Talk about a state of the union. I’ve passed through many states in the course of my recent travels with Black 47. How are things going out there in the country? Well, as ever, you’re hit with the sheer irrepressible sense of energy and optimism that Americans have always had in abundance; yet, these ineffable characteristics are curried with a deep anger, a brooding sense of anxiety and a revulsion towards politicians and the shadowy mix of financiers and speculators who many feel have sucked the life-blood out of the country.
In short, there’s almost a palpable sense of betrayal abroad. Most people feel that they’ve worked hard, done their part and deserve better. Some may have stretched to buy the home that was a bit beyond their means or overcharged their credit cards, but even they don’t want or expect handouts from the government, and they’re perfectly willing to work that extra job to get things back on the straight and narrow. The problem is: the ground is being pulled from beneath their feet as many face unemployment in tandem with rising health care and education costs.
Most are aghast at the wars and excesses of the last eight years, yet they hardly had time to celebrate the lifting cloud before the new president was swamped by a deluge of problems. The more financially secure feel that it’s the inevitable case of the chickens coming home to roost, while those who have already lost their jobs - or fear for them - are just plain frightened.
Everyone wishes to get the country back on track again. But, unlike the mobilization of World War Two, the enemy is not tangible. This time it’s not the Germans or the Japanese that are being confronted – it’s a basic lack of trust. The social contract that unified us was dismantled brick by brick in the recent go-go years of narcissism and “looking out for number one.”
And in the background there’s the endless chatter of cable TV, instant Internet news, partisan blogs and twitters that vilify and predict by the second, then recalibrate their opinions, nail a new victim and predict all over again.
Many people are disoriented because they must come to terms with the fact that the America they knew has changed. Where once we were a great manufacturing nation, now we have become a service society that gets paid to look after and entertain each other. Look at the glass darkly and it could seem that the US risks becoming a big Ronald McDonald, minimum-wage franchise.
Great ideas put into practice, however, can and will elevate the country. The next Apple or Google is even now being conceived in someone’s bedroom or garage. The keys, as ever, are education and innovation. While more and more people cannot afford the former, I saw no lack of the latter out there in the middle of America. In fact, many are already reeducating and reinventing themselves to meet what they fear is a coming meltdown.
They despise both Democratic and Republican poseurs and naysayers. They don’t trust the media and regard all the talking heads as mere pawns who will jump through any hoop to boost their ratings. They want positive change and they’re willing to pay for it, but they’re leery of spending their children’s heritage in parcels of “trust us” trillion dollar schemes that they have not been consulted about.
They are crying out for affordable health care and back the President’s as yet unannounced plans because they recognize that costs must be brought under control. None has a kind word to say for their current insurers and yet all are deathly afraid of losing their coverage.
Many are amazed that they trust this new President so deeply, including some who are borderline racists. They desperately want him to succeed and admire his quiet confidence. They will stick with him, though one gets the impression that time is tight and his political capital is finite.
In an age of bitter anxiety and dreams postponed, I was repeatedly struck by how much, and in such a short time, we have all come to depend upon President Barack Obama.
Thursday, 26 March 2009
Saint Patrick's Day
On one day a year, they congregated outside Old St. Patrick's Cathedral on Mulberry Street in New York City and marched in celebration. To some of these immigrant Irish and their American born children it was a religious occasion, but to most the gathering was an affirmation of their right not only to survive but to thrive in their adopted country.
That's what I sense on St. Patrick's Day - an echo from a time when the Irish were despised outsiders. And that's why I go along with the raucous energy, the excitement and even the green beer, the plastic shamrocks and the ubiquitous leprechaun.
I didn't always feel that way. When I arrived from Ireland, these manifestations of Irish-America were at best embarrassing. Back home, our own celebrations were rigid and religious; we did sport actual sprigs of shamrock but there was no beer, green or otherwise. The Parade up Fifth Avenue and the ensuing bacchanal seemed downright pagan by comparison.
I had other immigrant battles of my own ahead. The band, Black 47, was formed to create music that would reflect the complexity of immigrant and contemporary Irish-American life and to banish When Irish Eyes Are Smiling off to a well earned rest in the depths of Galway Bay.
This idea met with not a little resistance in the north Bronx and the south sides of Boston and Chicago; but when irate patrons would yell out during a reggae/reel "why can't yez sing somethin' Irish?" I would return the compliment with, "I'm from Ireland, I wrote it! That makes it Irish!”
With time and familiarity, Irish-America came to accept Black 47, probably more for our insistence that each generation bears responsibility for solving the political problems in the North of Ireland, than for recasting Danny Boy as a formidable gay construction worker.
I, in turn, learned to appreciate the traditions of the community I had joined along with the reasons for the ritualized celebration of our patron saint.
And now on St. Patrick's Day, no matter what stage I'm on, mixed in with the swirl of guitars, horns, pipes and drums, I hear an old, but jarring, memory of a people rejoicing as they rose up from their knees.
