Your Bank Is Defrauding You

I think the vast majority of people in the world have learned no longer to trust banks.
Here, they have cocked up more than often and had to repay money to customers.
One bank was even advising its customers to tax dodge - and one of the people doing that is now, astonishingly, an elected member of the Dáil. Third World behaviour or what?
Anyway, I am trying at present to expose, through the newspaper in which I work, the current fraud being perpetrated by Irish banks on their customers.

You see daily, how banks and stockbrokers and financial institutions of all sorts and kinds, trade shares and currencies on the worlds exchanges.
They can move billions in nanoseconds. Shares can rise and fall by huge percentages in the blink of an eye.
And yet, and yet....
If you use the banks’ online services, something they encourage you to do, you will find that things there aren’t the same at all.
Because if you wish to transfer money from an account in one bank to an account in another, it takes an incredible, unbelievable and frankly farcical three days.
Well, some of it does.
Because the account from which the money is being transferred, is debited immediately. In one of those nanoseconds.
And for three days, the bank holds onto that money or, rather, probably invests it at the inter bank rate along with the tens of thousands of other sums, large and small, which are being transferred from an account in one bank to an account in another.
Look at this nonsense explanation from what is laughingly called Ireland’s ‘Financial Regulator.”
“All online transactions would have to go through the clearing system for security and fraud prevention purposes. Online transactions consist of a matching of a debit and credit. The debit is paid immediately and the credit is normally paid immediately if it is destined for an account in the same bank. However, the credit might take several working days if it is destined for another bank.”
Nonsense. Rubbish.
And if it was true, we could all cripple the banking system by asking them, under the Data Protection Act, what they did, how they did it and what they found.
Am I really expected to believe, that when my partner transferred €200 to me - and it was taken from her account in one of those nanoseconds - that someone or something spent three days checking for security and fraud prevention?
And even if they did - which I can assure you they didn’t - why was it necessary to take the money from her account until the procedure was finished?
Because they snaffle the money, that’s why. Because they steal it for three days, that’s why.
And we’re the mugs.
We’re the fools as usual.
And I think something should be done about it.
Bad enough what the banks have done to the world.
No reason to let them away with this.

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NO. THESE ARE NOT APOCRYPHAL QUESTIONS

Where did it all go? Who has it? Where are they living? Where is it all stashed?
And how did they get away with it?
I'm talking about the money.
(May I just interrupt my self here for a second? Firstly, I'm still not dead. Just still recovering from a Bone Marrow Transplant and up to now most days, frankly, I hadn't the energy even to blog. But some things make the blood boil. Like this economic collapse. And boiling blood isn't good for those who have had Bone Marrow Transplants.

Secondly, I made a mistake on that blog below, the one that just says no Who Is Disabled? and nothing else. I can't get rid of it. I crash when I try. So I'll get off to the help centre when I'm finished with the economic situation.)
There is no doubt whatsoever that billions, trillions, zillions of euro, dollars, pounds, yen - whatever- were generated in recent decades.
Mostly, it was generated doing good things like building homes for people, providing infrastructure where it was needed and helping to improve those countries whose lot it is to be the poorest on earth.
Sometimes, it was generated by doing bad things, like invading other people's countries, wrecking them and then giving your mates billions of dollars to build them back up again.
And of course, propping up nasty but friendly regimes.
But now, the money appears to be gone. Vanished into thin air. Nobody knows where it is.
The banks are going down for billions, and nobody, in the banks or anywhere else, seems to have the faintest foggiest notion as to what to do next.
So it's governments - people that is - who have to cough up. We in Ireland are guaranteeing banks for €400 bn and climbing. The US has stumped up $700 bn and climbing. Britain has forked out hundreds of millions, Greece the same, The Dutch, Belgian and Luxembourg governments have had to dig deep too.
And what's in those deep pockets? Our money, that's what.
But wasn't it our money that was in the banks? Got it in one.
The banks took our money, used it, stuffed the profits in their pockets, went bust and now it's back to our pockets again to bail them out.
I mean, if it wasn't so damned sad, so damned hard for those who will suffer most (see above: those countries whose lot it is to be the poorest on earth) and so damned immoral it would be be funny.
Suckered.
We've been suckered by a few people - and in the context of the world's population it is VERY few people - who have played with our money, our families, our jobs, our countries, and made off with the lot.
And just to make sure, that a few years down the road it can all happen again, we're bailing them out.
Who will go to jail? (Not apocryphal)
Who will be punished? (Not apocryphal)
Who will have their ill-gotten gains removed from them? (Not apocryphal)
You know, we thought our world was run by sometimes inept, sometimes corrupt, sometimes immoral, sometimes greedy, sometimes plain stupid politicians.
But we were wrong.
It is and has been run by always inept, always corrupt, always immoral, always greedy but never, ever plain stupid bankers, hedge fund managers and economic whizz kids who profit from the doom for which they have long been harbingers.
God help us.

