Smoking costs Ireland €365million every year

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Smokers are costing Ireland

€1million a Day

(And YES this is a Sustainability and Environmental Issue and not just a rant!)

If you smoke, you are not just injuring yourself and your family, you are also a part of the €365million a year of extra burden on the economy -  through lost working days, medical costs, and related costs.

So what can we do about this? My wife and I learned some very good principles in our study of psychology which we applied to rearing our children. One of these principles from Alfred Adler states; "the more responsible I become - the less responsible you become".

If we apply that principle to this situation you get; "the more the state takes responsibility for smokers and the consequence of their actions, the less will smokers feel the need to take responsibility".

By making all smokers feel fully responsible for all the consequences of their actions, it will do far more than any advertising campaigns to get across the message. But how do we apply consequences in this situation?

A few suggestions:

1, Smokers have to pay more for medical services for any condition affected by smoking. Already many surgeons will not operate on smokers because of the risks involved. What if smokers were charged say 30% extra by way of a special tax to cover the extra burden and risks, do you not think that it would get the message across in a very powerful and perhaps painful way?

2. Tax on environmental pollution. Smoking caused a lot of rubbish on our streets etc. It poisons the air we breath, it wastes natural resources. Place separate taxes on the manufacturers, the retailers, and the users.

3. Make it legal for prospective employers to turn down an applicant on the basis they smoke.

4. Refuse sick pay to smokers who are out of work with related illnesses.

Sounds Harsh?

Yes it sounds very harsh - but this is reality. What is NOT reality or realistic is the current situation where I can abuse myself in any way I want and you have to pick up the bill for my behaviour. As it stands our society is placing a safety net under this abuse. Take away the safety net, and the tight-rope walkers will have to be more careful.

To be perfectly honest, I believe the the same set of rules should also apply to all those that abuse drink or drugs. I would go one further regarding hospital A and E wards full of drunks on the weekend, IMHO there should be a minimum charge for drunken individuals of €500. This would help cover the cost of security for the hard-pressed staff, it would cover the cleaning up of vomit and other fouling, and it might even lessen the numbers of self-abused individuals taking up scarce resources needed by those more deserving of them.

So what are your feelings on this? Is Ireland starting to think more realistically? I would be happy to hear some realistic comments.

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Low Cost LED Bulbs Update

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An Update

on my LED Lamps

I have written fairly extensively on my experience with cheap Chinese LED bulbs. My first experiences were all very disappointing, to the point where I had given up on that avenue. More recently, call me a sucker if you want, I was tempted to try again.

This time I was very pleased with the quality and quantity of light from the newer GU10 and MR16 type bulbs on offer. However, about 1 in 4 of the bulbs blew.

With a bit of poking and experimenting, I found that many of the bulbs did not have the LED "star" properly mounted to the heat sink fins - they were lacking heat sink compound. Therefore, these LEDs tended to overheat and burn out.

I then, sucker that I am, bought some more of these bulbs, and this time checked every one of them for heatsink bonding before I used them.

Now the good news, all of this batch of LEDs are still working 100% and I have them burning every day from 8.30 am till midnight or later. They have been burning like this for over 4 months now., so they have 2000+ hours up and all is well so far!!

Repairing LED bulbs

I have been having some fun lately in my efforts to repair some of the dud LEDs I have accumulated. I will write this one up soon.

The Latest 6 watt LEDs

I have also just ordered some of the very latest 6watt MR16 and GU10 LEDs with a rating of 490 lumen. I will be looking at these and giving them a rating of sorts in the next month or so.

If you are interested in LED lighting, keep a look out here.

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Island of Saints and Scholars

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In my last post, I satirically referred to the Moody downgrading of Ireland’s credit rating to “Junk” level. I suggested by the graphic that the “credibility” of our pillars of society were also at junk level.

On receiving some feedback, I want to make clear my position in a more serious way. I believe the low state in which Ireland finds itself is essentially because of a nurtured culture of greed, graft and gross-mismanagement which overtook the population to the point of inducing collective blindness. A blindness to see that the bubble had to burst, that the gap between the fat-cats and the less-well-off was wider than what was sustainable, and especially a moral and ethical blindness which extended right to the top levels of our society including professionals, and even the judiciary.

