This weekend I’m mostly listening… to Spearmint, “A Week Away” February 21, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Culture, This Weekend I'll Mostly Be Listening to....add a comment
As the keen-eyed amongst you will have noticed, I’m not a huge fan of indie from the 1990s, and almost not at all that from the 2000s. I’m sort of half convinced that it has played itself out as a form.
But, as ever there are exceptions. Many many exceptions… One band I really like is Spearmint, an almost unknown bunch from the UK founded in 1995, who have been producing rather fine indie pop over the past decade and a bit. Led by the intriguingly named Shirley Lee their first album proper A Week Away was a concept album of sorts addressing how life is like a week away, initial excitement followed by a sort of drawn out decline. Cheery. No?
Well, yes in a way. There’s something of Pulp, particularly early pre-fame Pulp (when they were good), about them. The same sort of confessional lyrics and spikey melodic pop sensibility. Fey, surely. But so are the Field Mice, early Primal Scream and any number of other bands.
And the same sense of taking on the odds and if not beating them at least providing something worth listening to. They’ve never done terribly well in terms of sales although they’ve been pretty well regarded over the years.
So in no particular order is the rather sweet…We’re going out remixed IIRC by one of the Pet Shop Boys…
The excellent Sweeping the Nation built around a sample of “Out on the Dancefloor” by Dobie Gray, and which also echoes Pete Wylie and the Mighty Wah some way through.
And finally Isn’t it Great to be Alive:
Which after a chorus that goes…
came out of the gig
scooped some snow off a car
rubbed it into my face
isn’t it great to be alive?
isn’t it great to be alive?
has the rather brilliant inversion…
showaddywaddy at the royal hall
I had a crush on you
waiting with you by the phones
so you could ring your man
sometimes it’s not that great to be alive
And here as a bonus is their earlier single Goldmine [which BTW if anyone knows where the compilation album its on can be purchased I'd be mighty grateful]:
100,000 plus march through Dublin… Good. February 21, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics.26 comments
Very briefly, good to see that the numbers today are acknowledged to have broken the 100,000 mark. I’m told that earlier in the day the Irish Times was saying about 50,000. That would have been disastrous. But a six figure number has both a psychological and political impetus.
Not so much because I think that the rally in and of itself will change things, although it might give the politicians some pause for thought (and note the government making nice with the Unions saying ‘there was a considerable amount in Ictu’s Plan for National Recovery that was “entirely consistent” with its own agenda. ‘but because if – as we are constantly told – the situation is going to worsen and the ‘pain’ inflicted increase then this is just the start and 100,000 plus is a very creditable figure.
Now that’s something for them to think about.
I wish I could borrow, like the Anglo Irish 10 can borrow… February 21, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economics, Economy, Irish Politics.3 comments
Let’s reconsider those ‘heroes’ of the Anglo Irish 10 once more…
Mr O’Connor in his introduction to the [PricewaterhouseCoopers] report revealed that the 10 investors who bought a 10 per cent shareholding in the bank last year, using loans from the bank, were longstanding clients of the bank.
He said they had been given loans totalling €451 million, of which €83 million has been repaid. It was likely that €300 million of the money lent will now be written off as the security on this amount is limited to the shares purchased with the money. Mr O’Connor said “the bank will seek repayments under the borrowers’ recourse obligations as necessary” in relation to the remainder of the money lent.
Quite some ‘loan’ I think we’ll agree where one need only pay back a little under 25%. Quite some loan.
We see other ‘heroic’ actions as described in the PricewaterhouseCoopers report on Anglo Irish Bank released last night:
Major clients of [iconic] Anglo Irish Bank have been mothballing development projects, running up interest bills and trying to sell off assets, according to a report on the now nationalised bank released last night.
And…
…the bank has a number of very large exposures with approximately 15 customers having loans in excess of €500 million each.
…directors of the bank were involved in massive borrowing from the bank in the financial year to the end of September last and that one €8 million loan to a director was secured against the bank’s shares.
…At least some of the loans to directors are now expected to be written off because Anglo shares held by directors have lost their value, executive chairman Donal O’Connor said in his introduction to the bank’s 2008 annual report.
And what of the ‘generals’ who had overseen this situation and are regarded as necessary to fight this ‘war’, at least as Ulick McEvaddy sees it?
The report further shows that a number of senior directors at the bank received huge remuneration payments during a year that saw such a loss of confidence that there was a run on deposits.
