Carry On Molly Bloom

A busy and messy day with little time for higher thoughts. Down at the farm the man told us he was getting fed up with phone calls from accountants looking for work. Either there is a shortage of work for them these days or there is a surplus of accountants, or both.

He is busy enough though and the broad beans under the covers are looking good. He told us what the arrangements for fresh asparagus from the field will be in the season. So we are praying for rain, not too much but certainly not too little.

Checking out the Irish Times today apparently the Republic is being told that Americans want them to stay in the EU at all costs because this is the only real way they will get inward investment.

As I suspect it is the kind of “investment” that helped get them into all that trouble in the first place this may not be good advice. And they thought the American’s were supposed to be their friends?

More interesting was Ireland’s connection with an earlier form of the EU, the Roman Empire. There is a slightly long but very interesting article about the Roman presence and influence in Ireland which is now beginning to emerge.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sciencetoday/2012/0216/1224311839702.html

I have long thought that if the Romans were up and down the Irish Sea in all forms of vessels, mining in North Wales, had a heavy presence in Wales and moreover one of their major bases was at Chester they must have had continuing contact and trade with people in Ireland.

The article explains that they did not have a military or administrative presence because for what they wanted they did not need to. They could get it without all that trouble. The cost benefit of sticking to trade was clear.

The corollary of this is it might explain why the Roman activity in Scotland was so much less that to the South. There has been already been the suggestion that Hadrian’s Wall was as much as a series of trading posts as it was a deterrent to marauding tribes.

To a great extent this is mirrored across the general boundaries of the Empire in a number of places. Inevitably, sometimes ambitious Emperors or generals might want to try more but usually found out the hard way that it did not pay.

As for Ireland the obvious reason may be is that it is a large area of land and if the population was relatively small and arable agriculture limited then major grain supplies were not to be had.

Infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it in for me.

When Irish Eye's Aren't Smiling

The UK media takes little interest in Ireland most of the time, apart from when a crisis or crime occurs. We are encouraged to think of them as another race despite the evidence of DNA and the fact that much of the UK population can sport one or many Irish ancestors.

Still, some of their preoccupations at present chime well with those across the water, here are some letters from today’s “Irish Times”. I like the one on Politician’s Interests in particular.

On Health Services:

One of the hardest tasks facing a GP is whether or not to send an elderly sick patient to hospital knowing that they need admission. The days of straight admission to hospital are gone and everybody must go through casualty and accept everything that goes with this, despite the best care of the dedicated staff.

It is bad enough to face a possible wait on a trolley for several days, stuck in a busy, noisy area 24/7, with lights on all the time, and with aggressive drunks or drug addicts – but when you are elderly and sick, this can be a frightening, confusing experience, possibly causing deterioration of your condition.

A lot of patients have told me they would rather take their chances and stay at home than face this, and who would blame them?

Is there an answer? I have always felt that we should take the lead from some other countries and have a separate casualty for our elderly patients, as their needs are totally different from the rest of the casualty population.

While this in itself would not shorten admission time, they could be nursed initially in a quiet and restful area while waiting assessment. This financially might not be a popular decision with our paymasters, but there is not a family in the country who would disagree with me. Hospitals are supposed to mean healing, not endurance.

When would-be politicians come to the doorstep, readers can put this idea to them. – Yours, etc,

On The Environment

The dangerous fire at the closed Kerdiffstown, Co Kildare landfill site, as reported by Frank McDonald (Home News, January 28th), is a salutary call to the Minister and Department of the Environment to recognise the value of properly run, controlled high-temperature incineration of waste rather than the protracted out-of-control low temperature burning now occurring at the landfill site.

Low temperature burning of waste produces a wide range of toxic chemicals in the emitted gases and not just sulphur dioxide as we are told is being monitored by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The complexity of the chemical composition of gaseous emissions in the current situation depends on the type of waste and the oxygen concentration.

An obvious component of the emissions from low temperature burning is the group of very toxic, carcinogenic chemicals known as the dioxins.

Incineration of waste reduces the spectrum of toxic chemicals including the dioxins to infinitesimally low levels, that is, to levels which do not cause any significant risk to health. – Yours, etc,

On Politician’s Interests

The Oireachtas Register of Members’ Interests shows that more than a third of Dáil deputies are landlords and have interests (some substantial) in houses,apartments or commercial properties that are being rented or leased, and as such may be beneficiaries of the changes made in the Finance Bill. Was it just and fair that these Dáil deputies were allowed to vote on Sections 23 changes? – I think not. – Yours, etc,

On Foreign Aid

Anyone expecting, or hoping for, changes at the top in Uganda after next month’s election is in for a rude surprise.

Admittedly, the incumbent, Yoweri Museveni, who has held a vice-like grip on power for the last quarter-century, has seen his share of the popular vote decline over recent years. He even stated publicly, in 2006, that there is widespread corruption throughout his party, the National Resistance Movement.

None of this, however, should make any difference to the result.

Security forces are disrupting planned rallies by the opposition, and campaign funding for opponents is virtually non-existent because potential funders fear government victimisation. They can’t even appeal to the electorate via the radio, as station owners fear reprisals if they allow air-time to non-government candidates.

Our government gave €49 million in aid to Uganda during 2009, most of it channelled through Museveni’s regime.

Surely not even the Irish Government could argue that this aid has helped encourage liberal democracy and a respect for human rights in Uganda? – Yours, etc,

Postcript

See you in “Davy Byrne’s” for a gorgonzola sandwich and glass of burgundy.

