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The Snapper was another great Irish film

[anxieties.]

Why the black shorts for Kerry?

A lot of girls teams changing the colour of their shorts this past while.

Rugby clubs at it also.

Due to period anxieties.

Practicalities.  Quite right they are too and hardly before time.

Correct.  Sensible move.

Al counties/clubs should do the same.

I think pretty much all the counties moved away from white shorts over the last year.

Donegal starting to put the Croke Park review plans into action.

Two Omagh men on the Interim Implementation Team. All look to have decent qualifications to start us down the road to getting on a similar track, hopefully, to our esteemed neighbours to the east and northeast.

Interim Head of Operations: Billy Bennett

Interim Coaching support: Roger Keenan

Interim Governance and Finance support: Gerard Bradley

https://donegalgaa.ie/interim-implementation-team-approved/

And did you know there was a(n incredibly qualified) Tyrone woman at the head of it all?!

Yourself?

No, but a peer, and a troubleshooter who was also sent to Pairc Uí Chaoimh a few years ago too. Former Ulster Head of Finance before the Croke Park positions.

Yes, thanks for that J70  Didn't take us much further in any case.

Ah right, I get you now.

Donegal starting to put the Croke Park review plans into action.

Two Omagh men on the Interim Implementation Team. All look to have decent qualifications to start us down the road to getting on a similar track, hopefully, to our esteemed neighbours to the east and northeast.

Interim Head of Operations: Billy Bennett

Interim Coaching support: Roger Keenan

Interim Governance and Finance support: Gerard Bradley

https://donegalgaa.ie/interim-implementation-team-approved/

And did you know there was a(n incredibly qualified) Tyrone woman at the head of it all?!

Yourself?

Kinda related to this thread; I see from Armagh facebook that the U15 and U16 squads have reached the final of the Buncrana Cup (U16) and Dermot Early Michael Glaveys (U15).
I was wondering grade these 2 competitions are

Didnt see any real questionable ref decisions from the Cork game as we were so awful. Though how did he not give a black card for the penalty

For it to be a black card and a penalty it has to be a black card offence (normally this is a pull down to the ground).  It doesn't matter how "cynical" the foul is, unless it meets the definition of a black card then it won't be a black card just because it's a penalty.
A push in the back is not a black card offence.

I can't believe how poorly understood that rule is by commentators and pundits.

There was some exceptionally lazy analysis by pundits before the Round Robin started about how "it was all a waste of time to only eliminate 4 teams".
It was as if they hadn't realised that finishing 1st was much better than 2nd and 2nd was a fair bit better than finishing 3rd given the structure of the PQFs and QFs.

What's the problem here. Clubs manage to look after their men's and ladies teams so why can't they all be under the GAA.

What would happen all the Executive / Top Table members of the LGFA / Camogie associations if they did come under the GAA umbrella?

Some dive by McManus at the end, but once again, Armagh stupid fouling haunts them again,

Was it a dive or a foul?

It was a definite foul  but with McManus enhancing the drama. The script was already written for that last piece of drama, everybody knew their lines except Armagh and the ref was right on cue.

I see the GAA have stated that a wide was the correct call.

"During the Armagh v Monaghan game yesterday the Hawk-Eye score detection system returned a 'data unavailable' message. The GAA requested an explanation from Hawk-Eye who concluded that the message was a result of operator error.
The GAA is happy that the system review confirmed the on-field decision by the referee taken at the time."

I wonder what the operator error was?
And if the review showed it was in fact a point and Monaghan happened to lose the game in ET or penalties, another secret to buried in the Croke park cellars and the operator falls out of a 5th floor window?

Load of rubbish. Only saying that to try to avoid controversy. Doesn't matter now but had Monaghan lost they'd be under pressure to release the evidence. For what its worth I was sure it was over as well and a very noisy Armagh fan beside also thought it was over.

I thought it was over too but another was given which I thought was wide.

I was directly behind the line of that Monaghan shot.It definitely looked like a point.