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Goodbye Bertie. Off To Live in Darndale, then?

And so it's farewell Bertie Ahern, Prime Minister of Ireland who liked to pocket dosh from whoever game it to him, whenever and in whatever currency.
Soon we expect to see you begging on O'Connell Bridge for funds to help you through this difficult time in your life.
Well, not really.
We reckon the bold Bertie will be busy for some time counting all the spondulecks he has managed to bum off people over the year as he sails off into the sunset or, rather, is driven there in the government car he retains by the government driver he also retains.
He will also have to count all the money he gets from the pensions he has earned - earner? what am I saying - the pensions he and other TDs and Ministers have awarded themselves so they can continue to live in luxury while, it is claimed 750,000 Irish children live in poverty or are on the borderline, while pensioners live on less than €300 a week, while the homeless sleep rough because there is no money to staff the hostels built for them, while geriatric patients are being used as human shields in our hospitals to occupy beds so those who need them are kept on waiting lists and don't add to costs, while criminals are let out of prison early, while prices are going through the roof and while we watch the economy crumbling because, in the heel of the hunt, he was pretty damned useless at his job.


Some people seem to be devastated that Bertie is gone. Then again, even by the worst estimates, more than 40 per cent of Zimbabweans voted for Robert Mugabe. Not that I'm making a comparison. Really.
One of the most extraordinary things about the recent events in Irish politics, is the revelation that Fianna Fail politicians all appear to love Fianna Fail more than they love Ireland.
Bertie was at it again yesterday. "The Party that I love..."
They're all at it.
Like Mugabe, they think the party is more important than anything else.
They welcomed back Beverley Cooper Flynn who a court decided, urged people to dodge their taxes.
Why would any party do that?
Because it's good for the party in Mayo, that's why.
Ministers are appointed, not because they're able (that's pretty apparent) but because of the geographical location of their constituencies. It's good for the party.
Bertie was, is, a party man.
He carefully constructed is 'ordinary bloke' image while, at the same time, sucking up cash from anyone and everyone who offered it to him.
He nurtured the image as an ordinary Dub and gave the impression to those he met, that he was their friend.
Which was bullshit.
It's unlikely, now that's he's no longer Taoiseach, he will move in with 'ordinary people' in somewhere like, say, Darndale.
It was all just a grand act from the man who invented his past and is now faced with inventing a future for himself.
President of Ireland?
He mentioned the job yesterday.
All I can say, is please God no.

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Off To Beijing In Our Blinkers

Tiananmen Square massacre: If murder was an Olympic sport, China would take the gold.


It's Olympic year.
All over the world, hopefuls are training hard, hoping that, when the big day comes, they'll put in their best performance ever and win a medal.
The world will be there. There will be a team, of sorts, from Iraq. Sudan will proudly fly its flag. Israel will be there. Pakistan will have their athletes competing.
In fact, regardless of whether a country is governed by a benign regime or an odious on, its citizens will proudly march under the national flag at the Olympic Games.
And, on balance, that's the way it should be.
According to the Olympic Charter, established by Pierre de Coubertin, the goal of the Olympic Movement is to contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport practised without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play.
Admirable.

