Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 18,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 7 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Make of this what you will…

Good old @tnteachertim over on Twitter drew my attention today that there was a job listing on www.publicjobs.ie for a vacancy with the Central Bank of Ireland for a “Assistant Production Controller Mint, Central Bank of Ireland”

I had a quick look at it and it’s an interesting job including such tasks as: “supervision of all operations involved in the production, authentication and destruction of Euro Coinage”. It makes one wonder with all the discussion about quantitative Easing or “printing more money” if this is what is anticipated.

My inquisitive nature got the better of me and I decided to have a look at all job vacancies on the site. There were only 79 in total which is not surprising with all the public sector cutbacks and recruitment freezes. What was surprising is that 10% of these were for jobs with the Central Bank of Ireland. I don’t have any overall recruitment statistics but I would hazard a guess that this percentage is relatively high.

Below is a list of the vacancies:

• Head of Credit
• IT Process and administration manager
• Liquidity Policy Manager
• Senior auditor
• Banking Policy Professional
• Deputy Head of General Insurance Supervision

Of course this could also be a sign of staff churn with the Irish Central Bank and could actually be a good thing. As I said above “make of this what you will…”

DISCLAIMER: All the below (as well as the title) are purely my own opinion and do not necessarily represent the actual truth. It is the conclusion that I have come to based on the information available to me at the time of writing this post. As my sources of information are to a certain extent limited and I can only access information currently in the public domain I might be completely wrong in my conclusion. Then again I might also be right…

Yesterday came with some very interesting but not surprising new revelations in the whole #DSK affair. For those who need reminding; Dominique Strauss-Kahn (#DSK) was the head of the IMF and potentially the next French president back in May this year when he was arrested at New Yorks’ JFK airport accused of raping a chambermaid at the Sofitel Hotel that he had been staying at. DSK already had a reputation as a bit of a womanizer and someone who has had several affairs and the media descended on him while the world wagged its indignant finger. DSK was arrested and put behind bars and a whole media circus went into overdrive. He was of course forced to resign as head of the IMF and his chances of becoming France’s next president (which had been good) evaporated. However in spite of all the apparent evidence of the heinous act as well as all other previous indiscretions that were dragged up during the following months, all charges against DSK were dismissed (on the prosecutions request) on October 13th. However it was no surprise that the damage done to Strauss-Kahns reputation in the intervening months was irreparable.

Personally I had said from the beginning that the whole affair stank to the high heavens. It made no sense and it was too convenient for his political opponents. Why would a man in his position rape a chambermaid? Surely it wasn’t for some depraved sexual satisfaction. Someone of his wealth could, if he was that way inclined, buy any sexual pleasure one could think of. Power was also hardly going to be a reason as he was already one of the most powerful men in the world. The whole thing just did not make sense. From DSK’s perspective anyway. It did however made perfect sense from his political opponents perspective. What better way to remove a powerful opponent than to have him accused publicly of a heinous act that would appear to be an escalation of his previous indiscretions?

The whole thing sort of died down after his release until yesterday when the FT Weekend ran a story on its cover quoting from Edward Epsteins story in the New York Review of Books. Epstein has done extensive research into what happened using information submitted by both the prosecution & defense in the case. I can strongly suggest that you read Epsteins article as it includes some simply amazing insights as well as new information which can lead to no other conclusion than that the whole alleged rape was staged as a means of discrediting Strauss-Kahn.There is the limited timeframe, 6 minutes to be exact, in which DSK according to the chambermaid “attempted to assault her both anally and vaginally, (and) forced her twice to perform fellatio”. One of the amazing bits of informations pertains to the fact that the whole rape managed to take place within those 6 minutes. This in itself would be an amazing “feat”. However it’s even more amazing when one takes into consideration the physical stature of both people involved, DSK is not exactly tall or athletic while the chambermaid is 5’10″ and not exactly a frail little bird.

There is also extensive video & phone evidence as well as key-card room entry data strongly suggesting that hotel staff were acting in a very suspicious manner (to put it mildly) as well as video evidence of senior hotel staff performing a victory dance after notifying the police. Then there are also the mystery occupants in the room next to DSK’s, the long delay in reporting the manner to the police, suspicious phonecalls etc. etc.

So the big question is: Cui bono?

