David McWilliams posted an intersting post on this blog noting the strange similarity between the predicament of our banks and that of our Church. “When you think about it, both the banks and the Catholic Church dealt in that rarest of commodities, trust. When we trusted them, they could sell us practically any old stuff. Make it up on the hoof, in some cases.”
He asks now that our trust in both institutions has been smashed, “why are we still protecting them from the full financial ramifications of their moral bankruptcy?”
Leaving the Catholic Church to one side his discussion focusses on the banks “will they be forgiven and given a second chance in traditional Catholic fashion? And if they are absolved, what are the ramifications for the rest of us?”
“Ironically, it looks as if the Irish banks – and also, by virtue of these unusual circumstances, the Irish government – have just found an all-forgiving priest in the guise of the European Central Bank. The ECB is keeping us afloat.”
Read the whole article, which also appeared in print in the Sunday Business Post here.
