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Not really wanting to get into this debate. Thought I would share an email from a friend that is doing the rounds.
Subject: Irish Bailout
So this is how it’s done…
It is a slow day in a damp little Irish town. The rain is beating down and the streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt and everybody lives on credit. On this particular day a rich German tourist is driving through the town, stops at the local hotel and lays a E100 note on the desk, telling the hotel owner he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night. The owner gives him some keys and, as soon as the visitor has walked upstairs, the hotelier grabs the E100 note and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher. The butcher takes the E100 note and runs down the street to repay his debt to the pig farmer. The pig farmer takes the E100 note and heads off to pay his bill at the supplier of feed and fuel. The guy at the Farmers’ Co-op takes the E100 note and runs to pay his drinks bill at the pub. The publican slips the money along to the local prostitute drinking at the bar, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer him "services" on credit. The hooker then rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill to the hotel owner with the 100 note. The hotel proprietor then places the E100 note back on the counter so the rich traveller will not suspect anything. At that moment the traveller comes down the stairs, picks up the E100 note, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, pockets the money and leaves town. No one produced anything. No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now out of debt and looking to the future with a lot more optimism. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the bailout package works.
What this boils down to, is we only need either £100.00, $100.00 or E100.00 and the worldwide debt is paid back and the economy will flourish. Cor, who would have thought it?
Increasingly of the view that I wish you would default. Bringing this charade to an end is the only way that the wealthy are going to take their share of the shafting.
And it’s probably the only way we get the structural bank reform we clearly need.
I hope Fianna Fail die a slow and painful death. The party is founded on Me Fein…from Dev to Cowen. The greatest leader Ireland ever had in Micheal Collins was shafted by this main for his own personal gain. Moving on to later years look at the people that have followed him. Jack Lynch a guy who sell out the lads in the arms trail the scumbag Charles Haughey. Following on with the backhanders from Bertie and the fat oaf Cowen who should be executed.
Pearce Doherty is the Future…his speech in the Dail was exceptional on the day. Sein Fein have my vote even though i am not a socialist in fact the opposite but I admire this man.
I hope Fianna Fail die a slow and painful death.
Unfortunately, they will survive. The opinion polls will not be reflected in the election (whenever it comes). The latest Red C poll has FF with 12 seats, SF with 24 and LAB with 48. That is simply not going to happen. Labour and Sinn Féin do not have enough high-profile candidates in the rural constituencies and it will be a case of ‘better the divil you know’ for a lot of people once they enter the privacy of the polling booth. FF will be wiped in the Pale but there’ll still be plenty of gobdaws in Ballygobackwards who will vote for the local pothole filler.
The greatest leader Ireland ever had in Micheal Collins was shafted by this main for his own personal gain.
There is a large degree of romanticism that surrounds Collins owing to his premature death. The actions of those who were closest to him during the concluding months of the Civil War suggests that, had he lived, he might not have been the great leader everyone claims he would have been. Daniel O’Connell and Parnell were the greatest leaders this nation ever had.
Jack Lynch a guy who sell out the lads in the arms trail the scumbag Charles Haughey.
Very harsh assessment of Lynch who by all accounts was a very decent and honourable man. He was once described as ‘the most popular politician since O’Connell’. That quote was made by Liam Cosgrave of Fine Gael.
Following on with the backhanders from Bertie and the fat oaf Cowen who should be executed.
You’re not directing your ire at the right person here. If anyone should be marched off the Cliffs of Moher in the morning it’s Ahern and not Cowen. Biffo for all his faults took over when the ship had already sank. Ahern’s timing (as usual) was impeccable. The man is the biggest shyster to ever take public office in Ireland. History will judge the ‘teflon Taoiseach’ very poorly. Even McCreevy (who was the ultimate advocate of cutting taxes and increasing spending) observed that things were getting out of hand in the middle of the last decade, so Ahern booted him off to Brussels. Of course Biffo succeeded McCreevy in the Department of Finance so he cannot be absolved of the blame but it mystifys me as to how Ahern is still looked upon positively by a decent proportion of the Irish population (those who buy the Sindo probably!) while the two Brians carry the can.
Pearce Doherty is the Future…his speech in the Dail was exceptional on the day. Sein Fein have my vote even though i am not a socialist in fact the opposite but I admire this man.
