Obama vs. McCain – who is better for Ireland?

// August 30th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // bank of Ireland, economy, irish examiner, mccain, obama

Does anyone in the media know anything? This piece in the examiner today states that Ireland does better under republican presidents than under Democrats. Really? Did anyone do any fact checking at all?

The 1950s were times of bleakness matched only by the huge rate of emigration with that nice Ike (Rep) what people said they liked in the White house. Most people reckon the 60s were pretty good here economically with Lemass and his plans and the general opening up of the country, but weren’t Kennedy and Johnson Democrats? And then when things went to hell in handbasket in the early 70s that Nixon chap (Rep) was commander in chief. We had a brief boom in the late 70s due to the government getting drunk on tax cuts and inflationary public spending but the chickens and most forms of farmyard fowl came home to roost in the 80s. That would be when Ronald the non-McDonald (Rep) was letting things supply siding it up and trickle down.

Times were even tighter here under Bush I (Rep). Most people place the emergence of the Celtic Tiger from the undergrowth (though it’s birth pangs were probably felt in the latter days of Bush I) at some point between ’94 and ’96 when Clinton (Dem) was still paying attention to non-cigar related activities and our recent housing related boom and bust was under Bush II. So, I don’t there is any solid pattern there but if you were making any kind of correlation it would be more plausible to suggest that we do better when the Dems are in charge. Though we need a period of republican rule to prepare us.

As for the future it is not completely unreasonable to suggest that if Obama pushes a protectionist agenda that it may will harm our position but there is nothing in recent history to support the actual tone or title of the article.

Banana splits to reform!

// August 18th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // banana splits

The beeb are reporting that the banana splits are coming back. Hurrah, I say. It must have been ten years after I stopped watching it that I discovered there was a dessert of the same name.

Not long now

// August 18th, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Uncategorized

Is it just me or does the delays in the Russian withdrawal from Georgia proper remind anyone else of a couch surfer you met while on holidays, who turns up on your doorstep to take you up on your inebriated offer of crashage and who then makes themselves more at home that you intended and who appears to have no concrete plans to shift themselves.

“We’ll be out of your hair tomorrow! Probably…”

What if the landlords of the banks couldn’t pay their loans?

// August 7th, 2008 // 2 Comments » // aib, bank of Ireland, boi, Ireland, property

Interesting question posed in the pub a while back- what if either of the sets of people who bought the HQs of the two largest Irish banks couldn’t continue to finance their operations? Many people thought at the time that when BOI and ABI sold their HQs and leased them back that this was a sure sign that the property market had peaked. And that may well turn out to be the case. Yet what of the finances of those who bought them, what if they were to find themselves over stretched? Would the banks lean on them or ease off for fear that they might seek to renogitiate the leases

Old white dude 0 – Paris Hilton 1

// August 6th, 2008 // No Comments » // barack obama, celebrity, john mccain, paris hilton

When reading it I thought the idea of Paris Hilton responding to John McCain’s Obama – Celebrity ad was really lame. Yet it works brilliantly, in what it has to be her best performance to date she is actually convincing talking about energy policy. Watch it here