My own personal troika
Let me tell you a story.
Back at the beginning of the 80s, there was a wee recession here.
At the time, I was in full time employment but we had just moved house and I had a missus, a large mortgage and a babby to feed. Money was tight. In fact money was not just tight – it was a case of hand to mouth existence until the next pay cheque came around.
We had a right little shit of a bank manager at the time. To give an idea of his cuntishness, he once bounced a £6 cheque [to the milkman] as I only had £4 in the account. even though my pay was due in the following day. He actually billed me £10 for the privilege of bouncing the cheque too.
I demanded to see the little turd and have it out with him.
The first thing I asked for was an overdraft, but he refused point blank, as it wouldn’t be “in the bank’s interests”. He proceeded to grill me on my day to day spending, under the pretext of “financial advice”. He offered to bail me out with a short term, very high interest loan [which I couldn’t afford to repay] on the condition that I mend my evil ways. He made it quite plain that I had to repay my mortgage and bank loans first and any luxuries such as food could come out of what small change remained. I told him to go fuck himself and left.
Does anyone see a remarkable parallel here?
Indeed, my little cunt of a bank manager was my own personal Troika. He would bale me out and for the term of the loan but he wanted ultimate control over my finances to ensure that he got is cash back even if it meant myself, Herself and the babby going cold and starving.
Now, would I have been sensible to enter into a lifetime agreement with the turd whereby he had control over my finances forever, in the odd chance that I might need a loan off him in the future? Would it have been a good move to let him have the final say on every single transaction for the rest of my life? Even now when I am retired, I would still have him looking over my shoulder and tutting every time I spent on something he didn’t approve of.
That is what this Fiscal Treaty shit is all about.
The Ultimate Control.
Forever.
–oOo–
If anyone is wondering what happened after I left the bank that day, well we struggled on for a month or two, borrowing cash where we could.
Then one day I got a phone call from the bank. They told me there was a new bank manager and would I like to have a talk with him?
I went in for the meeting. He turned out to be a very nice chap. He couldn’t understand why I didn’t have an overdraft facility as I had a regular and permanent job. I told him about his predecessor. He laughed and said that the little shit had been retired, as he had been losing the bank business.
“Don’t ever repeat this” says my new manager, “but from all I have heard, he was a right little cunt.”
Retired?, I think you sent the little cunt over here to my branch!
The bit about the Fictional Stability Mechanism that I can’t figure out is this: There will be huge penalties imposed on countries who exceed their ‘national overdraft’ – what’s the point in that? If they had money to pay the penalties they would not overdraw, or do they exceed the new limit to borrow money to pay back the fine? Groucho Marx must be writing this stuff.
I just don’t 100% comprehend. Period.
Tim – I don’t think so. I’m fairly sure I heard some time ago that he had gone to The Great Counting House Down Below.
Not Green – When I first heard of the terms of the Fistful Treaty the first thing that came to mind was that milk cheque. You are right – the whole thing is bollox – if we overspend, the first thing they do is levy a massive fine so that we plunge into even greater debt. We then have to borrow evn more to pay the fine and presumably get fined again. It is indeed worthy of Groucho Marx.
Mossy – You must waiting in eager anticipation for the gubmint’s leaflet explaining it all [in totally unbiased terms of course]?
Similarly my “troika” came in the form of a social services family visitor trying to tell me how to run my family, it’s a long story but to cut to the chase, I informed her that unless she was willing to move in, do her share of all the household chores, pool her money with ours and become part of the family she could fuck right off.
never heard from her again.
Patrick – It may not always be the wisest move, but the satisfaction is immense telling these people to go fuck themselves. You may end up broke, but you certainly retain your dignity.
Thany You GD, Thats exactly how it was. I had to give up my crap car and cycle ‘cos I could’nt afford the insurance.
It was a time of ever increasing mortgage interest rates. 18.5% (endowment ones 21-22%, thank Jasus, I did’nt have one of these).
Economically, we are back to square one, with one difference.
We have worked to get the Country out of the mess before and built up our lives, in terms of homes, personal belongings and decent conditions at the same time. We now are suffering the dismantling of what we bulit up over the last 30 or so years. When we did’nt have a pot to piss in we worked hard to make something of ourselves.
Now that we have , the cunts are trying to take it from us any way they can.
If I’d gone on the dole and taken all the handouts over the years, my home might not be so nice, but I’d be driving a nice car with two foreign holidays every year, enough money in my pocket for booze, fags and a plasma Sky TV. My kids would have all of their education paid for, including third level and I would probably have the medical card also.
If I had eight plus kids and no job, I’d be better off. If I had eight kids plus and a job, then I’d be fucked because I had eight plus kids ie. my fault.
Things just keep repeating themselves. Will we ever learn????
Slab – That’s one thing you cleared up for me – I was going to mention mortgage rates being in the high teens, but suddenly wasn’t too sure of my facts so I didn’t mention them. I wonder what the reaction of the modern generation would be if they suddenly found themselves facing those rates?
There is one enormous difference between then and now though. You rightly said that we worked hard and pulled ourselves out of the mess, but we did it to save ourselves. Now we are expected to do it all over again but are expected to do it for the Euro and the EU.
