This man is a legend. Discuss.
This thread is like the Leaving Cert History paper all over again.
Ben,
Support your answer with the aid of suitable reference to the text.
he fairly tore Simon Coveney and Arthur Morgan new ones last night.
If you are going on to talk to Vincent, youd want to know what your talking about and be well prepared, the cunt takes no prisoners.
A proud son of Limerick.
He has a tough, ruthless style that could only be learned on the mean street in Dromcolligher.
Perhaps the only media pundit in this country you can actually trust. Could be a journalistic superstar if he wanted but instead chose throughout hie entire career to champion unpopular causes. Another hard hitting article in the times today, which will no doubt put him in the doghouse with many.
Our income levels are grossly imbalanced
How can one call it balanced when one person gets 200 times what another person gets? asks VINCENT BROWNE .
MICHAEL FINGLETON got it right. The Ireland of the Celtic Tiger ordained that CEOs of financial institutions should be paid 60 times more than the average income and 153 times more than the average income of half of all earners in Ireland. As for a pension of 27 million, perhaps that was a little over the top. And the 1 million bonus paid immediately after the rest of society had guaranteed all deposits and loans given to his institution, Irish Nationwide, ill-advised.
But who among us has got the timing right always? There was a chap on television on Sunday night, Willie Slattery, of an outfit called State Street International, and he was of the view that the house of cards will collapse if we do anything serious about levelling things out. The 5 billion or so that has to be found right now to fix the Governments finances has to come from public expenditure cuts, not from taxes. That is code for hitting the lower echelons.
Actually he spelled it out public expenditure is running at around 55 billion, public sector pay amounts to 20 billion and social welfare now is topping 21 billion; they have got to be addressed.
Mary Hanafin, Minister for Social Welfare and something else, has already addressed the social welfare side, indicating that the people who are unemployed and about to be unemployed and those others already dependent on social welfare will have their entitlements addressed. So an unemployed person who gets 204.30 per week (10,624 annually) looks like having their allowance reduced. This 10,624, which a person who loses his/her job because of the incompetence of this Government will get, that is less over a year than Michael Fingleton earned in a day and a bit (8,846 a day) last year?
And thats okay, is it?
If this unemployed person has a dependent spouse and two dependent children, he/she will get 391.90 a week, 20,379 a year. Yes, Michael Fingleton would have had to work for 2 days to get this on his 2008 income. A non-contributory old age pensioner gets 219 a week (11,388 a year). A full-time carer under 66 gets 220.50 (11,466 a year).
Now thats a socially useful job, caring for a dependent relative. It is also massively demanding I think 24/7 is the lingo. Bankers are not entirely socially useless for their work has a social usefulness. But more socially useful than someone who is a full-time carer?
Why should a banker as in Michael Fingleton get 200 times what a full-time carer gets? And why should the carer have his/her income cut because the bankers acted in a socially reckless way and plunged the country into a financial crisis?
Brendan Smith, the Minister for Agriculture, was on the same programme the other night as Willie Slattery and he thought there had to be a balance, and everyone else on the programme Billy Timmins of Fine Gael and Roisin Shorthall of Labour agreed.
Balance? What balance? How can one call an arrangement balanced whereby one person gets 200 times what another person gets? Balanced when the poorer of the two then has their income cut because the richer of the two has their income cut? Or balanced when the bottom half earners (49 per cent) get just 17 per cent of total income, while the top 6 per cent of earners get 28 per cent of total income, 13 times the average earnings of the bottom half of earners.
There would be balance if there were some equality of income here, although some would argue that the more socially useful occupations carers, teachers, garda, social workers, nurses, bus drivers, train driver, bin workers should get more because of the greater social utility of what they do.
But a balance that retains the massive disparity of incomes? And the insidious dimension is that this balance results in even more social dysfunctionality, and, in one startling instance in a way that none of our leaders seems even able to mention: that around 5,400 people die prematurely here every year because of that balance, because of the huge inequality we have allowed to emerge. And associated with that, stress, anxiety, ill health and illiteracy. Feelings of worthlessness among a large swathe of the population. And then violence and criminality, in part, as a reaction to all this.
And when a sector of society, represented by the trade unions, announces a protest against the deepening of this balance, it is accused by sections of the media as saboteurs of the national interest. What national interest?
We are not all in this together, just as we were not all in the Celtic Tiger together. The patriotic duty is to subvert the social order that brought us this balance.
Browne has pretty decent ideals and tore strips off Tony O’Reilly on the Last Word a few weeks back.
He can come across as a gobshite though. I remember him interviewing some bird on his radio show once and she spoke of her husband. Browne interrupts out of nowhere and asks ‘Is this before or after he left the priesthood?’ It had nothing to do with the bird’s story - I don’t know why he had to bring it up.
Also on the Last Word, Cooper introduced him as being editor of the Tribune when it was owned by O’Reilly. Browne replied ‘Don’t be silly - I was gone long before that’. There was no need to be such an asshole about it.
He also spent about 15 minutes on his TV3 show talking about how those who used Contracts for Differences should be put in jail and wouldn’t let his guests speak.
He is a socialist though but he is a gobshite.
[quote=“farmerinthecity”]Browne has pretty decent ideals and tore strips off Tony O’Reilly on the Last Word a few weeks back.
He can come across as a gobshite though. I remember him interviewing some bird on his radio show once and she spoke of her husband. Browne interrupts out of nowhere and asks ‘Is this before or after he left the priesthood?’ It had nothing to do with the bird’s story - I don’t know why he had to bring it up.