Sinn Féin are still not a serious political force in the South and I think this will be reflected in the election results. This Doherty lad is an impressive operator but there are still too many ‘elements’ within SF that will put voters off them – Martin Ferris acting as a chauffeur for Jerry McCabe’s killers upon their release for instance. The sight of O’Snodaigh (an elected TD) leading a mob trying to burst down the gates of Dáil Éireann a few weeks ago makes it hard for me to take them seriously. I also think it’s a big mistake for them to be running Gerry Adams. He will be elected in Louth which is a SF stronghold but his leadership of SF is not acceptable to many in the South and will put people off voting for SF candidates. Southern voters won’t like being dictated to by someone like Adams given his history and the fact that during the last election campaign he hadn’t a bulls notion of the issues affecting the Irish electorate. McDowell and Rabitte absolutely destroyed him in the leader’s debate in ’07. If SF are ever going to truly become an All-Ireland party than they will have to oust Adams and get more people like Doherty to lead the party.
People are still trying to kick the boot into Charlie McCreevey and he is gone ages. The fact was that Charlie was putting his neck on the line to introduce taxes on houses to slow down the housing boom. Charlie was about to start reining in the public purse only for Bertie to get rid of him in case he cost FF a election. Then Cowen came in and followed bertie’s lead. Then Lenihan a lawyer comes in and thinks he can manage a economy while reading the 4 Canons of Taxation at Nighttime before he went to sleep, the man doesn’t have a clue and just because he has Cancer and is from a tribe of Wankers in the midlands lets him get off scot free. I don’t get the symathy for him at all…their is many people become ill due to the stress these past few budgets have put on the Country so i don’t see any special treatment for him.
Fed up with the country….its a hole of the highest order.
So Biffo isn’t good enough for Fianna Fáil but he’s still good enough for the Office of Taoiseach
Jesus wept!
He’ll be gone in March when the general election happens.
But come on, blaming him is not going to do much good – Bertie was as bad. All the signs of an over-inflated economy too reliant on property have been there for years. It was bound to happen, just nobody bothered to look ahead and start implementing a stategy plan.
The only party that makes any appeal to me is Sinn Fein. I hate Kenny and Gilmore and would detest a labour and Finna Gael Coalition. Finna Fail are a just a joke at this stage. Our whole political system needs to be changed. Far too many politicians for such a small country. The seanad is a perfect example of this its a joke. We need a serious shake up. We cant allow europe to pull our strings for years to come either. If only Haughey hadnt of sold all our rights to the abundance of oil and gas off our west coast we could be a like a super rich arab state.
He’ll be gone in March when the general election happens.
But come on, blaming him is not going to do much good – Bertie was as bad. All the signs of an over-inflated economy too reliant on property have been there for years. It was bound to happen, just nobody bothered to look ahead and start implementing a stategy plan.
Read my comments re McCreevy. Ahern shipped him out of the Finance ministry once he asserted that cuts would be needed. He put a yes man like Biffo in to replace him and the whole thing spiralled out of control from there.
The only party that makes any appeal to me is Sinn Fein. I hate Kenny and Gilmore and would detest a labour and Finna Gael Coalition. Finna Fail are a just a joke at this stage. Our whole political system needs to be changed. Far too many politicians for such a small country. The seanad is a perfect example of this its a joke. We need a serious shake up. We cant allow europe to pull our strings for years to come either. If only Haughey hadnt of sold all our rights to the abundance of oil and gas off our west coast we could be a like a super rich arab state.
You seriously think Sinn Féin would make a positive difference? For all that our economy is seriously f**ked at the moment, they would send us back to the dark ages completely. A truly horrible shower of people.
I agree re a Fine Gael/Labour coalition. That would ensure that Fianna Fáil would be able to reorganise in opposition and 10 years down the line they’ll be back with a whole host of new faces and empty promises. The best result for this country would be a Fine Gael overall majority with Labour the dominant voice in opposition. It’s the only result that would see a proper left/right political system emerge in Ireland. Fianna Fáil needs to be obliterated at this election and we need an end to the Civil War political divide. Sadly it won’t happen.
Like the last Election here in the UK, surely the forthcoming Irish one will be a good one to lose?