This can best be established by looking at the direct results of the accusations. There were 2 obvious results; Strauss-Kahn stepped down as head of the IMF and his chances to become the next French president were ruined. Let’s look at the first one; why would DSK need to be “removed” as head of the IMF? This is where a clear link to Ireland’s current dire financial state comes into play. At some point in 2010 following the Irish banking collapse it had become clear that the Irish government required a serious financial injection to prop up its financial sector. During ongoing talks with the IMF (headed by DSK) it become clear that the IMF supported a serious “haircut” for the bondholders before it was willing to reach into its coffers to help out Ireland. This meant that those bondholders would be asked to bear some of the costs as was to be expected in a free market economy. The IMF suggested to the Irish minister of finance  to haircut €30 billion of unguaranteed bonds by two-thirds on average. The Irish government was delighted as this would have represented a workable and realistic solution.

The deal was torpedoed from an unexpected direction. At a conference call with the G7 finance ministers, the haircut was vetoed by US treasury secretary Timothy Geithner who, as his payment of $13 billion from government-owned AIG to Goldman Sachs showed, believes that bankers take priority over taxpayers.

For those of you who do not know who Geithner is:  he’s an American economist, central banker, and civil servant. He is the 75th and current United States Secretary of the Treasury, serving under President Barack Obama. He was previously the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He has extremey strong links to private sector financial institutions. I strongly suggest reading up on his career-path and connections here.

So there is your reason,DSK was a supporter of “burning the bondholders” while Geithner with the might of corrupt politicians and Goldman Sachs behind him wanted otherwise. DSK had to be removed and preferably as quickly as possible. Not only should he no longer be in charge of the IMF he should certainly, under no circumstances, be allowed to become the next French president of France. France after all, together with Germany, decides what happens in the EU. You only need to look at how the Greek & Italian presidents were forced to step down under French & German pressure recently to see how absolute the German-Franco power is within the EU.

Enter Christine Lagarde, long time “friend” of Nick Sarkozy, as the candidate to take over DSK’s post at the IMF. Not surprisingly Lagarde’s candidacy is strongly supported by Geithner. Lagarde does not support haircuts for bondholders and strongly support so-called bailouts where in the end the taxpayers end up paying for losses willfully incurred by private sector institutions. As proof of the pudding all charges against DSK are dropped within days of Lagardes official appointment as head of the IMF.

So there you go, Geithners almighty rule is safe, the IMF is in banker-friendly hands, DSK’s hopes for Frances presidency are dashed and Ireland is truly to only real rape victim.

Or to be more exact; we do not have any digital or analog TV channels. That’s correct, no Xfactor, Big Brother, Dances with the stars, Masterchef, The apprentice, #VinB, no commercials, no infomercials, no editorials, no reviews and no sports.

Be we do have 5 kids.

So how does that work?

It didn’t come about as completely conscious decision. Some years ago we moved into a listed (protected) property which meant we could not mount a satellite dish on the building to receive Sky TV. Hence we were left with nothing but the terrestrial channels. Which in Ireland are 3. If you’re lucky. Which we are not. hence we had 2.5 TV channels. RTE1, RTE2 & a fuzzy TV3. And you know what? That was enough. Combine those channels with a healthy mix of DVD’s and you get a fairly healthy viewing package.   Even for our 5 kids ranging in age from 5 to 14 years. Sky TV or a different satellite service was sometimes mentioned but there was no big long lamenting for such a service.

Cue our most recent move. Our nice big 42″ flatscreen TV was damaged during the move and we have so far not replaced it. What we have for now is a small portable CRT TV. Additionally there is also no antenna for terrestrial TV mounted on our new house. Net result is that we have a big fat ZERO channels. Does it bother me? Does it bother my kids? I have yet to hear the first complaint.

So are we neo-luddites wary of any technological advancement? Not at all, we have just grown to be more selective about our viewing. Rather than just watching what our TV is being fed via the various channels we actually actively decide what we want to see. We rent DVD’s of movies we want to watch, download documentaries and series, and get our news through a variety of sources most of which are Internet based.  In short we get all the good stuff without all the crap. We are no longer bound by dates and times of broadcast. Yes I know that a lot of people pre-record programmes but the way we are doing it now we can see stuff that isn’t yet or won’t be on TV here. If there’s anything on the regular channels I can still watch it either live using one of the many web based streaming services or delayed using such things as the RTE player or BBC’s I-player. In short my viewing quality has gone up and become a lot more liberated.

Now for my kids. Do they “suffer”? Not really. They have their DVD’s and their game consoles (Xbox, Wii and DSi’s) and the eldest kids have their desktop computers, laptops and Touchpads combined with a healthy Facebook & YouTube addiction. No serious complaints apart from the fact that they would like a dedicated fiber internet connection each. But again, they have a choice in what they watch and use it.  Their viewing is not dictated by the limitations of location and/or service. And in hindsight they seem to be more balanced and less obsessed by the trivialities that are touted on a lot of the commercial TV channels.

