A secret agent was sent to Ireland to pick up some very sensitive information from an agent called Murphy. His instructions were to walk around town using a code phrase until he met his fellow agent. He found himself on a desolate country road and finally ran into a farmer.
“Hello, said the agent, “I’m looking for a man called Murphy.”
“Well you’re in luck,” said the farmer. “As it happens, there’s a village right over the hill where a butcher is called Murphy, the baker is named Murphy, and three widows are called Murphy. In fact, my name is Murphy.”
“Aha,” thought the agent, “here’s my man.” So he whispered the secret code: “The sun is shining … the grass is growing … the cows are ready for milking.”
“Oh,” said the farmer, “you’re looking for Murphy the spy. He’s in the village over the other direction.”
You’ve been in office for one year and in that time the whole edifice is beginning to crumble, there’s chaos, the money’s running out – I should thank you; you should perhaps be the pin-up boy of the Eurosceptic movement.
But just look around this chamber, this morning. Just look at these faces. Look at the fear. Look at the anger. Poor old Barroso here looks like he’s seen a ghost.
They’re beginning to understand that the game is up and yet in their desperation to preserve their dream, they want to remove any remaining traces of democracy from the system. And it’s pretty clear that none of you have learnt anything.
When you yourself, Mr van Rompuy, say that the euro has brought us stability. I suppose I could applaud you for having a sense of humour, but isn’t this, really, just the bunker mentality?
Your fanaticism is out in the open. You talked about the fact that it was a lie to believe that the nation state could exist in the 21st Century globalised world. Well, that may be true in the case of Belgium, who haven’t had a government for six months, but for the rest of us, right across every member state in this Union – and perhaps this is why we see the fear in the faces – increasingly people are saying, ‘We don’t want that flag. We don’t want the anthem. We don’t want this political class. We want the whole thing consigned to the dustbin of history.’
And we had the Greek tragedy earlier on this year, and now we have this situation in Ireland. Now I know that the stupidity and greed of Irish politicians has a lot to do with this. They should never ever have joined the euro. They suffered with low interest rates, a false boom and a massive bust.
But look at your response to them. What they’re being told, as their government is collapsing, is that it would be inappropriate for them to have a general election. In fact Commissioner Rehn here said they had to agree their budget first before they’d be allowed to have a general election.
Just who the hell do you think you people are?
You are very very dangerous people, indeed. Your obsession with creating this Euro state means that you’re happy to destroy democracy. You appear to be happy for millions and millions of people to be unemployed and to be poor. Untold millions must suffer so that your Euro dream can continue.
Well it won’t work. Because it’s Portugal next, with their debt levels of 325% of GDP, they’re the next ones on the list, and after that I suspect it will be Spain. And the bailout for Spain would be seven times the size of Ireland’s and at that moment all of the bailout money has gone – there won’t be anymore.
But it is even more serious than economics. Because if you rob people of their identity. If you rob them of their democracy, then all they are left with is nationalism and violence. I can only hope and pray that the Euro project is destroyed by the markets before that really happens.
Amid growing a growing financial crisis, Ireland’s Prime Minister has asked the U.S. to make Ireland the 51st state.
Ireland is in the midst of a major financial crisis that is causing panic on global stock markets. Many think that Ireland, like Greece, will ask the EU to bail them out.
But WWN has learned that Ireland has had it with the European Union and has made a request to the Obama Administration to fast-track Ireland and it’s application for U.S. statehood.
Ireland would be the first state added to the United States since Hawaii became a state on August 21, 1959. The Obama Administration and Congress are putting the Irish request at the top of the lame-duck agenda. “I think we can get it done,” said President Obama, who is of Irish ancestry.
Ireland is on the brink of insolvency, which has helped drive down the S&P 500 stock index by nearly 4 percent over the last few days.
Ireland has one huge problem that has caused it to consider becoming an American state: a failed banking sector that Ireland’s government can no longer rescue on its own.
Ireland is in the midst of a real estate bust that could trump even the ruinous downturns that turned parts of southern California and Nevada into suburban ghost towns, with home-grown banks stoking it all. Now, those banks are trying to manage catastrophic losses. The Irish government has effectively nationalized the nation’s biggest banks by guaranteeing their debt, which would be akin to the U.S. government taking over Citigroup, Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo.
“If the Irish banks go down, the Irish government also goes down,” says economist Jacob Kirkegaard of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “They have no choice but to ask either the EU or America for help. Most Irish citizens would rather become part of the U.S. than be beholden to the E.U.”
A young woman on a flight from Ireland asked the priest beside her, ‘Father, may I ask a favor?’
‘Of course child. What can I do for you?’
‘Well, I bought an expensive woman’s electric hair dryer for my Mother’s birthday that is unopened and well over the Customs limits, and I’m afraid they’ll confiscate it. Is there any way you could carry it through customs for me? Under your robes perhaps?
‘I would love to help you, dear, but I must warn you: I will not lie.’
‘With your honest face, Father, no one will question you.’ When they got to Customs, she let the priest go ahead of her.
The official asked, ‘Father, do you have anything to declare?’
‘From the top of my head down to my waist, I have nothing to declare.’
The official thought this answer strange, so he asked, ‘And what do you have to declare from your waist to the floor?’
‘I have a marvelous instrument designed to be used on a woman, but which is, to date, unused.’
Roaring with laughter, the official said, ‘Go ahead, Father. Next!’
