Wolf of Wall Street: Getting it wrong about Ireland

The real Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Belfort, is advising Irish citizens to quit the blame game.

Here’s some of his advice:

One of the messages I want to say to the Irish people is that you can’t blame yourselves.

You’ve got to say it’s okay, we made a mistake and we are going to learn from that and grow stronger from that.

Yeah, people screwed up but they screwed up all over the world so you owe it to your children and your grandchildren to not dwell on that.

And remember it wasn’t Ireland where people overspent. You are no different from the United States and Spain and England.

The problem with Mr. Belfort’s advice is that it’s based on ignorance about what’s really going on in Ireland.

Here’s the minimum Mr. Belfort needs to learn.

All our problems were caused by our corrupt political/administrative system.

Yes, the global financial crisis had a massive impact but it could have been contained and managed if we had a functional democracy.

Mr. Belfort is completely unaware that our corrupt system is not into learning lessons from the disastrous consequences of its actions. To do so would not be in its interests.

The corrupt system did wobble a bit when the global financial crisis hit but it is now firmly back in the saddle of power and ruthlessly doing what it does best – screwing Irish citizens into the ground.

Unwittingly, while describing his own descent into a life of debauchery and fraud, Mr. Belfort pinpoints exactly how our political/administrative system evolved into a corrupt monster.

You don’t lose your moral compass overnight. You take tiny steps where you become desensitised.

This has been happening in Ireland since the corrupt/criminal politician Haughey came to power in 1979. Tiny step after tiny step until eventually the country fell over the cliff in 2008.

The first time you step over the line you feel bad and try to make things right again but then the next time you take that step further and further and before you know it you are doing things you never thought you would do.

This accurately describes the reaction/attitude of our politicians/administrators. Politicians and officials are now at a stage where they don’t even bother to make up excuses anymore.

They are supremely confident that accountability/transparency is a joke. They know they can do pretty much as they please, even break the law, which they do now on a regular basis.

I know myself now if you create wealth without ethics or integrity its not going to last.

The disaster for Irish citizens is that while the political sector is an ethics and integrity free zone it is, apparently, going to last well into the foreseeable future.