Smoke gets in your thighs . . .

Driving from down the country last Sunday, I accidentally tuned in to the Gay Byrne programme on Lyric FM. From time to time, in similar circumstances, I’ve caught the odd snatch of it before. And really the more you listen to it the more you become convinced that, in his present incarnation, or at this current stage of his incarnation, Gay Byrne has arguably become the most boring man in Ireland—certainly if this programme is anything to go by.

And what about this sub-Woganesque love-fest he seems to be engaged in with his listeners?—who by the sound of it are all people of a certain age and background. The image one gets is almost of a team huddle before a football match: all looking in and nobody looking out, all intent on mutually reinforcing the illusion that the world hasn’t changed and isn’t changing, and that things will continue on, much as they’ve continued on in the past, forever.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’ve nothing against such people—I’m sure they see themselves, and others see them, too, as salt of the earth types. Retired, or getting on in years, and with a nostalgic vision of how it is going to be with them for the rest of their lives. Better for them, I think—although I doubt they would agree with me—if they were to die now, before time and events rob them, not alone of their illusions, but of their financial security and comfort, not to mention, possibly, even their lives.

The signs of it are already there—indeed, in the logic of underlying economic developments the catastrophe is already here. Anyone reading the papers recently, especially the British papers, will have come across articles, almost like ranging shots, blaming the generation of those who were born in the years immediately after the war for the situation that the rest of society finds itself in. The tenor of these articles is that like a crooked trustee, the baby-boomers guzzled the inheritance that was meant to be handed down the generations.

As Bob Dylan says: ‘You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows . . .’

The fact is that the society that we grew up in is cracked and irrecoverable; people are looking round for someone to blame, but that is only a prelude to looking for someone to compensate them, especially the young, for the loss of their expectations. The old cry used to be ‘the world owes me a living’; the new one is more likely to be ‘it’s people of a certain age and lifestyle that owes [sic!] it to me’.

That is if there is anything left after the government have finished their depredations—and really the exactions of government are only another manifestation of the tendency outlined above.

There has been a popular optimism that it is only a matter of time until economically things get back to normal. If nothing else, the crises of recent days should cause people to think twice. The fact is there is no going back to normal. We live in changed times—it’s just that consciousness tends to lag after events, and, short of a gun being put to their heads, people tend only to see what they want to see.

If the situation arises—and there is a strong risk of this—that at any stage the country finds its credit exhausted and is unable to borrow money; or if the burden of debts to be repaid radically outstrips the shrinking tax-base, then government—whatever government—will (EU permitting) start scrabbling around for money with all the indiscriminate ferocity of a junky burgling an OAP dwelling.

And what form might this take? Well, the first thing that needs to be said is that if you want feathers you don’t go looking for frogs. If a government finds itself short of money, and in a desperate situation, it will automatically go to wherever it knows the money is. In somewhat analogous circumstances, the Argentinian government, in 2008, began moves to nationalize private pension funds. Could it happen here? Who knows? But if it does, then it is the start of a process that logically could end up with the raiding of bank accounts.

The irony of it all! . . . a sort of communism imposed from above—likely by the very forces who spent most of the last one hundred years anathemising it!

And what role might the grey-power movement that forced a government reversal on the medical card scheme play in all of this? None. The government’s climbdown on that occasion was prompted by electoral considerations. In the situation I am outlining, electoral considerations would no longer be a factor—or if they were then only a very small factor. Instead the government would be acting out of pure fear of the consequences of not acting

But this is to a large extent speculative. What isn’t speculative though is the fact that under impact of the economic crisis violent break-ins, burglaries, kidnappings etc. are on the increase. The criminal class and the desperate are already implementing their own ‘five-year plan’, as it were. And being generally professional at the game, they don’t need details of pension funds or bank accounts to help them follow the money. A look at your house or your neighbourhood or your general lifestyle is indication enough. And as the economic downturn festers, so also will this aspect of things grow.

Of course, there is nothing new in any of this. In the France of the 19th and early 20th centuries, there was a phenomenon called the ‘Chauffeurs de la Drôme’ or ‘chauffeurs’, for short. This phenomenon was prompted by the peasant habit, owing to a generally bad experience of banks, of keeping their money hidden, metaphorically, ‘under the mattress’. The ‘chauffeurs’ were bands of outlaws who roamed the countryside preying on the peasants. Having been already ‘burnt’ by the banks, the peasants now found themselves being literally burned over slow fires—the customary ‘chauffeur’ practice—until they revealed where they had hidden their gold.

I don’t at all blame people for seeking a little solace in the situation they find themselves in—a little denial, a little nostalgia, a little make-believe. I suppose it depend on your make up. But sometimes it is better to open the window and let a little fresh air in. Even if only for a little while . . .