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Figures released this morning from business risk analysts Vision-net.ie show that 45 per cent of company insolvencies recorded were in Dublin, followed by 19 per cent in Cork and 6 per cent in Galway. |
However, there were some encouraging signs amid the figures: manufacturing, for instance, experienced 50 per cent fewer insolvencies last month, compared to August 2013 (just 5, compared to 10 last year). |
In the motor industry, there were no insolvencies at all last month. |
There was even more good news under the ‘company start-ups’ heading… 983 companies were formed last month — up 8.4 per cent on the same month last year (amounting to 38 start-ups every day). |
Industries badly affected by the recession experienced positive growth, with construction start-ups rising 30 per cent (82, compared to 63 last year). |
The number of finance start-ups also grew, with 53 companies founded compared to 21 last August. Real estate start-ups increased too — with 44 recorded, compared to 31 in 2013. |
Vision-net’s Managing Director Christine Cullen said the increase in finance start-ups could be indicative of greater liquidity in the lending market, “particularly in the mortgage market”. |
Overall, the figures contained good news for sectors ”hit particularly hard by the recession” she said. |
Read: Which industry did Irish consumers complain about most in 2013? |
Email “Almost 1,000 new companies were formed in Ireland last month”. |
Feedback on “Almost 1,000 new companies were formed in Ireland last month”. |
Roberto Martinez, the Belgium manager, has been forced to angrily deny that his final World Cup squad was inadvertently revealed by a television report that showed the team’s mattresses. |
Footage of 23 mattresses, each labelled with a player’s name, was shown on Belgian broadcaster VRT, despite Martinez not yet announcing the five players who will be cut from his provisional 28-man squad next week. |
The incident was seen as an embarrassing gaffe after viewers deducted from the absent names that goalkeeper Matz Sels, defenders Christian Kabasele and Jordan Lukaku, midfielder Leander Dendoncker and winger Adnan Januzaj would not be included in the final squad. |
But Martinez said there was “no truth whatsoever” to the story, which has already been dubbed ‘mattress gate’ in Belgium. |
“I do not think there is a lot to explain,” said Martinez, whose side meet Portugal in a friendly in Brussels on Saturday night. “There is no truth whatsoever that the story is bringing light on the final 23. |
“Is there a list that has been sent round to the partners? No. It is very clear there is no truth whatsoever behind the story. |
“Then there is a little bit of disappointment. This is information that goes to the fans, to the players, to the players’ families. |
“The truth is that we are unfortunately getting used to seeing stories that do not really affect us. Unfortunately we are not talking about Portugal and the effort that the players are putting in to becoming a stronger team. |
‘Mattress gate’ is the latest incident in a difficult few weeks for Martinez, who has been heavily criticised for not selecting Radja Nainggolan, the Roma midfielder, in his World Cup squad. |
Amid protests against the decision, Martinez’s Wikipedia page was even updated to read that the former Everton manager had been “dismissed and burnt at the stake” at Heysel. |
Martinez, who last month signed a two-year contract extension, called for the support of the fans in the clash with Portugal, one of three Belgium friendlies before the World Cup. |
Meanwhile, defender Jan Vertonghen has warned that this year’s World Cup may be the last opportunity for some members of Belgium’s so-called ‘Golden Generation’ to show their quality on the biggest stage. |
In June 2018, Southeast Kentucky Community Technical College (SKCTC) took a field trip that included stops at the AIG-run Ark Encounter and Creation Museum. In attendance were middle and high school students participating in a school sponsored Scholars Program. |
The non-secular nature of the field trip was criticized by sources such as the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), the Kentucky ACLU, the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF), and Daniel Phelps, a professional geologist and president of the Kentucky Paleontological Society. |
The FFRF responded with a January 8, 2019 memorandum to all Kentucky public schools, warning of the constitutional dangers of such visits. |
Amid growing concerns over how “religious liberties” cases might play out before the recently-cemented conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court, this could be a troubling development. |
According to an article in the Middlesboro Daily News, the SKCTC trip was part of a summer Scholars Program led by Dr. Carolyn Sundy and included on-campus science studies in addition to visits to secular attractions in Kentucky and Ohio. Dr. Sundy did not respond to interview requests, but Amy Simpson, SKCTC’s Directo... |
However, that “one stop along the way” may have been a serious breach of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution, which does not permit a state-financed institution (e.g., a school) to promote a particular religious viewpoint. |
“Given that Answers in Genesis is quite forthright about the fact that its attractions exist in order to promote a specific set of religious beliefs, I think that there’s a good case to be made that the Establishment Clause was indeed violated,” says Glenn Branch, Deputy Director of the NCSE. |
One need not search far to justify Ms. Reid’s caution to Dr. Sundy. Children entering the Ark are immediately confronted by a warning from Satan, telling them that their souls are at risk if they don’t believe in a global flood. Another exhibit informs them that, because they’re sinners, they deserve to die. |
