now! pay attention.... i'll be brief:

as the emperor's new clothes, otherwise known as the irish economy*, are washed down the drains of global capitalism's latest "readjustment" step forward PATRICIA CALLAN



patricia is the chair of the irish SMALL FIRMS' ASSOCIATION

according to patricia the "problem" is that the IRISH ECONOMY is "high cost", it's "lost the plot", it's no longer "competitive", oh deary deary me, mr mainwairing - doomed weer aw duimed!

and patricia's solution? now THIS is a cracker!

REDUCE THE MINIMUM WAGE (which, outrageously, is apparently MUCH higher than in that bastion of decency & social justice the yoonited statz uv amerika, whose economy PATRICIA, you might have noticed, is doing particularly well at the moment..... koff koff kofff!)

oh this is fan-fucking-tastic! the reason all the yachts in the harbour are keeling over is not to do with the avaricious, tax avoiding, helicopter riding, 50k a/week, making NOTHING, investment consultants & their fucking money grabbing clients: the DEVELOPERS!

FAHKING EEVULLL BAHSTURRRRRRDZ!

NO! it's all down to the fekkin' 18 year old polack serving hamburgers to the drunken, drug addled racist youth of ireland in yer local SUPAHBURGER joint at 4 in the morning earning EIGHT FIFTY AN HOUR!

greedy little foreigner! tighten your size 8 belt immediately!

HEY PATRICIA.... if i may - i think i see another way out of this mess:



good thing i left a trail of breadcrumbs through the forest, huh?

as lou reed said: stick a fork in their ass and turn 'em over - they're done!

thanks for caring

DIMITRI

*CELTIC TIGER? tiger? have any of these KAHNTS looked at the state of tigers, globally like, lately!

As part of my post-gf.jp analysis I was curiously suprised to discover that one of the reasons the US economy hasn't completely tanked in the current sub-prime credit crunch crisis is down to the massive amounts of dollars that have been retained in the Japanese banking system since the 1980s "Asian Tigers" boom.

It has been suggested that if the Japanese decide to physically release their dollar stocks the dollar would be devalued to between 35-50% of its current rate...

If the Chinese release their Dollars then the U.S of A is F$$ked

bear42 wrote:

If the Chinese release their Dollars then the U.S of A is F$$ked

And so is everyone else, including the Chinese.

The US economy is in trouble due to the fact that the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the middle class is going bye-bye. The people with the money still can afford everything while the rest is struggling to survive. These executives decide their salaies and bonuses. They take 99.9% of a companies profit and split the .1% up with the rest of the company. CEO's salaries here are in the millions and then their bonuses are even higher no matter what the company does financially. The employees who make a company strong or weak, get very little.

Gas prices in the US has rising drasticlly. (I know it is even high in Europe.) With gas prices going up, everything else goes up. Wait, a price of oil per barrel should be around $60.00 a barrel. It is all these speculators and politicins that help inflat the price per barrel with their crap. The oil companies are making HUGE PROFITS. These oil companies are in the pockets of the politicins and you don't see them trying to low gas prices. They try to talk a good game but the average person can see thru their BULLSHIT. There is lots of oil in the US and off of its shores but lets not drill for it. Lets let the economy go down instead of helping to fix it.

The US dollar use to be the strongest currency in the world. USE TO BE is the important words here. The dollar is around 2 pounds and around 1.50 euros. It won't be long before the dollar is going to be one of the weakest currencies.

I guess I will stop ranting now.

The main reason oil prices are so high is because of the rapid increase in demand from the developing BRIC nations. These nation's societies and infrastructures have been developing rapidly over the last twenty years, and now it has reached a tipping point where there is not enough oil to go around for everyone. It is incredibly stupid. Cuba provided an excellent model for a world after peak-oil when they experienced a similar example when the Soviet Union fell and they were left economically helpless. I hope that the United States and the BRIC nations can mimic Cuba, but I think it is already too late. The oil executives are just trying to milk out as much profit out of their industry before it falls out from underneath them, and the greedy Arab princes are rapidly squandering valuable oil money because they too realize that their wealth is not permanent.

Pucks13 wrote:

The US economy is in trouble due to the fact that the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the middle class is going bye-bye. The people with the money still can afford everything while the rest is struggling to survive. These executives decide their salaies and bonuses. They take 99.9% of a companies profit and split the .1% up with the rest of the company. CEO's salaries here are in the millions and then their bonuses are even higher no matter what the company does financially. The employees who make a company strong or weak, get very little. Gas prices in the US has rising drasticlly. (I know it is even high in Europe.) With gas prices going up, everything else goes up. Wait, a price of oil per barrel should be around $60.00 a barrel. It is all these speculators and politicins that help inflat the price per barrel with their crap. The oil companies are making HUGE PROFITS. These oil companies are in the pockets of the politicins and you don't see them trying to low gas prices. They try to talk a good game but the average person can see thru their BULLSHIT. There is lots of oil in the US and off of its shores but lets not drill for it. Lets let the economy go down instead of helping to fix it. The US dollar use to be the strongest currency in the world. USE TO BE is the important words here. The dollar is around 2 pounds and around 1.50 euros. It won't be long before the dollar is going to be one of the weakest currencies. I guess I will stop ranting now.