Former chief executive of the bank David Drumm was paid €2.1 million in 2008, while the disgraced former chairman Seán FitzPatrick received €539,000. Former head of Irish operations Tom Browne, who retired in November 2007, received a payment of €3.75 million “in recognition of his contribution to the group”.
What a contribution! What a bargain! What heroes!
They (the Irish financial sector) can be heroes, just for one day… February 20, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economics, Economy, Irish Politics, Uncategorized.11 comments
Most entertained was I by today’s ‘interview’ with a bullish, an overly so frankly, Ulick McEvaddy (Libertas watchers alert, McEvaddy is an outspoken supporter of that formation). First up was his description of the Anglo Irish 10 as ‘heroes’. Ahem. Secondly was his impassioned declaration that had he been invited he would have joined them… to support ‘an iconic bank’… no, more than that… ‘a very valuable institution’. Of course, he thought they’d put up €300 million and now we learn that it was €451 million. A truly heroic feat. But one which McEvaddy seems curiously unable to understand incurred potential losses to the taxpayer. Or was arguably illegal under the laws of this state.
Or as the Irish Times put it:
And how about this?
The regulator has been “astonished to discover that the deal is very different to what was presented [to it] initially”, one source said.
Not so heroic.
Undeterred the brave Ulick suggested that firing such paragons of financial virtue as Sean FitzPatrick was akin to Iran purging its generals during the Iran/Iraq war with predictable consequences, and that it was indeed FitzPatrick and Denis Casey and others of that ilk who were absolutely necessary to fix the mess and fight for ‘an economy that is at war’.
All very interesting, no doubt, but the problem is from – say – my perspective, who is this economy is at war with?
I’d hazard a guess that it is that self-same financial class who expertly saw the sector hit the rocks… at least in part and ensured that when it came to the global crunch we were utterly unprepared as a state to deal with the crisis.
And here’s a further question. What precisely is Ulick McEvaddy’s expertise in running an economy? Or indeed a bank? Or indeed anything other than a large aircraft sales and lease operation. And what precisely are the qualifications that allowed him to be given a hearing that , considering what he was stating on Pat Kenny this morning on RTÉ, was entirely undeserved and bordered on the obsequious?
Still, when one has ‘heroism’, when one regards oneself as amongst such heroes and when one is clearly is missing the point big time, or perhaps engaging in a massive example of handwaving for God knows what purpose… who needs expertise?
Meanwhile, the Seanad debates Seán Garland… February 20, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics, Seán Garland.3 comments
…in the following terms…
Senator Joe O’Toole: I ask the Cathaoirleach and the Leader to use their good offices to deal with a completely different matter. This House has had many long discussions on the Good Friday Agreement and other Northern Ireland issues. This country has a long history of people who have moved from the world of the gun to the political world. I refer to Michael Collins and Éamon de Valera, for example. The US Government is seeking the extradition of Seán Garland, who had a significant involvement in the drawing up of the Good Friday Agreement. [Did he?] He has rejected violence. He organised the first ceasefire. [hmmm... which one] Many of us defended the Government’s position that the Good Friday Agreement should not apply to certain people, including those who killed Jerry McCabe in Adare. We had to bite our tongues when some of those people walked free. It seems ridiculous that the outgoing US Administration – I refer in particular to George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice – sought the extradition of Mr. Garland not on a charge like murder but on a trumped up charge of possibly having some involvement in the North Korean counterfeiting of American dollars. Mr. Garland, who is 74 years of age, is suffering from cancer and diabetes. He has moved down the road to the political world. I ask the Irish ambassador in Washington to contact the incoming US Administration, especially the new Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, to demand that the request to extradite Seán Garland be dropped at this time.Senator David Norris: Hear, hear. Well said.
An Cathaoirleach: That is a matter for the courts. We have to respect the separation of powers.
Senator Labhrás Ó Murchú: If one examines the position in Gaza, as has been touched on here, and the butchery of the Palestinians, one questions when Israel will be held accountable for its war crimes. Look at Guantanamo Bay and the replacement of the word “torture” with “rendition”. I place the case of Mr. Sean Garland against that background. I acknowledge the separation of powers and I will speak only on the political aspect of that case, which I am entitled to do in this House. Mr. Garland is 74 years old and he suffers from cancer and diabetes. He has been a strong supporter of the peace process on this island. I invite Members to think about that for a moment. In that context, against the background I have given and taking the political aspect of this case, we should speak immediately to the US ambassador and ask him to read President Obama’s inauguration speech in which he talked about a new era of diplomacy. The Garland case is not acceptable, correct or productive. The extradition request was signed by Condoleezza Rice, who was part of the old regime. There is an opportunity to extend the regime of diplomacy, friendship and holding out the hand in this very small case of Mr. Sean Garland. We should respond generously.