Our battles, for the most part, have been won; indeed, one has to search an encyclopedia for mention of the Know-Nothing Party or various 19th Century nativist politicians and gangs of bullyboys. Anti-Irish sentiment, not to mention Anti-Catholicism, is a rarity.
Might it not be time then for our New York St. Patrick's Day Parade to celebrate all Irish people no matter what religion (or lack thereof), sexuality or political conviction?
It's a broad step, I know. But with a just peace finally taking seed in the North of Ireland, might we not some day witness Dr. Paisley, Mr. Adams and various members of the Irish Gay community walk arm in arm up Fifth Avenue.
Impossible? Perhaps, but I, for one, would have wagered heavily 15 years ago that Sinn Fein would never sit in a Northern Irish Parliament. Times change, as do tactics and even rigid principles.
Whatever about Parade pipe dreams, we still must honor the memory of those who paved the way for us. Part of that responsibility is that Irish-Americans should never forget the new immigrants from other lands, legal and undocumented.
Many, like our forebears, are fleeing poverty and are striving to feed and educate their families. It would be the ultimate irony if an Irish-American were to look down upon the least of them; for to my mind there is no place in the Irish soul for racism, sectarianism, homophobia or even dumb old Archie Bunker type xenophobia.
I once heard Pete Hamill ask: "What does the Pakistani taxi driver say to his children when he gets home after 12 hours behind the wheel?" I can't say for certain but I'll bet he echoes many of the sentiments of those Irish who gathered outside Old St. Patrick's Cathedral on Mulberry Street so many immigrant years and tears ago.
That's what I sense on St. Patrick's Day - an echo from a time when the Irish were despised outsiders. And that's why I go along with the raucous energy, the excitement and even the green beer, the plastic shamrocks and the ubiquitous leprechaun.
I didn't always feel that way. When I arrived from Ireland, these manifestations of Irish-America were at best embarrassing. Back home, our own celebrations were rigid and religious; we did sport actual sprigs of shamrock but there was no beer, green or otherwise. The Parade up Fifth Avenue and the ensuing bacchanal seemed downright pagan by comparison.
I had other immigrant battles of my own ahead. The band, Black 47, was formed to create music that would reflect the complexity of immigrant and contemporary Irish-American life and to banish When Irish Eyes Are Smiling off to a well earned rest in the depths of Galway Bay.
This idea met with not a little resistance in the north Bronx and the south sides of Boston and Chicago; but when irate patrons would yell out during a reggae/reel "why can't yez sing somethin' Irish?" I would return the compliment with, "I'm from Ireland, I wrote it! That makes it Irish!”
With time and familiarity, Irish-America came to accept Black 47, probably more for our insistence that each generation bears responsibility for solving the political problems in the North of Ireland, than for recasting Danny Boy as a formidable gay construction worker.
I, in turn, learned to appreciate the traditions of the community I had joined along with the reasons for the ritualized celebration of our patron saint.
And now on St. Patrick's Day, no matter what stage I'm on, mixed in with the swirl of guitars, horns, pipes and drums, I hear an old, but jarring, memory of a people rejoicing as they rose up from their knees.
Our battles, for the most part, have been won; indeed, one has to search an encyclopedia for mention of the Know-Nothing Party or various 19th Century nativist politicians and gangs of bullyboys. Anti-Irish sentiment, not to mention Anti-Catholicism, is a rarity.
Might it not be time then for our New York St. Patrick's Day Parade to celebrate all Irish people no matter what religion (or lack thereof), sexuality or political conviction?
It's a broad step, I know. But with a just peace finally taking seed in the North of Ireland, might we not some day witness Dr. Paisley, Mr. Adams and various members of the Irish Gay community walk arm in arm up Fifth Avenue.
Impossible? Perhaps, but I, for one, would have wagered heavily 15 years ago that Sinn Fein would never sit in a Northern Irish Parliament. Times change, as do tactics and even rigid principles.
Whatever about Parade pipe dreams, we still must honor the memory of those who paved the way for us. Part of that responsibility is that Irish-Americans should never forget the new immigrants from other lands, legal and undocumented.
Many, like our forebears, are fleeing poverty and are striving to feed and educate their families. It would be the ultimate irony if an Irish-American were to look down upon the least of them; for to my mind there is no place in the Irish soul for racism, sectarianism, homophobia or even dumb old Archie Bunker type xenophobia.
I once heard Pete Hamill ask: "What does the Pakistani taxi driver say to his children when he gets home after 12 hours behind the wheel?" I can't say for certain but I'll bet he echoes many of the sentiments of those Irish who gathered outside Old St. Patrick's Cathedral on Mulberry Street so many immigrant years and tears ago.
Monday, 9 March 2009
Nationalization
Nationalization! The dreaded “N” word is on all lips except the President’s. Has the former “most liberal member of the senate” been mesmerized by the soothing, soporific cadences of Gov. Bobby Jindal?
I think not. After all he has introduced a stimulus the like of which could raise FDR from the dead, while I hear that his health insurance plan has Speaker Pelosi hoisting her skirts and dancing the Tarantella. The only fly in the ointment is that he continues to treat a growing number of zombie banks as though his communion penny was deposited amongst them.
