Don't Panic - yet...

Bailout Tuesday - The weather was crazy, we'd a full moon, everyone was in bad form and worst of all we're handing over €40 billion to a pile *ankers.

Ooh those nasty, greedy, mean Mister *ankers who put guns to our heads and forced us to buy houses and take out loans for well... just about everything. They've all gotten away with it and are living the high life over in the U S of A (no though laughing at us whilst drinking expensive wine). Meanwhile future generations of innocent cute little Irish babies with dimples are simply DOOMED.

Excuse me if I don't lose any sleep over any of this. Getting worked up to the point of being hospitalised with an ulcer like much of the media is about as helpful as standing on O'Connell street with a sign saying the "The End is Nigh" - not much help at all.

We're all far too caught up with those *ankers and who they ate lunch with and how much they spend on getting their balls branded. I could nearly stomach this talk if I thought people actually wanted justice instead of their own personal NAMA. People seem so confused as to why the government isn't bailing them out - I mean really they did nothing wrong except trust the banks? Well I've a simple answer - if Mister. Average is ate alive by his creditors/debtors it's not going to have a knock on effect in the International Markets. AKA Your plain not important enough.

So the snow got me thinking - it's exactly (no difference at all) like that movie The Day After Tomorrow. The government drew a line and promise to save X amount of people over this line. Opposition are all like "but what about everyone on the other side of the line? You can't just leave them?" and the Government answered "That time has passed - their best hope is to try and ride out the storm." Which leaves me with no other option than to throw some Trekie logic at it. "The needs of the many out weight the needs of the few"

The only way to ride out the storm is for us all to put our hands up and say "Yes I was to blame (only a little bit mind)" you might not have gorged on credit like a property developer (who hadn't a frickin' clue) but maybe deep down you knew that you should of saved for that holiday instead of getting a loan or done without the shoes you charged to a nearly max'd out card. If we can all focus on actually getting out of this mess instead of going over and over how we found ourselves in it we'd learn more lessons.

The reason not to panic is that like people - countries can f**k up just as much. We're actually going through our troublesome teens as quite a young economy. Better yet we've actually got a plan. A Plan is better than no plan, right? When faced with the decision to have things actually really bad immediately or things kinda bad for a long time we've chosen the latter.

When faced with being out on your ear and feeding your kids out of a dustbin or having your kid paying high income tax or immigrating which would you choose?

There is no easy way out - in fact the easy way out lead us into this cul de sac in the first place. Only hard work and a sense of humor will point us in the right direction again. Then we'll be strong enough to go back for survivors.

TRUST ME I USED TO WORK IN A BANK...