Right, I've taken the credulity pills, just as the doctor ordered, and I've washed them down with two tablespoons of gullibility linctus, and I've even had a trustingness suppository inserted, and so now there's nothing you can tell me that I won't believe. What? Bertie Ahern is in reality a transvestite all-in wrestler? Naturally. Known it for years. And you say that Mary Harney is actually a Jamaican limbo dancer? A girl like her, of course she is.
OK. So now I'm ready for whatever else you want to tell me. And the subject is what, please? Inflation? Hmmm. Not quite my strongest point. The poor unfortunate who tried to lecture me in economics in UCD ran amok with a chainsaw after gazing at my tonsils every morning. She receives visits every second Thursday at St Pat's, but doctors hold out no hope of her ever communicating meaningfully again.
Inflation
So, the subject you have in mind is economics, inflation, and that class of caper; well there's nothing you can tell me that I won't believe, especially since I've been doped up the eyeballs in credibility drugs. So give it to me straight. Point number one. The Government is concerned about inflation, the highest in the European Union and rising. Got you. Understand that perfectly. And don't tell me - it's cutting retail taxes to reduce prices, is that right? It's not? OK. So what's it doing?
It's putting a 10p tax on every plastic bag that's sold. And it's also putting a new tax on property investment. I see. And you think it funny, do you, to play these practical jokes on me because I've taken these drugs and I'll believe everything I'm told, is that right? It's not.
So let's start again. Tell me what the Government really intends to do about inflation - please, this time, no more jokes about bags or flat taxes. Next, you'll be telling me the Government is thinking about fixing pub prices by law, ha ha ha!
What? The Government really is thinking about enforcing a prices order on publicans? And I suppose the Congested Districts Board is it still toiling away, and we've got surtax at 110 per cent, and there's duty on all imports, and a return flight to London via the Aer Lingus monopoly will cost you a month's salary, and you can only pass your Leaving Cert if you also pass Irish. I'm back to the 1960s, right, to look at the various doomed, folly-laden governing devices from yesteryear? No? This is the year 2000 and the Government really is thinking of imposing a prices order. And how is this to be enforced? Is there to be a Government inspectorate touring pubs to check on prices? What punishments will they inflict? And is there no possibility that the issue of prices could be tackled in the way my nice economics she-lecturer might have proposed - by increasing the supply and freeing the market of regulations?
Publican lobby
No? Because of the power of the publican lobby? I see. But even though I believe everything I'm told, the bag-tax is mere fancy, right? It's not? In the midst of a war on inflation, the Government is going to impose a 10p tax on a bag which is not worth a farthing? What if the supermarkets decide the scheme is unworkable and that they intend to give away free bags with, say, every £2 worth of goods purchased? How will the Government keep check on how many bags supermarkets are giving away? Will it make it illegal to give away plastic bags? Or will it establish a Government bag monopoly, with every plastic bag being given a licence number and maybe a bar-code, so that the supermarket can be fined vast fortunes if it is found that the bag was given away?
Or is it yet another aspirational law, the purpose of which is not to do something but to be seen to be doing something, rather like the dogmuzzling law of cretinous infamy of a decade ago? What? It's not the only such law? A new law is coming in which will put a tax on rented accommodation? And it's being introduced, why? To limit speculation in the property business?
I see. Firstly, there's another word for speculation. It's called investment. I remember that much, even in this credulous haze which makes me such an agreeable chap to be talking to. Secondly, has some new economic theory been invented recently which says that if you put a tax on something, its price in the marketplace will then fall? Because not even the gullibility drops I dosed myself with at the beginning of this column will make me believe that.
Busybody instinct
Or are both the bag-tax and the flat-tax proof once again that those who govern us cannot repress the busybody instinct which drove them into public life in the first place, regardless of the consequence of those instincts? The answer to the problems of litter or shortage of accommodation is not stupid government interference which will be unenforceable in one case and counter-productive in the other. Litter is a problem of mentality, not of material, best tackled with a compulsory anti-litter civics programme in our schools. And accommodation is a commodity best left to the marketplace to supply. Attempts to punish "speculators" will either fail completely or will drive rents up.
Simple, really, whether you've taken gullibility dope or not.