As long as the financial system of the country totters on a foundation of “toxic assets,” President Obama, Treasury Secretary Geithner and Lawrence Summers, can huff and puff ‘til the cows come home but they will not return the US to economic normality. Then again, as Bob Dylan once pointed out, “I don’t know what normal is anymore.” After the recent economic shellacking who does? Makes you almost long for good old Dubya voodoo economics when the war in Iraq was fought without costing the country a dime.
President Obama’s dithering is indeed puzzling. He seems to have so much else right. Spend your way out of the approaching deflation, break the stranglehold of petro-dictators, and provide a sane national health system so that when jobs eventually begin trickling back employers wont have to shoulder prohibitively expensive health insurance.
It’s staggering that the President still listens to his Treasury Secretary, the same gentleman who barely raised a whimper at the New York Fed during the worst Wall Street excesses. At least, Mr. Geithner appears to be banned from spouting anemic daytime prognostications for fear the Dow will keel over and slide into the Hudson.
As for Lawrence Summers - all I ever hear is just how smart he is. Well, he wasn’t so smart when he endorsed deregulation back during his own treasury reign; while his views on women’s aptitude for mathematics when President of Harvard were hardly those of a considered thinker. Even had he been correct in his Archie Bunker musings, he was either too arrogant or unaware to muzzle himself. Show me the home where a woman hasn’t the best handle on mathematics, practical or theoretical; and point out the lady who would allow banks to keep their tainted assets on the books at some fairytale price rather than at market value.
President Obama is throwing good money after bad into the black holes that are Citigroup, Bank of America and AIG. Better send in the shock troops now and find out if these institutions are, as suspected, basically insolvent. Short-term nationalization – or whatever genteel term you’d prefer - won’t be pretty but eventually a credible financial floor will be established, thereby encouraging the private sector to invest in and reclaim these failed banks again.
The real fear is that neither the vast sums needed nor the public’s goodwill will still be on tap unless the problem is faced immediately. Governor Jindal is already taking rehabilitation classes at the Sarah Palin School of Economics, and Newt Gingrich waits in the wings ready to resurrect the Reagan deregulatory revolution.
Try not to get sidetracked by all the hot air about clamping down on the bonuses of Wall Street executives. Those billions are mere drops in the bucket compared to the trillions that our masters of the universe have gambled – and lost - on securitized mortgages. We’ve had all the smokescreens and Band-Aid economics we can handle. How about a dose of reality for a change?
Anyway, enough doom and gloom! I for one am hedging my bets. I have applied for a shovel-ready stimulus grant and plan to start an all-ages retirement community up in E. Durham. We’ll do yoga in the morning, drink dollar beers in the Blackthorn all afternoon while watching the Mets sweep to the World Series. And, in a masterstroke of synergistic marketing, I have approached both Guinness and Viagra to donate a pint and a pill for each member’s nightcap. As the subway driver said, “they’ll never know what hit them!”
I will be accepting applicants at BB Kings on March 17th. All those who oppose nationalization will receive preference. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
I think not. After all he has introduced a stimulus the like of which could raise FDR from the dead, while I hear that his health insurance plan has Speaker Pelosi hoisting her skirts and dancing the Tarantella. The only fly in the ointment is that he continues to treat a growing number of zombie banks as though his communion penny was deposited amongst them.
As long as the financial system of the country totters on a foundation of “toxic assets,” President Obama, Treasury Secretary Geithner and Lawrence Summers, can huff and puff ‘til the cows come home but they will not return the US to economic normality. Then again, as Bob Dylan once pointed out, “I don’t know what normal is anymore.” After the recent economic shellacking who does? Makes you almost long for good old Dubya voodoo economics when the war in Iraq was fought without costing the country a dime.
President Obama’s dithering is indeed puzzling. He seems to have so much else right. Spend your way out of the approaching deflation, break the stranglehold of petro-dictators, and provide a sane national health system so that when jobs eventually begin trickling back employers wont have to shoulder prohibitively expensive health insurance.
It’s staggering that the President still listens to his Treasury Secretary, the same gentleman who barely raised a whimper at the New York Fed during the worst Wall Street excesses. At least, Mr. Geithner appears to be banned from spouting anemic daytime prognostications for fear the Dow will keel over and slide into the Hudson.
As for Lawrence Summers - all I ever hear is just how smart he is. Well, he wasn’t so smart when he endorsed deregulation back during his own treasury reign; while his views on women’s aptitude for mathematics when President of Harvard were hardly those of a considered thinker. Even had he been correct in his Archie Bunker musings, he was either too arrogant or unaware to muzzle himself. Show me the home where a woman hasn’t the best handle on mathematics, practical or theoretical; and point out the lady who would allow banks to keep their tainted assets on the books at some fairytale price rather than at market value.
President Obama is throwing good money after bad into the black holes that are Citigroup, Bank of America and AIG. Better send in the shock troops now and find out if these institutions are, as suspected, basically insolvent. Short-term nationalization – or whatever genteel term you’d prefer - won’t be pretty but eventually a credible financial floor will be established, thereby encouraging the private sector to invest in and reclaim these failed banks again.
