerce Ireland estimates that from 2004 to 2008, Irish wages rose 50% faster than the average of advanced European economies. Former Intel Chairman Craig R. Barrett says that of the 14 reasons Intel came to Ireland two decades ago, only one remained: a low corporate tax rate of 12.5%. "Ireland needs a new game plan," he said at a Dublin conference in September.
In the past, the state has been a big creator of jobs by hiring civil servants and promoting investment. But to plug a yawning gap in public finances, Dublin in December announced spending cuts of $5.6 billion, including $1.4 billion from public sector pay and $1.1 billion from social welfare benefits. The tough measures have helped restore Ireland's standing among global investors, but the cuts make it difficult for the government to launch the policies that might enable people to ride out the recession, either in on-the-job training or higher education.
The biggest job casualties have been in construction. At its peak in 2007, the building trade employed 1 in 7 Irish workers. But over the past two years, the sector has shed 200,000 jobs, according to Ireland's Construction Industry Federation. "We went from being in high demand to no demand," says Gordon Cobbe, a construction manager from Cork. Out of work for a year, he plans on moving to Perth, Australia.
Many Irish aiming to get out face problems similar to workers in, say, Detroit or Toledo: They can't afford to leave their homes. John McKenna is eager to join more than a dozen friends who have moved to Australia. With business slow at the plumbing supply store where he works, "I don't know how much longer I'll have a job," the 39-year-old says. But the house he bought for $306,000 in 2006 has halved in value, so it'll be tough to depart anytime soon.
The emigration surge comes as Dublin tries to implement a program called "Smart Economy." The plan is to boost innovation through tax breaks for research, expedited visa processing for skilled workers, a $689 million fund to back promising tech startups, and other incentives. The glue holding it all together, the government says, is "the knowledge, skills, and creativity" of the Irish—a problem with so many people leaving. "There is a risk that many of the talented individuals envisioned as the foundation of the innovation economy will make their careers elsewhere," says John McHale, an economics professor at the National University of Ireland, Galway.
Other economists are more optimistic. Alan Barrett, a research professor at ESRI, says the current exodus is likely to be benign. As part of the EU, Ireland will again lure immigrants from across Europe as growth picks up. And he points out that many who left in the '80s returned with better skills. "As soon as the economy recovered, people came back in droves," he says.
Kevin Carey, CEO of moving company Careline International, can attest to that. His firm helped relocate emigrants in the 1980s before bringing many back a decade later. Now most of his work is again outbound, and business was up 23% last year. His customers weren't so lucky. "They're all leaving; the cost of living here is too high," says Carey, who was manning a table at the Australian emigration event at the Citywest Hotel. For him, at least, business was good.
Capell is a senior writer in BusinessWeek's London bureau .
No comments:
Post a Comment