BACK TO THE FUTURE
Jobs. Ireland is fixated on them.
Back several hundred moons ago when I was in high school, my debating team wrestled with the topic of automation. Machines and even robots would soon be doing most of the work, we argued. In the utopian future, a few workers would oversee the mechanical contraptions, and most of us would enjoy increased leisure and time to ourselves.
Freed of the drudgery of mere work, we’d be able to devote our minds to higher things. With our machines doing the heavy lifting, human beings would have time to do as we pleased. This would not be a threat to workers and their unions, but the exact opposite, the final triumph of man over want and need. Work? Who would need to work with everything mechanised.
Well, I’m still waiting. It’s true that labour saving devices have changed the way we toil. To take but one example, a single farmer manages herds that would have taken a team to handle a few years ago. But, I have not yet observed any of my hard working farm neighbours lying abed till noon while robots milk the cows. Secretaries still secretary, and teaching machines have not yet displaced classroom pedagogues.
It’s all very disappointing. I was expecting that by this stage we’d be spending our afternoons composing sonnets or painting watercolours while sipping tea poured by our household robots. Quite the opposite has happened – contraptions haven’t freed us, just made us available 24/7!
Call me old fashioned. I still like the concept: our machines do the work while people skite around in flying cars. So, I call for a radical rethink. It’s time to go back to the future when jobs weren’t the goal. Once upon a time we aspired to no jobs!
PECUNIARY MECHANISMS
Europe’s leaders appear to agree with me about the need to shed jobs. Here’s a suitably monetised sentence that I think nicely describes the official position.
EU leaders agreed this past month to increased fiduciary regulation of member state budgetary processes via systematized pecuniary standards requiring prudential fiscal oversight via assessable financial mechanisms.
Nonsense. But, no more nonsensical than what was agreed in summit by 25 of the 27 EU leaders. Tight targets will restrict the amount of debt allowed in annual budgets. That’s a worthy goal, but right now only mighty Luxembourg meets the targets. We are all to aspire to be good Luxembourgeois.
Until the very moment in 2008 when Ireland’s impossibly stupid former rulers nationalised all bank debts, Ireland hit the targets as well. In other words, these rules would not have prevented the Irish meltdown. These new rules do not address the central issue – the unsustainable debt overhang from that drastic decision and similar ones throughout the EU.
These rules impose further austerities on European citizens at the very time when it is clear that austerity is driving European economies ever downward. Oh, the leaders made the usual noises about providing jobs and they set aside some money for training. But, this agreement looks very like a jobs robber.
Ireland may, or may not, get to hold a referendum on the agreement. The current government was heartened by the first poll on the matter showing that a majority of citizens will probably vote yes on tighter EU oversight of Irish budgets. This amazes me since every anecdote I’ve heard or read suggests the exact opposite.
Why would the Irish people vote yes? The EU has made it clear that they’ll turn off the money taps and allow Ireland to default on its debts if it doesn’t sign up by July. Many noted economists declare that Ireland would be better off to take such a hit, slough off the unsustainable debt that is sinking the country and then come roaring back within a couple of years. A lot of folks apparently regard that as an economic experiment too far.
MERRY GO ROUND
Europe’s Catastrophic Blunderers, the ECB, may just have blundered into a temporary solution for Europe’s borrowing crunch.
In the last newsletter I reported how the European Central Bank tried to increase bank liquidity by offering 3 year loans at 1pc interest. The ECB was surprised by the response: worried banks drew down half a trillion euro in less than a week. The regional banks had no real use for this money so they immediately deposited it back with the ECB, earning one quarter of one percent.
Well, the banks found a more profitable use for these funds. They’ve invested in European national bonds. This means that Italian banks are buying Italian government debt with money provided by the ECB. Instead of an anaemic one quarter of one percent interest, the banks now making seven and eight percent with the borrowed funds.
Result: bank balance sheets are in healthier shape and so are Italian bonds. It’s the same for all the troubled European bond markets. The flood of ECB money is driving down bond prices. For the first time since the Irish bailout, Ireland’s bonds are selling for less than 6pc.
While their initial press release expressed surprise at the scale of bank drawdowns, now the ECB intimates, wink wink nod nod, that this was really their plan all along. Whatever, for now it’s working. Forbidden by their charter to intervene in primary bond markets, the ECB is letting regional banks do their work for them. The tidal wave of ECB money is, probably to the Central Bank’s own surprise, taking the pressure off.
All of which illustrates just how crazy the whole system has gotten. The ECB invents funds backed by bankrupt nations to give to bankrupt banks to prop up the bankrupt nations who stand behind the ECB….