The real fear is that neither the vast sums needed nor the public’s goodwill will still be on tap unless the problem is faced immediately. Governor Jindal is already taking rehabilitation classes at the Sarah Palin School of Economics, and Newt Gingrich waits in the wings ready to resurrect the Reagan deregulatory revolution.
Try not to get sidetracked by all the hot air about clamping down on the bonuses of Wall Street executives. Those billions are mere drops in the bucket compared to the trillions that our masters of the universe have gambled – and lost - on securitized mortgages. We’ve had all the smokescreens and Band-Aid economics we can handle. How about a dose of reality for a change?
Anyway, enough doom and gloom! I for one am hedging my bets. I have applied for a shovel-ready stimulus grant and plan to start an all-ages retirement community up in E. Durham. We’ll do yoga in the morning, drink dollar beers in the Blackthorn all afternoon while watching the Mets sweep to the World Series. And, in a masterstroke of synergistic marketing, I have approached both Guinness and Viagra to donate a pint and a pill for each member’s nightcap. As the subway driver said, “they’ll never know what hit them!”
I will be accepting applicants at BB Kings on March 17th. All those who oppose nationalization will receive preference. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
Thursday, 12 February 2009
Rebel in the Soul
“MacBride refuses to stand behind him
McQuaid has got him in a vice
The country turns its back upon him
No choice left but to resign…”
Both people mentioned in the above verse will be a mystery to many, but those of a certain age will know the song deals with one of the most enigmatic men to ever grace Irish politics – Dr. Noel Browne.
No matter what ones views on him, it can hardly be argued but that he changed Ireland and for the better.
Sixty years ago the country was in the grip of Tuberculosis, also known as Consumption. Noel Browne set out to rid Ireland of the dreaded disease and, amazingly, he succeeded. Not single-handedly, of course, but he was the engine that drove a crusade.
As many who knew him would testify, he could be a difficult man at the best of times. Then again, his boyhood was beyond Dickensian.
His father died from the disease when Browne was seven. Homeless and near destitution, his mother took the family to England where she soon after expired. His account of kissing her damp forehead goodbye would wrench tears from a stone. His elder brother - crippled from birth by the curse - along with two of his sisters would die from it, while Browne himself suffered recurring attacks through much of his life.
Yet there is a fairy-tale element to this tale. Through sheer good fortune and his immigrant sister’s efforts he was enrolled gratis in St. Anthony’s, an exclusive Catholic prep school. He then won a scholarship to Beaumont, a Jesuit public school, where he met Neville Chance whose wealthy family more or less adopted him and paid his way through Trinity College where he resolved to become a doctor.
Although he would later specialize in psychiatry, he devoted his early medical years to eradicating Tuberculosis. He and his colleagues did Trojan work in various hospitals in the UK and Ireland, but he eventually realized that the magnitude of the problem called for a political solution.
He joined the nascent Clann na Poblachta party led by Sean MacBride (talk about a fascinating, controversial and multi-faceted character). In the general election of 1948, Dr. Browne was elected on a personal platform of eradicating TB. On his first day in Dail Eireann he was chosen as Minister for Health in the coalition government that had unseated Eamonn DeValera’s Fianna Fail party.
The new government was riven by ideological differences. Led by Fine Gael’s John A. Costello, it spanned the spectrum from right to left - while to add fat to the fire the Minister for External Affairs, MacBride, had once been chief of staff of the IRA.
Nonetheless, Browne hit the ground running. He recognized that the only way to halt and ultimately defeat the disease was to isolate those suffering from it. To that end, he converted hospitals and commissioned new facilities, sending all patients - regardless of means - to sanitoria whose very names can still evoke unease amongst those who remember them: Ardkeen, Cherry Orchard, Portiuncula.
He had a number of things on his side: much money from Joe McGrath’s Irish Hospitals Sweepstakes Fund, the recent discovery of the drug, Streptomycin, and the support of a broad swathe of people whose families had been oppressed by the disease.
Tuberculosis was not eradicated overnight but Browne and the many who combated it in the 1940’s and 50’s stopped it dead in its tracks, so much so that the dreaded “san,” as it was known, has slipped off into its own chapter in Irish history along with diphtheria and scarlet fever wards .
And what of Browne? We’ll need another column to deal with his complex story but here’s a clue for next week.
“Did you think you were the Saviour
When the sick blessed your name
You may have defeated your enemy
But you made new ones
And they had patience and they were waiting…”
McQuaid has got him in a vice
The country turns its back upon him
No choice left but to resign…”
Both people mentioned in the above verse will be a mystery to many, but those of a certain age will know the song deals with one of the most enigmatic men to ever grace Irish politics – Dr. Noel Browne.
No matter what ones views on him, it can hardly be argued but that he changed Ireland and for the better.
Sixty years ago the country was in the grip of Tuberculosis, also known as Consumption. Noel Browne set out to rid Ireland of the dreaded disease and, amazingly, he succeeded. Not single-handedly, of course, but he was the engine that drove a crusade.
