BaNAMA Republic

So the much awaited NAMA draft legislation has been published. I'm not going to discuss the ins and outs of Fianna Fool's Financial Flash Gordon plan to save our economy! It suffices to say that anything which this government proposes should be viewed with utter suspicion. Do they really expect us to believe that they are acting for the good of the nation? It would seem to me that the plan is to burden an already crippled economy with the debts of our evil and greedy banks. The determination of the "discount" that will be applied to loans bought by NAMA seems to be very vague. It appears that NAMA will be paying above the market value for dodgy loans. The banks and developers will be off the hook and the poor pixie Irish will be left footing the bill AGAIN.

If anyone believes that our inept Minister for Finance or any of his simpleton civil servants are capable of producing a positive outcome for our country they must be mad. For years they have pursued flawed economic policies. Why should we trust them to have changed the habit of a lifetime now?

It isn't the first time that our beloved political masters have deprived the taxpayer of vast sums of money and it won't be the last. Remember how, in 1987, Ray Burke abolished the requirement for oil and gas companies to pay royalties for commercial finds in our territory. He also abolished the 50% stake that Ireland could claim in these finds. In 1992 Betray Ahern further improved the conditions for exploration companies by reducing their corporation tax liability from 50% to 25%. The Irish taxpayer has been robbed of millions of much needed Euro while foreign companies make a fortune.

Remember how tribunal after tribunal has pissed millions of quid of our money down the toilet? Barristers have made millions while the people of Ireland have seen little justice served on corrupt politicians or crooked gardaí.

One suspects that NAMA will produce a similar outcome to the aforementioned crimes against our country.

I urge everyone to educate themselves on the contents of the NAMA legislation. This plan for a financial septic tank will impoverish this country for generations. We owe it to our children and grandchildren to inform ourselves about how this agency will operate. And if we feel that the scumbag millionaire politicians are again selling us down the swanny we owe it to ourselves to fight them. They have gotten used to stealing our country's scarce resources and giving them to their paymasters in multi-national corporations. We must now stand up to them before they do it again!

Some required reading:

• NAMA draft legislation
• Dr. Constantin Gurdgiev's excellent analysis of NAMA on his True Economics blog.
• Brian Latchico Lenihan's statement on NAMA

The Silver Lining

Things have been quiet around here for the last couple of weeks. Devoted Dexter is sunning himself on his boat off the coast of Florida. And as for me, well let's just say there is lots to talk about but I've been so depressed by the state of things that blogging about them would send me over the edge. In fairness it's hard to stay upbeat these days. Everywhere you look it's recession, cuts, taxes, misery and, of course, the usual helping of sickening hypocrisy from our beloved public representatives. So in this post, instead of my usual dose of bile and vitriol, I will try and concentrate on the upside of "de recession". I'm putting my faith in the old chestnut of every cloud having a silver lining - it's just a matter of looking for it hard enough! So what are the upsides of the economic H-bomb that has detonated over our poor island in recent months?

• The price of stuff is going down: we still have a way to go but the profiteering retailers know that the days of people paying ridiculous prices (with borrowed money) are over.


• We appreciate our money more: there can be no doubt that the spending patterns of Celtic Tiger Ireland were crazy. People squandered cash on all manner of needless crap. We became a nation of label lovers with our Orla Kiely handbags, D&G sunglasses, Jimmy Choo shoes, Tag watches etc. etc. etc. Of course there's nothing wrong with liking your labels but let's face it there are more important things in life than buying fancy stuff every week. Maybe we will now appreciate it when we treat ourselves to the odd luxury. What's seldom is wonderful after all!


• Ireland might qualify for the World Cup: Surely it is more than a coincidence that our football team enjoyed its most successful period in the days before our economy went into overdrive. I firmly believe that there is some undiscovered scientific rule that links our economic strength inversely to our football team's success. Let's hope that this theory holds firm and we'll be cheering on the boys in green in South Africa next year.


• Less SUVs on the road: One of my many pet hates is the SUV. This hideous fuel guzzling behemoth undoubtedly symbolised the Celtic Tiger preoccupation with overindulgence and waste. A friggin' monster truck with one kid in the back seat driven by a soccer mom never made sense. Hopefully people will now go back to driving proper cars and leave the jeeps to be driven by the few builders and tradesmen who can still find work.


• Haggling is back: During the boom years you were made to feel like a pariah for having the temerity to haggle with a sales person. Well, well, well, how the worm has turned! The shops are begging you to haggle now. That annoying Australian tosser from Harvey Norman is always on the radio pleading with the poor pixie Irish to haggle with his staff. And a car salesman will happily brighten up his impoverished and lonely day by haggling with the rare customer who might consider buying a car. So get haggling people. We have years of profiteering to avenge!


• The curse of the property programme may be lifted: Hopefully we will now see the cancellation of the multitude of nauseating property programmes which have infested our telly boxes for years. We haven't got the money to even dream of moving gaffs so surely Duncan Stewart, Kirstie Allsopp et al. will be banished from our televisions forever!


• The recession might even be good for our society: People generally smoke less, drink less alcohol and exercise more during a recession. With people devoting fewer hours to work they are also more likely to get involved in their communities and spend more time with their families. In the last decade or so obesity levels have soared and a sense of community was becoming a rare characteristic in modern Ireland. If the recession facilitates the emergence of a healthier and more caring society that can only be a good thing.

So there's my attempt at presenting the bright side of our current woes. Let's hope that when the bust turns to boom again we can remember the lessons we have learnt during these troubled times.

