NEWTON'S OPTIC:YOU'VE ENJOYED Freakonomics. Now try Jarrynomics, the game every journalist in Ireland is playing. Just ask Gerry Adams some simple economic questions and watch while he completely freaks out.
Q: How do you ‘negotiate’ with markets?
A: Through supply and demand. You approach the market, perhaps by standing outside a stock exchange holding a megaphone, and say “I am the President of Sinn Féin and I demand to be supplied.”
Q: What is the structural deficit?
A: It’s the difference between the money you put into Spanish apartments and the value of the few that have actually been built.
Q: What is sovereign debt?
A: I’m glad you raised that point. As Baron Munchausen By Proxy of Chingford-on-the-Wold, I am entitled to 30 shillings a fortnight from the royal purse which has, regrettably, yet to be paid.
Q: What is subordinated debt?
A: Money owed to you by a subordinate, such as anyone below the rank of quartermaster. Sometimes it can be securitised but that’s really a matter for the nutting squad.
Q: Have you revised your position on the bank guarantee?
A: Certainly not. I guaranteed that we had nothing to do with the Northern Bank raid and that remains my position.
Q: Do you support recapitalisation?
A: Obviously, in a united Ireland, the capital could be moved to Armagh or perhaps alternated monthly between Belfast and Dublin. Even if we settled on Dublin it would still be the new capital of a new country, so yes, it would have to be recapitalised.
Q: Should the pension reserve be raided?
A: Look, I told you we didn’t rob the bank. Our reservists made their own pension arrangements and raids would bring back memories of the RUC.
Q: What is the duty on cigarettes?
A: I’m not concerned with minutiae. Nobody I know pays duty on cigarettes.
Q: What is marginal tax?
A: It’s when you get a statement from your accountant and he’s written in the margin: “I’ve stashed this in a wheelie bin to avoid tax.”
Q: How are yield and interest related?
A: Very closely. According to my relatives in Dundalk, the Stop signs down here all say Yield and I would be interested in extending that use of Irish to the six counties.
Q: What is the coupon rate on government paper?
A: It is precisely because the papers are controlled by government that I refuse to read them. However, I am told they often contain several pages of coupons for groceries and the like.
Q: What is the basis point spread?
A: I think that kind of question shows the need to protect the disadvantaged and vulnerable in our society from that kind of question.
Q: What would you tell the IMF?
A: I would tell them to go home. However, if some of them believe they are British, I would allow them to stay, pending a process of outreach in which they gradually accept they are already home.
Q: What would you tell the ECB?
A: I would tell them that in these difficult times it is important to keep electricity bills down.
Q: How would you burn the bondholders?
A: I’d stack the pallets first, then the tyres. Then add the petrol.