As many who knew him would testify, he could be a difficult man at the best of times. Then again, his boyhood was beyond Dickensian.
His father died from the disease when Browne was seven. Homeless and near destitution, his mother took the family to England where she soon after expired. His account of kissing her damp forehead goodbye would wrench tears from a stone. His elder brother - crippled from birth by the curse - along with two of his sisters would die from it, while Browne himself suffered recurring attacks through much of his life.
Yet there is a fairy-tale element to this tale. Through sheer good fortune and his immigrant sister’s efforts he was enrolled gratis in St. Anthony’s, an exclusive Catholic prep school. He then won a scholarship to Beaumont, a Jesuit public school, where he met Neville Chance whose wealthy family more or less adopted him and paid his way through Trinity College where he resolved to become a doctor.
Although he would later specialize in psychiatry, he devoted his early medical years to eradicating Tuberculosis. He and his colleagues did Trojan work in various hospitals in the UK and Ireland, but he eventually realized that the magnitude of the problem called for a political solution.
He joined the nascent Clann na Poblachta party led by Sean MacBride (talk about a fascinating, controversial and multi-faceted character). In the general election of 1948, Dr. Browne was elected on a personal platform of eradicating TB. On his first day in Dail Eireann he was chosen as Minister for Health in the coalition government that had unseated Eamonn DeValera’s Fianna Fail party.
The new government was riven by ideological differences. Led by Fine Gael’s John A. Costello, it spanned the spectrum from right to left - while to add fat to the fire the Minister for External Affairs, MacBride, had once been chief of staff of the IRA.
Nonetheless, Browne hit the ground running. He recognized that the only way to halt and ultimately defeat the disease was to isolate those suffering from it. To that end, he converted hospitals and commissioned new facilities, sending all patients - regardless of means - to sanitoria whose very names can still evoke unease amongst those who remember them: Ardkeen, Cherry Orchard, Portiuncula.
He had a number of things on his side: much money from Joe McGrath’s Irish Hospitals Sweepstakes Fund, the recent discovery of the drug, Streptomycin, and the support of a broad swathe of people whose families had been oppressed by the disease.
Tuberculosis was not eradicated overnight but Browne and the many who combated it in the 1940’s and 50’s stopped it dead in its tracks, so much so that the dreaded “san,” as it was known, has slipped off into its own chapter in Irish history along with diphtheria and scarlet fever wards .
And what of Browne? We’ll need another column to deal with his complex story but here’s a clue for next week.
“Did you think you were the Saviour
When the sick blessed your name
You may have defeated your enemy
But you made new ones
And they had patience and they were waiting…”
Wednesday, 4 February 2009
If the foundations be destroyed...
One of the great inauguration moments was watching President Bush’s helicopter disappear from view. Was it my imagination or did I hear a mass American sigh of relief? Talk about time to go!
Hopefully he took with him the dumb and dumber pills that his administration fed the country for eight vapid years. If President Obama ushers in anything, let’s hope that it’s a new era of respect for intelligence and practicality.
That man is indeed a breath of fresh air. He recognizes the importance of a decent health insurance system, the pointlessness of invading other countries, the incompatibility of torture with the American way, and the necessity of restoring our image internationally. In my book that puts him ahead of the curve before he even gets his gloves off.
What he doesn’t seem to have come to terms with is the gross overvaluation of assets on the balance sheets of many of our great financial service firms. Until then, all his talk of a stimulus is just so much dust - or should I say - dollars in the wind.
Or could it be that the figures he’s crunching are so bad he can’t risk letting us peons – or the Dow - know the full story. Truth or fiction, the present financial crisis will remain with us until we all take a deep gulp and let the market reassert itself.
Strange talk, you may say, from a person who cut his teeth on the economic tracts of James Connolly! Oddly enough, the man they shot in a chair predicted the current international financial meltdown; only problem - he was off by 90 or so years.
One way or another these “toxic” assets must be dealt with. Until then banks will not loan to each other, much less you, me or General Motors.
Markets abhor doubt and respect only one law – that of the jungle. Many of the unhealthier financial institutions must go under so that the fitter ones can survive. Tragically, they’ll take with them the hopes and dreams of their employees. Still, pumping billions more into Citigroup, et al, is pointless until all institutions that made bad calls actually value their assets in the real world and not the Narnia they’re currently inhabiting.
That will cause a seismic shock but what’s the alternative? Let the crisis dawdle on while the country’s fiscal future is ransomed to various stimuli that won’t work? Have you checked out your 401(k) lately? Probably not, the sight is just too gruesome. Yet, to my mind, stocks of many solid companies seem undervalued. But what chance is there of any appreciation in the current uncertain conditions?
President Obama can employ his accustomed flights of oratory until the cows come home, but a phrase from scripture that I first heard uttered by Rev. Ian Paisley hits closest to the mark, “if the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?”
Despite the dumbing down of the last eight years, I don’t have the least doubt that Americans will rise to the occasion. But we do need a good rock-solid floor beneath our feet before we get to work restoring the country’s fortune.
