The Irish Clan Behind Europe's Rhino-Horn Theft Epidemic

Kannu

Here's a nice economics question for you. When supply is highly restricted, what should be the response of public policy? 

Compare the situation with rhino horns and say hard drugs. What does it tell you about the incoherence of public policy Vis a Vis demand and supply along with the legal responses? 

Love

Baba

The Irish Clan Behind Europe's Rhino-Horn Theft Epidemic
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-01-02/the-irish-clan-behind-europes-rhino-horn-theft-epidemic

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When the phone rang at about 3 a.m. on April 18, Nigel Monaghan was asleep on the floor in his office in Dublin, tangled in a sleeping bag. In his job as Keeper of the National Museum of Ireland’s natural history section, he was overseeing filming of the latest episode of a children’s TV special, Sleepover Safari. Ten children, their parents, and a film crew were spending the night in the museum, known locally as the Dead Zoo, surrounded by Ireland’s foremost collection of taxidermy.

The call was from the museum’s central security office. Four stuffed rhino heads—ones Monaghan had sent away for safekeeping a year earlier—had been stolen from the museum’s storage facility near the airport. At 10:40 p.m., three masked men forced their way in, tied up the single guard on duty, and found the shelves where the heads were kept. The trophies were heavy and awkward. Expertly stuffed and mounted by big game taxidermists at the turn of the 20th century, they were monstrous confections of skin and bone, plaster and timber, horsehair and straw. When Monaghan and his team had come to move the largest—that of a white rhino shot in Sudan in 1914, with a horn more than three feet long—it had taken four men just to lift it down from the museum wall. But the burglars were undeterred, and soon they had every head in the back of their white van. They took nothing else, and within an hour they were gone.

How Europe is seizing your pension assets

And this is happening all legally. Remember, you chaps, your money is not save from these grasping politicians who will rob the people who scrimp and save to give to the feckless and useless. Bloody thieves. Argentina did the same. And then these buggers want you to increase your pension contribution. Bah!, no wonder pensions are the furthest things from people’s minds.

I quote:

People’s retirement savings are a convenient source of revenue for governments that don’t want to reduce spending or make privatizations. As most pension schemes in Europe are organised by the state, European ministers of finance have a facilitated access to the savings accumulated there, and it is only logical that they try to get a hold of this money for their own ends. In recent weeks I have noted five such attempts: Three situations concern private personal savings; two others refer to national funds.

The most striking example is Hungary, where last month the government made the citizens an offer they could not refuse. They could either remit their individual retirement savings to the state, or lose the right to the basic state pension (but still have an obligation to pay contributions for it). In this extortionate way, the government wants to gain control over $14bn of individual retirement savings.

The Bulgarian government has come up with a similar idea. $300m of private early retirement savings was supposed to be transferred to the state pension scheme. The government gave way after trade unions protested and finally only about 20% of the original plans were implemented.

A slightly less drastic situation is developing in Poland. The government wants to transfer of 1/3 of future contributions from individual retirement accounts to the state-run social security system. Since this system does not back its liabilities with stocks or even bonds, the money taken away from the savers will go directly to the state treasury and savers will lose about $2.3bn a year. The Polish government is more generous than the Hungarian one, but only because it wants to seize just 1/3 of the future savings and also allows the citizens to keep the money accumulated so far.

The fourth example is Ireland. In 2001, the National Pension Reserve Fund was brought into existence for the purpose of supporting pensions of the Irish people in the years 2025-2050. The scheme was also supposed to provide for the pensions of some public sector employees (mainly university staff). However, in March 2009, the Irish government earmarked €4bn from this fund for rescuing banks. In November 2010, the remaining savings of €2.5bn was seized to support the bailout of the rest of the country.

The final example is France. In November, the French parliament decided to earmark €33bn from the national reserve pension fund FRR to reduce the short-term pension scheme deficit. In this way, the retirement savings intended for the years 2020-2040 will be used earlier, that is in the years 2011-2024, and the government will spend the saved up resources on other purposes.

It looks like although the governments are able to enforce general participation in pension schemes, they do not seem to be the best guardians of the money accumulated there. 

More European hypocrisy & stupidity

I quote from here:

Whilst President Vaclav Klaus was visiting Dublin there was an official dinner where he sat with the Irish Taoiseach, Brian Cowen. No doubt they had much to discuss.

Elsewhere the two first ladies were having a discussion. Mary Molloy, a member of the Lenihan political dynasty, remarked that the Irish had "voted wrongly" when they rejected the Lisbon Treaty. Livia Klausová, a respected economist, responded, "Well, were they wrong when they elected your husband?"

Given that Cowen, like British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, was not elected as PM this was, dare I say it, a little tart.

The breathtaking hypocrisy of the European politicians is simply astounding. As it so happens, Gordon Brown lied about the Reform Treaty being put to the British referendum in violation to his manifesto promises, but that twit lies through his incompetent teeth anyway.

