Not content with the spread of fanaticism in the UK Nigel Farage brings his brand of Euroscpetic Thrash to Dublin this weekend under the banner of Irexit and peace in Northern Ireland.

On the later point please forfeit your claim to our country prior to lecturing us on how it should be run.

Secondly an Irexit is as close to the realm of fantasy as Narnia as far as the Irish economy is concerned.

The four pillars of our economy, being Agriculture, IT, Pharmaceuticals, and Finance are all heavily dependent on Ireland’s participation in the EU. Arguably we would have left long ago if the community was not so beneficial to investment in our infrastructure and agricultural industry, not to mention the market space EU participation creates for our exports.

So who is Nigel speaking to, is this a rally for racists & bigots, is Nigel Farage a racist, do we give him the benefit of the doubt, will AntiFa Ireland respect his right to free speech?

All very interesting questions if you ask me and which can only be answered by looking at Farage’s 10 most memorable quotes:

1. “Any normal and fair-minded person would have a perfect right to be concerned if a group of Romanian people suddenly moved in next door.”
2. “Donald Trump believes in nation-state democracy; Hillary Clinton used the E.U. as a prototype for a larger global union. Donald Trump believes in sensible immigration controls.”
3. “We may have made one of the biggest and most stupid collective mistakes in history by getting so worried about global warming.”
4. “We know the costs of Europe. What are the benefits?”
5. “You know, I hear all these things about women's rights.”
6. "There are 7,000 diagnoses in this country every year for people who are HIV positive, which is not a good place for any of them to be, but 60% are not British nationals.”
7. “I have here a letter from a 30-year-old HIV-positive man in London who says 'why are the waiting rooms now full to overflowing? Why does it now take me three weeks to get an appointment?'. And he says to me, 'it is because, since we opened the door in 2012, we're now incapable of providing HIV treatment for people legally living in Britain?”
8. “I have to confess I do have a slight preference. I do think, naturally, that people from India and Australia are in some ways more likely to speak English, understand common law, and have a connection with this country than some people that come perhaps from countries that haven't fully recovered from being behind the Iron Curtain.”
9. “I love Europe! France is wonderful. It should be. We've subsidised it for 40 years.”
10. “The more exposure I get, those that would never vote for me anyway get angrier and angrier. But amongst the undecideds, no. I can persuade them. I am a voice that can sway some of those undecideds.”

 
Also of note, speaking at this weekend’s event is Galway Councillor James Charity, Sunday Times columnist Cormac Lucey and journalist John Waters. Are they all racists too or do they have valid concerns about the future of Europe?

​I’ve decided to go find out so if you’re going to the event or protesting outside please leave a comment or drop a DM. 

David McWilliams is probably one of Ireland’s best known and well loved columnists, he seems to ooze intelligence with smooth talking economic lingo and fast insights into what happened Ireland’s “Celtic Tiger”, a phrase which he himself developed to describe the roaring economy which lead to the advent of the breakfast roll, decentralisation, and buildings like the Convention Centre.

At the beginning of the month he wrote in the Times;
“The Irish crash of 2008 was not a surprise to anyone with their wits about them and a passing knowledge of economic history.... once the banking system ran out of Irish deposits and began to borrow abroad to finance the property mania at home, the collapse of the debt-fuelled economy was not a matter of if, but when. The banking crisis didn’t start with the bank run of 2008 but with the over-lending in the early- to mid-2000s.”

This is a fact everyone is now aware of, we know the Banks over lend, we know they didn’t have the capital reserves to survive the squeeze, we know we bailed them out, and we know all about negative equity traps now that we got burned by the Government nationalising the Banks debt.

What’s happened in the last few years is there has been a complete lack of supply of housing by the Government. Fine Gael keep telling us they are proponents of the ‘Free Market Economy’ and the market will provide the housing we need.

You could give an entire day challenging this lie as clearly demand is out stripping supply at present and the Government are holding back ways of increasing supply.

