Nama...

What is nama? I really don’t have a clue so I am going to use this blog to educate myself. I have tried reading about it here and there but a few lines in I are so bogged down by all the jargon that I simply move on. Right so I know that NAMA stands for the National Asset Management Agency.
It is in response to our financial crisis and the collapse of our Irish property bubble. In the boom years bank lend out millions to property investors, these loans were secured on assets usually property. When the property bubble bust and house prices decreased the property investors could not pay back their loans usually because their housing estates or the likes could not sell. The capital that backed these loans was usually property so if they banks repossessed the properties they were still not making back their money due to the decrease in value. Banks were in serious financial difficulties due to this and a bank collapse could ruin our already weak economy the government have had to step in. They will take these bad loans of the bank and repay them at a reduced price 50%-70%. By doing this the bank will own a stake in the banks. I think that is it in a nut shell. By introducing NAMA it will free up money for mortgages and small to medium enterprise, it will restore the banks balance sheet to a good level and restore the banks credit rating. The government will sell these properties when hopefully the market will be improving and Nama will make money for the tax payer. As with everything there is some disadvantages to Nama, the customer will have to pay higher interest rates and extra costs, the banks will be short of money when they transfer them to Nama and while the loans are in Nama the developer/builder is expected to make repayments on these loans to cover the interest being charged on the government bonds, again if the builder can't pay the interest now how will he pay it next year in Nama, again the taxpayer to the rescue here. There is hot debate on Nama, some people feel that the tax payer will pick up the bill here and the huge investors and developers who have made millions in the boom will get off. Others feel that it is the only option in our current economic down turn. If our banks to collapse it would ruin our economy. If the banks do not have money, people can not get business loans or mortgages which would not allow our economy to grow.
All in all, after writing this blog I do feel that I do have a better understanding of Nama but a basic one at that, there is so much information out there. Everyone seems to have their own opinion on it which makes it difficult to conclude your own one but i do feel that although we may be still paying for Nama in years to come it may be our only option now. The government have control of our banks may lead to better managing of our banks and hopefully stop this from happening again. All the articles i have read are so text heavy that is hard not to get bogged down in these masses of information and technical jargon.

Does Religion have a place in our society?

Is there a place for religion in our modern society? That is a tough question and on that is very much taboo in our Irish culture as we have always been a society where we embraced the Catholic Church. In my parents generation religion was a part of every day life; my mum would say prayers at every meal and before bed. Growing up we would have always went to mass on a Sunday morning until going out on Saturday nights got in the way. I don’t go to mass and don’t consider myself to be religious but I still believe in my faith. I feel this is the same way for many people my age; we just don’t have time to go to mass and may even view it as being uncool. I also feel that the abuse many people suffered at the hands of the Catholic Church has lead many people to loosing their faith. Fighting in the North of Ireland and religious sectarianism I feel has also lead to religion not having a place in society today. People have seen first hand the hurt and damage done by fighting and even practising your religion can do so this I fee has also been a factor in less people practising their religion.
As Ireland is now a multicultural society and different religions come hand in hand with that. We have now been exposed to new religions and maybe see the holes in our own? Our society is now not dominated by the Catholic Church. I would like to think that every religion now has a place in our society but I am not too sure. I read an article recently that a French woman had went to the European court of human rights and won her case that religious symbols did not have a place in the class room. Do I fee this is right? No i don’t, if a child is attending a Catholic or Muslim school do they not hold the right to display their religious symbols? I feel that they do. I feel it is things like this that is slowly nudging religion even more so out of our society. However i do feel that religion should not be forced upon us and we all should have a right to choose our own “God”. For most people religion is a personal thing. At this moment i feel that religion is still very much still intergraded into our Irish society, we still get our children christened, they receive their Holy Communion and conformation, we still have religious weddings and funerals. Maybe in the next generation this may change but I feel that religion still has a place in society maybe even more than what we are aware of.

Social Networking Sites!!

A social network service focuses on building online communities of people who share interests and/or activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. Most social network services are web based and provide a variety of ways for users to interact, such as e-mail and instant messaging services.
Social networking sites have become a way for a life for my generation. We are constantly checking our pages and chatting to friends on it. We even play games on it...e.g. Farmville on face book which I am completely obsessed with at the moment. To me the craze of social networking sites came out of no where, I remember hearing about bebo and not having a clue about it. When I first joined it I was totally confused but soon got the hang of it and even quicker got addicted. It is such an easy way for friends to keep in touch and especially for students who may not have credit. Every weekend most girls take out cameras and upload their pictures of the night. I have no moved on form bebo and joined Face book and it seems to be more “mature”. I much prefer the features on face books and feel it is more users friendly. We add friends we have met once and i have seen people who have 700 “friends” on face book. It is all a bit crazy.
One negative aspect to this explosion of social networking sites is addiction. Addiction to these websites has become increasingly worrying. Last week I read an article about a woman who had her children taken of her as she had neglected them. She was spending up to twelve hours a day on face book and other social networking sites. In Japan they are limiting the amount of time that people can game as people were dying from not eating and sleeping. There is even been rehabilitation clinics set up for people addicted to the internet. Should the government limit our time on these sites? Will be loose all out social skills by sitting using face book al day? Another negative aspect is how much time is lost in businesses due to employees being on social networking sites instead of doing work; many companies have taken the action and banned these sites from the workplace.

The E-Sex Industry

The sex Industry is a massive part of the internet. It accounts for 12% of all internet sites, if you think of all the content on the internet from internet shopping to blogs and to social networking sites you get the idea of how big and therefore how profitable the e-sex business actually is. As accurate statistics is very hard to get on the e-sex industry due to people not giving correct answers as they may feel embarrassed or maybe the company isn’t paying tax so they cant be tracked. A rough estimated is that it is worth $57.0 billion annually world wide and “sex” is the most searched term on the internet.
As many people don’t know the sex business was a pioneer to the internet we know today. They were the first to use video conferring, VOIP, Geo location software and advertising on the web. These are just a few to name a few. For me I think the most impressive is how they pioneered the e-commerce, they were one of the first to use a payment system. They allowed the customers to pay for the content in a safe way.
As the sex industry is a taboo subject among society so as you can imagine they are people for and against it. The antipornography argument feels that pornography undermines family, authority and society’s moral and should be contained. Others feel it is a way to silence and assault women, reinforce dominance and encourage abuse against women. Some also believe that it is more about power than sex. Arguments for anticensorship feel that restrictions against pornography will lead to a society rules by censorships and the ability to try and challenge sexual stereotypes. It is not clearly shown that pornography actually harms women.
In my opinion I feel that pornography and the sex industry as a whole should not be censored but we should not be bombarded with it either. I feel it is up to the parent to protect their child from it by monitoring their internet use and buying parent control software for their computer.
Either way if you are for or against the e-sex industry you can deny how influenced the internet to what we know now.