The problem arises, this year in particular, due to the location chosen for the Games.
Beijing is the capital of a country, which denies basic human rights to its citizens, which is encouraging dissent, and disruption in Africa and which - despite or maybe because of the proximity of the Games - is clamping down hard on opponents of the unelected government.
Recently, I heard one of Ireland's most respected, most successful and most famous athletes say that issues other than sport had nothing to do with the competitors at the Games. He said they would turn a blind eye.
How disgusting is that?
Athletes will turn a blind eye, it seems, to the imprisonment of those who merely criticise the government. They will turn a blind eye to brutality and, perhaps to summary executions.
They will turn a blind eye to the eviction of thousands and thousands of people from their land in the name of progress.
It will be hard for them to turn a blind eye to the pollution spewed out by Chinese industry.
They will turn a blind eye to the jailing of Catholic priests purely for being Catholic priests.
They will probably not turn a blind eye to Tiananmen Square but rather pose there for pictures. They will certainly turn a blind eye to the events there some years ago when unarmed students were massacred.
Still, Beijing is one of Bertie Ahern's favourite places. He admires the mayor. He likes the way they do things. Whether or not he'd like to send out armed troops to massacre his critics in Ireland, I don't know. But I have my suspicions.
The fact is that athletes competing in Beijing are endorsing all that the Chinese government is doing.
They are endorsing the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Fifty or sixty years ago, it mightn't have mattered so much.
Back then, athletes competed purely for the honour of representing their countries and winning medals.
Now, they're competing for money. Now they're competing to make careers for themselves. Now, they even cheat to achieve their greedy goals.
This is nothing to do with Pierre de Coubertin.
His ideals were honourable and had nothing to do with money.
Athletes will go to Beijing this summer, of course they will.
Television stations, including RTE in Ireland, are already boasting about the coverage they will provide.
Sport and politics shouldn't mix, people say.
That may have been true in the amateur era.
Now, when the aim of the athletes is to pocket as much money as possible, it is no longer true.
They can turn their eyes away if they wish.
They will be nonetheless, guilty.

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Rugby is Waiting in the Wings

❍Jimmy Greaves, rugby fan

“I was a footballer but now rugby is a greater love for me.”
I could have said that. People who were actually good at rugby could have said it. People like, maybe, Keith Wood or Shane Byrne or Tony Ward.
But the astonishing thing about that little quote, is that it came from Jimmy Greaves.
Jimmy Greaves, goal-scoring hero for Spurs for a generation. Goal-scoring hero for West Ham after that. The genius who missed out on a world cup medal in 1966 because of injury. Half of Saint and Greavsie who, unlike today’s pundits, realised that football was and is a game.

Today’s pundits? Today’s players too.
It is a long, long time since I have seen a soccer match that made me feel good, one that entertained me, one I didn’t actually regret watching.
I cannot abide the showboating, the negativity, the diving, the feigning of injury, the whinging at referees, the attempts to get opponents booked or sent off, the inarticulacy of the players, the clichés, the hype and the money.
Between yesterday and the day before, I watched four games of rugby. The worst of those, that between Edinburgh and Toulouse, was aeons better than the best soccer match I have seen in recent times.
God help us, there are large periods of soccer matches where it surprises me that those on the pitch remain awake, let alone those in the stands. I now know why so many supporters take their tops off even in freezing weather. They are trying to fend off sleep.
Now, I know not all is right with rugby. During the recent world cup, it too sank a little with the Garryowen, the old up-and-under, featuring rather too much. Referees have become just a little too protective of players. Some may not like what we used to call ‘clearing out’ when the boot was used to move opposition players who were illegally lying on the ball. But it worked. And when they lay on the ball, they knew what to expect.
Some of us don’t like the fact that the ball seems to be crooked in to every scrum.
Some of us don’t like the fact that different referees seem to interpret the offside law in different ways.
Nonetheless, when you watch rugby, there is always something happening.
If you get into it - and if you’re not, I recommend you do - you will realise that even when it just looks like a heap of bodies lying there, there is lots happening.
Leinster’s defence, for example, against Leicester was stupendous.
There are so many aspects to the game that you could write a book simply about tactics.
One of the main reasons rugby is such a fine game, is that it is a team building game.
The girls - that’s the backs to you - know well that nothing will happen for them unless we - that’s the forwards - get the ball for them.
Yes, there are flash players in the backs.
But you will find that, to a man, they acknowledge the work of their team-mates.
Rugby doesn’t generally give birth to grudges, despite hard physical battles. It generally gives birth, instead, to a few rounds of drinks.
And rugby doesn’t tolerate people who whinge at referees, even if they are wrong, which they generally are.
Rugby is growing. And it will keep growing if the authorities a) keep an eye on the laws of the game and b) keep promoting the game in the weaker countries and in the weaker areas of the strong countries.
A man in a Dublin rugby club once said, to my certain knowledge that ‘they shouldn’t be playing rugby in Tallaght.”
Bad cess to him.
Tallaght and Neilstown and all of the new suburbs and indeed, all of the new Irish, are the future our game.
I don’t wish soccer any ill.
But if keeps going on the way its going, it will become too boring for fans, too expensive for fans, to costly even for television and boring beyond belief.
If that happens, rugby is ready for the challenge.
(You will gather, I’m feeling a great deal better!)

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