"Finance Minister has spotted an injustice endured by every citizen with a savings account, but his proposed solution is a half-cocked mess"
"As a young stock­broker back in the late 1970s, one of my first tasks was to disturb a few blissfully happy people and to make them utterly miserable. I was required to head out into the jungle, hunt down contented middle-class citizens with savings in the bank and persuade them that there were bonanzas waiting in the stock market."
"Part of my unspoken brief was to plug into the prudent Protestant network. My first client victims were an elderly couple, thrifty, fellow Prods from prosperous Greystones, Co Wicklow, the home town of today's Fine Gael leader and Finance Minister, Simon Harris."
The Finance Minister has identified an injustice faced by every citizen holding a savings account and has proposed a remedy that is poorly conceived and inadequate. A memory from the late 1970s recalls a young stockbroker tasked with unsettling complacent middle-class savers and persuading them to pursue gains in the stock market. The broker systematically targeted the prudent Protestant social network to find willing clients. Early clients included an elderly, thrifty couple from prosperous Greystones, County Wicklow, noted as the hometown of Fine Gael leader and Finance Minister Simon Harris. The anecdote links historical efforts to move savers into markets with contemporary policy critiques.
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