And what of Citigroup? Well, my Irish psychiatrist (local barman) gave his verdict a couple of nights back: “Just give me one of them corner bank buildings and I’ll turn it into the best bar in the city – presuming any of yez still has the price of a couple of pints.”
Seeing the new president didn’t take my advice and offer Steve Duggan, the gig as Treasury Secretary, maybe he should try the Rev. Ian. The man has some considerable baggage, and we’ll probably have to give him a pass on the questionnaire; but at least he’s got the first principle right – lay down a decent foundation before you start building.
Hopefully he took with him the dumb and dumber pills that his administration fed the country for eight vapid years. If President Obama ushers in anything, let’s hope that it’s a new era of respect for intelligence and practicality.
That man is indeed a breath of fresh air. He recognizes the importance of a decent health insurance system, the pointlessness of invading other countries, the incompatibility of torture with the American way, and the necessity of restoring our image internationally. In my book that puts him ahead of the curve before he even gets his gloves off.
What he doesn’t seem to have come to terms with is the gross overvaluation of assets on the balance sheets of many of our great financial service firms. Until then, all his talk of a stimulus is just so much dust - or should I say - dollars in the wind.
Or could it be that the figures he’s crunching are so bad he can’t risk letting us peons – or the Dow - know the full story. Truth or fiction, the present financial crisis will remain with us until we all take a deep gulp and let the market reassert itself.
Strange talk, you may say, from a person who cut his teeth on the economic tracts of James Connolly! Oddly enough, the man they shot in a chair predicted the current international financial meltdown; only problem - he was off by 90 or so years.
One way or another these “toxic” assets must be dealt with. Until then banks will not loan to each other, much less you, me or General Motors.
Markets abhor doubt and respect only one law – that of the jungle. Many of the unhealthier financial institutions must go under so that the fitter ones can survive. Tragically, they’ll take with them the hopes and dreams of their employees. Still, pumping billions more into Citigroup, et al, is pointless until all institutions that made bad calls actually value their assets in the real world and not the Narnia they’re currently inhabiting.
That will cause a seismic shock but what’s the alternative? Let the crisis dawdle on while the country’s fiscal future is ransomed to various stimuli that won’t work? Have you checked out your 401(k) lately? Probably not, the sight is just too gruesome. Yet, to my mind, stocks of many solid companies seem undervalued. But what chance is there of any appreciation in the current uncertain conditions?
President Obama can employ his accustomed flights of oratory until the cows come home, but a phrase from scripture that I first heard uttered by Rev. Ian Paisley hits closest to the mark, “if the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?”
Despite the dumbing down of the last eight years, I don’t have the least doubt that Americans will rise to the occasion. But we do need a good rock-solid floor beneath our feet before we get to work restoring the country’s fortune.
And what of Citigroup? Well, my Irish psychiatrist (local barman) gave his verdict a couple of nights back: “Just give me one of them corner bank buildings and I’ll turn it into the best bar in the city – presuming any of yez still has the price of a couple of pints.”
Seeing the new president didn’t take my advice and offer Steve Duggan, the gig as Treasury Secretary, maybe he should try the Rev. Ian. The man has some considerable baggage, and we’ll probably have to give him a pass on the questionnaire; but at least he’s got the first principle right – lay down a decent foundation before you start building.
Wednesday, 21 January 2009
Pay Your Way
When it comes to the current financial crisis, does it ever occur to you that the suits (pantsuits included) don’t really know what’s going on? Talk about multi-billion dollar leaps in the dark – each backed by battalions of experts who assure us that if we stop to consider we will consign ourselves to eons of recession, depression, you name it.
And then you take a glance at the minutes of the Federal Reserve Board and find that those particular economic mullahs were gob-smacked when the whole financial system was going to hell in a basket in the last months. Some of them weren’t even sure that we’ve been in a recession for well over a year. They should have consulted anyone who makes ends meet on a paycheck or, even worse, a fixed income.
Something has to be done to get the country back on track again. But is giving everyone a government handout the best solution? Not that I’m going to refuse the proposed $1000 tax rebate, but I won’t be spending it on a new iPod. No, I’ll be saving it for the day of reckoning that’s already roaring down the Pike.
Of course we should invest in the infrastructure of the country – “shovel-ready” projects or not. That’s Keynesian economics at its best. And it shouldn’t just stop there. Investing in education and health care is no longer a choice but a necessity.
But I worry about the hole we’re digging – the trillions that must one day be repaid and the effect it will have on the national psyche if we just pass on this debt to future generations.
Government – long scorned and eviscerated - is finally sexy again and every master of the universe from Detroit to Wall Street is standing in line with his hand out. But government doesn’t come cheaply. It can eventually only give out what is taken in and we cannot borrow indefinitely.
And just supposing this new stimulus doesn’t work? Then what? Shouldn’t we reconsider the “trickle down” handouts of this stimulus? For eight years, we’ve cut taxes while fighting two wars and look where it got us. By the way, thanks for everything, President Bush: two and a half million jobs lost in 2008, over a trillion of a deficit, not to mention the shattered lives of millions in your Iraq misadventure.
