Sweet Shop Economics

 

So the other week the three kingpins of celebrity economics in Ireland, David McWilliams, Eddie Hobbs and George Lee were all on Saturday night TV.

However there were no handbags at dawn or any direct challenges at all to each others economic predictions/ political positions (pre June 24 this was before the official announcement of The Recession). Instead, the three men regressed into an economic nostalgia glued together with anecdotes of Curly Wurlys and half crowns found on the street and cashed in at the sweet shop.

A comment from The Property Pin:

I was hoping we would ‘get real’ but no. This is just a fluff piece with a little bit of light sabre rattling, but no killer thrusts. The three boys almost being publicly embarrassed for being so right, and having to defend themselves – ‘no miriam, i’m not a doom monger’.

I believe we’re going to need a televised blood and guts, bone crunching, broken teeth D-Day type watershed to burst this bubble.

“Why is my 100% mortgaged shoebox worth 40% less than what I paid for it, if I could even find someone to buy it? I don’t remember anyone pointing out that was a possibility when I was being brow beaten into buying it.”

With the Dans and the Austins and the Toms and the Kens in the dock to explain how this all came about.
People in Ireland aren’t long about whinging to Joe Duffy if they think they were charged too much for a meal in a restaurant, but we have an entire generation who have been ripped off for their life savings and possibly their career earnings and there isn’t a fucking murmur of discontent to be found anywhere. It’s disturbing.

It seems that the penny sweet remains the primary unit that acts both as a touchstone for avarice and a way to extrapolate larger economic structures.