It's Only Money, SOS

I was shocked to read another article today in the Irish Independent. It makes for very serious reading, I quote:

"The property industry is already reeling from the suicides of at least 29 developers which the Irish Property Council (IPC), an organisation that has campaigned for reform of Ireland's debt laws, says can be directly linked to the recession."  Article here.

Is that not appalling?

My God I feel awful about this.  Yes, we the public are upset with the economic situation. Yes, we the public are upset with the way these things were handled by banks and by the government and by property developers: the greed, the profiteering, the one-up man ship, the desire to keep up with the Joneses next door. 

But for goodness sake people, it's only money.  Let the banks sing for it, they took the gamble.  Let developers declare bankruptcy and survive on a lot less per day. Families will still love, friends - most of them - will still play golf.  This is a dark time in the economy but it's not worth a life.  Yes some people should be imprisoned but we as a nation cannot make life so bad for the culprits that we drive them to suicide.  We just cannot. 

And so soon after National Suicide Prevention Week.  Click here for more info on SOS.  Suicide or Survive. 

God bless the families of the 29 men who saw no other option. 

Banks and Lending

It's about time!

Minister for Enterprise going into the banks with his steelie-toed booties on to get them to start getting money moving in the SME sector again.

Go on ye good thing.  I hope your boots are strong and heavy. 

Pop Up Ad Marketing

Pop up ads. You know the ones I mean. You're having a casual surf, reading the news or the gossip, something that's up to date in terms of content, and POP goes an ad. That's not blocked by your pop-up blocker. The makers of the ad have kindly put in a big X to help show you how to CLOSE the WINDOW because you may NOT actually be interested in whatever promotion they happen to be running at the time.

And when you click the X, what happens? You are brought to their website. You click the "CLOSE" and what happens? You are brought to their website.

How irritating is that? I know it'll go away after a few seconds but I just hate it when I try to scroll away from it - and it follows! Very clever designing, hats off, but go away!!

It has happened to me most recently on independent.ie and entertainment.ie to name but two, and it is just irritating! Most of the time, these ad campaigns are organised by agencies, rather than the company themselves. So you can't blame Aer Lingus or HB Ice-Cream, or Heineken - can you? They think they're getting lots of hits on their websites as a result of this uber-expensive (no doubt!) campaign, when really it is just the pee'd off public trying to get rid of the ad off their screen when they're perusing the newspapers on their teabreak! Grrrr. Is that an unethical business practice or what? I think it's wrong. Would be interested in hearing what everyone else thinks.