The country is crying out for leadership and here’s wishing President Obama the very best. Personally, I don’t share his faith in his economic advisers, Summers, Geithner, Rubin, et al, because each has in the past favored either financial deregulation or indiscriminately cutting taxes – or both.
Maybe I’m just old fashioned but I believe in paying my way. With that in mind, here are a couple of short-term solutions that would have lasting social and economic reverberations.
How about we pay for whatever war is fought on our watch and not charge it to our Chinese credit card? I’m not so sure we’d be in such a hurry to support President Karzai and our opium-running Afghan allies if it came out of our paychecks every week.
Paul Krugman’s idea of a small federal charge on each stock exchange transaction is definitely worth a shot. It would raise billions annually and limit both speculation and our daily rollercoaster Dow rides.
And even though it will hurt many of us – now that gas is cheap, slap on a federal tax of a dollar per gallon. The money raised could go directly to rebuilding the infrastructure and improving mass transportation, while lessening our dependence on petro-dictatorships. Hey, might even improve the air and save a polar bear or two.
Ideas like these call for self-sacrifice but it’s small potatoes compared to what was given up in World War Two. Then again, the Greatest Generation had a core belief – pay your way. Might be an idea whose time has come round again.
And then you take a glance at the minutes of the Federal Reserve Board and find that those particular economic mullahs were gob-smacked when the whole financial system was going to hell in a basket in the last months. Some of them weren’t even sure that we’ve been in a recession for well over a year. They should have consulted anyone who makes ends meet on a paycheck or, even worse, a fixed income.
Something has to be done to get the country back on track again. But is giving everyone a government handout the best solution? Not that I’m going to refuse the proposed $1000 tax rebate, but I won’t be spending it on a new iPod. No, I’ll be saving it for the day of reckoning that’s already roaring down the Pike.
Of course we should invest in the infrastructure of the country – “shovel-ready” projects or not. That’s Keynesian economics at its best. And it shouldn’t just stop there. Investing in education and health care is no longer a choice but a necessity.
But I worry about the hole we’re digging – the trillions that must one day be repaid and the effect it will have on the national psyche if we just pass on this debt to future generations.
Government – long scorned and eviscerated - is finally sexy again and every master of the universe from Detroit to Wall Street is standing in line with his hand out. But government doesn’t come cheaply. It can eventually only give out what is taken in and we cannot borrow indefinitely.
And just supposing this new stimulus doesn’t work? Then what? Shouldn’t we reconsider the “trickle down” handouts of this stimulus? For eight years, we’ve cut taxes while fighting two wars and look where it got us. By the way, thanks for everything, President Bush: two and a half million jobs lost in 2008, over a trillion of a deficit, not to mention the shattered lives of millions in your Iraq misadventure.
The country is crying out for leadership and here’s wishing President Obama the very best. Personally, I don’t share his faith in his economic advisers, Summers, Geithner, Rubin, et al, because each has in the past favored either financial deregulation or indiscriminately cutting taxes – or both.
Maybe I’m just old fashioned but I believe in paying my way. With that in mind, here are a couple of short-term solutions that would have lasting social and economic reverberations.
How about we pay for whatever war is fought on our watch and not charge it to our Chinese credit card? I’m not so sure we’d be in such a hurry to support President Karzai and our opium-running Afghan allies if it came out of our paychecks every week.
Paul Krugman’s idea of a small federal charge on each stock exchange transaction is definitely worth a shot. It would raise billions annually and limit both speculation and our daily rollercoaster Dow rides.
And even though it will hurt many of us – now that gas is cheap, slap on a federal tax of a dollar per gallon. The money raised could go directly to rebuilding the infrastructure and improving mass transportation, while lessening our dependence on petro-dictatorships. Hey, might even improve the air and save a polar bear or two.
Ideas like these call for self-sacrifice but it’s small potatoes compared to what was given up in World War Two. Then again, the Greatest Generation had a core belief – pay your way. Might be an idea whose time has come round again.
Wednesday, 14 January 2009
The Cruiser
Whatever ones opinion of Conor Cruise O’Brien – and few are neutral – there can be little doubt that he changed the face of modern Ireland.
He is, perhaps, best known in the US for his virulent hostility to Sinn Fein and Irish Republicanism but that was just a part of the man. He was a scholar, diplomat, educator, politician, author, memoirist and general agent of change. He may also have been just slightly off his rocker.
For it’s hard to reconcile the man who brought so much intellectual heft to the Irish Labor Party when elected to Dail Eireann in 1969 with the pathetic UK Unionist Party member of his later years. But that was the “Cruiser,” iconoclastic, often brilliant, but with a streak of arrogance that often led to his own undoing.
I suppose, to be charitable, he wished to transform Ireland – which he considered a priest-ridden backwater with an unhealthy regard for its nationalist history - into a modern pluralistic society attuned socially and politically to the UK. In some ways he was successful.