Following their defeat any number of Labour talking heads shed crocodile tears but the over-riding and of course obvious impression was ‘thank fk we’re shot of that’ ‘over to you Mr Cameron’
Fianna Fail despite the prospect of near-wipeout will surely relish the opportunity to head for the hills and make distant grumbling noises in opposition
Fine Gael, like the Coalition here, have been handed the most poisonous of chalices, and are on a hiding to nothing
Meanwhile the UK is still in complete denial that it is in the same boat as Ireland.
Which it surely is – boom based on overvalued property tick, corrupt politicians in cahoots with financial services sector tick, huge personal debt problem tick.
The only thing that has allowed the UK government a fig leaf so far is that we can quietly devalue the pound, screw the people over and inflate our way out of trouble.
And that seems to be Mervyn & Dave’s preferred solution.
As a piece of invective, this takes some beating…
Amongst others…
"That’s what we do so well in Ireland – we rant and rave, we purge and we vent the pent, we get sloshed or high, then we return home in the early hours with our dignity between our legs, all limp and shriveled up, poxed and ridden, and we bend the deferential knee, bare our arses for the ritualistic buggery and we thank our sado-masochistic sodomites for giving us a good hammering. We did it for 800 years. It’s in our blood. And when the Brits left, we installed the church as sodomite-in-chief, just in case we might think ourselves free, self-determining, and independent. We daren’t ask or hold anyone accountable. What’s the use when the slick politicians will only lie and cheat their way out of culpability anyway? We’ll shoulder the burden and we’ll always be ready with the Vaseline.
Besides, our politicians are incorrigible, especially the fuckheads in Fianna Fáil, who’ve been in power for most of our republic’s history. They’ve sold our future into slavery, thrown away our sovereignty, reduced a nation to penury, dismantled an infrastructure that was the envy of the civilized world, broken every institution, shown contempt for the people and utterly disgraced our country. They’ve said to our neighbours across the pond, ‘you were right all along; we were incapable of governing ourselves. We tried and look at the mess we made of things.’ Instead of focusing on the emergency state we now find ourselves in with mass emigration, mass unemployment, a colossal and unmanageable debt, inflation rising and a very bleak future in store, what do these fuckers do? They propose patriotism for the rest of us and entitlement for themselves: we are expected to live on fresh air as they feather their own nests. I can only imagine if a man like Dan Breen were alive today to see what has been made of his sacrifice."
I agree with every word. More here…
I find the whole malaise over the current Irish Economy rather boring and futile.
Us Irish(21 year old master student who is irish if u havent guessed already) had got far to ahead of ourselves. We turn into a rather nasty nation of people. Arrogant, ignornant and basically a complete waste of space. I recently was walking to uni and a old man stopped his car and asked me to give me a lift as far as he could as it was disgusting weather. He gave me the lift and chatted away and we went our different ways. I always thought that was Irishness, where fellow strangers could help one another out like going for a drop of milk or a cup of tea. In fact we have gone opposite…we changed to a nation of people who liked to change cars every year and invest in stupid houses with decking out the back and gardens the size of bathrooms. It all got rather ubsurd and we became racist and smart asses. We have some sort of ridiclious tendancy to believe that their is no such thing as personal responsibility.
I see it with my fellow peers that they are stuck on the dole…well i wasnt a angel in school but i got a bollocking one day of my father when i was 16 years old and shaped to make sure i got into Unveristy which is free*unlike UK* other than a registration fee that is low by any standard other than our own. But where has personal responsiblity gone…we want to blame everybody else instead of dragging ourselves up the bootstraps and just doing it. We once were known as a nation of good hard workers but we dont even work hard. We have holidays for public servants that are disgraceful and they get paid top buck. Americans want to work..they work more than anyone else,we want to work as little as possible and thats just a ethos now in this country.
Our politicians are hopeless..school teachers..family..blood realted all the rest. Its a bloody disgrace Brian Lenihan should be executed for treason. A man so incompetent that he was voted worst minister for finance. Bertie another gobshite. Fine Gail have the best bunch of young politicians in decades(brian hayes, verakar, coveney etc) and their own party wouldnt get rid of enda after they brought a heave. Richard Bruton is real leader, Enda is nothing of the sort. They could be excellent but the old wankers never want to **** off and die…the likes of Kenny and his ilk.