How such overtly menacing displays qualify as “world class scientific exhibits” (as per Ham), is anyone’s guess. But to say the exhibits don’t run afoul of the Establishment Clause’s prohibitions would be difficult indeed. |
“We remind teachers and state officials that religious education is best left to parents and churches, not school or government,” says Heather Gatnarek, Staff Attorney of the Kentucky ACLU. |
Asked whether her college allowed the use of scholarship funds for religious activities, Ms. Simpson replied, “according to KCTCS [Kentucky Community Technical College System] legal counsel, there is no legal precedent that suggests a public higher education institution can have no interaction with or exposure to anyth... |
To critics, however, the source of the scholarship funds is not the issue. Rather, it’s government-funded schools visiting attractions that promote a singular religious viewpoint. |
These same critics also took aim at the “science” in AIG science exhibits. |
“None of these beliefs have any scientific credibility whatsoever, and insofar as the Scholars program leads students to think otherwise, it will hinder their ability to flourish in higher education,” continued Ms. Reid. |
When asked whether Scholars Program students were warned that AIG exhibits did not represent scientific theory, Ms. Simpson declined to comment. |
SKCTC frequently used the phrase “cultural enrichment” to describe its field trip. Is this just another euphemism for teaching religion in public schools? It would join “biblical literacy” classes, which debuted in 2017 when Governor Matt Bevin (R-KY) signed a law legalizing Bible study in Kentucky’s classrooms. |
Ostensibly created to teach students how the Bible shaped American history, the literacy classes have at times been found to be something entirely different. |
In October 2018, Governor Bevin used his official government Twitter account to encourage students to participate in “Bring Your Bible to School Day,” an event sponsored in part by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). The ADF, a group of over 3,000 attorneys, boasts of donating over one million pro bono hours defendin... |
Although Ken Ham doesn’t specifically mention the ADF when hinting that free help is available to schools that visit the Ark, it doesn’t escape notice that the ADF and Answers in Genesis already have a working relationship. The ADF recently represented an AIG employee who sued the National Park Service over the right t... |
The myriad forces working to put state-sponsored religion back on the menu in Kentucky schools have significant political, financial and legal backing. Euphemisms such as “cultural enrichment” and “biblical literacy” have allowed them to get a foot in the door. A prominent court case could see that door swung wide open... |
SKCTC’s Ark Encounter trip was not the first instance of a public school visiting an AIG attraction. If Ken Ham has his way, it won’t be the last. |
With civil rights advocates expressing fear over what might happen when religious-themed cases appear before the conservative majority Supreme Court, the state of Kentucky, famous for bourbon, college basketball, and Thoroughbred horses, may ignominiously become better known for setting the precedent for legalized pros... |
Or, because AIG and its allies have not promised free legal help (only hinted at the prospect), one or more public schools, already struggling financially, may visit the Ark, “take the lawsuit,” and then find themselves abandoned, burdened with the costs of expensive Establishment Clause litigation. |
Either way, it would all begin with a school field trip. |
MARK ALSIP is a science advocate who has written for Patheos, Forbes, Skeptical Inquirer, the National Center for Science Education, and others. He debunks pseudoscience through his blog Bad Science Debunked (click 'More About the Author') and can be reached via Twitter at @MarkAaronKY. He makes his home in Lexington, ... |
Reaching 'Faith Healers' Is an Urgent Public Health Need. How Do We Do It? |
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Things have looked grim for a while at Sears Holdings. Usually, this is not good for the people who own and run such companies. But for Eddie Lampert, who is Sears’ chairman, CEO, controlling shareholder and major creditor? Yea, as suspected, the inevitable death of an icon of American capitalism and retailing on his w... |
Lampert, the company’s chief executive, main shareholder and a key lender through his hedge fund ESL Investments Inc., is unlikely to lose much money, even as other shareholders are wiped out. That’s because Lampert, again and again, has positioned himself to benefit from the moves required to keep Sears in business wh... |
Lampert came to the job with a view to making it work, but “when the attempt looked like it was going to fail, he switched into the hedge-fund role rather than the retail role,” said Chuck Tatelbaum, chairman of the creditors-rights practice group at the law firm Tripp Scott…. |
Analysts agree that Sears’s demise is mostly the result of Lampert’s failure to understand the fast-changing retail sector over the last 10 years and his neglect of the actual stores, which are drab and carry an ever-dwindling inventory, much of it heavily discounted. |
It’s “the longest-running corporate liquidation probably in history,” said Ted Stenger, a managing director with AlixPartners in New York. |