Senator David Norris: Well said.
Senator Donie Cassidy: Senators O’Toole and Ó Murchú, two respected and long-standing Senators, made known to the House this morning their views on Seán Garland, a 74 year old man suffering from cancer who has been a peaceful person who played a central role in the Good Friday Agreement. I assure the House that I will pass on the Senators’ urgent request to the Minister immediately after the Order of Business. I fully agree with the sentiments expressed by both Senators about a new beginning under the new US President, Barack Obama, who has uplifted not alone his own country but the people of the world. I hope the stimulus package he signed into being yesterday is the start of the upturn and becomes a ray of hope for everyone experiencing difficulties across the world [except in Ireland, where we apparently don't believe in fiscal stimulus].
Still, all that aside, heartening news for Seán Garland.
Now if only his old comrade Harris was on hand to speak. Wait a second, do the above statements, and particularly the little oddities about ‘first ceasefire’ and ‘Good Friday Agreement involvement’ represent said comrades influence? Surely not.
New Trade Union Magazine… The Union Post published in association with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions February 19, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Trade Unions.12 comments
News reaches here today of a special edition of the Union Post, published in association with ICTU. It gives an overview of the current crisis, gives details of the Congress Plan for National Recovery, has a short piece on Bob Doyle and various news from the North and the South. It could hardly be more timely prior to the rally on Saturday.
You can download this as a PDF here…
Reagan and Gorbachev… the not so chuckle brothers February 19, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in International Politics.add a comment
Poor old Gorbachev. In some circles on the left he gets a bad rap as the man who sold the store… but I’ve always thought that he arrived to manage the store only to discover that the previous managers had let the whole thing go to wrack and ruin, while trying to pay the bills to keep the facade nicely painted in shades of red and – now work with me here – ensure the extortionate direct debit for the alarm system was paid off. And er… add to that the small problem of the workforce quite reasonably unwilling to make much effort having experienced the worst that HR could throw at them and that ultimately the fact that he sought to do a deal with his larger competitor across the road is therefore less surprising. In some ways he didn’t do so badly considering that the best hand he had to play with was discounting the fireworks collection in the cellar.
Okay… perhaps I shouldn’t try to spin these things out – but you get the point.
Still, reading Vanity Fair online, and an excerpt from James Mann’s book entitled the “Rebellion of Ronald Reagan” who could repress a degree of sympathy at the mans travails in having to deal with Reagan, for as is also reported in Slate, well, let’s just say that it wasn’t a picnic.
FIND THE BOOK FROM WHICH THIS STUFF IS TAKEN
Now granted Reagan had some good lines…
“They keep dying on me,” Reagan once explained when asked why he hadn’t met face-to-face with his Soviet counterparts.
And in fairness he wasn’t wrong on that score.
But his encounters with Gorbachev… well…what to make of this?
Reagan recorded his initial impressions of Gorbachev and his wife, Raisa, in a private letter to his old friend George Murphy, another former actor, who had eventually become a conservative Republican senator from California. “He is a firm believer in their system (so is she), and he believes the propaganda they peddle about us,” Reagan wrote. “At the same time, he is practical and knows his economy is a basket case. I think our job is to show him he and they will be better off if we make some practical agreements, without attempting to convert him to our way of thinking.” For his own part, Gorbachev told others he had found Reagan to be “so loaded with stereotypes that it was difficult for him to accept reason.”
Hmmm…. As interesting was the perception in Washington that:
Gorbachev represented nothing new for Soviet foreign policy. “He was a protégé of Yuri Andropov, then head of the KGB, and Mikhail Suslov, then chief party ideologue,” wrote Henry Kissinger. “Neither of these men was likely to have been a closet dove.”
Although Gorbachev up-ended that by ‘offering a startling package of proposals on arms control; these represented a series of concessions toward the American positions.’
The sting in the tail for the US was that:
[it] accept severe limits on the development of Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, confining all research to laboratories. It was a condition Reagan was unwilling to accept. At the end of the second day, after coming tantalizingly close to the most far-reaching arms-control agreements in the history of the Cold War, Reagan and Gorbachev walked out of the Reykjavik summit with no deal at all.