Secondly the lack of supply has driven prices back up if not above 2008 prices, this has resulted in the landlord classes who support Fine Gael recovering their equity. It also makes the market more attractive to foreign investors who are buying rental properties in bulk.

The worst part of this spin is not only are the Government manipulating the market with inaction but they have doubled up with interfering in the market by offering a Government Backed Mortgage called the Affordable Mortgage Scheme. Under the scheme a person can borrow up to €320,000 @2.00% if they’ve been turned down by their Bank.

Adding more money to the inflated market is literally adding fuel to the fire. It is wreck-less and dangerous and need I say, it is not the solution.

Further still anyone who accesses these loans means they’ve already been turned down by their Bank, they will be lending outside Central Bank guidelines, the definition of Sub Prime Lending without the Sub Prime rate. The fact that the person will be on a rate of 2.00% means they will find it very difficult to remortgage also and most likely be stuck in a negative equity trap come the next crash, and the next crash will be twice as hard and twice as long.

The low rate of 2.00% also has huge implications if the Government ever want to sell their new State Backed Mortgages to let’s say a real Bank that knows something about what they’re doing....I know hard to think of an example right!

But let us say the Government one day want to sell all the mortgages together in one bundled up loan book. Do you think any CEO in their right mind would buy a Sub Prime Book without the Sub Prime Lending rate, take on all the risk without the benefit of higher interest rates? There is zero chance folks. So one day, and this will happen, the Government will sell this mess to an investor, but they will sell it at a discount to make up for the risk of default and on top of that they will also guarantee the mortgages. This sounds too good to be true but in effect this is what happened in the States with the sale of CDO’s  on Wall Street.

So if you’re still with me what’s happening here is that the Government are creating a Bubble by inflating the economy with easy money while holding back supply, but to ease pressure on over heating the Banks similar to what happened in the 00’s the Government are going to lend the money themselves and when the economy inevitably crashes in a few years time they won’t have to deal with bailing out the Banks or nationalising the debt because the debt will be national debt to begin with. 

​And who do you think will be left to pick up that bill?

“Banks go bad from the inside out and the easiest way to rob a bank is to run one.” David McWilliams 

A certain democratically elected right wing loon recently posted a list of fake news which he claims was circulated to hurt his agenda, a programme which focuses on removing social health care whilst lowering taxes for the rich.

The propaganda wars are hard to keep up with in a world where people consume media faster than a packet of bacon fries after a county final, with little thought for its nutritional value.

All the news we see ends up in a blender and sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s fake.

For example the media reported we have a homeless crisis, the government said homeless levels are normal on average with other developed countries, then Minister for Children Katherine Zappone said homelessness is a national emergency, then Social Justice Ireland announced figures to show almost 800,000 people living in poverty in Ireland. Then nothing happened. Nothing happened because people heard that this is normal, despite what any rational person would conclude if they took a minute to think about it. If there was a trial on whether homelessness was an emergency crisis in Ireland the Judge would ask the jury to dismiss the government’s comments on what was ‘normal’ and to focus on the facts.

This of course is just one example, the government has also spun stories on the Hospital Crisis, the Maurice McCabe Controversy, the Jobstown Trial, Apple Tax Evasion, Shell to Sea Campaign, Irish Water, and many more.

What we need to do to wrap our heads around all this is to regularly remember good journalism, so why not have some Real News Awards, I hope to make this a regular feature on the site this year, posting three at a time, if you’ve any suggestions please leave  comment or pop me a DM. These are all articles from January focusing on housing: 

To kick things off the first award goes to @Ocionnaith ‏for his story ‘Homelessness Now A National Emergency’

The second award of the year goes to @sarahburnss_ ‏ for her report in the Times ‘Almost 800,000 Live in Poverty’

The third award goes to @Nick468official for his insights on Project Opera which revealed the Department of Environment gave Limerick City Council €12.5m in 2011 for social housing under Regeneration, but instead it was used to purchase ‘Opera Site’ providing ZERO housing units.

Unfortunately there are no cash prizes for making the list guys but think of the award as pat on the back from your step Dad.