The Lyin' King

No I haven't gone soft and taken to blogging about Disney cartoon characters! I'm referring to the biggest liar in the Dáil. The Kildare Street Country Club is full of hypocrites. All 166 of them have lied, misrepresented facts and generally betrayed their constituents and the people of Ireland. But who is the biggest hypocrite of them all? There are a number of contenders:

• The whole government front bench. They're so used to lies and deceit that it has become second nature to them. They preach about saving the economy they wrecked, they oversee the mockery of our democratic rights and generally behave in a fashion that would make Robert Mugabe blush. But they don't win the prize.


• Enda de road Kenny probably believes his own bullshit, but the grand aul gobshite of Irish politics is a mere thunderbird at the helm of a pit of vipers. The likes of the hated IToldYouSo Lee, Hangman Hayes, Count Leo von Varadkar and Lucinda the Teenage Witch Creighton specialise in a unique brand of spite-riddled blueshirt misinformation. Even this shower don't win the prize.


• The Green Sleeveen Party. I have already outlined the undoubted hypocrisy of these tree hugging halfwits. But not even a green sleeveen has the streak of pure evil necessary to be awarded the title of Lyin' King.

Enter Eamon Gilmore Girl. Ladies and gentlemen we have a winner!

Eamon Gilmore Girl is the winner of the coveted title of Lyin' King 2009. Deceit, lies, insincerity and misrepresentation are his core competencies.

Gilmore Girl likes to take the moral high ground. He invents tales of "a man he knows who <insert convenient sob story about how people are suffering because Lie-bore aren't in power here>". Gilmore's story always ends in a craw thumping statement which shows that the Lie-bore party is a beacon of morality and justice. He must think we have the collective intelligence of an amoeba. Gilmore Girl is the self styled hero of the working man yet he has never been employed in a proper productive job. He went from being an Official Sinn Féin student activist and USI president to Dublin City Council to Dáil Eireann. He hasn't done an honest days work in his life! A cursory examination of Gilmore Girl's behaviour over the last year shows that both he and his party don't have any policies or principals and that appealing to the lowest common denominator is all they care about.

Gilmore Girl's utterances in the aftermath of the rejection of the evil Lisbon Treaty are a prime example of his Class A hypocrisy.

In this interview with RTE on Six One News on 13/06/08 he decided to back the democratic decision of the people of Ireland:

"I think the Lisbon Treaty is dead. The Lisbon Treaty to be ratified requires 27 Member States to ratify it. The Irish people have now decided in a Referendum that they do not wish to have it ratified therefore Ireland cannot ratify the Lisbon Treaty and therefore the Lisbon Treaty falls"

“I don't think there's any question of this Treaty being put a second time to the people”

By June of this year, in this press release Gilmore Girl had done a complete U-turn (more than likely his commie colleagues in Europe had made a few calls reminding him of the vast rewards that awaited politicians after the people of Europe had been disenfranchised in a post Lisbon system):

"I welcome the reported conclusions of the European Council in Brussels today which I am confident will now enable the Lisbon Treaty to be put to the Irish people and endorsed by them."

"I will now be recommending to the Labour Party that we support and strongly campaign for the ratification of the Treaty at the referendum expected to take place in the autumn."

The Lie-bore party leader's behaviour over the pension levy also demonstrate his sickening lack of respect for our intelligence. This press release typifies Gilmore's two-faced approach.

Gilmore Girl and his politburo think that the pension levy is "unfair in that it places an unacceptable burden on public servants on modest incomes". He speaks of fairness and equity and deplores the unfair treatment of public servants. He mentions nothing about the fact that these same people are virtually unsackable. That they were continually awarded pay rises regardless of performance and that they enjoy pension entitlements that a private sector worker can only dream of. This toad doesn't give a stuff about fairness. He merely wants to look after his cronies in the unions (the same cronies who provide funding to his party)

Gilmore Girl likes to preach one thing and do another when it comes to reforming political culture. The Lie-bore document on reforming political life mentions regulating the practice of political lobbying yet they are inextricably linked with the unions. He bemoans the performance of the community welfare system yet is opposed to the reform which is necessary to save it. He has opposed all attempts to back up our failing banking system yet he would nationalise the banks - funnily enough this would effectively increase the size of the public service payroll and ensure yet more power for his mates in the unions.

Perhaps the biggest act of hypocrisy that Gilmore Girl is guilty of is his desire to enter into government with Fine Gael. He has previously served in coalition government with the blueshirts even though they are probably the party most ideologically opposed to Lie-bore principles. When Fianna Fool are dumped out after the next election Gilmore Girl will again enter into government with the blueshirts. He will abandon many of his supposed socialist beliefs in order to secure a ministerial position (and the bags of cash that go with it).

Eamon Gilmore Girl is a living, breathing, lying political paradox. He claims to be a socialist yet enjoys a salary far above what his beloved proletariat earn. He claims to be on the side of the working man yet favours the over taxation of working people in order to support people who aren't even looking for a job. He claims to favour bringing reform and transparency to our political system yet he will enter into government with a Funny Gael party who are just as corrupt and self-serving as Fianna Fool. You would expect a beacon of socialism such as Gilmore Girl to be elected by unwashed masses in hoods like Tallaght or Ballymun. Ha ha ha ha ha - you couldn't get further from the truth. Gilmore Girl, in true paradoxical fashion, is elected by the south side cappuccino drinking, Mercedes driving, privately schooled yuppies of Dún Laoghaire. Socialist my arse. I bet he wears a blue shirt under his red commie jacket!