The Irish village that said ‘no’ to austerity
Great Irish writer John Banville on the emigration of the Irish
Number 31 – A great place to stay when visiting Dublin
BELLS
Church bells reverberate across the Irish countryside. The sound we hear these days is mostly generated electronically and requires no bell towers or ropes or sacristans to pull them. No matter. The tolling hours are the product of sixteen centuries of worship and invention.
Early Christians did not ring bells. Nor did they draw attention to their gatherings. There were too many hungry lions in the amphitheatres of the Roman Empire. Only after Constantine’s conversion in the fourth century could Christians openly proclaim their religion.
The first use of bells by the Church dates to the fifth century. Saint Paulinus, the Bishop of Nola – a town not far from Naples in Italy – needed some method to call monks from their far flung tasks and summon them to worship. Nola had been a centre of bronze casting for many centuries, so the bishop had at hand the necessary expertise to solve his problem. Some unsung smith must have developed the solution: a hand held bell. Rung rhythmically, the bell pealed a call to prayer.
The use of these bells caught on rapidly. Within decades missionaries bound for Ireland considered bells essential equipment. The first Irish missionary in the records, Saint Declan, forgot to bring his when crossing from Wales to County Waterford. But, his prayers were answered when a large boulder carrying the bell caught up with his ship and then led him to what is now the town of Ardmore. Thus did the first church bell, in Irish a clog, arrive in the island.
Patrick and his disciples constantly used bells. Whenever a new church was formed, the disciple in charge was presented with one. In Connaught alone, it is recorded, Patrick handed out more than fifty bells. Three household smiths had as their primary duty the making of these hand held instruments.
Patrick’s own bell survives. This small clog measures 6 and 7/8 inches tall and was made of two iron plates hammered into a rectangular shape. The rounded corners were riveted together before the bell was dipped into melted bronze. Patrick’s Clog-an-uudhachta, or the ‘Bell of the Testament (so called because it was willed by the saint to one of his disciples), can be viewed along with its more splendid and costly later medieval shrine at the National Museum on Kildare Street in Dublin.
Naturally, so important a relic comes with a tale. One storyteller assures us that "of all sounds in the world, it seems the tinkling of a consecrated bell is the most intolerable to a demon; and the silvery tones of this particular bell… had more terror for our Irish reptiles than all the other bells of the country set ringing together."
These ringing bells kept getting bigger and deeper in tone. The great Gothic cathedrals and enormous stone monasteries of the high middle ages required louder and larger bells. Casting these great bells was a cutting edge technology. Ironically, one reason Europe took an early lead in the development of cannon was that the necessary metallurgic expertise was already in place.
Many ancient churches preserve bell towers. In my own little parish, a church erected during this period boasts a double bellcote. A bellcote is a small framework for hanging one or more bells in churches with no bell tower. So, we can be sure that even in this back-of-beyonds area locals heard church bells pealing over the countryside for hundreds of years.
Bonnnng. Bonnng. Bonnng…
The bells call. Time is passing. Remember what is important. Come to prayer… Come to prayer.
INDOMITABLE
Most visitors to Ireland come across the final verses of Yeats’ last poem. "Under bare Ben Bulben’s head, In Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid." Midst current predicaments, the less known fifth stanza bears repeating. These lines contain the great writer’s admonition to future Irish poets – and to the Irish people.
"Sing the peasantry, and then
Hard-riding country gentlemen,
The holiness of monks, and after
Porter-drinkers’ randy laughter;
Sing the lords and ladies gay
That were beaten into the clay
Through seven heroic centuries;
Cast your mind on other days
That we in coming days may be
Still the indomitable Irishry."

In the coming year, many of us will visit these overseas emigres. And when we do, we won’t be allowed to forget the essentials: Cadbury’s chocolates; rashers along with white and black pudding; Irish oatmeal; Oxo bouillon cubes; Irish Breakfast Tea and above all Tayto’s Cheese and Onion flavoured potato chips.
5 billion. That’s the number of litres of milk produced by Ireland’s 1.1 million milk cows. Farmers, particularly dairy farmers, are celebrating another banner year. The national goal is to ramp up production by 50pc to 7.7 billion litres in 2015, the year the quota system ends. The big question is what effect this intensified production will have on the ecosystem.
100. A property tax of 100 Euro has been assessed on all residences in the country. The catch for the government is that there is no compilation of who owns what. Home owners have to register themselves and self assess. A group of parliamentary independents has urged home owners to ignore the tax.
Open a bag of dried beans and begin counting. One, Two, Three, Four… Wait – there’s too many of them – I lost count.
The European Central Bank, the villain in Europe’s endless drama, is the world’s leading example of why bean counting does not prepare its practitioners to deal with human psychology or even basic economics.
How much do you know about traditional Irish cooking?
Oh Lord, not again! Da Euro.
I heartily recommend the following:
A Danish consultancy firm indexed the most bike friendly cities in the world. Predictably, Amsterdam topped the list closely followed by Copenhagen. But, surprise! Dublin scored high.
