President Bush (or Governor Bush as George Carlin suggests we call him since that was his last legitimate job) has assembled a team to attend an investment conference in Northern Ireland.
Among those sent on the mission is Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York. Bloomberg must be part of the team to tell Northern Ireland how to concentrate billions of dollars of wealth in the hands of one man. How can one possibly send a person responsible for a huge monopoly within the media to give Northern Ireland advice on free trade.
The website of the conference proudly proclaims
The event is fully endorsed by UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, the US administration, the Government of the Republic of Ireland and the European Union
as if it was a good thing that these people and institutions are ready to enter their marketplace and pay poor wages while reaping huge profits.
Goodness knows that Northern Ireland needs investment and infrastructural improvement, but this is akin to a mouse inviting a vulture to dinner.
Remember that the North’s economy was once superior to that of the Republic when its industrial base was still around. The North, like the Republic, is surely on the road to becoming a services based economy with jobs created not in the public sector, natural resource development or industry, but in high street retailers and multinational corporations that would pick up and leave at the drop of a hat at the first sign of trouble. Northern Ireland wants to adopt the Republic’s 12% corporation tax to entice large corporations into setting up. Sinn Féin does indeed proclaim to be socialist, but it seems that this is the price of power. This reminds me somewhat of post apartheid South Africa when Mandela thought that the country was in such a state that they must adopt a free market economy, both to appease wealthy whites and to stimulate the economy. This ’stimulation’ did not, however, result in the economic emancipation of the working class South Africans.
Bloomberg is the only elected official in the presidents delegation, the others being CEOs and ambassadors. Obviously Bloomberg is seen as much as a businessman as he is a mayor. I now proclaim Michael Bloomberg, not mayor, but CEO of New York.
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