I feel sorry for this highly increasing socialist economy. The way we reward the lazy and penalise the active in punititive taxes. At least the conservatives are trying in england to wage war on benefit scammers and the ilk. I not a red dog conservative far from it. I like my liberal views on gay/religion and other things. But taxation and employment is where the i be quite conservative.
This country is ruined now for the forseeable future. Not that we could help ourselves even if we had the ammo to do so. Some days you have to think that us Irish are too incompetent to manage our own affairs. That is a damning statement to make and no doubt the great men that have graced the Irish green grass our all in the past (Connolly, Larkin,Collins, Griffith, Hume, Oscar Wilde,Countess Markevitz, Joyce, O Connell, Yeats, Beckett, Kavanagh) would curse us for the mistakes we made bar the few still alive. I us Irish people as a whole need to re-evaluate what sort of country we want. I certainly dont want to bring my kids up in state as incompetent as this and see know justice for the crimes commited…the social cohesion of our state is all up in the air.
I hope to god Labour don’t get in. If they go anymore to left with our economy i have to emigrate. We be paying 70cent tax on the euro before long and that is not fair to any workers to subsidies the inefficient and lazy in our society.
I would once agree with what fox news Bill o reilly said " American are a conservative people, they want to get up and work and come home and live their life, the state should provide help to the people who need help but if they turn it down cut off the help. Everybody has a choice and its time people realized this".
Ireland should follow the same mantraAs a piece of invective, this takes some beating…
Amongst others…
"That’s what we do so well in Ireland – we rant and rave, we purge and we vent the pent, we get sloshed or high, then we return home in the early hours with our dignity between our legs, all limp and shriveled up, poxed and ridden, and we bend the deferential knee, bare our arses for the ritualistic buggery and we thank our sado-masochistic sodomites for giving us a good hammering. We did it for 800 years. It’s in our blood. And when the Brits left, we installed the church as sodomite-in-chief, just in case we might think ourselves free, self-determining, and independent. We daren’t ask or hold anyone accountable. What’s the use when the slick politicians will only lie and cheat their way out of culpability anyway? We’ll shoulder the burden and we’ll always be ready with the Vaseline.
Besides, our politicians are incorrigible, especially the [expletive] in Fianna Fáil, who’ve been in power for most of our republic’s history. They’ve sold our future into slavery, thrown away our sovereignty, reduced a nation to penury, dismantled an infrastructure that was the envy of the civilized world, broken every institution, shown contempt for the people and utterly disgraced our country. They’ve said to our neighbours across the pond, ‘you were right all along; we were incapable of governing ourselves. We tried and look at the mess we made of things.’ Instead of focusing on the emergency state we now find ourselves in with mass emigration, mass unemployment, a colossal and unmanageable debt, inflation rising and a very bleak future in store, what do these [expletive] do? They propose patriotism for the rest of us and entitlement for themselves: we are expected to live on fresh air as they feather their own nests. I can only imagine if a man like Dan Breen were alive today to see what has been made of his sacrifice."
I agree with every word. More here…
I agree with every word of this as well.
I would add that as a people the Irish (I am one) have a sick, twisted admiration for people who get one over on other people. My personal theory is that this came from when we were ruled by the British- pulling the wool over someone else’s eyes to get what you want would make sense in those circumstances.
However, I think that that attitude is now ingrained in the Irish’s psyche and so now we do it to each other, and still congratulate each other for getting away with not paying that self-employed painter and decorator for painting your house "got the whole house painted for free! Feckin’ eejit" – without thought that that man who painted your house cannot take the financial hit of not being paid for his work.
Admiration for politicians who screw up politically time and time again, yet never resign and are never pushed to resign. They can do whatever and say whatever they like with absolutely no consequences. In Britain, they resign. In Ireland, someone writes something in the newspaper and then the politician simply stays on never learning the valuable lesson that there are consequences for your ill-thought-out actions.
Glad I got the hell out before the economic crash INEVITABLY happened. It was so obvious (and I’m not an economist, not good at maths etc. and even I could see it was going to happen and soon) when I left in 2007 that things were going to crash down, and no one did a thing about it.
My plan was to leave and get settled elsewhere before the next wave of emigration happened and I would be competing at the same time with thousands of others Irish without a job. And I made the right decision. I am never moving back there.
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