You have 10 billion to spend on this country - what would you do with it ?

Buy oil - 36 dollars a barrel - whytf are we giving it to these tools in the banks when they're up to no good with the moolah ?

Oil will be $120 a barrel in five years, the banks will be long gone by then.

Or can governments not get involved in buying that kind of stock for their people ? What would you do with 10 billion euros for your country ?

Quote :

What would you do with 10 billion euros for your country ?

Roof it, obviously. Sure 'twould be a grand country if only you could roof it...

Oil at 35.62 - that's another X barrels since the first post. We'd get around 278 million barrels for 10 bil. @ oil < $36

Kate the grass wouldn't grow if you roofed it.

I'd give it all to Seán Fitzpatrick and all his friends.

Is mise le meas,

Brian Lenihan

Auditor #9 wrote:

Kate the grass wouldn't grow if you roofed it.

Course it would... we'd roof it like the Eden Project...

Audi

May be a good investment but why give the Arabs your money if you don't have to?

Firstly I would employ people, perhaps on a fee related to the savings made, to look at the public services and ways to reduce costs or how to utilise existing assets better. I would offer good rewards for anyone within the public services who could come up with workable ways of improving efficiency. I would ask various sectors to draw up wish lists of what they need to be more competitive and see what modifications in legislation may be necessary. First and foremost we need an efficient economy, arguments about the scope of Private versus government is a separate issue.

10 billion won't go far so what you want to do is use it to encourage greater investment in areas you consider strategically important to future economic stability. Food, energy and communications? I would try and encourage the setting up of local coops to run their own energy generation, forestry etc. The government could lend a percentage or acquire a part ownership. Encourage the growth and retention of local wealth. Promote a bottom up approach so that ordinary people have better opportunity.

Squire wrote:

First and foremost we need an efficient economy, arguments about the scope of Private versus government is a separate issue.
..
Encourage the growth and retention of local wealth. Promote a bottom up approach so that ordinary people have better opportunity.

Forestry would be great - we have 9% forested land when other EU countries have around 30% which I think is a serious disadvantage in an energy insecure world. I think forests would have plenty of other advantages if they were managed properly too - wouldn't they contribute to the general ecosystem of animals, soil erosion prevention etc. ? Might even suffice as a kind of roof in itself and an Eden project beside the forests would be cool.

You'd get a load done for 10 billion but how labour-intensive would it be ? It'd definitely be local. Seems like we'll be needing to soak up some unemployed in the very near future.

There is vacillating I believe and lack of conviction on decision making here because of the Public/Private debate I feel. We're afraid we'll turn into communists if we make public decisions.

If the banks get the 10 billion they'll have lots of land to give to their new shareholder, the Irish State won't the ? Maybe we could get people to learn how to grow all sorts of trees and plant the land.

You'd get 10 GigaWatts of wind energy for that . And a week in Trabolgan.

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

You'd get 10 GigaWatts of wind energy for that . And a week in Trabolgan.

I'd say they're more into 10 years in Trabolgan with a GigaWatt planned in a document to be implemented over the next five.

10 GWs is twice what Ireland needs in electricity - we'd be able to export some, sometimes. Did you do your sums on it - is it true ?

You might buy the 10GW worth of turbines alright, but you can't buy wind.

Yeah, It's approx 1 Million euro per Megawatt.
What is our peak demand ?

Quote :

Promote a bottom up approach so that ordinary people have better opportunity.

My instinct is also to go for a bottom up approach of sorts, but where exactly is the bottom?

It's also my instinct that without significant restructuring or a shift in the way we do all business in this country, nothing much will change. So my 10bn would probably go into root-and-branch reform of government agencies, with particular focus on education, justice and health. I like the way Brendan Drumm and Tom Keane think about the management of the health service, though I appreciate that the pace of change is far too slow for them in the current system. If their visions can be realised in the way they sell them, I'd be happy to throw a portion of my 10bn at them to do it immediately.

I'd also completely reform social welfare, and look carefully at the longterm unemployed and access to the dole.

coc wrote:

You might buy the 10GW worth of turbines alright, but you can't buy wind.