A few years ago, businessman Sean Quinn was the country’s wealthiest individual. He was said to be worth 5 billion euro. But, Sean bet the farm on the world’s worst bank – Anglo Irish. Oooch! His total net worth, he claims, is now a little over 14,000 euro.
Woody Allen made a movie about a gent called Zelig who always turned up at major events. Ireland’s own Zelig is a guy most of us never heard of before called Kevin Cardiff, current head of the Department of Finance. Kevin, it turns out, was there on the infamous night in 2008 when the Irish government made the historically stupid decision to guarantee the criminal enterprises mislabelled as Irish banks. He still passionately defends that judgment. He would do that since, Zelig style, his job at the Department of Finance was to keep tabs on the banks.
WADING IN
Warsaw. Kiev. Gdansk. Lvov. These are the places for the Irish to be in 2012. And, for once, this is good news!
The Irish diaspora has been around for a very long time. Descendants of earlier waves of Irish emigrants live in the UK, Australia, the Americas and all over Europe. Last year alone, more than 76,000 people left Irish shores to make their lives abroad in far flung corners as diverse as Dubai, China and Canada.
Even a monkey knows what’s fair. Monkeys trained to ‘shop’ for food by using tokens to make their ‘purchases’ hate to deal with cheaters. So, if a ‘seller’ offers the monkeys two pieces of apple for a coin but then gives them only one piece, they stop buying from him. Instead, they prefer to make their purchases from the honest guy who only offers one apple for one coin but is trustworthy.
To be fair, the government points out that the Irish are great at getting what they want by schmoozing. The present lot never stop reminding us that it was the previous set of democratically elected simpletons who took on this obligation and we elected them to make that decision and that’s how Parliamentary democracy works. Our stupids bought this pup and there’s no return policy.
And what about Anglo Irish Bank? The Irish people, me and my neighbours, we own this 30 billion euro worse-than-useless millstone. First step, ditch the name.
"At what point can a man leave his past behind?" On this question, asked by a radio commentator, turned the election for President of Ireland.
Which left Michael D. Higgins, poet and former Minister of Culture, high and dry. ‘High’ as in when he used to write for Hot Press, the rock magazine, he was known to enjoy the occasional toke. Michael D’s been up front about this for decades. In fact, these youthful escapades should have helped him, because the only serious complaint against this brilliant man is that he’s seventy years old, and God help him, he looks like he’s seventy. For a generation raised on the telly, there is no greater sin.
After Sean Gallagher suddenly vaulted to the top of the polls, the revelations and accusations of influence peddling came thick and fast. Once again we heard the dreaded names we had thought were nailed inside their coffins: larcenous Charlie Haughey, bribe taking Ray Burke, greedy Bertie Ahern…
First, there was judges’ pay. Judges’ salaries are constitutionally protected and can’t be cut by the Dail/Parliament. You need an independent judiciary.
The other constitutional issue was about parliamentary oversight. This has been hedged about with so many restrictions that Dail inquiries have become impossible. Top civil servants have refused to show up to the hearings and lawyers solicit vast sums to keep their clients above the law. Tribunals into political corruption have taken 15 years and hundreds of millions of euros to produce… mehh.
Take all the rain that falls in a normal one month period and dump it in a 24 hour period on the floodplains of north Dublin. Just for good measure, build hundreds of homes and the country’s largest shopping mall on these perilous lowlands. What you get is "a hundred year flood" – the worst case scenario used for zoning decisions by Dublin County Council.
Of course, there is no such thing in Irish tradition as an "Indian Summer". There is, instead, Samhradh Féil’ Mhichíl – The summer of the festival of Michael. Archangel Michael’s day is celebrated on the 29th of September and in Ireland it marked the end of the harvest and ‘fómhar na ngéadhna’ – the goose harvest.
We are the dregs of the universe.
Equally unnerving to scientists is entanglement, another unexplained mystery. When two subatomic particles are entangled, they communicate instantly no matter the distance. A photon on one side of the Milky Way instantly knows what’s happening to an entangled partner on the far side of the Andromeda galaxy.
Sierra Leone was the scene of a fierce civil war in the closing years of the 20th century. Eventually, the UN cobbled together a peace which was enforced by UN troops. An Irish regiment formed a key part of this peace keeping force and their time in Africa was documented by an Irish photographer.
THE DARK ENERGY OF ENTANGLED INFINITUDE
So what’s the opposite of dark energy?
It’s been a gloomy summer, the coldest in 50 years. For some, it’s been much worse. Numbers attending homeless shelters have risen dramatically while organisation resources have not kept pace. Unemployment stands at 14.4pc and long term unemployment – more than a year out of work – nearly doubled to 7.3pc. Construction and food services took the biggest hit, but transport and industry bucked the trend by growing.
