Consumer Spending Peaks Since Bailout
The willingness of the Irish consumer to spend money is at its highest level in three years, regardless of the fact that over 50% of people polled believe their disposable income will have lessened by next year.
A survey done by Behaviour and Attitudes revealed that 55% of people think their wages will decrease by next year, and that the Irish economy will continue to worsen; just 12% said they believe the economy will be better in 2014. Yet surprisingly, consumer confidence has risen, to its highest level since before the 2010 bailout. B&A director Luke Reaper said of the report, “this leads us to believe that Irish consumers, while still viewing the economy negatively, are beginning to weather the storm”. Read more
Merely a few days ago, New Zealand became the thirteenth country to legalise same sex marriage, and now France has become the fourteenth, and the ninth in Europe.
New Zealand has become the thirteenth country in the world – and the first in the Asia Pacific region – to pass a bill legalising same sex marriage. Their parliament voted 77 in favour, and 44 against the bill.
It’s usually shootings that we hear about, but yesterday morning Lone Star Community College in Houston, Texas, was the scene of a vicious knife attack that injured at least 14 people, and left two of them in a critical condition. 20 year old Dylan Quick was arrested hours later, and told police that he had “fantasized for years” about “stabbing people to death”. A local sheriff confirmed that Quick had said he’d planned the attack. 