In 1973 as Minister for Posts and Telegraphs he introduced Section 31which basically enforced censorship of the media by banning members of Sinn Féin and the Provisional Irish Republican Army from giving their points of view on Irish radio or television. Many feel that this draconian measure effectively delayed the peace process; it also had an unintended cultural consequence. In an effort to negate pro-republican sentiment, all songs of a nationalist nature were banned from the Irish airwaves. Although many protested, few foresaw the consequences of O’Brien’s move.
I did not grow up in a particularly musical household yet I know hundreds of Irish folk songs – a large percentage of them political. It wasn’t that I sat down and learned these “rebel songs,” they were just part of the culture. Even as late as the 80’s when television already dominated Irish cultural life, people still sang at social gatherings and everyone had at least one party-piece.
Radio cemented this multitude of songs into a coherent cultural whole. So, for instance, if you knew a snatch of “The Boys of Wexford” or even Dominic Behan’s wonderful “Patriot Game,” then over the course of time, you were likely to hear these songs on Irish radio and gradually absorb the other verses.
Cruiser’s Section 31 ended that. The youth of Wexford today wouldn’t know PJ McCall’s ballad about the 1798 Rebellion from a hole in the wall. Ironically, “Patriot Game” which actually questions Republicanism - and was Bob Dylan’s inspiration for “God on our Side” – has suffered the same fate.
Of late, RTE has made some strides in redressing this trend but the damage was done over a thirty-year period and is probably irreversible. It’s not that you can’t find the old songs – they are still available on reissued CDs, in faded songbooks and online; while Celtic rock and punk bands have been known to shake the dust off many an old rebel anthem. But the fact remains that a couple of generations have missed out on a rich resource that many of us once took for granted.
Ireland was always defined by its oral culture. We passed our history and our heroes down through the ages by way of song. Some of these musical statements may have been one-sided, and often simplistic, but they were ineffably ours – a gift from those who came before.
Section 31, alas, is one more proof that censorship has a deleterious effect on society. Despite all Conor Cruise O’Brien’s scholarship and educational accomplishments, in the end he will be seen as a very talented, but flawed, Irishman who dealt a deathblow to a vital part of our cultural heritage.
He is, perhaps, best known in the US for his virulent hostility to Sinn Fein and Irish Republicanism but that was just a part of the man. He was a scholar, diplomat, educator, politician, author, memoirist and general agent of change. He may also have been just slightly off his rocker.
For it’s hard to reconcile the man who brought so much intellectual heft to the Irish Labor Party when elected to Dail Eireann in 1969 with the pathetic UK Unionist Party member of his later years. But that was the “Cruiser,” iconoclastic, often brilliant, but with a streak of arrogance that often led to his own undoing.
I suppose, to be charitable, he wished to transform Ireland – which he considered a priest-ridden backwater with an unhealthy regard for its nationalist history - into a modern pluralistic society attuned socially and politically to the UK. In some ways he was successful.
In 1973 as Minister for Posts and Telegraphs he introduced Section 31which basically enforced censorship of the media by banning members of Sinn Féin and the Provisional Irish Republican Army from giving their points of view on Irish radio or television. Many feel that this draconian measure effectively delayed the peace process; it also had an unintended cultural consequence. In an effort to negate pro-republican sentiment, all songs of a nationalist nature were banned from the Irish airwaves. Although many protested, few foresaw the consequences of O’Brien’s move.
I did not grow up in a particularly musical household yet I know hundreds of Irish folk songs – a large percentage of them political. It wasn’t that I sat down and learned these “rebel songs,” they were just part of the culture. Even as late as the 80’s when television already dominated Irish cultural life, people still sang at social gatherings and everyone had at least one party-piece.
Radio cemented this multitude of songs into a coherent cultural whole. So, for instance, if you knew a snatch of “The Boys of Wexford” or even Dominic Behan’s wonderful “Patriot Game,” then over the course of time, you were likely to hear these songs on Irish radio and gradually absorb the other verses.
Cruiser’s Section 31 ended that. The youth of Wexford today wouldn’t know PJ McCall’s ballad about the 1798 Rebellion from a hole in the wall. Ironically, “Patriot Game” which actually questions Republicanism - and was Bob Dylan’s inspiration for “God on our Side” – has suffered the same fate.
Of late, RTE has made some strides in redressing this trend but the damage was done over a thirty-year period and is probably irreversible. It’s not that you can’t find the old songs – they are still available on reissued CDs, in faded songbooks and online; while Celtic rock and punk bands have been known to shake the dust off many an old rebel anthem. But the fact remains that a couple of generations have missed out on a rich resource that many of us once took for granted.
Ireland was always defined by its oral culture. We passed our history and our heroes down through the ages by way of song. Some of these musical statements may have been one-sided, and often simplistic, but they were ineffably ours – a gift from those who came before.
Section 31, alas, is one more proof that censorship has a deleterious effect on society. Despite all Conor Cruise O’Brien’s scholarship and educational accomplishments, in the end he will be seen as a very talented, but flawed, Irishman who dealt a deathblow to a vital part of our cultural heritage.
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