Iceland… that’s where David McWilliams has been, thinking…
David MCWilliams,
There’s something very biblical about your picture. Who survives: the good man or the bad man? How come Job got the toughest time of all?
I’ve been holding on to what I think is your central question this time:
“Maybe, if we want to avoid the Icelandic conundrum, where very good countries go bad, all we have to do is control the irrationality of the markets by heavy regulation.”
Maybe. Certainly we have experience of what’s happened under a non-existent touch regime. Not simply no regulation, but active encouragement of bankers to stop being so prudent. “Come on, join the party. Don’t be an old fuddy duddy…”
Lashing of bonus. Everyone keeping the score according to their bonus. Is it any wonder that the time for heavy regulation is at hand?
I think we’ll have to go for plenty of regulation.
Certainly, in Ireland, people are so used to bending the rules that ‘heavy’ rigid regulation by someone who has no Irish relatives and, preferably, can’t speak English… might help.
Light regulation was introduced in order to provide certain people with opportunities to accumulate wealth they couldn’t have achieved otherwise. It worked brilliantly for them. All the organs of state fell into their orchestra and played their composition.
Mr Lenihan and Mr Cowen are doing a fine job of perpetuating that system by ensuring the complex web of intrigue is still disguised.
Not one opposition leader has come out and demanded an end to the legal protection being provided by the office of corporate enforcement. Those names remain under wrap, thanks to Mr Lenihan’s excellent strategy of making the investigation a police matter rather than a parliamentary one.
We have heavy leaders.
Weighed down with their care for political cover up and survival in government. Our heavy leaders are not minded towards heavy regulation. They’re not even discussing it in public - that’s all European stuff, that we don’t need to bother with.
Our heavyweight leaders carry the weight of the world on their shoulders without complaint: they have every intention to staying on, like the Bishop of Cloyne.
Not for them retirement to the gym."
