Time economists stopped kicking cans and pushing envelopes

Date Published: {J}

Who was it that decided that the panacea to all of our economic problems involved nothing more stressful than the gently kicking a tin can further down the road?

Last week Ireland had more can kicking than the Moulin Rouge had can-can kicking, as we endeavoured to postpone our Anglo Irish Bank promissory note payment because for some reason paying three and a half billion in 13 years time is a much better idea than paying it now.

So why not simply say it like it is, instead of encouraging wanton vandalism by kicking tin cans from here to eternity?

If I hear it one more time on the airwaves, I think I will personally track down the can kicker and stuff the aluminium device into a part of his or her body where they might find sitting down for the foreseeable future to be a movement of great pain.

What’s in this can that we’re supposed to be kicking anyway? Is it full of toxic Troika members or greedy bankers? It couldn’t be full of developers or builders because it seems to be fully finished and ready for occupation.

Kicking a can might be one way of taking out your frustration, but it also runs the risk of a fine for littering at least – if not a conviction under the Public Order Act if your airborne can smashes through some poor unfortunate’s window.

Then again, economics is apparently built on a foundation of cheap clichés that avoids economists having to actually explain the facts to us simpletons in a clear and precise manner.

Thus, the great and the good don’t just spend their time kicking cans down the road; they are also devoted to pushing the envelope when they aren’t thinking outside the box or running it up the flagpole to see who salutes.

They also seem to find an inordinate amount of time to pick low-hanging fruit, a pursuit they might like to take to the next level which would presumably give them something of value to bring to the table.

The thing our can kickers fear most of course is throwing the baby out with the bathwater, presumably because while they might get away with a bit of public disorder, they know that flinging away perfectly good children ultimately solves nothing….unless you’re Chinese.

The one thing they never talk about is the elephant in the room – which is strange, because you’d imagine you could talk about nothing else if you saw one anywhere outside of Africa or a zoo.

Purveyors of the business cliché love nothing better than to hit the ground running – primarily at the end of the day – while giving 110% to bring their ‘A’ game which should also ensure they don’t drop the ball under any circumstances.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.