the full story
Maisie Baines filled me in on the rest of the story about her neighbour today.
His breakdown hadn't just been caused by reading about the international economic crisis.
His breakdown had been caused by a more direct experience of the international economic crisis.
At the age of 72, he had recently sold his farm.
The farm where he and his brother, both unmarried, had worked all their lives.
His bank had advised him to invest the proceeds of the sale in stocks and shares.
Let's be clear.
The proceeds from the sale of the farm have ceased to exist because the bank advised him to put the proceeds from the sale of his farm into the stock market. His bank gave him this advice at a time when the dogs in the street knew the stock market was on the verge of a calamitous collapse.
When Maisie told me this I felt a brief but telling fury.
I was remembering a famous incident from the 1980's.
An Irish couple had been advised by their bank to put their retirement money in a company called Gaelic Resources.
Gaelic Resources was a half baked Irish outfit purporting to be an oil exploration company.
Like the other half baked Irish oil explorations companies of the 1980's, it managed to pay its board of management substantial salaries for a few years before ceasing to exist.
Even I, a young naive enthusiast for democracy and the free market, had been outraged that any financial services adviser would tell an elderly couple to risk their nest egg in such a heap of crap.
That was back in the 1980's.
As you can see it's still happening.
Well folks.
Here is the advice you won't get on Bloomberg television, which is basically a publicity channel for the stock exchange, or on CNBC which is a subsidiary of General Electric a company that props up the Islamic Republic of Iran, or on CNN which is a nothing.
The stock market and the banks are finished.
There is nothing left of them.
They are a heap of corruptions.
Let me tell you.
Being pro business doesn't mean you have to be pro these things.
Being pro business means we believe the best possible economic model involves encouraging ordinary people to own their businesses and providing the widest possible avenues for all citizens to enjoy direct participation in enterprise, culture, politics and society as a whole.
The greatest con job of our era happened when the banks and stock exchange quoted companies convinced governments throughout the Free World, that those same banks and stock exchange companies were somehow integral to our freedom.
The policies that resulted were not free market policies.
They policies that resulted were corporatism.
Corporatism that vilely and manipulatively negated the economic positivity of the freedoms we so cherished.
Corporatism which has led to the emergence of a neo feudal generation of robber barons paying themselves astronimical wages without ever having done an honest days work in their lives.
Corporatism which has led to the creation of artificial monopolies undercutting the vitality and vibrancy of our freedom.
Nay.
Vitiating it.
Yes.
Artificial monopolies have been constructed before our eyes by companies purporting to engage in honest competition.
Big car companies in the US bought up other car companies so they wouldn't have to compete with them, and then the jumped up car company executives flew around in silly little executive jets because, well everyone else was doin it so why can't we, and now the Big Three car companies are bust, bust, bust and looking for free, free, free, money to keep em in the executive jets jets jets to which they have become accustomed accustomed accustomed.
Big banks bought up smaller banks and then paid themselves ten lifetimes of wages every year because, well, everybody's doin it so why can't we, and they kept right on doin it right up until that day a few weeks ago when every bank on the planet earth went bust and suddently there was no way they could keep on doin it unless the idiot governments of the free world bailed em out with our money.
Media moguls like Rupert Murdoch in Australia bought up newspapers and television stations they knew nothing about, homogenised every ounce of originality and integrity the hell out of em, and brought em to the edge of extinction.
I would mention the Irish media mogul Tony O'Reilly at this juncture, only O'Reilly's greatest fantasy is to rank with Murdoch in a Heelers Diary diatribe, and I'm not about to give him that satisfaction.
Truth be told, both of em are rank.
But I digress.
Too much anger folks.
I'm laying it aside.
We can be well.
We can make these swines irrelevant to us.
I commend you all to a reading of the gospel of Saint John.
You know in my heart of hearts my profoundest hope, is that everything in that gospel is the truth.
His breakdown hadn't just been caused by reading about the international economic crisis.
His breakdown had been caused by a more direct experience of the international economic crisis.
At the age of 72, he had recently sold his farm.
The farm where he and his brother, both unmarried, had worked all their lives.
His bank had advised him to invest the proceeds of the sale in stocks and shares.
Let's be clear.
The proceeds from the sale of the farm have ceased to exist because the bank advised him to put the proceeds from the sale of his farm into the stock market. His bank gave him this advice at a time when the dogs in the street knew the stock market was on the verge of a calamitous collapse.
When Maisie told me this I felt a brief but telling fury.
I was remembering a famous incident from the 1980's.
An Irish couple had been advised by their bank to put their retirement money in a company called Gaelic Resources.
Gaelic Resources was a half baked Irish outfit purporting to be an oil exploration company.
Like the other half baked Irish oil explorations companies of the 1980's, it managed to pay its board of management substantial salaries for a few years before ceasing to exist.
Even I, a young naive enthusiast for democracy and the free market, had been outraged that any financial services adviser would tell an elderly couple to risk their nest egg in such a heap of crap.
That was back in the 1980's.
As you can see it's still happening.
Well folks.
Here is the advice you won't get on Bloomberg television, which is basically a publicity channel for the stock exchange, or on CNBC which is a subsidiary of General Electric a company that props up the Islamic Republic of Iran, or on CNN which is a nothing.
The stock market and the banks are finished.
There is nothing left of them.
They are a heap of corruptions.
Let me tell you.
Being pro business doesn't mean you have to be pro these things.
Being pro business means we believe the best possible economic model involves encouraging ordinary people to own their businesses and providing the widest possible avenues for all citizens to enjoy direct participation in enterprise, culture, politics and society as a whole.
The greatest con job of our era happened when the banks and stock exchange quoted companies convinced governments throughout the Free World, that those same banks and stock exchange companies were somehow integral to our freedom.
The policies that resulted were not free market policies.
They policies that resulted were corporatism.
Corporatism that vilely and manipulatively negated the economic positivity of the freedoms we so cherished.
Corporatism which has led to the emergence of a neo feudal generation of robber barons paying themselves astronimical wages without ever having done an honest days work in their lives.
Corporatism which has led to the creation of artificial monopolies undercutting the vitality and vibrancy of our freedom.
Nay.
Vitiating it.
Yes.
Artificial monopolies have been constructed before our eyes by companies purporting to engage in honest competition.
Big car companies in the US bought up other car companies so they wouldn't have to compete with them, and then the jumped up car company executives flew around in silly little executive jets because, well everyone else was doin it so why can't we, and now the Big Three car companies are bust, bust, bust and looking for free, free, free, money to keep em in the executive jets jets jets to which they have become accustomed accustomed accustomed.
Big banks bought up smaller banks and then paid themselves ten lifetimes of wages every year because, well, everybody's doin it so why can't we, and they kept right on doin it right up until that day a few weeks ago when every bank on the planet earth went bust and suddently there was no way they could keep on doin it unless the idiot governments of the free world bailed em out with our money.
Media moguls like Rupert Murdoch in Australia bought up newspapers and television stations they knew nothing about, homogenised every ounce of originality and integrity the hell out of em, and brought em to the edge of extinction.
I would mention the Irish media mogul Tony O'Reilly at this juncture, only O'Reilly's greatest fantasy is to rank with Murdoch in a Heelers Diary diatribe, and I'm not about to give him that satisfaction.
Truth be told, both of em are rank.
But I digress.
Too much anger folks.
I'm laying it aside.
We can be well.
We can make these swines irrelevant to us.
I commend you all to a reading of the gospel of Saint John.
You know in my heart of hearts my profoundest hope, is that everything in that gospel is the truth.
posted by heelers | 2:59 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home