Speaking of which, Lampert’s pretty eager to speed up that part of the process. But if the current Sears board is as unconcerned with the wants and desires of its largest shareholder and creditor as the board of Sears Canada apparently was, or if the Mounties say he can’t have Kenmore and PartsDirect and the other two ... |
The retailer has identified 100 unprofitable stores in total, and it will begin closing sales at 72 of these stores "in the near future…." Losses are mounting. In the first quarter, Sears reported it had a loss of $424 million, or $3.93 per share. Revenue fell more than 30 percent to $2.89 billion from $4.2 billion a y... |
Maybe Eddie Lampert Knows What He’s Doing With Sears? |
Today’s hot take: There’s a method to this seeming madness. |
As Australian political parties prepare for three big elections in the next six months, they are adopting sophisticated 'big data' crunching techniques to target voters. |
Using information from third party data brokers, cross-referenced with Census data and the electoral roll, parties are able to build sophisticated models of how people will vote. |
On the eve of the Victorian state election and in the lead up to the NSW and federal elections, 7.30 investigated modern campaigning and the role big data plays. |
And it's all perfectly legal. |
Brigid Cottrill is an undecided voter living in Melbourne. |
7.30 analysed the type of picture an interested political party could potentially build up about her based on legally available data. |
They start with her name, address and age, obtained through the electoral roll. |
They can then predict her views on tax policy because they know her estimated credit score and income, based on where she lives. |
She's likely to be interested in childcare policy because she entered a kids' furniture competition and the company can share that data. |
Ms Cottrill found the results alarming. |
"I think that's actually really scary," she told 7.30. |
"I want to be able to make a choice for who I vote for based on my beliefs and I don't want to be targeted by things that they think that I want to hear, as opposed to information that I can gather myself." |
Data brokerage firms offer slabs of segmented consumer data which can be used for political campaigning, but it is the sources of their data collection that may surprise some voters. |
Anonymised consumer data can include responses to surveys, phone polling, loyalty card schemes, credit score information, competition entries, social media profiles. |
These are all able to be aggregated into sophisticated data sets for advertisers, or political parties wanting an edge. |
The process is known as segmentation and is all in the fine print when you sign up for these services. |
When this data is cross matched with other demographics, such as age, gender and location, you can model a powerful picture of potential voter trends. |
The Liberal Party in Victoria has reportedly adopted the use of i360 — political campaigning software from the US which has been used successfully in a number of Republican Party campaigns, and boasts it holds data on 199 million US voters. |
The party declined to answer any questions about i360, and i360 itself didn't respond to several approaches from 7.30. |
The Liberal Party in South Australia also used this software in its state election win earlier this year. |
In SA Labor's post-election analysis, it conceded i360 was a factor in the election result in that state. |
According to electoral commission documents, the South Australian Liberal Party paid almost $200,000 for the i360 service. |
The ALP uses its own in-house software, Campaign Central, to help target voters. |
The ALP declined to answer any of 7.30's detailed questions about its use of voter software or whether it uses consumer data. |
"Our campaign is focused on talking to Victorians about the things that matter to them," a spokesman said in a statement. |
The Greens use an in-house data platform called GVIRS but say they do not buy in any data. |
Greens campaign director Michael Poland says political parties should not be buying in data. |
"We're really concerned that not only do the Liberals and Labor Party continually weaken our privacy laws, but there are increasing reports of them using data like consumer data to try and influence elections," Mr Poland said. |
Digitals Rights Watch advocate Tim Singleton Norton says political parties should not be exempt from the Privacy Act. |
"I think the main concern is that political parties are exempt from the Privacy Act," he said. |
"They are not beholden to the same rules that other people are in terms of whether or not they are respecting and protecting individual data or information they have about Australian citizens." |
Mr Singleton Norton believes consumers are being tricked into providing their personal data, through complex user agreements for things like rewards cards, without realising where their data may end up. |
"Everything that goes into these data troves is, in theory, acquired with informed consent, i.e. you've scrolled through 17 pages of terms and conditions and you click 'accept'," he said. |
"Now, that's part of the problem. The emphasis is on the consumer. And the consumer has to be educated, has to be informed, and understand what they are giving away." |
Data scientist and Obama 2012 director of digital analytics Amelia Showalter said while big data was being touted as the next big thing in political campaigning, that view must be tempered with what it can actually achieve. |
"Having models about each voter and trying to estimate which way they are likely to vote, one way or another, is helpful to us maybe only in a couple of percentage points," she said. |
"So it's not something that can drastically change the race, but in a really close race maybe it's something that can make the difference." |
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