A WHOLE ‘LOTTO’ LUCK

Dear Editor,

The main lotto players helped to improve its sales in 2008 by 6%, up from 358 million euro to 381.5.

Total sales inclusive of scratch cards and euro millions etc reached 840 million from which 455 million was paid out in prize money, leaving 385 million to be shared between the promoters and the Government.

Those are the facts and surely indicate how profitable the lotto is to both the Government and the promoters and how difficult it is for the punters to win.

When the lotto consisted of 42 numbers and the gamble of any 6 from 42 would take 5,245,786 efforts to guarantee a win. When the lotto was raised to 45 numbers the chances of not winning was increased to 8,145,060.

In a country of 4 million inhabitants, inclusive of babies, the chances of anyone winning is emphasised by results.

In the period 3/1/’09 to 28/3/09 inclusive there were 25 lotto draws. The main jackpot was won 5 times and except on one occasion, amounted to multiple millions.

Jackpot 1 was won 4 times and jackpot 2 was won 3 times. Each time that jackpots are not won they generate more profit for both the promoter and the Government as the main jackpot top prize is only increased by 7 to 800,000 and the other two remain the same.

A national lotto is usually designed pro rata to the population of assumed punters, that is why the Euro draw and the British lotto have more numbers and the prize money is a percentage of the takings.

The fact that in Ireland every individual, big and small would have to pick two sets of 6 numbers, making certain that they were not copied by anyone else in order to make certain that the jackpot is won at the present time the jackpot may not be won for a number of weeks, one lady won when the jackpot was about 15 million.

Winning a sum of money of that size may create more problems than benefits, you discover that you have more relatives and dependants than you ever dreamed of and you accumulate more enemies than real friends.

In 2007 the Government received over €240 million as its share of the spoils and the minister responsible put his friends at the top of the list of recipients of the share out.

Every week that none of the jackpots are won, nearly 2 million euro is added to the pots which the promoter and Government share. That occurred in 14 out of the 25 draws between 3/1/’09 and 28/3/’09.

If I was sure that good genuine causes only benefited from the lotto and not the promoters and ministers friends, I would not be concerned.

If the lotto is reduced to 40 or 42 numbers there will be more winners, winners of less money but more frequently and they will enjoy winning perhaps even €15,000 more than the lady who won €15 million.

When the lotto was increased to 45 numbers it became a certain money-making mechanism for the Government and the promoters.

Richard Prendergast,
Mondaniel,
Rathcormac.

THE GREATEST ROBBERY EVER

(The following is the text of a letter addressed by Kevin Finn to the Minister for Finance, Brian Lenihan TD)

Dear Minister,

The exercise of national rectitude being indulged in by this Government to bail out bankers, builders and their bedfellows is an exercise in wanton pride not to say sheer nonsense and one which is inflicting immeasurable and unnecessary pain on Pat citizen now and our children’s children into the distant future.

In short, the inmates are indeed in charge of the asylum. What is worse, they do not know it and we have not told them loudly enough.

The National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) is a robbers’ charter to take from the ordinary Pat citizen of Ireland and give to international banks and bondholders who in a greedy frenzy bankrolled Irish banks who in turn pressed it into the palms of developers and unsuspecting homeowners alike duped into taking on unsupportable debt. NAMA should instead be called GRAB – the Great Robbery Association of Bankers.

Those international banks and bondholders, so-called experts in financial wizardry of all kinds, took on the risks involved, and should now be compelled to pay the price by accepting a discount on the bonds, approx.

50c in the euro or risk losing all if the banks are allowed to go bust. In such a scenario the Government should compulsory take over the Irish bank clearing system, set up two new clean banks and let the existing banks go to the wall.

The NAMA is instead a plan to bail them out and subject the people of Ireland and generations to follow to insurmountable debt and penury for generations. This is an accounting problem being forged for reasons of sheer Government pride into a debt problem.

Put simply, the Governments of the major currencies are the lenders and underwriters of last resort. They should simply take over the bank debt and print money in a balanced way to get rid of the debt.

Under such a system the major currencies would devalue at the same rate and the relative devaluation would be zero, thereby preserving the stability of the global financial system, but with one key difference, the ordinary Joe and Pat citizen would not have this mountain of debt hanging over us and our children for generations to come, the only antidote to which would be a period of hyper inflation to reduce the debt to manageable amounts.

Such a prospect would be a further wild swing of the financial pendulum and itself unthinkable.

The only realistic solution is for the ECB to commence a form of quantum easing by printing money and giving Irish and other EU Governments an interest free loan over an indefinitely long period. The loan would in effect never be repaid, at least until inflation reduces it almost to zero.

The international banks and bondholders took the risk and should now take the pain. Every citizen should demand such a solution now from this strangled Government lost in the fog of pride trying desperately to defend the indefensible, the unsupportable and the insurmountable.

Yours truly,
Kevin T Finn,
King’s Square,
Mitchelstown.

GETTING THROUGH THE RECESSION

Dear Editor,

We all know that we face unprecedented economic problems at this time of global recession.

But we are in a much stronger position to address these challenges as a committed and key member of both the European Union and of the Eurozone. The European Union is assisting Irish economic recovery on a number of fronts. We know that there is no sliver bullet to solve the serious problems that we face.

But the European Union is providing support to Irish small and medium sized enterprises, to our research companies, to Irish agriculture and our food industries, to support re-training programmes for people who have lost their jobs and to develop broadband in all parts of Ireland.

The European Union and the Eurozone have been sources of real stability even during the most difficult economic times experienced for decades. We can and we will pull through this recession with the support of the European Union.

We can and we will secure new investment into our country as a committed and key member of the European Union.

Staying at the heart of the European Union is the message that people who create jobs want to hear.

Yours sincerely,
Brian Crowley MEP,
President UEN Group in the European Parliament,
Fianna Fail MEP for Munster.