Bankers and Politicians Are Recession Proof

There are bonuses and pay rises being dished out at Anglo Irish Bank.
Life goes on as normal for the bosses at AIB and Bank of Ireland.
Our TDs, the ones to whom we pay vast sums in salaries and allowances, are still on their Christmas break, and are still not putting their heads above the parapet when it comes to making a sacrifice or to lead by example in our current economic crisis.
In other words, those who caused our problems, and those we pay to solve our problems, are breezing through this recession without a care in the world.

And it is all our fault.
Because it is we, the people of Ireland, who took our eyes off the ball.
It is we who allowed TDs to accumulate allowances and salaries and nixers (like junior ministries and committee chairmanships) over the years.
It is we who failed to question each greedy move they made to fill their own bank accounts with our money.
And it is we who failed to tackle our banks, to question they way they do business.
To make them accountable.
Now, we have the appalling vista of the highly-paid dopes we elected to the Dáil giving bags of our money to the even more highly paid dopes who have managed to run the country's banking business into the ground.
How much of the €1bn we are giving to Anglo Irish Bank will go in bonuses and pay rises to the clearly inept management of the bank?
We are unlikely to be told.
How much does Anglo Irish owe to AIB and Bank of Ireland?
We don't know and, by not telling the truth about the situation, all three banks are, effectively lying about it.
Those who run our banks have proven their inability to do the job.
A child could run a bank during good times.
But it takes brains and skill to run a bank when times are tough.
Times are tough. And it is clear that those, still left in charge of our banks by the government, have neither the brains nor the skill to do the job.
They certainly have the nerve and the wit to look after themselves and each other.
Much like our politicians.
They have demonstrated an utter inability to deal with the current crisis.
But, thanks to their large salaries, the are all but immune from the economic mess we're in.
So don't be expecting miracle solutions.
Taoiseach Brian Cowen says it will take four or five years.
Of course it will.
And if I was in his job with its massive salary and endless perks, I wouldn't be that worried either.
Politicians and bankers are recession proof.
It's the rest of us who will suffer.

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All Politics is Corrupt

It's a bit scary. It's very sad.
But it is, unfortunately, a fact.
ALL politics is corrupt.
It has to be.
That's how they get elected.
Now, saying that all politics is corrupt, doesn't mean that all politicians are bad people, are immoral people.
Many of them firmly believe that the things they say and do are justified because they firmly believe they are the best people to do good for the masses.
But it rarely turns out so.

Is there a country on earth, for example, where politicians are paid a sum even vaguely close to the average wage in that country?
Is there a country on earth where politicians aren't chauffeured about the place like royalty?
Is there a country on earth where politicians don't look after themselves in relation to pay, expenses, perks, comfort and the trappings of their offices?
No. Not as far as I can tell.
Politicians promise what they know they can't deliver on the basis that a) everyone does it b )nobody expects delivery and c) sure that's how you get elected.
In power, they make decisions which are a)wrong but popular because it helps the re-election campaign - which begins the minute the last election is over.
In power, they cosy up to business because good business is good for the country. It's also good for forking out vast sums to political parties and brown envelopes to the most unscrupulous of the politicians.
And in power they attempt to do things they are utterly incapable of achieving and utterly unqualified to undertake.
The result is what we have now. Politicians worried about their economies - but as worried if not more worried about their own futures, worried about offending banks, worried about offending business.
Their world is a closed one, one in which nobody is more important than they, where nobody matters more than they.
One in which banks with bosses earning vast, unimaginable (for most) immoral sums are bailed out and the little man pays the price.
Who bails out those who were given loans irresponsibly by greedy banks? Nobody.
Why? Well, for the same reason nobody bails out the autistic, the elderly, the mentally ill, the drug addict, the homeless, the drink.
No votes in it,
So the corruption goes on.
And there's not a blessed thing, bar a revolution which isn't a good idea at all, than anyone can do about it.
Except maybe pray.

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The Peasants Will Soon Be Revolting

Bertie opens Dublin Airport's 'too little too late' Pier D. He'll never have to use it.