Will we ever get a commercial TV service? I really do not know. I rather upgrade the computer network in my house so that I can stream movies straight from my server AND also view streaming internet services directly on my TV.

Before I do this we will however splash out on a better TV though.

The three centres in Galway, Cork and Limerick will be 40,000 square feet in size each and cost between £10m and £15m to develop.

The seven smaller operation in regional towns are expected to be 10,000 square feet.

I recently contacted the Webworks Galway to enquire about using it as a venue for CrisisCamp Ireland. I knew from prior contact that quite a few of the offices were vacant so I was hoping to use some of the larger ones and the open/public spaces to accommodate this event. My idea was that an event such as Crisiscamp might be a good fit for Webworks and might lead to more interest in the vacant offices. Their website gives the distinct impression that this is an Enterprise Ireland owned/run facility both because it is plastered in Enterprise Ireland logos and by the text used:

Enterprise Ireland Webworks Galway is a joint initiative between McNamara Construction, Enterprise Ireland and Galway City Council. Enterprise Ireland Webworks projects are designed to provide premium enterprise space for internationally traded service companies in a technologically superior building located in the heart of the city.

I was hence very surprised to get a call from an Enterprise Ireland representative telling me that they had nothing to do with the running of the building and that I should contact a local real estate agent who was managing the building. I was also told that this agency would more than likely have no interest in accommodating 1 day events. To be honest I was amazed by the dismissive attitude. Here is a prominent & expensive building, paid for with public funding, sitting mostly empty and there seemed to be no effort to monetize the asset. It was then that I recalled reading something about Webworks Cork being in a similar situation. Time to do some digging….

It soon turned out that most of the webworks buildings were built in a partnership between Enterprise Ireland and McNamara Construction (Galway Webworks) and Howard Holdings (Cork Webworks). Presume the plan was for the other 8 to be built under similar partnerships. Enterprise Ireland invested  €4.36 million in Webworks Galway & €3.82 million in Webworks Cork.  The occupancy levels are shockingly low:

Throughout its existence, the building has remained largely empty. According to its website, just 17 out if its 36 units are occupied. However, Enterprise Ireland has said the building occupancy is about 35% — suggesting a lower figure of around 13 units.

The Galway Webworks, opened in 2009, fares much worse with just seven out of its 42 units occupied.

Some follow-up research by me showed that Webworks Galway currently only has 2 paying tenants at the moment. One of these tenants stated that Enterprise Ireland had a 40% stakeholding in the building but pulled out 6 months or so ago when the other 60% (owned by McNamara Construction) became part of NAMA. The management of the building was contracted out to a third-party who shortly afterwards went into receivership and now all enquiries are handled by  DTZ Sherry Fitzgerald. A property firm like that would obviously have no interest in promoting or stimulating local entrepreneurship.  The listing on their own website doesn’t exactly go overboard in trying to sell the property. Another stumbling block to these buildings being used to their full potential lies in the requirements for potential tenants as well as the high rents.

It is understood that the lack of smaller technology- based operations in the Webworks buildings is, in large part, due to high rents and other service charges, putting its offices out of the price range of most SMEs.

Apparently the Cork Webworks building was up for sale some time but appears to have been taken of the market. There is an interesting discussion on it on Boards.ie. I couldn’t find any information on the other proposed webworks buildings.

It is truly amazing that facilities like these are lying unused. They could be put to good use providing low-cost or free accommodation for start-up companies allowing them to bring the overheads of starting up down and hence stimulating new business. You would expect the Irish government to at least attempt to maximise the use of their assets. A start-up incubator along the lines of what is discussed here would cost very little and have substantial realistic potential.

I know more than a few people who would be willing to invest time in getting such an initiative of the ground and keeping it going. I’m one of them.

Anyone who is interested in trying to do something about this facility being wasted please put a comment on this post with your ideas and I will get back to you.

DISCLAIMER:  I am no financial analyst, economist and any knowledge that I have in these areas is largely gained by reading. Hence the article below might contain wrong or incorrect conclusions or be just plain hyperbole on my behalf. However the facts mentioned and sources named are correct.

Like so many people I was amazed when I read the news last night that Germany had “found” 55 billion euro which had been overseen through an accounting error. The whole thing just doesn’t make sense. Because, to lose 55 billion, you have to first “lose” it. And to put it frankly what moron loses 55 billion?!