Fascinatingly though the rhetoric from Moscow within CP circles changed…
Anatoly Chernyaev, Gorbachev’s foreign-policy adviser, wrote in a memoir that, at Reykjavik, Gorbachev “became convinced it would ‘work out’ between him and Reagan.… After Reykjavik, he never again spoke about Reagan in his inner circle as he had before.… Never again did I hear statements such as, ‘The U.S. administration is political scum that is liable to do anything.’”
And what is also intriguing is that Republican party worthies such as Nixon and Kissinger worked assiduously to prevent any rapprochement between Washington and Moscow… to the point that Nixon in a secret meeting with Reagan…”thought Reagan was naïve to believe Gorbachev. He wrote in his subsequent memo that this part of his conversation with Reagan was “somewhat disturbing.”
Anyhow, clearly relationships were reestablished in time for a Washington summit. Here one can feel Gorbachev’s pain…
After welcoming Gorbachev, Reagan quickly brought up the question of human rights in the Soviet Union. In particular, Reagan wanted to know why Soviet authorities could not lift the continuing restrictions on Jewish emigration.
As Reagan continued to speak, Gorbachev turned to his translator and muttered, “Ohn boltayet yeschchyo” (“He’s blathering on again”).
And blather he did, at another meeting…
…after Gorbachev had spoken for several minutes, Reagan interrupted him to summon forth one of his jokes about life in the Soviet Union: An American professor about to fly from the United States to Moscow finds that his cabdriver to the airport is a student. He asks what the young man wants to do after school. “I haven’t decided yet,” the driver replies. Upon landing in Moscow, the professor discovers that his Russian cabdriver is also a student, and asks the same question. “They haven’t told me yet,” says the Soviet cabdriver.
Ah yes… international politics. So rarified. So sophisticated.
At a later meeting in Moscow…
Reagan switched the subject to religion. Throughout his career, Reagan was always more attuned to religious themes than his political aides or foreign-policy advisers. “He believed in Armageddon, a very nervous subject with me,” recalled his longtime political adviser Stuart Spencer. “I argued with him about it, not that I’m an expert on biblical stuff, but I’d just say, ‘That’s kind of scary to be talking about.’ He’d say, ‘Yeah, but it’s going to happen.’” In dealing with the Soviet Union, Reagan continued throughout his presidency to raise questions about religion and churches. And he harbored a dream that Gorbachev might be a religious believer. Once, after hearing Gorbachev use the phrase “God bless,” Reagan took note and pointed it out to Colin Powell. “I had to tell the president, ‘Don’t see this as an expression of religious faith,’” Powell recalled in an interview. “It’s almost idiomatic. He’s not ready to get down on his knees for you.”
Undeterred:
Once he was alone with Gorbachev, the president began with a plea for religious tolerance in the Soviet Union. He praised Gorbachev for easing slightly the rules for the Russian Orthodox Church. According to the notes of the meeting, “The President asked Gorbachev what if he ruled that religious freedom was part of the people’s rights, that people of any religion—whether Islam with its mosque, the Jewish faith, Protestants or the Ukrainian Church—could go to the church of their choice.”
And…
Gorbachev tried to change the subject. Perhaps the United States and the Soviet Union might open the way for greater cooperation in space, he told the president. But the president wasn’t to be diverted. Reagan told Gorbachev that space was in the direction of heaven, but not as close to heaven as some other things that they had been discussing.
Now at this point I think we might be forgiven for wondering what was going on… but we would not be alone…
Of the two American notetakers who were present for this extraordinary conversation, one took Reagan’s effort at face value: “Reagan thought he could convert Gorbachev, or make him see the light,” said Rudolf Perina, who was then the director of Soviet affairs on the National Security Council. The second, Thomas Simons, the deputy assistant secretary of state, viewed Reagan’s promotion of religion as, in part, a tactic to deflect Gorbachev from discussion of other substantive issues.
Still, either way, isn’t it a fascinating insight into the deceptions, both larger and individual in such matters. But dear God, surely there must be an easier way than this…
It was not long before Reagan was telling stories again. This time, the Soviet leader could not hide his irritation. Reagan said there were examples in the United States of the kinds of economic opportunities that Gorbachev was trying to achieve with perestroika. Why, said Reagan, he had met an American woman, a professional pianist, who had developed arthritis and could no longer play. She was at home with nothing to do. Her aunt reminded her that she baked the best brownies anyone had ever tasted. (Here, one of Reagan’s notetakers, Thomas Simons, had to explain to the Russian interpreter that brownies were small, square chocolate cakes.) The woman began selling her brownies to grocery stores.