Good bounce today, something going on? I've been minded to cash out lately, got the trigger finger ready

5 or 6 spot Bitcoin ETF applications filed by traditional finance companies.  The thinking is they must have got a wink and a nod if they have all applied at the same time

BBC News - Is the US trying to kill crypto?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65861096

Or were they trying to kill the companies who started / currently lead in Crypto to facilitate the traditional finance market moving in?
https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/blackrock-close-filing-bitcoin-etf-coindesk-2023-06-15/

Just to re-state what I posted before on Wooly/Smaller Fish/Gaa Hour:

What grates with me about Wooly's show (at least when he was with The GAA Hour) is that he always had guests who agreed with every word he said on any topic. There never was any sort of two sided debate to be had on anything.

I recall when the debate was raging about the upcoming vote on championship restructuring a while back, and when everyone was pushing 'Proposal B' Cahair O'Kane was a guest on Off the Ball, and he was actually arguing against the ratification of Proposal B - saying that as a proposal, it was 'almost' spot on but that we shouldn't settle for 'almost' and that it will be generations before it will ever be revisited, so it needs to be done right. He made a great argument, and the debate between him and the presenter who was in favour of Proposal B was properly interesting. It was a proper delve into the pros and cons of Proposal B.

Then I listened to The GAA Hour. Wooly went on one of his lengthy rants about how stupid it would be to not back Proposal B, then threw out a few personal digs at people who were opposing it, then he brought on his guest Conor Henehan and the two of them spent the guts of a half hour or more agreeing with eachother and making the same points. No debate whatsoever. It was just tedious stuff.

Haven't listened to his new show, because I can't imagine it being any different.

Anyone care to shed any light on whether Smaller Fish is more of the same "yes I agree with you Wooly" as was on GAA Hour? Or is there actually a bit of debate thrown in?

Cian disagreed with him on Sunday night's episode around Wooly's desire to change the rules to keep 6 men inside both 45s.

Wooly just seems to be "smarter" than the other podcasts, ie he actually does a bit of thinking about the game as opposed to doing the lame Sunday Game type analysis that seems to be par for the course.  Even if you don't agree with what he says it's obvious that he does think about the game.

Is Parkinson's one worth paying for? I used to enjoy his GAA Hour one a few years back.

Devenney had him on last week on his Donegal podcast and gave him a chance to push it. From the sounds of it Devenney is one of Parkinson's regular guests, along with Aaron Kernan (who also comes on Devenney's one a couple of times each season).

Personally I'd say yes. Devenney is a great character and Aaron Kernan is also an excellent pundit. Cian Ward and Conan Doherty do be on as guests as well and both are very good too. There are loads of shows during peak season (more than you could actually listen to) and if you want hurling there are previews and reviews weekly also. I think its very good value for £5/month.     

I'll try it out so!

I listen to The Football Pod, RTE and the GAA social podcasts. I subscribed to the Smaller Fish one last week and I find it much more insightful than the other 3.  Wooly and the guests (generally) just seem to be more knowledgable on football and be willing to give views that are beyond the normal run of the mill.

I don't see much risk to the US$ not being the currency that is used the most throughout the world.

However, I can see it's days as being the world's reserve asset (ie countries save the majority of their surpluses in US Treasuries) being numbered.  Gold will go back to being a bigger part of countries storing their savings, note it hit an all time high valuation yesterday with the continued difficulty of US regional banks, as will Bitcoin (not "Crypto", but Bitcoin).  The valuation of gold will have to rise significantly in price if it is used to settle net trading accounts as the energy trading surpluses / defecits are many multiples of the value of the gold being produced.

The change didn't start with the US sanctioning Russia's FX reserves, but it certainly accelerated the speed of this change.
Energy producers have known for some time that it doesn't make any sense for them to store the profits of their energy sales in US Treasuries when their fossil fuels are finite yet the value of the USD decreases every year due to inflation.  They would literally be safer keeping their excess exports in the ground as it will hold it's purchasing power better for future years.  But storing their reserves in gold is different as gold has historically kept its value compared to the price of oil; something the USD definitely hasn't done in the last 40 / 50 years.