CURING THE AFFLICTED
THE END GAME
All commentators assure us that the choices are to give the European Union more powers over national budgets and economic policies – or Euro go bye bye. I’ve read dozens of articles blaming the continent’s leaders for taking half measures when everyone knows what has to be done – a totally centralized Europe that issues its own money in the form of Eurobonds.
For what it’s worth, I think some form of Euro will survive. Germany and its satellite economies – Austria, the Netherlands and Luxembourg will form the backbone. France, Belgium and Finland are probably safe. Everyone else is a big question mark except Greece which will crash out of the Euro soon. Possibly so will the rest of the PIIGS and the recent Euro entrants such as Cyprus, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia and Malta.
Who’d want to be The Queen for seven years? Forget about the good parts like jetting off to the Highlands for a lovely week’s vacation. Nope, all you get are the endlessly boring duties like attending interminable formal functions. Would you sign up for seven years of graduation ceremonies and formal speechifying? And if you stub your toe in public, no blinding and f’ing allowed!
What has been the worst Irish investment of 2011? Stocks are down and so are houses. The Euro is wobbling and don’t even mention the banks.
Is it true that the more you watch cooking programmes, the less likely you are to cook?
Sometimes it helps to speak Martian if you want to understand what’s going on in the Dail/Parliament. During a break in proceedings, a microphone that was accidentally left on picked up three TD’s talking to one another. What one of them clearly said was "brkkk phx kkely wnqstya" amidst the cacophany of scraping chairs and hubbub of shouting voices.
How do you turn 8.4 billion euro into 39 million?
THE SKY HAS FALLEN!
Below are some paragraphs from the most remarkable speech delivered in modern times by an Irish Taoiseach/Chief. Enda Kenny on July 20th reacted to yet another report of clerical abuse of children.
SUMMERTIME AND THE LIVIN’ IS… IRISH
That’s what surveys from 160 volunteers throughout Ireland reported in 2010. These volunteers walked their one to two kilometre transects once a week and this is what they found. Speckled Woods. The Speckled Wood was seen in 134 of these scattered viewing sites. They are widely dispersed but not, however, the most numerous species. That honour belongs to Green-veined Whites, but we’ll get to those cabbages on another day.
We seem to be in some sort of time loop. The new Minister of Finance tells us to spend some of our stash of 135 billion in bank savings to refloat the Irish economy. That’s just what the last Taoiseach/Chief advised. The 28pc of Irish households with zero left over after paying essential expenses would be delighted to follow this advice. The rest of us know that, shades of 2009 and 2010, higher taxes and interest rates and layoffs are on the way.
GOOD NEWS
The latest extension of Dublin’s tram system, LUAS, opens this coming month. This brings the mass transit system within reach of the teeming new western suburbs of the metropolitan area. The latest census figures report the ‘Leinsterisation’ of Ireland. Leinster is the province of Ireland at whose heart lies Dublin. Currently 54pc of the nation’s populace resides in Leinster. So the LUAS trams are much needed. Numbers using the system fell in 2009, but rose again in 2010 setting a new record for the system. When people can get it, they always use decent public transportation systems. Just as happened when they finally reopened the western rail corridor connecting the nation’s second largest city to the third and fourth – Cork, Limerick, Galway. Every commissioned study – more of those useless statisticians – categorically stated that this would be a major drain on government resources. Instead, it’s been profitable from day one.
Brian Lenihan died this past month at the age of 52. He became Minister of Finance just a few months before Lehman Brothers collapsed and the Irish bubble burst with the force of an atomic bomb. Lenihan was a lawyer by training and trade before he assumed the position to which his birth entitled him. His father was a high government minister, his aunt, his brother, his cousin – all were senior people in the Fianna Fail party. And since Fianna Fail was, in their own words "the party of government", this meant he was destined for Irish public office.
One subscriber noticed water meters being installed when he visited County Kerry and asked whether this is a general trend and will it raise costs. Yes and No.
Much consternation last December with the release of a literacy study by the OECD, the global forum for economic co-operation and high-falutin sentiments. Ireland’s fifteen year olds slipped in a single decade from 5th to 15th place in their reading ability. But, a new study the organisation released in June says those same kids were 6th out of 16 nations when it came to reading digital media. D kidz cn txt n utube. Jes don giv m a buk to reed. Sownz lik mor statcal nonsens 2 me.
No Irish event is complete without that essential accompaniment – a tray of sandwiches. The prerequisites are a loaf of store bought white or brown bread and a filling. Ham is the standard, but roast beef is acceptable and egg salad is a perfectly adequate substitute. The bread is first buttered after which the filling is inserted. A thin slice of lettuce may serve as an accoutrement. Flecks of carrot and a generous dollop of mayonnaise on the salad sandwiches add that touch of je ne sais quoi.