“That was three or four years ago … ,” Reagan went on. But before he could complete his story, Gorbachev interrupted. “I predict that she now has a prosperous business,” he said sarcastically, knowing exactly where Reagan’s anecdotes were invariably headed. Exactly right, Reagan said: the woman now employed more than 35 people, sold her products to airlines and restaurants, and earned more than $1 million a year.
Is this it? Is this what the fundamental struggle between two great competing sociopolitical systems of the 20th century devolved to? A bid, sincere or otherwise, by one party to convert the other to a religious viewpoint. The self-evident reluctance of one party to concede that the game was up despite the fact they had set in train policies that would, perhaps inexorably, lead to a ‘free’ market. The swapping of jokes and sarcasm, power politics played out as feeble rhetoric both incapable of acting as a proxy and pointing up the absurdity of systems of war built around them.
And yet, I can’t help feeling that bathetic as it is, maybe the rhetoric was the only sane response, particularly set against the grim, essentially paranoid and almost entirely self-serving ‘realism’ attributed to Nixon and Kissinger was a further absurdity.
Slate rather unkindly suggests, or no, asserts, that Reagan ”the hard-liners’ hero was, in fact, a babbling nut job who was lucky that Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, a genuine reformer desperate for Western assistance, was on the receiving end’.
He wasn’t the only one, given the exigencies of the Cold War, who was lucky. Lucky us as well.
Motes and beams on the pension levy and other matters… February 19, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economics, Economy, Irish Politics.2 comments
Hmmm… consider, if you will, this…
FINANCIAL EMERGENCY MEASURES IN THE PUBLIC
INTEREST BILL 200935 WHEREAS a serious disturbance in the economy and a decline in the economic circumstances of the State have occurred, which
threaten the well-being of the community;
AND WHEREAS as a consequence a serious deterioration in the revenues of the State has occurred and there are significant and increasing Exchequer commitments in respect of public service pensions;
AND WHEREAS it is necessary to cut current Exchequer spending substantially to demonstrate to the international financial markets that public expenditure is being significantly controlled so as to ensure continued access to international funding, and to protect the State’s credit rating and reverse the erosion of the State’s international competitiveness;
AND WHEREAS the burden of job losses and salary reductions in the private sector has been very substantial and it is equitable that
the public sector should share that burden;
AND WHEREAS it is necessary to take the measures in this Act as part of a range of measures to address the economic crisis;
AND WHEREAS the value of public service pensions is significantly and markedly more favourable than those generally available in other employment—
BE IT THEREFORE ENACTED BY THE OIREACHTAS AS
FOLLOWS:
Of course the government would never ask the private sector why the ‘value of private pensions’ is ‘markedly’ less favourable than that found in public employment, or indeed take steps to even up the situation in an ‘equitable’ fashion.
And again, for the record, I’m not in receipt of a public sector pension. And no employer of mine in the private sector ever thought to offer me a private pension. Makes me wonder what definition of ‘equitable’ the government applies to me?
Or indeed hundreds of thousands of less well paid (since private sector pensions have tended – particularly in indigenous Irish companies – to be a perk for mid and higher level management and directors in many companies) employees in the private sector. Indeed, by dragging public sector pension provision the government is as good as saying that it intends to do nothing on this matter and merely sets in stone the current lack of structures beyond the public sector. The exemplary effect of these cuts on the private sector being presumably considered well worth it – not least due to their ‘painfulness’. But no doubt that can be explained away with formulations such as ‘assisting the ‘well-being’ of the community’. Nice one Minister Andrews!
Incidentally, consider another shining example of our financial sector… titans of entrepreneurial go-it-alone enterprise… oops, I mean of course looking for state assistance….
Dr Walsh, former Irish Nationwide Building Society (INBS) chairman, who resigned from the INBS two days ago, believes that its board and ultimately Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan should be given an opportunity to provide it with new oversight and leadership.
No doubt.
In a letter yesterday to the society’s company secretary, he said he stepped down as chairman because he believed the board and the Minister should have “absolute flexibility” to assess and implement the changes that may be required. In a letter the previous day, he said he was resigning from the INBS board with immediate effect and cited “unfolding events” at the society without specifying any.