Would tracking oil prices be good?

Oil prices are 50% of what they were in 2007. And 3 years ago they were 13% of their 2007 value. I can only imagine the consequences of sovereign wealth fluctuating like that. I think that is one of the reasons why oil producing countries have tried to invest in alternative assets.

It's certainly better than the historical alternative, storing their profits in US Treasuries as oil has increased from $2 per barrel to what is now a low of $67 (and occassionally over $100 per barrel)

Are you for real?

If you invested to hold in 2007 and your chosen store of wealth was oil then today you would have lost 50% of your capital and received no income in the intervening 15 years. The comforting news being 3 years ago you would have lost 87% of your capital.

You are stating that USD has done worse. What are the numbers you are using?

OK, you chose 2007, so I'm not picking the time comparison.

In 2007 you could buy approx 10 barrels of oil for ounce of gold (source: https://www.macrotrends.net/1380/gold-to-oil-ratio-historical-chart) and today you can buy 26 barrels of oil for an ounce of gold, so gold has increased in value by 2.6 times vs oil.

In USD terms in 2007 a barrel of oil cost cost approx $70 per barrel which is pretty much the same price as today. So the USD has stayed at parity vs oil since 2007.

This is what I mean by a net exporting country is much better to store their reserves in gold than US Treasuries as it maintains their purchasing power of real life commodities much better than USD does.  Yes, you forego an interest, but the interest you receive is less than the underlying currency is being devalued by.

This isn't just my opinion, in a speech Putin gave in June last year he said:
"According to the IMF, global currency reserves are at $7.1 trillion and 2.5 trillion euros now. These reserves are devalued at an annual rate of about 8 percent. Moreover, they can be confiscated or stolen any time if the United States dislikes something in the policy of the states involved. ...
According to analyst estimates, and this is an objective analysis, a conversion of global reserves will begin just because there is no room for them with such shortages. They will be converted from weakening currencies into real resources like food, energy commodities and other raw materials. Other countries will be doing this, of course. Obviously, this process will further fuel global dollar inflation."

Crude oil was USD140 in June 2008. It was USD70 this week. That is not a store of value. Since that 2008 date it has also hit a low of USD19.8. In the last year values have got from USD111 to USD70. There is no logical argument for using something as volatile as this as a reserve currency.

You misundertand my point.  I am talking about oil exporting nations (ie they generate surpluses) storing their excess "profits" in gold, as opposed to USD which is what they have done since 1971 when the US went off the gold standard.  Storing them in USD is pointless as it doesn't keep up with the price of oil.  Gold, on the other hand, does.
More and more nations are reducing their holdings of USTs as reserve assets and replacing them with holding physical gold.

How did gold do as a store of value between 1980 and the millennium? Has it much of a store of value then?

Anyone can cherry pick a date range where you can make most things look good or bad. I was trying to be constructive and explain how the USD is seeing a reduction in its use as a global reserve asset.
Maybe the Central Banks that are stacking gold instead of USTs have it wrong as there is an aribtrary period over which gold decreases in value against oil: https://twitter.com/LukeGromen/status/1641431605452369921

but you do accept that during that significant period that gold collapsed in value and it wasn't a last minute collapse it was a relentless steady erosion of value?

Yes, if you take your starting point of 1980, which was a local high in the price of gold.
And do you accept that since 2008 (oh, and I wonder what might have happened then to change the dynamics of financial markets) that gold has been on a continual rise?

There is a clear rise of central banks storing their surpluses in gold since 2013, or do you think they aren't?

I don't see much risk to the US$ not being the currency that is used the most throughout the world.