Technorati Tags: EU,politics,Ireland,constitution

Evidence that Europe is elitist or mad

I have to admit that I did a little hop skip and jump when I passed a TV screen yesterday showing that the Irish had rejected the poxy EU Constitution. So, the bald facts are

1. The EU Reform treaty is rejected by Irish voters and by the rules of the EU, the entire treaty is now rejected.

So the people have spoken. And what do our people's representatives do? They persist in doing the SAME things that have lead people to reject the EU in its current shape. This qualifies them at best to be insane or at worst, to be corrupt, elitist, autocratic morons who are basically out of touch with the common man. See the BBC report here. And its basically across the continent. Here:

France and Germany have described the No vote in the referendum as a serious blow but have urged the EU to press ahead with the project.

So the people said no, but the leaders say yes, and lets just ignore what the people said, yes? Pesky people, who cares about those little people, no?

FRANK-WALTER STEINMEIER, GERMAN FOREIGN MINISTER

Naturally we are disappointed, it is a hard blow. Nevertheless, I am convinced that we need this treaty. Therefore we are sticking with our goal for it to come into force. The ratification process must continue.

HE believes it so it must go on, sod the people.

 

But here's the EC Head, Barroso who comes across as frankly a bit stupid. He says that the treaty is not dead. No? Its not dead? Really? Its as dead as the Norwegian blue parrot. The treaty is not going anywhere now. So the head of the EC says basically stupid things. I would have called him a liar, but stupid people's utterances are not lies, lies impute a degree of intelligence and motivation.

Then we have our little liar in our midst.

DAVID MILIBAND, UK FOREIGN SECRETARY

The Irish government have made clear they believe it's right for countries like Britain to continue the ratification process because there needs to be a British view as well as an Irish view... So I believe it's right that we continue with our own process and take up the Irish offer of further discussions about the next steps forward.

Did you notice that there was nothing in his statement about what the British people want? Of course, the British people do not want him and his lot anyway. So he is perhaps the foreign minister of one of the most unpopular governments in the recent times. Again, an elitist view of the world. Governments and elites talk to each other and decide for me, eh? Mr. Miliband, some people thought of you as a potential Prime Minister. Well, Sir, you are not. The British View is what the people say, not what you say. And if you say that your view is what the people want, lets put it to the test, shall we? When did I vote or say yes to this treaty? Oh! but I CAN CALL YOU A LIAR because YOU PROMISED in your manifesto for a referendum and then withdrew. Your frankly stupid protestations notwithstanding, you are basically a liar.

Thank you, Irish! As for the EU, remember the Danish referendum in 1992 and 2000? the Swedish rejection of the Euro? the French and Dutch rejections? And the previous Irish rejection? Here's an idea, try to look up what the word "rejecting" means in the bloody dictionary, you twits. I quote:

• To refuse to accept, submit to, believe, or make use of.
• To refuse to consider or grant; deny.
• To refuse to recognize or give affection to (a person).
• To discard as defective or useless; throw away.
• To spit out or vomit.

 

Technorati Tags: Ireland,EU,Europe,Constitution,democracy

The Irish Govt and the EU forget what democracy is

This makes me extremely cynical indeed. A constitution is supposed to be one of the foundations of the state and it is to be expected that the citizens would agree and appreciate it.

It just tells me the depths to which this European project has sunk that it is now reduced to whining and moaning about a dark future without this constitution. Only ONE country out of tens is asking its citizens about its constitution and that too is causing major issues. That is democracy for you, you elitist corrupt lot?

Bernard Kouchner, France's foreign minister says that "Irish voters were warned on Monday that the rest of the European Union would look at them with “gigantic incomprehension” if they rejected the bloc’s Lisbon reform treaty in Thursday’s referendum."

No, Bernard, we are looking at you with cynical comprehension that you are basically an elite, who have no pretensions towards democracy and the will of people. And it is indeed telling that you are uncomprehending of the will of the people. After all, you and your other European Elite never followed it, did you?

And then you have an unelected leader of a government which has perhaps the lowest popularity rating of any recent government in British History, busy signing up the country to a constitution which is crap.

Technorati Tags: Ireland,EU,Constitution

Machine Gun use is not gun-crime, its WAR!

I was gobsmacked when I read this.

The Garda Commissioner is to deploy the Emergency Response Unit to Limerick in the next few days following his discussions with the Justice Minister this afternoon.The decision follows an escalation in feud activity, including a machine gun attack on six houses in the St Mary's Park area of the city on Tuesday.The Commissioner briefed Brian Lenihan on Garda efforts to combat criminal activity in Limerick when they met earlier today.Commissioner Murphy said the ERU would provide back-up to existing armed patrols in an effort to crack-down on gun crime in the city.

When machine guns are used, for crying out loud, that's a war going on, not gun crime. Come on folks, this is not a joke!

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

The inherent contradictions in schools in secular countries are exposed

So what happens when most of the schooling in a country is based on Christian creed and is funded publicly? Furthermore, you are only allowed admission to the school if you are officially baptised. And say you are not a Christian, but say a Jedi or a Hindu. And the law states that all students much be educated. The result? a whole group of children are excluded from society and education. The country has to go through mental and physical contortions to fulfil its state obligations which go totally against its religious background.

Prior examples: France, Sweden and United Kingdom

Conclusion: Ireland is a non-secular discriminatory country.

Prediction: Ireland is going to face massive political and social problems up to and including race/ethnic riots in less than 10 years. This is even if they decide to do something about it today.

Read and weep.

Technorati Tags: education , schooling , Ireland