Irish Mists In Economists

This story possibly has been going around in one form for another for a little while. As the one that arrived in my mail box was based in Ireland, I repeat it below.

It is something that might be told to each other by misty eyed Irish and other Keynesian economists in the hope that there are angels out there somewhere. But it is possible that the reality may differ.

So first I give the tale and then I give one which may be much nearer the truth in these difficult times. On BBC News a few minutes ago from Dublin dealing with new budgetary measures an Irish presenter commented “The government has a majority of roughly two.”

Quote:

The Tale Of A Tourist:

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 €100 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 €100 note and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.

The butcher takes the €100 note and runs down the street to repay his debt to the pig farmer.

The pig farmer takes the €100 note and heads off to pay his bill at the supplier of feed and fuel.

The guy at the Farmers' Co-op takes the €100 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 €100 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 €100 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.

Unquote

In reality the course of events in Ireland would be more like this:

The hotelier uses agency staff paid cash up front. In any case the account manager at his Irish bank has laid down stringent conditions for the repayment of any credits and the butcher is low on the list.

The butcher is now a franchise in a just in time international meat firm. Unluckily the software supplied to him has crashed and he is unable to function. The firm sources its meat from Poland. It is flown into Knock where Hail Mary’s are said over the pallets and then repackaged as Organic Irish Vintage Meat.

The pig farmer is in difficulty. He knocked down the old house to replace it with a ten bedroom Florida style mansion on a mortgage of ten times his gross earnings from a Scottish bank funded from Iceland. He overstated his earnings to get the mortgage.

The farm is now a collection of intensive rearing sheds built on an EU grant coupled to a private equity deal. The financier was hoping for a 25% rate of return on the investment. The meat prices are now undercut by Polish and Venezuelan suppliers..

The Co-operative changed from being Mutual to a limited company. It was then taken over by a UK combine who sold it on to a New York property speculator who also sold it on. Ownership is now in dispute between a finance company in Hong Kong and an Australian Media Group looking to diversify.

The publican lost his trade because of smoking bans and high taxes on alcohol and his inn is now a clandestine money laundering and people trafficking centre.

The local prostitute has founded an employment agency which charges unusually high fees for supplying female secretarial assistants and personal aides to Members of Parliament in the United Kingdom.

This is the agency that also supplies the hotel staff.

The German tourist’s wealth which allows him to afford to travel in Ireland comes from the bonuses arising from his work as a consultant corporate lawyer in foreclosure and insolvency cases.

He tells the hotelier that he will be receiving a visit from the Russian Debt Collection agency he employs in difficult cases.

End

My Great Aunt Lily (born Elizabeth) ran a hotel in County Kildare when she married an Irish hotelier. So which version are you betting on?

The Minstrel Boy To The Royal Wedding Has Gone

Turning on the box at lunch time to see whether the rolling debt crises were becoming worse or better I was greeted by PM Dave rubbing his hands and telling of a joyful Cabinet banging the tables. For a fleeting moment of hope I thought we had been expelled by the EU for whinging and arguing too much.

Alas, it was something else, which according to several sources will enable HMG to bury enough bad news to keep them all happy, at least for a few days. It was the announcement about the Royal nuptials to come. As I avoid much comment, if any, on the Royal Family, I will simply say congratulations and hope it all goes well.

It would be easy to be churlish and use the news as an opportunity to exercise the vocabulary but as The Royals are a soft target I will not. In any case I have had trouble enough in the past. In December 1947 the neighbours complained when I organised a noisy football match in the street. In July 1981 others complained about me mowing the lawn during the high point of the service.

Elsewhere on TV the BBC is flogging a series about the Idea of Civilisation and the nature of ruling classes. Whilst the archaeologists and others are turning up more ancient and many more ruins, some under the seas, others in unexpected places the BBC series is giving us The Greeks. I wonder if the vagaries of Greek finances now are so different from the alleged civilisation of ancient Greece.

The difference may be that they left it in writing and what is more transmitted most of it the The Romans who left both legacies in stone and in writing for later peoples to read, study and sadly try to copy. The British Empire often seems like an uncertain elite aping and attempting to repeat on a larger scale what it thought a classical Romano-Greek civilisation was like.

Meanwhile in Ireland we may well see another version of an earlier bail out and set of financial and governmental relations. Just as the ruling European elite of the late 12th Century decided to put affairs in Ireland to rights, by the methods of the time, Dublin, Waterford and Wexford will soon have Euro offices running the show.

Back then one of the major figures was Raymond le Gros (also Reimund etc.) one of the Fitzgerald family, son of William Fitz Gerald of Carew and Maria de Montgomery. He like his peers had an ambition to seize land and become a great magnate. Fat cats are nothing new. The Carew arms, said to derive from the Montgomery by marriage, are above, only they are lions rather than cats.

Lions have larger appetite than cats so if history is any guide, Ireland may have cause to worry. Poor old Scotland was landed with some of the Montgomery’s when the King became so fed up of their antics in The Welsh Marches that he packed them off north along with many of their more disloyal and violent followers, such as the de Brus family. Then look at what happened.

The debate about what Ireland should do in the present crisis is being argued all around the web by many expert and thoughtful commentators. My view is that Ireland should default, leave the Euro and try to establish a functioning economy on its own terms. Otherwise, it will be again a playground for ambitious European politicians for a century to come.

History does not repeat itself, but human beings do.