I just heard a recent archive of Fitzpatrick lauding the strenghts of Anglo from a few weeks and months ago - are you sure of the statement above given his salary ?

Here is the wind for today for example. Ireland has max 1060 MW (> 1GW) installed - not bad huh ? The wind mightn't blow all the time but when it blows it doesn't blow bullshit



EVM - peak demand is around 6 GW.

edit
sorry max is just around 5 by this link

http://www.ise.ie/app/popup_graph.asp?INDEX_TYPE=

Was that half hour flatline the 10 billion going in?

cactus flower wrote:

http://www.ise.ie/app/popup_graph.asp?INDEX_TYPE=

Was that half hour flatline the 10 billion going in?

It looks like a map of Fanore in the Burren to me. Only small cliffs left at that point of the terrain.

edit
jaysus oil is at $33 - we could have just missed 298,507,462 barrels of oil.

edit edit
10,000,000,000.00 EUR = 13,984,944,593.97 USD

= 417461032 barrels of oil ...

F*! We're missing out big style lads.

Auditor #9 wrote:

Or can governments not get involved in buying that kind of stock for their people ? What would you do with 10 billion euros for your country ?

They can do that through sovereign wealth funds, government-backed investment banks and through national pension reserve funds. You would simply put the money into the national pension reserve and instruct Auntie Mae to go buy us our barrels of oil and yes, we can profit grandly when the economic logic of the underlying forces of demand and supply re-assert themselves. Oil is a long-term ticket to the upside.

I guess 50 billion is closter to a useful amount. I'd spend some on a cost benefit analysis of the NDP projects - that would i guess give another 20 billion to play with immediately (Metro North would be gone, for a start). I'd stop all Dail pensions being paid unless to over 65s without alternative income.
Send the CAB after the bankers. Another billion or so.

I'd spend the 30 billion or so on broadband, a publically-controlled grid supplied by Irish renewables, food security and education and on an extension for Mountjoy to hold all our white collar criminals.

I'd take it outside Leinster House, pour petrol over it and light it up.

The destruction of currency is illegal I know. But if it were truly mine I could do with it whatever I wanted. Do I own it or does it own me?

Hermes wrote:

I'd take it outside Leinster House, pour petrol over it and light it up.

The destruction of currency is illegal I know. But if it were truly mine I could do with it whatever I wanted. Do I own it or does it own me?

Not a lot of difference between that and putting it into Anglo-Irish at my guess - at least you could warm your hands.

cactus flower wrote:

Hermes wrote:

I'd take it outside Leinster House, pour petrol over it and light it up.

The destruction of currency is illegal I know. But if it were truly mine I could do with it whatever I wanted. Do I own it or does it own me?

Not a lot of difference between that and putting it into Anglo-Irish at my guess - at least you could warm your hands.

It's a thought that's always intrigued me. What would happen if everyone took their money into the streets and burned it?

Hermes wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

Hermes wrote:

I'd take it outside Leinster House, pour petrol over it and light it up.

The destruction of currency is illegal I know. But if it were truly mine I could do with it whatever I wanted. Do I own it or does it own me?

Not a lot of difference between that and putting it into Anglo-Irish at my guess - at least you could warm your hands.

It's a thought that's always intrigued me. What would happen if everyone took their money into the streets and burned it?

Mine regularly burns a hole in my pocket alright but eh yeah that would be some kind of extreme enlightenment if everyone did that with their money.

Why is it illegal to burn it ??

It's illegal to destroy it because it's not yours. It's merely a promissory note.

Hermes wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

Hermes wrote:

I'd take it outside Leinster House, pour petrol over it and light it up.

The destruction of currency is illegal I know. But if it were truly mine I could do with it whatever I wanted. Do I own it or does it own me?

Not a lot of difference between that and putting it into Anglo-Irish at my guess - at least you could warm your hands.

It's a thought that's always intrigued me. What would happen if everyone took their money into the streets and burned it?

I've just started reading a book on the economy of the Soviet Union and it seems they did abolish money for a time.