And why should he explain? Who, after all do these people answer to, except themselves?
Meanwhile another gem from Martin Mansergh, Fianna Fáil intellect at large:
Minister of State Martin Mansergh said: “De Valera at the time of the Great Depression famously said that no man was worth more than £1,000. If that were to be generously updated no one paid for or supported by the State would be worth more than €500,000 a year.”
That much, y’think, Martin?
World beating and worth it, as he might say…
We might be forgiven for begging to differ.
Aren’t the Afghans Lucky? February 19, 2009
Posted by Garibaldy in Afghanistan.3 comments
I’m so glad that the US will be adding an extra 17,000 troops in Afghanistan.
As others see us… that banking crisis as seen from New York… February 18, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economics, Economy, Irish Politics.1 comment so far
During my chat with Irish Eagle the other evening, he pointed me towards the coverage in the New York Times of the situation. It makes for sobering reading for there should be some pause for reflection on the manner in which our current travails are being reported in the US press. After all if the global hegemon gets a sniff of just how bad things are… well… let’s not contemplate what it would be like if we saw a flight of enterprises along the lines of Dell cubed… Sure, in the medium term we want to restructure the system, but let’s use those guys while we’ve got them.
So what do you think of the sort of judgement that people reading the following might make about the state of the Irish financial sector and the accompanying and oh-so-supportive political classes?
Ireland moved toward greater government control of its financial system Wednesday by bailing out its two largest lenders, while shareholders in Fortis, once the biggest bank in Belgium, derailed state-led plans to sell the nationalized business to BNP Paribas of France.
Well okay, although as Eagle pointed out to me, as an investor which country would you be more likely to feel sanguine about, an Ireland which is moving towards nationalising its financial institutions or a Belgium that is selling off Fortis?
The Irish government, meeting Wednesday night, approved capital injections of 3.5 billion euros each ($4.5 billion) for Allied Irish Banks and Bank of Ireland, a Finance Ministry official said. That would make Ireland the first European Union country to take de facto control of all of its most important banks. Last month, the government stepped in to nationalize the teetering Anglo Irish Bank, which was No. 3.
Hmmm… which might beg the question just how bad is the situation in Ireland?
In the last five months, the Irish government has already staked a claim over most of the Irish banking territory.
It’s sounding better and better, isn’t it? I mean what could possibly be wrong in the Irish financial sector that ‘most of it’ had to be overseen by the state.
In late September, it advanced a state guarantee for all the 440 billion euros in liabilities of six banks based in Dublin after a run on deposits threatened the collapse of Anglo Irish.
The collapse of a bank? Never good news.
Last month, the government stepped in to nationalize Anglo Irish after disclosures that its former chairman and chief executive, Sean FitzPatrick, had hidden personal loans of over 120 million euros for the last eight years from regulators and auditors.
Hidden? What sort of regulators are there in this state? And what of the auditors. And 120 million euros?
Yes, what indeed of the regulatory agencies?
Late Tuesday, the Irish financial regulatory agency disclosed it was also investigating huge deposits, including one of about 4 billion euros, moved into Anglo Irish by a rival bank, Irish Life & Permanent, last September, around the time that the Irish government announced its state guarantee of all Irish lenders.
And as someone noted in the Irish Times letters page, it took four weeks before the Minister met the heads of IL&P after discovering the €7bn transaction… Four weeks…
Now, we can all join the dots, can’t we? But so can those abroad both in the US and Europe who can see that at the very least we’re talking about a systemic collapse in oversight and authority – assuming that such oversight existed in the first place. And while I’m far from being one who likes the tendency to whinge about our supposed negative attributes in this instance when this state as presently constituted depends so heavily upon strong… no.. a good financial image abroad then it strikes me as profoundly dangerous, perhaps even to the point of existentially so to the independence of this Irish state.
And, apologies for dragging my bugbear in, but doesn’t all of this make the issue of sentiment about the public sector expenditure seem… well, utterly insignificant in comparison, indeed notable by its absence is any mention of the issue the Sunday Business Post argues is ‘key’ to our national economic/political survival. The passion, the heat, the political capital expended on what is in reality a sideshow, if not indeed an irrelevancy, in the context of these matters perhaps gives us a genuine insight into just how removed from reality our political masters and their pals in the financial sector are. And not just the reality of life as it is lived amongst our populace but also in the international financial arena.
Which makes for worrying times.