Also on the Last Word, Cooper introduced him as being editor of the Tribune when it was owned by O’Reilly. Browne replied ‘Don’t be silly - I was gone long before that’. There was no need to be such an asshole about it.
He also spent about 15 minutes on his TV3 show talking about how those who used Contracts for Differences should be put in jail and wouldn’t let his guests speak.
He is a socialist though but he is a gobshite.[/quote]
Whats the story about Shane Ross and Hedge funds/contracts for difference ?
Cookie
He used to devote a section of his old Tv show to discussing nice trees he’d come across and encourage viewers to send in their stories of similar experiences.
Bloody weirdo from Dromcolligher.
Always struck me as the sort that would prefer to stick to his “principles” rather than do anything useful.
A grand sort to listen to at a university debating competition but completely impractical in the real world
[quote=“W.B. Yeats”]Always struck me as the sort that would prefer to stick to his “principles” rather than do anything useful.
A grand sort to listen to at a university debating competition but completely impractical in the real world[/quote]
You talking about VB or ball-ox??
[quote=“W.B. Yeats”]Always struck me as the sort that would prefer to stick to his “principles” rather than do anything useful.
A grand sort to listen to at a university debating competition but completely impractical in the real world[/quote]
Just how “practical” do you think the media should be?
If he reined in his opinions (and his drinking) a bit then there’s no doubt he could have earned himself an awful lot more money and he’d be a flagship presenter on RT. To my mind he deserves an awful lot of credit for pursuing the truth. Granted he can be frustrating when he doesn’t see the wood for the trees and when he indulges in irrelevancies but he’s still miles better than the sychophants at the state alternative.
[quote=“therock67”]Just how “practical” do you think the media should be?
If he reined in his opinions (and his drinking) a bit then there’s no doubt he could have earned himself an awful lot more money and he’d be a flagship presenter on RT. To my mind he deserves an awful lot of credit for pursuing the truth. Granted he can be frustrating when he doesn’t see the wood for the trees and when he indulges in irrelevancies but he’s still miles better than the sychophants at the state alternative.[/quote]
I don’t mean that he shouldn’t have pursued the truth, for instance i admire the way he kept the condition of people in state institutions in the public eye. It seems to me to that he prefers standing on priniciple and sticking it to politicians than ever offering the solution. Unfortunately in the real world people have to fix things as well as criticise.
He destroyed his RTE radio programme by constantly filling it up with stuff about the tribunals. Recreating court exchanges with actors etc. Not saying that it wasn’t relevant but he was obsessed about it.
[quote=“therock67”]Just how “practical” do you think the media should be?
If he reined in his opinions (and his drinking) a bit then there’s no doubt he could have earned himself an awful lot more money and he’d be a flagship presenter on RT. To my mind he deserves an awful lot of credit for pursuing the truth. Granted he can be frustrating when he doesn’t see the wood for the trees and when he indulges in irrelevancies but he’s still miles better than the sychophants at the state alternative.[/quote]
There is one standard of practicality to which any journalist must subscribe to be successful in this country. These are acceptable, practical conclusions:
Example 1:
Premise: Poor people are likely to suffer greatly in this recession.
Conclusion: The rich need tax cuts.
Example 2:
Premise: Social inequality in this country is growing at an alarming rate.
Conclusion: The rich need tax cuts.
Example 3:
Premise: The Irish Independent has been wrong about everything
Conclusion: The rich need tax cuts.
Example 3:
Premise: Manchester United are the most popular football team in the english premiership.
Conclusion: The rich need tax cuts.
Any alternative to the above is naive, communist, leftist gibberish.
Yeah but it’s surely not Vincent Browne’s job to find solutions. He’s a journalist, his job is exposure not remediation.
I know people will argue that he may not have always made the best use of his air time by sticking to particular points for too long but to be honest I’ll forgive him that because he’s sticking up for what’s right on the whole and he’s not afraid of calling it as he sees it.
[quote=“therock67”]Yeah but it’s surely not Vincent Browne’s job to find solutions. He’s a journalist, his job is exposure not remediation.
I know people will argue that he may not have always made the best use of his air time by sticking to particular points for too long but to be honest I’ll forgive him that because he’s sticking up for what’s right on the whole and he’s not afraid of calling it as he sees it.[/quote]
Spoken like a true John Pilger fan.
Vincenzo is quite mad of course, but it’s funny when he gets stuck into someone, he might have three lads on his show but he’ll stay on the scent of one fella for ten minutes if it suits him. He tore Simon Coveney a new one last night. Great to see.
but was it though?
FF stooge sean ardagh got an armchair ride and jan o’sulllivan, the token bleeding heart liberal, kept bladdering on about how it’s all so unfair and if labour were in govt they’d go to the EU and ask to borrow more money.
at least coveney had a few sums done.
vincenzo had his teeth stuck in that particular bone and the remainder of the panel were virtually ignored.
[quote=“treaty_exile”]but was it though?
FF stooge sean ardagh got an armchair ride and jan o’sulllivan, the token bleeding heart liberal, kept bladdering on about how it’s all so unfair and if labour were in govt they’d go to the EU and ask to borrow more money.
at least coveney had a few sums done.
vincenzo had his teeth stuck in that particular bone and the remainder of the panel were virtually ignored.[/quote]
They’ll get their turn.