If we were to rank all the Irish blogs in descending order according to their readership, this blog (unfortunately) would not make the into top 10.

Would it be in the top 100?

No.

Top 1000?

Hmmm… Probably not. There is, after all, 1001 Irish Blogs (in case you didn’t know).

With this in mind, I would hazard a guess that our Finance Minister, Brian Lenihan is NOT amongst the few that frequent this hidden jewel of a website (Not like you guys, you know a good thing when you see it). Nonetheless, I feel compelled to write him a letter, outlining my thoughts regarding the imminent recession and what I feel must be done to save this country from going all 1986 on us again. Here goes:

Dear Brian,

I realise Brian, that this is not all your fault and that you’ve pretty much been thrown into the deep end here, so I would like to offer you a few suggestions on how you can turn this ship around and become the nation’s saviour:

1. Firstly, you should hire a crack team of poker professionals to play online around the clock. If one man can turn €1000 into €10,000 each month, then 1000 players would bolster the economy to the tune of €108million per annum. Best of all, that money would be (mostly) coming from players in foreign countries, thereby draining other competing economies of vital funds. Just a little added bonus.

2. Cease all road-building projects immediately. With all the good roads we now have, our car-repair industry is beginning to suffer. In the 80’s it wasn’t uncommon to bring your car to the mechanic once every two weeks to repair damage caused by hitting potholes. Scrapping all existing road projects will also save the economy in the region of €300million per annum.

3. Increase the tax on foreign goods. Unfortunately, under the current EU rules, we cannot impose just any old tax on imports, but with some clever re-structuring of the VAT system, we can further encourage people to buy Irish goods. For example, most basic foodstuffs currently have no VAT applied to them but if we were to place the likes of bananas, pineapples, etc (i.e. stuff that will never grow here in a million years) into the 21% VAT category then it would encourage people to buy more homegrown fruit like… erm… gooseberries.

4. Regulate the drug trade. There’s never been a better time to do this one because, let’s face it, it’s one of the few business models that will actually thrive in a state of depression and high unemployment. Since no-one knows the precise extent of the drugs trade in Ireland it’s hard to put a figure on how much this measure would be worth to the economy. €1billion… 2 maybe? €3billion per annum? More? Let’s just say it’s worth a fucking load, ok?

5. Tax the rich. Close every fucking tax loophole that these leeches abuse and tax the bollix off them. “What’s that you say? You’re leaving the country? Not until you pay us the €XX million you owe us in tax, you cunt“. This should be done as soon as possible, even if the economy recovers, just to sicken the fuckers.

6. And lastly, but most importantly, shut down RTE. A bigger waste of public spending there is not. €890,000 a year for that insufferable wanker Pat Kenny? I’d sooner burn the fucking money…

In summary, I think that with a little creativity and some hard work, our country can be saved from re-living the horrors of the ’80’s. Having said that, if this recession means that the price of a pint sinks back to €2.00 then I’ll happily put on my old Naff jacket and Hi-Tec trainers then go find a dirty, smoke-filled bar to hide away in for a couple of years.

Yours Truly, 

H (the Shitetalker)