Yes please. "Globalist" anti-capitalist cliches lose their edge when the basic facts are wrong: there are approximately $2 to the GBP, and 1.5 euros to the GBP (therefore $1 = 0.50GBP according to my internet currency convertor). At the risk of being even more patronising I'd also suggest that the "strength" (in terms of the inflation-defining PBRS and RPI - public sector borrowing requirement and retail price index) of a currency isn't even a particularly good indicator of "value for money" outside of fiscal circles. I'd always veer towards the "quality of life" definitions - and, ideologically at least, not perpetuate the notion that laissez-faire/State capitalism is predicated by the supply of fossil fuels.

That being said I'm going to post you an AK47 comrade; just don't let Les advise you on its assembly

you wouldn't have another one of those chunky ol' AKs handy would'cha? ours all seem to be buried in concrete..... gawd dang this "peace"!

DIMITRI

ps: i kinda took our amerikan friend as saying "$2 to he poond and wan-point-5 to thu yoyo...." - which is near enough, innit?

agree with your view on the relevance of fiscal matters like this to the real lives of ordinary people..... unless, of course, yer planning on a w/e jaunt over to the big enchilada for a spot of retail therapy!

Udo Bukowski wrote:

[t the risk of being even more patronising I'd also suggest that the "strength" (in terms of the inflation-defining PBRS and RPI - public sector borrowing requirement and retail price index) of a currency isn't even a particularly good indicator of "value for money" outside of fiscal circles.

Exactly... The US Government voluntarilly devalued the dollar to make our market more attractive to foreign businesses. It hasn't exactly worked out as planned, but the current economic situation doesn't have too much to do with the weak value of the dollar.

Pucks13 wrote:

The dollar is around 2 pounds and around 1.50 euros.

Yeah, I'm just a semantic git, Dimitri... I'm afraid that was my last one, but Les might be able to help?

Udo Bukowski wrote:

That being said I'm going to post you an AK47 comrade; just don't let Les advise you on its assembly

Is that some reference to me not oiling the reload spring mechanism? Cheeky bugger! I was stressed out man. The recoil surpressor/damper in the wooden stock of my bloody Romanian model wasn't working too well and my damn shoulder hurt as a result. Didn't hear those feckin' blue hats complaining!

BTW Crude to be below $100 a barrel by the end of this year. Stick a tenner on it.

GeordieLes wrote:

my bloody Romanian model BTW Crude to be below $100 a barrel by the end of this year. Stick a tenner on it.

I keep telling you you need to look further east Les... The guns and girls are far far more reliable. Not that I'm slagging off your eastern european internet bride or anything...

£10 on $88 a barrel on December 31st 2008 (Xmas, world shortage of 9s, upcoming invasion of Iran and so on...)

Udo Bukowski wrote:

Yeah, I'm just a semantic git, Dimitri... I'm afraid that was my last one, but Les might be able to help?

oh well..... back to trawling amazon.cz i suppose

by the way: SEMANTIC GIT.... how's that "semantism" working out for you? that's the one with 74 vestal (???) virgins waiting for you beyond the pearly gates as you skip the light fandango and so on and so on.....

oh, and yummy fish balls too.... unless i'm mistaken

DIMITRI

dimitri wrote:

by the way: SEMANTIC GIT.... how's that "semantism" working out for you? that's the one with 74 vestal (???) virgins waiting for you beyond the pearly gates as you skip the light fandango?

Tsk, tsk Dimitri... cheap shot, well wide of the mark. Obviously a romanian model. It ain't 74 virgins, it's 74 shots of fortified wine. And as frankly I'm no Josef Fritzl incest-paedo type your offer of virgins is not my idea of pleasure.

Udo Bukowski wrote:

Tsk, tsk Dimitri... cheap shot, well wide of the mark. Obviously a romanian model. It ain't 74 virgins, it's 74 shots of fortified wine. And as frankly I'm no Josef Fritzl incest-paedo type your offer of virgins is not my idea of pleasure.

WHAT!!!!! not even "vestal virgins" (which i can only assume are virgins wearing VESTS - unless anyone knows better!)?

you hard hearted beast!

DIMITRI

ps: would that fortified wine be the "buckfast", by any chance? mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...... "buckfast"!

now THERE'S an idea for a thread