The none too subtle sense of entitlement of the Irish bourgeoisie: Tonight with Vincent Browne on NAMA… September 17, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, Irish Politics.trackback
Fantastic piece on TV3 last night with Vincent Browne… as the blurb said on the website:
On tonight’s NAMA special, Vincent is joined by former Bank of Ireland Chief Executive Michael Soden, UCD Economist Karl Whelan, Anti-NAMA protestor Rita Fagan and Irish times Finance Correspondent Simon Carswell.
Great to hear Michael Soden say to the question ‘what is it going to cost us?’ with… ‘well… if we’re going to get philosophical…”.
Listen to the thoughts of Browne at 8 minutes and he makes some fairly obvious but extremely concerning points. As he says ‘property prices will have to go down even further to be realistic in the current context”, and moreover as regards the issue of liquidity with the worry that banks will use cheap state provided money to pay off the expensive ECB money.
Karl Whelan’s point about liquidity as distinct from solvency is well made, and he notes that the debate has become diverted to an idea that liquidity was the problem...”that’s become something that people understand and that politicians can sell to the people…” His estimation, that there would be only a very small amount would see its ways to small businesses.
Karl Whelan...”Why are we deliberately paying more for these assets than they’re worth? So we’re paying €7bn more to save having to invest €7bn in the banks… but at least you’d get equity in the banks..”
As for the impacts of McCarthy, listen to Rita Fagan’s thoughts on the impact on the community sector and consider how that guts provision of services to people.
Wait too until about 28 minutes and as someone said to me, the mask really slips.
Michael Soden to Fagan when she says the community sector would take €7.5bn … ‘You’re just the same… you’ll take as much as you could…”
Er, no Michael. Not quite.
Fagan: The poor didn’t benefit…under social welfare cuts… if you’re a lone parent…
Soden: Sorry with all due respects lone parents… I don’t think our society should be carrying the burden… that’s just a political… you’ve a social status… I’ve got one…
All this is worth viewing for the shot of Karl Whelan, stunned with incredulity, who interjects… ‘we should be paying €7.5bn to shareholders?”
There’s more… it’s unbearable. Was this descent to vindictive populism because Browne et al were uniformly agin him? Didn’t seem to me that Browne was over the top, certainly no more so than usual. And feck it, he’s a big boy now.
But it tells us all we need to know about an intersection between a sense of absolute entitlement and utter disdain for others. Not a thought in Soden’s head that single parents might actually be… y’know, up for, as Rita Fagan said… ‘bettering themselves”... not an iota of social conscience. Just the reiteration of supposed and stale certainties.
And wait.. what’s this? I read on the entertaining P.ie thread something about this paragon…
[BTW, I couldn’t give a rashers about the reason for his sacking, albeit stupid to do it from a work environment, but would be exercised about the fact that he implemented the rule that he subsequently broke…]
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
I hope the government didn’t have to check any dodgy internet sites to work out how to screw the taxpayer.
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Nah Eamonn. Just look at the history of the state for as many examples as it could ever want.
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BTW, I couldn’t give a rashers about the reason for his sacking, albeit stupid to do it from a work environment, but would be exercised about the fact that he implemented the rule that he subsequently broke…
From what I remember at the time, the particular moral of that story was “don’t piss off your technical staff because they can find out pretty quickly where the bodies are buried”.
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Yeah, knowing one of the people involved it was a classic.
Soden outsourced a large part of the Bank’s IT back office and sent those remaining out to Sandyford from Baggott St; all with minimal consultation and in full Gordon Gekko mode….. their revenge was sweet, apparently.
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WBS,
But it tells us all we need to know about an intersection between a sense of absolute entitlement and utter disdain for others
Exactly. Watching it, I felt absolute contempt for the man, but also kind of pleased that he was so (unintentionally?) honest.
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The comment about lone parents sounds pretty bad when reading it on here. Looking at the actual film, though, is far, far worse. What an unbelievable arsehole.