Did you ever notice, that when a factory or big new company opens up, there's always a politician on hand to do the official ribbon cutting and to, essentially, take the credit?
Did you ever notice, that when a new piece of infrastructure is opened, there's always a politician right at the front of the photograph to, essentially, take the credit?
Did you ever notice, that when a new school or hospital is opened, there's always a politician there, grinning at everyone and shaking hands and, essentially, taking the credit?
But if you noticed all that, did you also noticed, that when a factory or big employer closes down, the politicians aren't to be seen?


Did you notice that, when a new road ends up being a disaster, jammed with traffic morning, noon and night, the politicians have disappeared?
And did you notice that, when the new school becomes overcrowded and when the A&E in the new hospital becomes full of patients on trolleys, the politician is elsewhere?
Right now, things are pretty much going down the toilet in Ireland.
While I never, ever, liked those who talked the economy down when things were a bit better than they are now, the huge rise in unemployment cannot be denied.
The virtual collapse of the housing market is there for all to see.
The lack of money is apparent everywhere.
And there is an undeniable sense of foreboding.
So. What are the politicians doing?
Essentially, shag all. Not a thing. Diddly squat. Nada. Rien. Faic.
Well, that's not quite right.
What they're doing is telling the rest of us that everything's fine and dandy. It's not as bad as it looks. Our 'essentials' (sounds like underwear to me) are strong. We're still outperforming Burkina Faso and Chad, or something. And that makes it all grand.
And, in fairness to them, from where they're sitting, on the fat backsides earning vast sums of money, claiming enormous unjustifiable expenses, getting chauffeured around the place at our expense and going home in the evening in the full knowledge that, unlike everyone else in the country, they qualify for a pension after not too many weeks in the job, things are fine and dandy.
You know, we studied history in school and often wondered what it was that prompted people to start revolutions.
I hope, that in a hundred years time, someone reads this, so they'll know why ours began.

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Paddy Murray Is (not that) Unwell (he hopes) IV

YOU might get out on Monday, they said.
But I’m something of an old hand at this now.
And so I never believe the first date I’m given for my departure from hospital.
I reckoned on Tuesday.
But of course, I should have known.
My Tuesday is their Wednesday or Thursday.
It’s the way it is with doctors.
It’s like my nine o’clock in the morning is their midday.
It’s the way of things. Time is more or less meaningless for doctors. If it wasn’t, so busy are they in our over-administered health service, they’d go mad.
So I’m still in my hospital bed, and still on page 84 of The Time Traveller’s Wife.

I’m enjoying it. But I keep falling asleep every time I try to read any more of it.
It must be the drugs.
Sodium benzoate, sodium bisulphate, ascorbic acid - and that’s just the Lucozade.
Fortunately, my lunch today was not served by the lady who informed me as she placed yesterday’s offering in front of me, that she ‘felt dreadful.’
Today it was the lady who had the good grace to put my lunch in front of me before she turned to leave the room, coughing and sneezing.
Believe me, suggesting that we divert money into providing sterile pods for the sick, for at least the really sick, is not an idea borne from the ingestion of hallucinogenic drugs.
Talking of which, isn’t it a really brave move by Ireland’s pharmacists to pick on heroin addicts in order to advance their campaign for more money.
Yes, I know they work hard. But so too do those who have dedicated their lives to helping our unfortunate addicts who have now been abandoned by pharmacists not noted for their moderation when it comes to pricing their products.
“We were left with no alternative,” the pharmacists said. Apart from being utter tosh, that’s just a lie.
No alternatives? Why don’t they go on hunger strike or something that might actually test whether or not they have any support from their customers, addicted or otherwise?
My bet is they wouldn’t be thrown a single pea, let alone a sandwich.
Dammit, hospital leaves too much time for thinking.
Right now, I’m thinking how Ireland really could have won this rugby world cup were it not for all the things that are wrong in the camp and with Irish rugby in general - like the fact that very few people are playing it anymore and that it is still, in the main, a middle class game which is fiercely protected from invasion by, well, the middle classes who run it.
I’m thinking how our government has become utterly corrupt, generating sinecures for its supporters at public expense.’
I’m thinking how we have a health service run by people who think it’s ok to shut down front line services while they still have highly paid people in charge of the purchase of staple clips. Let’s see the administrative jobs going, boys.
I’m thinking how those who run our national airline have managed to turn it from a much loved institution to an organisation which is tolerated by some and loathed by others by loved by none.
I’m thinking how the entire Celtic Tiger business was, in the heel of the hunt, the greatest exercise in spin ever foisted on a population, a hoodwinking more successful even than that attempted by Blair and Bush in relation to Iraq.
We know know, there were not Weapons of Mass Destruction.
And we know now that there was no great wealth in the Celtic Tiger.
If there was, why do we still have poor?|
Why do we still have homeless?
Why do we still have some dirty hospitals?|
Why is our healthcare system - brilliant when you’re in it - so badly run?
Why are so many of our ‘minor’ roads (they’re major for the people who have to use them every day) so lousy?
Why don’t we have enough schools?
Why don’t we have enough gardai?
Why are we selling so many of our assets?
Why are we selling the tolling of so many of our roads to private enterprise?
Why do we need Public Private Partnerships in the first place, if we’re so rich?
Because we’re not.
Only politicians, with their 22 pay rises and their sinecures are.
And, it seems, only those of us with time to think. realise it.