So I decided to read a bit more about it and discovered some astonishing facts:

• Apparently the 55 billion  it is equal to a ridiculous 1% of the country’s debt to GDP ratio. “Germany’s 2010 debt-to-GDP ratio also drops, to 83.2% from the previous 84.2%…
• This money obviously only exists electronically so is this just some creative QE?
• the value represents a quarter of Germany’s new ESFS obligation.

the German government welcomes the substantial progress FMS Wertmanagement has made in reducing the portfolio it took over from Hypo Real Estate a year ago”.

And that’s when a light went on in the back of my head. Something about Hypo and the Irish banking crisis. I recalled reading some references to Hypo & Ireland on the excellent Golem XIV blog. A quick search there led me to the articles I was thinking of. The information contained therein showed a clear historic link between the Irish banking crisis, Depfa and Hype Real Estate.

For those who aren’t already familiar with the Depfa and HRE story, here it is in a very small nut shell.  Hypo Real Estate was the huge German bank which we were all suddenly told, back in 2008, had to be bailed out by the German State at vast cost. But, they said, they had no choice, because Hypo (HRE) was so large and its debts so huge that if it collapsed it would, at the very least, bring down German banking.  It was Europe’s AIG – to big to be allowed to fail. Then the back story emerged.  HRE had bought ‘Irish’ bank Depfa at the top of the market at almost the same time as RBS bought ABN Ambro.  Both purchases were insane and both killed the purchasing bank.

the collapse of HRE was in fact due to a huge funding crisis at Depfa always referred to as ‘its Irish subsidiary’.  From that came the notion that Depfa must have hidden its true state from HRE

The above has apparently created a lot of bad blood in German financial & political circles. Depfa is seen as an Irish problem and hence it is the fault of the Irish that Depfa nearly killed Hypo. Some say that the Irish government should have bailed HRE/Depfa out. This suggestion is in itself ridiculous for one single reason alone. At the beginning of this year Ireland’s IMF bailout was in the region of 85 billion euro. The HRE/Depfa bailout alone stood at nearly 100 billion euro at that point…

The article goes on to explore the reasons why Depfa had located itself in Ireland. Apparently the Irish Financial Services Centre had built up a bit of a name as a “financial wildwest”. Regulation was loose or not enforced.

Money in various shades of shadiness flowed to Ireland.

What gave Ireland the edge over Luxembourg was it offered faster turn arounds on setting up deals and far more lax regulation.

So in short, Depfa was a German bank based in Ireland because of its lack of strict regulation. This allowed a lot of financial transactions and off the books accounting which was not possible in Germany itself. On of the main instruments for raising funds by Depfa was the so-called pfandbrief a triple-A rated German bank debenture. At the time of the Depfa bail out there were €806 Billion in Pfandbrief outstanding! If Depfa had gone down, it would have taken the AAA rated dependability of the Pfandbrief with it. There was no way that Ireland would have been able to absorb this astronomical amount so Hypo buying Depfa was probably the most logical option.

So to now read that 55 billion was just found on Hypo’s books that wasn’t there makes me extremely sceptical. In my opinion it’s just another case of smoke and mirrors that EU financial decision-making is full of. For years now we have been forced to pour vile amounts of money into black holes to pay for debts that we didn’t incur. None of the bailouts benefit the people who are actually paying for it and the EU/ECB seems to be set on accelerating this midnight train to nowhere.

It’s time to put a stop to this.

This afternoon I got a very pleasant surprise. One of my ventures, The Greenhouse Ireland, has been included in the “Best Startup Accelerator” category for the TechCrunch Europas. This was especially a surprise because we didn’t apply to be included and I had not heard of anyone putting us forward for it.

About the Europas:

Held annually, The Europas are the main European Awards for early stage Internet and Mobile technology startups. The are selected by a combination of an expert Advisory Board (which changes every year) and voting by the industry itself. The whole thing comes together on a special awards night in London, on November 17.

We are up against some stiff competition in this category but being included is a prize in its own. Anyway, we need votes to win and votes have to come from people. So please click on this link, scroll down to the fourth category from the top, mark the box in front of “Greenhouse (Ireland)” and then click the “VOTE” button at the bottom of the category.

THANK YOU!!

Click on the image below to register.

When mentoring start-ups and talking about equity, cap-tables, funding rounds etc. the term “dilution” come sup time and again. For most first time founders it has no meaning, they just want to get funded, bring their product to market and exit. During these funding rounds they sometimes get what’s know in industry terms “diluted to f*ck”.

Have a look at the below infographic and you will understand: