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Updated, 15:55
SO – WE ALL JUST got a little bit richer. (No, really: only a little bit.)
The European Union’s surprise victory of the 2012 Nobel Prize for Peace – announced in Oslo this morning – also means a cash prize that might make a small contribution in solving the continental debt crisis.
It really only will be a small contribution though: this year, due to the general tightening of belts around the continent, the prize money for Nobel winners has been cut. Previously there was a bounty 0f 10 million Swedish kronor for every prize: this year that’s been cut to 8 million.
That, according to today’s exchange rate, is €923,368. If you want to say that in another way, that’s €0.00178 for every man, woman and child living in the 27-member European Union.
Yep: that’s 0.178 cent per person.
The smallest euro coin is a 1c piece – so even if Messrs Barroso, Van Rompuy and Schulz agreed to send the money directly to member states for distribution among the population, you wouldn’t be able to hold your winnings.
Right now, interest rates are relatively low. AIB will give you 3 per cent interest on deposits. If that rate stayed the same forever, it would take 59 years before your winnings would reach the magical one cent amount.
Of course, with inflation as it is, the chances are that the 1c coin won’t be in circulation in 2071 – in fact, with Finland and the Netherlands already effectively scrapping the 1c and 2c coin, even the 5c piece might be gone by then.
So if we were to assume that the 10 cent coin is likely to survive a currency cull, we would need our winnings to reach 10 cent before we could actually hold it. At current interest rates, it would take 137 years to increase in value by that much.
Even then, there’s no way of being sure that we’ll still have a 10 coin (or even a euro currency, eh?) by the year 2149.
So – if you really want to hold your Nobel prize? Ask for it to be distributed in Iranian rial*, the value of which is diminishing rapidly this month. If you’re okay with seeing your winnings devalue literally before your eyes, withdraw them in Tehran.
Today, €1 is worth 15,835 rial – meaning your winnings worth 28.18 rial. The smallest coin in Iranian currency is a 50 rial piece, so it’s still not enough, but if you put it in a bank in Iran you can get a short-term interest rate of 12.5 per cent.
At that rate, your fortune will have grown to 50 rial in five years’ time – enough for you to actually hold.
Don’t spend it all in one place…
* We should point out that under Irish law it is illegal to transfer funds between accounts in Ireland and Iran.
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That’s not a “clash” that is outright murder. Typical journal, parroting Israeli propaganda.
Wouldn’t it be great to heat the Palestinian side of the story as they have no way to defend the propaganda from israel media and their allies
@frank_66: hear
@frank_66: The Defence for Children International Palestine website is well worth signing up to, they give a full list of the Palestinian children killed and imprisoned by the Occupation forces,many of them held without charge by ‘ secret evidence’, all of them are tried under military law in Hebrew, a language most of them do not understand, some of them are transferred to prisons in Israel, a war crime under the Geneva conventions. Israeli colonists living in the Occupied territories are subject to Israeli civil law. Only significant sanctions by the international community will change the actions of the Israeli government.
@Gavan Duffy: must have a look at that
@frank_66: the kid probably had a weapon of mass destruction in his hand, a stone. And the poorly armed Israeli military had every right to defend itself.
If only the media would call it what it is it’s not self defense its ethnic cleansing and a land grab. Boycott Israeli goods.
The ex head of Mossad said today ‘if a man constitutes a capability that endangers the citizens of Israel, he must stop existing.’ Yes, you read it right: ‘he must stop existing’. Policy in a nutshell.
So we are witnessing a genocide and nothing being done about it.
End Apartheid… Boycott Israeli goods. #BDS
The anti Israeli sentiment expressed here is shocking frightening and shameful.
@Raymond Barry: its anti child murder, anti apartheid, anti ethnic cleansing, rather than anti israhelli sentiment.
@Raymond Barry: why? Being anti apartheid, anti ethnic cleansing, being against the use of lethal force against children…. How is any of that shsmeful???
@Raymond Barry: nothing to say about another Child murdered by the Israeli state? Says alot about you!
@Raymond Barry: Anti Countries breaching International laws and human rights on a daily basis… shocking in no way at all!
@Raymond Barry: what’s wrong with anti Israel sentiment? Would you have said the same thing about South Africa in the 80′s?
@Raymond Barry: shameful? What actually IS shameful is supporting a country that behaves that way.
@Raymond Barry: It certainly is shameful if you are an Israeli and supports its apartheid and murderous treatment of Palestinians.
So Raymond when you and others are not defending Israeli actions and condemn Palestinian actions, you dont feel its frightening, shocking and shameful?
@Raymond Barry: you should be ashamed of yourself.
@Raymond Barry: indeed Barry. Who sends a 15 years old to attack soldiers? Hamas do that. Want a child casualty. Poor fella brainwashed. Hope the soldiers get the counselling they need.
@Tom Ripley: You are full of hatred. Get treatment.
@Shedonny: don’t answer him he doesn’t exist troll.
@Raymond Barry:
Ever wondered why there is anti Israeli sentiment?
Perhaps because of events such as this (and there were many of them, Palestinians had to be replaced with immigrants in order to achieve the Israeli “dream”, or “nightmare” for the Palestinians).
On 7 June 1967 Israel expelled over 2,000 Palestinians from the village of Imwas in the West Bank. Today, this would be called ethnic cleansing. The village was then destroyed and “reforested,” turned into a popular picnicking park for Israelis, that very deliberately obscures all traces that people actually lived in this spot 52 years ago. The Jewish National Fund raised $5 million in Canada to build it, so it is called Canada Park.
Some of the villagers took refuge with relatives in Jerusalem, others crossed the Jordan River and ended up in new camps created in Jordan, and others would have ended up in refugee camps in Gaza.
Two other villages near Imwas were also ethnically cleansed in June 1967, Yalu and Beit Nuba.
Never forget!
@Raymond Barry: Especially since it’s a historical sentiment we have against Jews, no matter where they live. Hamas and clerics send teens out with instructions to riot, throw rocks and set off firecrackers near soldiers of a tiny state surrounded by countries with millions who hate them for their religion alone, knowing the outcome. Coveney was wrong. We have a history more in line with Israel than Palestine, so should understand where they are coming from.
Israel act with complete impunity. Always have. That’s the accepted, disturbing whitewash.
So a few here have said “boycott Israeli goods” I thought we had? “We” being the government, to stop importing? Now, I could be 100% totally wrong….if I am please shout at me as I’m a blithering idiöt….can someone help in regards what exactly do we import from Israel?
@The Kev in Kevlar: it’s the companies who financially support Israel like coca cola you need to boycott you can get a list of them on the Internet and you can check up israel bar code. A lot of cosmetic companies support them as well as car companies etc
@Mona Murphy: super, thanks for the info!:)
@The Kev in Kevlar:
A lot of fruit and vegetables come from Israel, grown on Palestinian land but labelled as “made in Israel” to profit from the low tariffs agreed with the EU. This is illegal and should stop. Ireland needs to pass the Occupied Territories Bill, which FG blocked during the negotiations for the new government last year.
Tesco has Israeli potatoes and avocados. Vote with your purse, don’t buy them.
@The Kev in Kevlar: Still a lot of Israeli fruit and veg in the shops, stuff you can grow here in the summer, or within the EU all year round. Makes no sense be it for environmental or political reasons. Boycott Israeli products, but also, just try to shop local when possible!
@The Kev in Kevlar: all the technology
You use ie mobile phones. TV, cars. Mobile maps. Medicines,. Computers,
Radio, s.. Hospital equipment etc
Have israeli components in them..
So you might as well stop living!!!
@Mona Murphy:
See the BDS movement website: https://bdsmovement.net/.
In the meantime, here are a few products you can boycott if you wish:
AHAVA DEAD SEA COSMETICS
Ahava manufactures its cosmetics in a factory in the illegal Mitzpe Shalem settlement in occupied West Bank, but labels its products imported into the EU as from “The Dead Sea, Israel.” It uses uses Palestinian natural resources without the permission of or compensation to Palestinians. Israel denies Palestinians access to the shores of the Dead Sea and its resources, although one-third of the shore of the Dead Sea lies in the occupied West Bank.
VICTORIA SECRETS
Palestinians have criticized the company for establishing its headquarters on land expropriated from Palestinians.
INTEL
Intel plants are on the site of the former Palestinian villages Iraq al-Manshiya and Faluja, from which villagers were forcibly expelled in 1948 to achieve Israel’s strategic plan to achieve ‘Arab-clear’ frontiers”, i.e. ethnic cleansing.
MCDONALDS
McDonalds has a partnership with the Jewish United Fund, which promotes visits to Kiryat Gat, built on top of a destroyed Palestinian village.
SODASTREAM CARBONED PRODUCTS
Sodasteam is located in the illegal Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim. The company directly supports Israel’s illegal occupation and colonization of Palestinian land by paying taxes to municipal settlement governments, employing local settlers, and providing the economic infrastructure for Israel’s settlement expansion.
@Victor Feldman: stop living like the 15 year old murdered by an apartheid government that doesn’t have the backing of many of their citizens. https://www.btselem.org/
Raymond Barry
So the murder of children isn’t shocking.
have your say