How could a small country like ours justify paying our politicians and judges more than twice that of Germany, a secure and rich country?

IMHO Ireland is now in a form of “Receivership”. The new government have been given a massive mandate to try and rectify the damage done by the years of greed and mismanagement. The IMF has an interest in this “Receivership”, and the EU Banks have an interest if only motivated by expedience.

“Receivership” is a legal device by which an institution or enterprise is held by a receiver, a person or persons charged with the custodial responsibility for the property of others, including tangible and intangible assets and rights.”

Whenever one heard of a business going “into” receivership, there almost inevitably followed the winding-up of that enterprise.

I believe that current government is trying very hard to steady the ship and bring her ‘round from a course towards the rocks. There is a hope, a glimmer, palpable from the ardent efforts at honesty and openness in their attempts to correct the gross imbalances.

I have always maintained that the economic problems besetting Ireland have their root and branch firmly planted in soil that is totally lacking in the essential nutrients of morality and ethics.

We have now reached a “turning point” - and even though there is dread for the immediate possible fallout, there is also hope. A little glimmer of hope for a new spring that brings fresh growth in which spirituality and right living will again fuel the engine of our endeavours, as it did in a glorious past - earning Ireland the title of “the Island of Saints and Scholars”.

Apologies if this post sounds a little bit "schmaltzy"

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Ireland is JUNK

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Algae Pre-historic and Furure Oil Source

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Algae Pre-historic

and

Future Source of Oil

The Oil and Coal of our planet was made some 500 million years ago. One tiny micro-organism was mainly responsible for this and consequently for our industrial revolution. That organism is a type of algae called Botryococcus Braunii.

Now that all that hard work of Botrycoccus Braunii 500 million years ago is all but used up, scientists are again putting hope in this little algae cell to provide oil for the future.

The idea of oil from algae is anything but a new notion. I have written several times of various efforts, mostly unsuccessful, to harness natures little oil factory.

Why am I writing again? Well, the latest efforts are based on sequencing the DNA of the ancient little organism. It is hoped that with the information thus gleaned, scientists can construct synthetic methods to synthesise oil all based directly on the original oil manufacturing techniques of  Botrycoccus Braunii.

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Electricity from thin Air?

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Free Energy Receiver

Echoes of  Nikola Tesla

I have written here about passive energy gathering devices using tiny printed antennae and rectifiers that can capture electrical waves including those from sunlight.

http://wood-pellet-ireland.blogspot.com/2008/09/solar-cell-breakthrough.html


Here is another related story about energy capturing devices, only this time, it is about a method of capturing power from the myriads of radio waves which surround and penetrate through us all of the time.

A research team from Georgia-Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering led by Prof. Manos Tentzeris have found a way of using industrial type inkjet printers to print antennas and energy-scavenging capabilities onto paper or flexible plastic sheets.

Currents tests made at TV transmission frequencies have been shown to give some fractions of a milliwatt - one thousand of a watt.

The research team have operated a temperature sensor using the radio waves from a television station half a kilometer away.  They are preparing another demonstration in which a microprocessor-based microcontroller would be activated simply by holding it in the air.

Not a New Idea.

Tesla (above) and his patent for a Free Energy Receiver

This idea is so not new. Tesla was grappling with energy gathering on a mega scale, while others were looking at it on a less ambitious level.

Some 40 years ago I remember visiting the Radio Eireann, the Irish National Broadcaster's medium wave transmitter in Athlone in the Irish midlands. A friend and I were keen ham radio operators at the time. The engineer in charge of the transmitter was very kind to these two visiting young men, and gave us a tour of the facility. He told us many things about high powered transmitters including that he once had a light on his bicycle that ran from the power of the transmitter using a tuned circuit and the frame of the bike as an antenna. That would have been generating at least 250 milliwatts.

Broad Spectrum Energy Gathering.