I wonder about the younger generation saving themselves. There seems to be too much apathy among them, an inability to stand up and be counted in unified numbers, demanding an end to austerity. Is it The Irish condition?
We are told to vote yes or else we won’t get a further bail out (lies). The Greeks went fucking mad in everyway and The EU wiped their arses. Why are we being victimised by The EU and our Political Leaders (Cunts)?
Its like the old Imperial days. Thick Paddy will take all the shite dolled out to him and smelling of the shite will come back begging for more.
Its mad doing it to save the Eu/Euro, a currency not backed by anything but a shattered economic reputation which will come crashing down any day now when The German Economy starts to suffer. The cracks are starting to appear with exports suffering.
Better start saving the Yuan.
I honestly don’t know what is going on. Back in my college days we spent more time out on protests than we did at lectures. Nowadays they all seem to have emigrated to a virtual world where things don’t exist unless they are on Twitter or Facebook.
This Fistful Treaty is supposed to provide stability to the currency. Can anyone tell me why the promise of the treaty has had zero effect on the financial markets?
Lack of Consumer Confidence?
80’s “Interesting” times indeed Grandad, but we lived through it, and as Slab says I do wonder how the younger generation are going to cope. No Slab it is not the Irish condition, it is the totally apathy of all youth no matter what country they come from.
I think someone should write a book, how the ordinary people coped through the 80’s and 90’s.
We had a good life, ex had been self-employed for 5 years, new baby on the way, we bought our first home, (no mean feat then, being self-employed you had to donate your body to the bank) he had got a big contract, removing old suspended ceilings and replacing, then suddenly, strikes, he couldn’t, and did not want to pass the picket lines.
He got a courier job, through a local taxi firm. I managed to get a job in a pub, we worked the shifts out so that one of us was there for the our little son. But if he didn’t deliver he didn’t get paid, but, don’t ask me how many picket lines I turned up with the little un, we found that worked, more shame to us, but it put food on the table.
Ha the Bank…, the one we got the mortgage through, manager was a friend, ex knew him through football, that year we got a tax refund, cheque, you used to be able to express cheque’s for £5 then, no ATM in those days or internet banking, so I went along to the bank, in queue, was humilated, not enough funds, (I actually didn’t know what was in the bank, as it turned out was about 2 quid) so asked to speak to the manager, I had a cheque from HMG, said I wanted to draw on this, was told no it’s a cheque, so I said “Well this is a cheque from HMG and I don’t think they are going to go brankrupt in the next day or two” got £10..ha
Jan M – Times were tough then but I don’t remember any of he hand wringing that is all around us now. No one was shouting about whose fault it was or anything like that. We just got on with it. In my own case, I just had to work damned hard, and ended up doing twelve to fourteen hour days with about five hours sleep. It was rough but it had to be done. It never occurred to me to complain, simply because I considered myself lucky to have a job at all.
…and like all the other votes before this one, the people will say no. The government will wring their hands, and then have another vote.
Just once, lads, how about voting no for a second time. Then contact your local T.D. and tell him no more.
What’s the worse they can do to ye ? Stop your pocket money.
This is reality. Life will go on.
(What about those Greek lads. The town of the blind. Gotta love their ingenuity).
Your right GD times were tough but we got on with it.
Just a little something I found on my travels…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZfzAOooEOU&feature=player_embedded
I had two businesses in the eighties, worked a seven day week from 6.30am to whenever I finished. i employed three full timers and a host of cash part-timers in one of the businesses, and did everything myself in the other.
I was ripped off by two separate accountants and my operating overdraught was at 21% and business loans at 18%. It became apparent to me that my overall mark-up on turnover was around the 30% mark, so when all bills were paid, I was working for the Banks and left with little myself. If I had the lump sum to start the business, I would still be running it today.
The debt was what closed it after ten years trading. So now, what baffles me the most is that, this Country’s central problem is debt and debt servicing. Paying the interest on what we already owe puts us further into debt. Austerity puts people out of work and on the dole, so the ability to repay diminishes while the amount to re-pay increases with new dole recipients. The killer that should be outlawed is “compound interest”. If you don’t understand, you had better find out all about it, because it is the most dangerous killer in our society. It is the reason you paid back £130,000 for your £25,000 eighties house over third years.
And yet, this Treaty and our whole European obsession is all about having access to more even loans. This kind of economics in business only works when you are planning to salt a load of it away and then declare bankruptcy.
But, my own theory is that the sociopaths in Government are simply assuring the money for their personal gravy train does not dry up, and they don’t give a fuck who pays for it, pensions and all.
Could’nt agree more John.
We’re the obese diabetic fat kid in the sweetshop looking for more. The Gubmint being the shopkeeper who is telling us we can have more if we behave.
I think anyone who has ever taken out a mortgage knows only too well about compound interest. You borrow X and you back back about three and a half times X or even more. Even worse, in mortgages at any rate, you spend the first few years paying nothing but interest so the original capital remains high thereby earning them yet more interest.
I don’t think Ireland can ever get out of the mess it’s in for the simple reason that we will have to carry on borrowing just to pay the interest, And of course extra borrowing means extra interest.
It’s a vicious circus as Herself would say.