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Not as odious perhaps, but as revealing: Matt Gallagher of the CIF tonight on Prime Time telling Patricia King that it was no good just blaming developers and bankers because, it appears. ‘we’re all to blame’.
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And even if it was true that ‘we’re all to blame’, how come only some of us are being saved?
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“us and them” the “let them eat cake” brigade are alive and well. The arrogance of the guy. I dont know what pension the odious toad retired on, but I think it would be enough to keep every one parent family in the country in comfort all year!
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I was impressed with Rita Fagan (the accent is class). She talked about what she knew and didn’t try and waffle about things she didn’t fully understand – unlike 99% of the self-sytled experts or politicos that are trotted out these days in the MSM.
Rather than getting angry at yon fat bankster fella’s comments, she countered with common sensical solutions, such as training and education, when she responsded to his crass class comments.
If more common citizens like Rita got an airing on TV and generally in the MSM, we might just begin to recapture and rebuild our society from the dregs of banksters and qet-rich-quick artists that abound these days.
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I couldn’t have expressed my views and feelings any clearer than Gemma Gough ( Sept 18th ) has already expressed except to add that Michael Soden is only one among thousands of bankers and politicians in this country who feel that they are above the law and have done nothing wrong.They appear to feel that it is their God given right to use and abuse the poorer people of this Banana Republic of Ireland. It is quite clear that they feel above the law one only has to listen to any discussion any night on Vincent Brownes excellent show to realise that they have no remorse or sympathy for the people of this country who were mugged by the bankers.For it was they who encouraged the less well off to purchase grossly overpriced property in order to increase the lenders bonuses. They have ruined thousands of families lives and caused misery for so many people, how can they sleep at night. We live in a strange country where white collar crooks are rewarded with massive cash bonuses. I often wonder how the rest of the world view this little corrupt country of ours. It is only going to get worse!
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They cost the economy far too much, expect the state to look after them, have no sense of right or wrong and think that someone else should pay for their mistakes. People used to say this sort of thing about single mothers. It wasn’t true. Now they’re saying about bankers. This time round it is true. Perhaps the church could help us out by excoriating bankers from the altar and locking them away in institutions. After all, Jesus got on quite well with Mary Magdalen, it was the money changers in the temple he couldn’t stand.
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There’s also the possibility that Soden thinks that if the state stops supporting single mothers, some of them might be forced into prostitution. A win win situation for the hard pressed executive looking to unwind on a business trip.
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There was something familiar, too, about the looks on the faces of the other two male panelists – familiar to me, anyway, when I try to discuss these subjects with friends who work in the private sector. ‘We’ll listen as politely as we can,’ their looks said, ‘ but frankly, dear, everything you say is so terribly old-fashioned and childish, and not a part of the real world, that it’s very heroic of us to bite our tongues.’
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Yeah, there definitely is that too.
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The fix is definitively in, the bad guys have definitively won, and James Connolly definitively died for nothing.
If you have any young people in family or social circle, tell them to get out of here and never come back.
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“,i>the bad guys have definitively won”
In the short term yes, but in the medium term that depends on what Labour does. This battle is lost, but I think there is enough anger there that Labour could force a shift in electoral politics if it stopped attacking FF, focused on the issues, and took the brave decision at the next election to force FF and FG to form a coalition/
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Does Labour want to do that? I’ve seen no sign of such a desire on its part.
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Dr. X is right. And, sadly, I don’t think there are any political means by which to remedy the situation. NAMA is unfair and panders to one particular and powerful interest group, everyone knows this, the government knows everyone knows this and nothing can or will be done. Not a single thing. It is a rotten system, and it is the only one we will ever know.
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[…] You can also watch Noreen Byrne from the North Clondalkin CDP speak about the impact of the cuts there and Rita Fagan from St. Michaels CDP lead the group in song. (You may remember Rita from her appearance on Tonight with Vincent Brown where former banker Mike Soden made those remarks about Lone Parents.) […]
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[…] salaries, the need for a proper recovery plan, increasing the working week [really? He appeared on our radar and speaking of his view of working weeks…] last year, and and widespread reform of the banking […]
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