Why do they do it?

They win oscars.


They earn millions.



They make rock 'n roll history.




They even help bring the Cold War to an end.



Why do they do it?

George Clooney brought to you by Nespresso.
Brad Pitt brought to you by Tag Heuer.
Nicole Kidman brought to you by Chanel.
Products selling products.
Because you're worth it.
Because you're loving it.
The whole world in one bank.
Embracing ingenuity.
Think Different.
Engineered to Move the Human Spirit.
Driven by Passion.
Think. Feel. Drive.
We look at life. So you don't have to.
Just do it.
Wherever you are, so are we.

Some fell among thorns

America I've given you my all & now I'm nothing.
America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
America why are your libraries full of tears?
I'm sick of your insane demands.
America the plum blossoms are falling.
-- Allen Ginsberg


And he spake many things unto them in parables

Shameless

Sindo editor Aengus Fanning helps Phelim and Cliodhna Drew to reflect on their father.

Mr Fanning was at Ronnie Drew's side for 'seven months -- seven months of terminal illness -- that it took to record his last album.' The editor 'found himself taking on the role of an errant son, working as driver, dogsbody and amanuensis.'

The accompanying article was written by Donal Lynch, who doesn't feature in the photograph. Note the air of easy gaiety that Fanning creates, as Phelim Drew casually plugs his father's biography. Drew's last recording lies on the table, while a portrait of the Dubliner hangs above Cliodhna. The photograph was posed in O Donoghue's pub, well known for its Dubliners decorations.

Remembering Ronnie:

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/news-gossip/remembering-ronnie-1550180.html

Change

'He has successfully projected a rhetoric of change as a function of greater coherence and managerial efficiency, rather than as a means of much more radical departures from established policies.

…regeneration the US infrastructure, health and educational systems have caught the popular mood...

It has been a brilliant campaign, which has marshalled the energy of a new generation...if he can deliver he would provide a stimulus for a world which seems to have reached a policy impasse on how to escape from recession or prevent it turning into depression.

- Irish Times on the election of Bill Clinton, 3 November 1992

Budget Glas

The Finance Bill published today has a distinctly green taste.

1 aim, 4 objectives
Announcing the Bill Mr Lenihan said he wants:
to put in place measures to enhance our economic performance,
to maintain and enhance our international competitiveness,
to support enterprise
to restore stability to the public finances

4/7 Green measures
The Bill contains about 7 headline makers, 4 of which will please green supporters:

€200-a-year levy on car parking spaces in urban areas
€10 departure tax on airline passengers
Tax incentive for certain energy-efficient equipment
Tax relief of up to €1,000 a year for the purchase of bicycles and cycling equipment.

AMDG measures
Two more are concerned with social justice:
3% levy on incomes over €250,000 (should bring in €60m)
Minimum wage earners excluded from 1% income levy.

Finally the Capital Acquisitions Tax, which covers inheritance and gifts, increases by 22%.

The Next Steps:
The rest of our near future will be decided by the governor of the Central Bank, the Financial Regulator and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Mr Lenihan received all three yesterday, and is expected to either decide a way forward based on what they tell him or commission a report which will put their opinions in a glossier format.

Sensing a bargain, international private investment firms are expressing an interest in buying stakes in one or a number of our banks.

The brightness that was before

The Taoiseach today told the Dáil that the Government is:

Considering all options on Irish banks
Wants to minimise the exposure of the taxpayer.
Has received a report from PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The report said:

The 6 banks covered by the State guarantee scheme had more capital than required by the regulator on September 30 when the scheme was announced.
The banks will have enough capital until 2011.

What does this mean? The Taoiseach trenchantly reaffirmed in the Dáil that he is unsure. But he is sure of the following:

The banks’ capital is diminished.
Irish banks need a lot of capital.
If they don’t get it, they will have to reduce their loan books.
Unless the banks’ loan books are big the economy will be crushed.
Businesses will be starved.
And Ireland shall become heaps,
A dwellingplace for dragons,
An astonishment,
And a hissing
Without an inhabitant.

Recapitalisation is not a panacea, said Mr Cowen, though he conceeded that the brightness that was before is now a thick cloud.

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny launched a blistering attack on Moloch, the near eastern deity that requires costly sacrifices:

‘Moloch whose mind is pure machinery,’ said Mr Kenny. ‘Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone. Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks. Moloch in whom we sit lonely.’

In response to this unprecedented criticism Mr Cowen could only say ‘international market expectations in relation to capital levels in the banking sector have altered and meeting these expectations may be challenging.’

Haughey nostalgia

'There is no avoiding them and anybody who suggests that they can be avoided is misleading the public. It is absurd for some people to say that they are in favour of reducing Government expenditure in general, but then oppose every single particular reduction that we make.'

- Taoiseach Charles J Haughey, 14 October 1987
(six months after the MacSharry Budget)

On this day £485m cuts in Government expenditure were announced. It was touted as the severest measure in thirty years and 8,000 State jobs would be lost as a result. Agriculture spending was down 18%, roads and housing down 11%, education spending down £86m which would mean 2,500 fewer teachers in the next academic year. The Government expected 256,000 unemployed in 1988.

The following April a deal was struck with teachers unions and parents representatives that would guarantee a maximum primary school class size of 39. The deal was welcomed.

*

There are a number of remarkable parallels between the preceding few months and the events of 1987.

Financial meltdown of Black Monday, 21 October 1987
The Government fights a Europe referendum
Huge opposition to the Budget cuts.

May 22 1987: 15,000 protest in Dublin against the health cuts. Minister for Health Rory O Hanlon’s response? – This year’s constraints are likely to be a feature of next year. Cries of ‘shame on you’ and that threat the public should never issue: We won’t forget this!

Meanwhile the Government is looking to see which State bodies it can scrap. Haughey circulates a note to his Cabinet:

‘A radical approach should be adopted and no expenditure should be regarded as sacrosanct and immune to elimination or reduction. We do not want a series of justifications of the status quo or special pleadings,’ it says.

This is more of the same. Fianna Fail had come to power on a wave of discontent with the Coalition, which was so disunited that it made only the slightest of efforts to get a Budget together, knowing the harsh measures needed would would collapse it. Just before the first MacSharry Budget at the end of March one backbencher said: 'we’re going to make the other crowd look like the Vincent de Paul.’

*

With hindsight, the same old issues come up before the Single European Act. Haughey had little time for them.

Fears about our neutrality are only ‘foolish’, he says. ‘Don’t let that keep you from ratifying it. Sure look at Austria, nice and neutral and hoping to get in.’ An even better rebuttal of the other side was this: ‘Some opponents of the Treaty are ‘really opposed for ideological reasons.’