Looking after money - and money people

Money talks but most of us don’t like talking about money, but I feel provoked this sunny near-Spring afternoon.

I’m fresh from Facebook and reading an interesting suggestion re TV debates and interviews. Since we know the political allegiances of politicians who are involved, and when someone contributes from the audience the presenter often insists they reveal any political links or allegiances, then what about journalists? There’s an assumption that journalists/commentators come from some sort of God-above-all-paring-his-fingernails realm where objectivity is in-built - a very silly assumption. So shouldn’t journalists be asked to declare their allegiances so we can filter what they say through that fact? And presenters: since many of them earn over €100K and some political parties want to tax such people fairly robustly, shouldn’t presenters come clean re (i) income; (ii) political leanings?

The other money item I note today is a report in The Guardian which says that, while bankrupts in the twenty-six counties have to wait twelve years before they’re free of pursuit, in the UK you’re out of the woods after twelve months. Got that? – TWELVE MONTHS. So if I break into your house and steal, say, £5,000 and am caught, I’ll be bound for prison. But if I am a businessman and leave you holding a debt of £5,000, or £50,000 for that matter, I’m free as the wind after twelve months, providing I spend less than a year in Britain. If I’m a banker, on the other hand, and put a small A-bomb under the national economy, nothing happens to me. No sorry, I mis-spoke. Something does happen. I get a fat waddly bonus.

And oh, I forgot. If I'm a senior European bond-holder and lose a massive amount of money, no worries. The Irish tax-payer gives me it back.

Money - ya gotta love it, eh?