The Georgia-Tech team are working on more advanced systems that can suck up a broad spectrum of transmission frequencies and they hope to generate more than a milliwatt! - sounds very small to me. Even that tiny amount of power is sufficient to run many small electronic devices, including a variety of sensors and microprocessors. By adding high quality capacitors to the micro antenna and energy circuits, the team hope to be able to power devices requiring over 50 milliwatts.  In this approach, energy builds up in a battery-like supercapacitor and is utilized when the required power level is reached.

The energy gathering technology can presently use frequencies from FM radio to radar, a range spanning 100 megahertz (MHz) to 15 gigahertz (GHz) or higher.

One practical use of these little energy sucking devices will be to power remote sensors such as security devices, monitoring sensors etc. This could save the environment by reducing the use of batteries worldwide by many millions. It would also save on maintenance in replacing batteries.

Prof. Tentzeris with an inkjet-printed rectifying antenna

Prototype energy-scavenging device

Original article press released by Research News & Publications Office, Georgia Institute of Technology, 75 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 314.  Atlanta, Georgia  30308  USA


http://gtresearchnews.gatech.edu/device-captures-ambient-energy/

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"Black Economy" A Blessing?

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The Black Economy

A Blessing?

My regular readers will know that I have very strong feelings about the way the Irish Economy has been handled.  My feelings have been heightened by the culture of graft and cronyism, and the obvious “Gravy Train” mentality of professional and business fat-cats, politicians, and many employees of government agencies, including the judiciary.

Dr Sam Vaknin PhD

I wrote a small piece on my take of the Irish “Black Economy”, and while searching Google to see if the piece had been picked up, I came upon this excellent article by Sam Vaknin. Among the professional hats that Sam wears are the following: He is a columnist in "Central Europe Review", United Press International (UPI) and ebookweb.org  Very importantly in this context, until recently, he served as an Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia. He was born in Haifa Israel and later emigrated to Macedonia where he married and settled. He has a PhD in Philosophy, is trained in psychotherapy, and has published several books on a variety of subjects.

Sam Vaknin has written about the “Black Economy” from a refreshingly different angle of view.  I contacted Sam and he has given me permission to quote or re-publish this excellent thesis of his. Following are extracts, large extracts, from his article; The Blessings of the Black Economy.

The Blessings of the Black Economy (extracts)
By: Sam Vaknin, Ph.D.

Some call it the "unofficial" or "informal" economy, others call it the "grey economy" but the old name fits it best: the "black economy". In the USA "black" means "profitable, healthy" and this is what the black economy is. Macedonia should count its blessings for having had a black economy so strong and thriving to see it through the transition. If Macedonia had to rely only on its official economy it would have gone bankrupt long ago.

(The “Black Economy” or by the Irish so called “under the counter” business, accounts for some 15% of GDP in the USA, 19% of GDP in Spain, and anything up to 60% in Russia. In Macedonia, where Sam writes from, it is estimated to be some 40% of GDP.  Sam states that money earned on the “Black Economy” is usually squirrelled away in foreign accounts but eventually... )

People will bring their money back (into the official system) to open businesses, to support family members and just to consume it. It all depends on the mood and on the atmosphere and on how much these people feel that they can rely on the political stability and rational management.

Such enormous flows of capital happened before: in Argentina after the Generals and their corrupt regime were ousted by civilians, in Israel when the peace process started and in Mexico following the signature of NAFTA, to mention but three cases. These reserves can be lured back and transform the economy.

But the black economy has many more important functions.

1.    The black economy is a cash economy.
2.     It is liquid and fast. It increases the velocity of money.
3.     It injects much needed foreign exchange to the economy and inadvertently increases the effective money supply and the resulting money aggregates. In this sense, it defies the dictates of "we know better" institutions such as the IMF.
4.    It fosters economic activity and employs people.
5.    It encourages labour mobility and international trade.

Black economy, in short, is very positive. With the exception of illegal activities, it does everything that the official economy does – and, usually, more efficiently.