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Paddy Murray Is (not that) Unwell (he hopes) II

Sometimes, it makes a great deal of sense to put together in the one place people who are doing the same thing or who have a great deal in common.
It makes perfect sense, for example, for Catholics like myself who want to go to Mass to gather in the church together at Mass time.
It makes sense for followers of Manchester United or Leinster Rugby, like myself, who wish to attend matches to go to Old Trafford or, nowadays, the RDS, to watch the teams.
It makes a kind of sense for drinkers to gather in pubs, shoppers to go to shops and concert goers to go to concerts. It seems unlikely that Bruce Springsteen or the Kaiser Chiefs or Arcade Fire will put on individual performances.
And it just wouldn’t be acceptable, on any level, to start burying dead people willy-nilly, here and there.

It makes no sense at all, or very little, however, to gather sick people together in one spot.
I imagine whoever came up with the idea of hospitals in the first place, was a government administrator who reckoned, correctly as it happens, that it would make economic sense to put all the sick people in one place so that a smallish team of doctors and nurses and ancillary workers could see to their needs.
The idea of hospitals could not have come from anyone with the slightest medical qualification.
Think about it.
You’re sick. You need treatment. You need to be kept in an area that is as sterile as possible.
So what do they do?
They put you into a big building full of people who also need to be kept in an area that is as sterile as possible.
And then they let in cleaners and cooks and painters and hundreds of doctors and nurses and nurses’ assistants and, of course, thousands and thousands of visitors.
Little Jimmy with his snotty nose.
Lucy, who doesn’t know -yet - that she has measles.
Tommy who is just begining to feel a bit dodgy with humps.
Uncle Fred with the cold.
Great Aunt Maude who thinks she has a cold, but it’s actually the start of ‘flu.
And all the others with as yet undiagnosed illnesses.
They pile in one after one, behind the cleaner with the smokers’ cough and the lady who delivers dinner but who nobody knows never washes her hands after going to the loo.
The ideal way of dealing with sick people, is for each of them, every individual, to be put into his or her sterile pod where a dedicated doctor and nurse could attend to them and where anyone else who had to enter the pod, to deliver food, to visit - cleaners would barely be necessary - could be fully sterilised before entering.
For a start, in a kind of ‘Hey Presto!’ way, hospital superbugs wouldn’t exist because hospitals wouldn’t exist.
Naturally, these pods could be placed either close to a patient’s home or centrally, depending on the illness and so on.
They could be portable so that, sometimes, they could be parked in your garden.
They could be wheeled down to the pub! Well, doesn’t cheering people up do their health a power of good?
And the expertise would of course have to be largely centralised.
If you had sufficient doctors and nurses, this wouldn’t be a problem.
I am aware that, by now, you think I am indeed very unwell.
You think I am off my trolley, hospital or otherwise.
You are wondering what strange drug I am receiving here in hospital.
Because the idea as outlined above, would cost billions and billions and billions.
You’re right.
At least, you’re right about the cost, not about me being off my trolley.
Isn’t it odd how people might cringe when they hear that some medical scheme or other, some special school for autistic children, some plan to house the homeless or help to get addicts off drugs, may cost billions.
But nobody seems to bat much of an eyelid at the United States spending, what is it now, 80 billion dollars a year on their Iraqi adventure.
Nobody seems to be worried about our own public representatives costing vastly more than they are worth, what with their highly inflated salaries, ridiculous and largely dishonest expenses, free parking, free telephones, free post, free offices, subsidised restaurant, gym and God knows what else.
If money was spent sensibly, if business wasn’t given such influence, if public representatives represented the public, all sorts could be done.
We could have sterile pods for the sick.
And we could look after autistic children and others with learning difficulties.
We could look after the old and the young.
We could eliminate world hunger.
And we could eliminate the need for war.
We could be decent, kind generous Christian,Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist people. Whatever.
Crazy?
Yes, I suppose. Totally.
Must check what drugs they’re giving me again.

