Bored to Debt

Ireland's current budget deficit stands at 18 billion Euro.  Do you have any idea how big the number 18 billion is?  It's almost half the total number of times you've heard the words "the banks" in the last three years.  Scary. Ireland’s debt problems are simple to understand and even simpler to solve.  We can’t pay what we owe, so no one will lend to us.  If we renege on the banking debt, then the markets will lend to us again, the economy will return to growth and we’ll be okay.  But then we will have enough money to pay what we owe, and therefore will be expected to pay it back.  This will cripple the economy and we’ll have to renege on our debt, which will allow for sustained growth, which will lead to economic collapse.  I noticed this line from the excellent BBC economics correspondent Stephanie Flanders this week: “Everyone says that heightened talk of a Greek default is proof that last year's bail-out has "failed". But you could make a strong case for the opposite”.  That’s just my problem; it seems you can argue the opposite on everything in the unmerciful crapfest that is our recession.  Our children’s future would be bright if it wasn’t so dark, if we weren’t broke we’d be rich, perhaps we don’t need the money at all and the whole country could tackle the debt within twelve months if we just decided to do without clothes every November.  Worst of all though is that after three years we’re still talking about the crisis, and nothing else.  No matter how bad things get for our country, the overwhelming sensation is a profound, deadening sense of boredom with it all.  No wonder our poor media got a little excited by Morgan Kelly this week.  Think about what it’s like for us journalists, we’ve been reporting the same story for three years, called “You think things are bad now, well listen to this…”  It’s like being asked to report on the Eurovison Song Contest and finding someone has locked the doors behind you.  From this Eurovision, there is no escape.  As succession of incomprehensible Europeans colleagues sing the same horrendous tune over and over again and you’ve got to think of a different way of describing it each time.  So when Morgan Kelly proposed a sort of nuclear option, of course people got excited.  If you had to listen to Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley for three years running and then Cliff Richard came out to sing Congratulations you’d be happy too.  Many commentators delighted in his description of the management of Ireland’s banks as being comprised of "faintly dim rugby players".  I can just picture the yelps of knowing amusement from his academic colleagues enjoying their leafy Saturday morning with the Times.  Now I don’t want to come across all Jim Larkin and that, but, eh, didn’t we know that Ireland's ruling elites were a bit dim?  I mean, isn’t that the point of the mess we’re in?  Like Stephanie Flanders, Morgan Kelly – notwithstanding comparisons this week which made me think of some kind of cross between Christopher Walken and Carol Vorderman - is no doubt is a very capable observer of this mess.  Everything he said could be right, everything could be wrong, I don’t know.  All I know is that his intervention has done nothing to lift my sense of terrified boredom.  I now make a solemn promise never to blog about the banks or Eurovision ever again.  And I'm going to keep the promise about the banks.