However, I can see it's days as being the world's reserve asset (ie countries save the majority of their surpluses in US Treasuries) being numbered.  Gold will go back to being a bigger part of countries storing their savings, note it hit an all time high valuation yesterday with the continued difficulty of US regional banks, as will Bitcoin (not "Crypto", but Bitcoin).  The valuation of gold will have to rise significantly in price if it is used to settle net trading accounts as the energy trading surpluses / defecits are many multiples of the value of the gold being produced.

The change didn't start with the US sanctioning Russia's FX reserves, but it certainly accelerated the speed of this change.
Energy producers have known for some time that it doesn't make any sense for them to store the profits of their energy sales in US Treasuries when their fossil fuels are finite yet the value of the USD decreases every year due to inflation.  They would literally be safer keeping their excess exports in the ground as it will hold it's purchasing power better for future years.  But storing their reserves in gold is different as gold has historically kept its value compared to the price of oil; something the USD definitely hasn't done in the last 40 / 50 years.

Would tracking oil prices be good?

Oil prices are 50% of what they were in 2007. And 3 years ago they were 13% of their 2007 value. I can only imagine the consequences of sovereign wealth fluctuating like that. I think that is one of the reasons why oil producing countries have tried to invest in alternative assets.

It's certainly better than the historical alternative, storing their profits in US Treasuries as oil has increased from $2 per barrel to what is now a low of $67 (and occassionally over $100 per barrel)

Are you for real?

If you invested to hold in 2007 and your chosen store of wealth was oil then today you would have lost 50% of your capital and received no income in the intervening 15 years. The comforting news being 3 years ago you would have lost 87% of your capital.

You are stating that USD has done worse. What are the numbers you are using?

OK, you chose 2007, so I'm not picking the time comparison.

In 2007 you could buy approx 10 barrels of oil for ounce of gold (source: https://www.macrotrends.net/1380/gold-to-oil-ratio-historical-chart) and today you can buy 26 barrels of oil for an ounce of gold, so gold has increased in value by 2.6 times vs oil.

In USD terms in 2007 a barrel of oil cost cost approx $70 per barrel which is pretty much the same price as today. So the USD has stayed at parity vs oil since 2007.

This is what I mean by a net exporting country is much better to store their reserves in gold than US Treasuries as it maintains their purchasing power of real life commodities much better than USD does.  Yes, you forego an interest, but the interest you receive is less than the underlying currency is being devalued by.

This isn't just my opinion, in a speech Putin gave in June last year he said:
"According to the IMF, global currency reserves are at $7.1 trillion and 2.5 trillion euros now. These reserves are devalued at an annual rate of about 8 percent. Moreover, they can be confiscated or stolen any time if the United States dislikes something in the policy of the states involved. ...
According to analyst estimates, and this is an objective analysis, a conversion of global reserves will begin just because there is no room for them with such shortages. They will be converted from weakening currencies into real resources like food, energy commodities and other raw materials. Other countries will be doing this, of course. Obviously, this process will further fuel global dollar inflation."

Crude oil was USD140 in June 2008. It was USD70 this week. That is not a store of value. Since that 2008 date it has also hit a low of USD19.8. In the last year values have got from USD111 to USD70. There is no logical argument for using something as volatile as this as a reserve currency.

You misundertand my point.  I am talking about oil exporting nations (ie they generate surpluses) storing their excess "profits" in gold, as opposed to USD which is what they have done since 1971 when the US went off the gold standard.  Storing them in USD is pointless as it doesn't keep up with the price of oil.  Gold, on the other hand, does.
More and more nations are reducing their holdings of USTs as reserve assets and replacing them with holding physical gold.

How did gold do as a store of value between 1980 and the millennium? Has it much of a store of value then?

Anyone can cherry pick a date range where you can make most things look good or bad. I was trying to be constructive and explain how the USD is seeing a reduction in its use as a global reserve asset.
Maybe the Central Banks that are stacking gold instead of USTs have it wrong as there is an aribtrary period over which gold decreases in value against oil: https://twitter.com/LukeGromen/status/1641431605452369921