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I Wonder

DID you ever wonder about the way we treat our politicians?
Did you ever wonder why we pay them so much?
Did you ever wonder why we allow our taxes to be used to pay for big cars and chauffeurs to drive them?
Did you ever wonder why politicians are, generally speaking, applauded when they walk into a room?
Did you ever wonder why we pay for their pr consultants, their style consultants and the consultants they consult to decide what consultants they need to consult next?
I wonder. I wonder all the time.
And I wonder why there are so many charitable organisations in rich countries.
Look at Ireland for example.
It is a wealthy country.
That’s what they tell us.

We’re the richest country in the world, some say.
Others put us third or fifth or eighth.
Few suggest we are outside the top ten.
I wonder why, then, that our telephone book contains pages and pages and pages of number for charitable organisations.
I wonder why it's something that doesn't seem to bother politicians.
I wonder why they think it's important they're seen at the opening of new buildings and roads and equally important that they're not seen near the homeless or the addicted or those in dire need of official help.
I wonder why so many people, so many of the disadvantaged, have to rely on charity to get by.
I wonder why politicians, who in Ireland gave themselves 22 pay rises in ten years, do nothing to help those who need help most.
I wonder why the St Vincent de Paul society has to run breakfast clubs for kids so that they get a decent breakfast every day.
I wonder why it has to provide resource centres in so many
Neighbourhoods.
I wonder why it has to provide education grants to those who cannot afford education, even at primary level.
I wonder why it has to provide holidays for poor children.
I wonder why it has to provide shelter for the homeless.
I wonder why those who look after children with Down Syndrome and Autism, have to beg the public for money to provide a service the government should provide.
I wonder why Americans allow George Bush to stay in the White House he having spent $800 billion killing Iraqis and the young men of America based on a lie.
I wonder why people buy products knowing they have been made by slave labour, sometimes even child labour.
I wonder why some people who are worth hundreds of millions want to be worth hundreds of millions more.
I wonder why African leaders applauded the despot Robert Mugabe a couple of weeks ago.
I wonder why, in the heel of the hunt, nobody is actually doing anything about Darfur.
I wonder why Muslim clerics don’t simply say that murder is wrong, that suicide bombing is wrong and that those who do such things offend Allah.
I wonder why doctors who swear to protect life, thing that killing fetuses, viable fetuses, is a good thing.
I wonder how the parents of whatever little boy it was who killed Rhys Jones in Liverpool, think they’re doing the right thing by not going to the police.
I wonder how governments, just about everywhere, can lecture about drug abuse, can pour millions into the frontline fight against heroin and cocaine and ecstasy and fail, utterly, to provide medical support for those addicts who want to stop.
I wonder why people hurt children.
I wonder why I never seen policemen on the streets anymore.
I wonder what politicians think when, as they sit in the back of their chauffeur driven cars, they see homeless people slipping under their cardboard sheets for the night.
I wonder why some wealthy people are generous and some are plain greedy.
I wonder why people throw litter on the street.
I wonder why gazillions of euro/pounds/dollars aren’t diverted from making things that kill people into discovering ways of keeping them alive.
I wonder.
I wonder.
I wonder.
But most of all, I wonder why, when you think of all the solvable problems there are in the world and in our countries, we treat our politicians the way we do, why we pay them so much, pay for their cars and applaud them when they walk into rooms.

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