Day 1398 of the Recession

In my last post I commented on the fact that Greece would be leaving the Euro and that Spain would be taking some Pain from the IMF, both clearly have not taken place. Yet the world is in no better shape and the Germans are using the tactic of delay in the hope that it will all improve if left alone. We have a new French Government in Place, the English are lost at see and have no focus, we are on the cover of Time for being good at taking abuse and Spain is in such a decline that I suspect that any amount of money is not going to prop it up. Fact being that if it was in anyway savable this would have happened already. Our much sought after separation of the sovereign debt from the bank debt deal, is now being pushed out to March of next year in the meantime we have to go through another painful budget with cuts around services and entitlements rather than with the people responsible for them, namely the civil servants. If we could get this deal across the line we would genuinely be in a better place and would make a much quicker recovery. Final note, the claim issued by the Central bank that it will take House prices 20 years to rise to Celtic Tiger levels, this is a load of bull, no one wants Celtic Tiger levels of house prices, we are all quite happy for a stable housing market where your house will appreciate in value along side inflation. Also it stated that wage cost are prohibitive, this is a direct reflection of the fact that we have the highest home ownership in Europe, it makes more sense in Germany for wage costs to be lower when over 50% of the population rent so a smaller % of your income goes out on living expenses than in Ireland.

Then and now.

The date was December 11th 1984, the venue was the Aragon Ballroom on Lawrence avenue in Chicago. The event was the 3rd leg of the Unforgettable Fire tour by U2. A young man who had arrived in the summer of '84 ( live aid hadn't happened yet for Bono) went to his first U2 concert. I remember them playing "Sunday" and at the end everybody was singing 40. It took a cold Chicago night in an ancient ballroom to make a fan. I remember them stopping the concert to allow the crowd to push back as there was crushing up front, I remember thinking how I hadn't really heard of them.

To the present and a warm evening in Croke Park on the 25th July 09, just a quick 25 years later and a dad brings his 11 year old boy to see his first rock concert, his arms wrapped around me and rocking out. When they played "Beautiful Day" early on the tears rolled down my cheeks...