So, what is morally wrong with the black economy? The answer, in brief: it is exploitative. - - -  operators of the black economy enjoy these (social -educational -medical etc.) services without paying for them. (The burden falls on those paying taxes)

Bureaucracies tend to misuse and abuse resources.

... Unfortunately, we all live in societies which are regulated by bureaucracies which are controlled (in theory, rarely in practice) by politicians. These elites have a tendency to misuse and to abuse resources and to allocate them in an inefficient manner. Even economic theory admits that any dollar left in the hands of the private sector is much more efficiently used than the same dollar in the hands of the most honest and well meaning and well planning civil servant. Governments all over the world distort economic decisions and mis-allocate scarce economic resources.

Thus, if the goals are to encourage employment and economic growth – the black economy should be welcomed. This is precisely what it does and, by definition, it does so more efficiently than the government. The less tax dollars a government has – the less damage it does. This is an opinion shares by most economists in the world today. Lower tax rates are an admission of this fact and a legalization of parts of the black economy.

The black economy is especially important in times of economic hardships.

It (The Black Economy) enhances exports (and competitiveness through imports), it encourages technology transfers, it employs people, it invests in legitimate businesses (or is practised by them), it adds to the wealth of the nation (black marketeers are big spenders, good consumers and build real estate), it injects liquidity to an otherwise dehydrated market. Mercifully, the black economy is out of the reach of zealous missionaries such as the IMF. It goes its own way, unnoticed, unreported, unbeknownst, untamed.

Without the black economy, the population of Macedonia would not have survived. This lesson must be remembered as the government prepares to crack down on the only sector of the economy which is still alive and kicking.




Thank you again Sam for allowing me to use your article!
The original article can be seen on: http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/nm043.html
Sam Vaknin’s web site: http://samvak.tripod.com

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Ireland's Ship of State

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Ireland's Ships of State

a painting by

Shame-us O'Con-men

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Ireland's Black Economy

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I was talking about the squeeze in Ireland causing a return of the black economy which was a major feature of the Irish way of doing business in the 1980ies when there was 35% VAT. Bloody hell - 35% VAT can you imagine it now?

Well what 35% VAT did was to drive a large percentage of deals and services "under the counter" or over the border. Business' could not afford to be fully honest in many cases. The burden was crippling. Those were the days of "cash only" deals, of nicksers, and of barter.

I my opinion, it is getting back to that those 1980ies days. People's earnings have reduced, taxes have increased, many essentials are more expensive.

There is no VAT on "I'll build your shed if you do my garden". No trace on cash-in-hand deals. No VAT on many items purchased on the Internet. So where are people going to save the little money they have left??

No prizes for the answers.

The balance is wrong and I don't know what the solution is. But if the government and the TDs took an immediate voluntary 50% drop in their pay - it might give a moral lead to the country.

On second thoughts, IMHO the economic problems are largely moral and ethical problems. The imbalance between the fat cats on €200,000+ and those surviving on €10,000 is just too much to sustain in these times.

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Motor Fuel Sales Down 10%

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What does your car run on??

Latest Statistics Show

Motor Fuel Sales Down by 10%

Reports just published indicate that the Irish demand for motor fuels is down by some 10%. This means that people are using their cars less and less. 

Is this surprising?  No it is not, not only do you have crude oil prices inflating due to the uncertainty of supply caused by the "Arab spring", but the Irish Government saw fit to add in 2008 and extra 8c per litre to the already massive excise duty, and on the top of that again, there is a 5% carbon tax. On that again you have increased VAT and other taxes.

I would say that the Irish Revenue is into a situation of "diminishing returns". You cannot just TAX your way out of financial difficulties. That causes an immediate restriction of the flow of money. It is like damming a river, the land downstream will simply go arid.

With fuel costs soaring, taxes increasing, money and jobs becoming scarce, we will need to find some other way to run cars. Maybe it is back to bicycles and the ass and cart?

The squeeze is getting so tight that the entire economy is shrinking - which means less and less taxes will be available to government.

I have no knowledge of economic science - but you don't need rocket science to figure this one. I bet those that bought 4x4 gas guzzlers in the good times are regretting their choice now!

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