I just got out of a taxi on what is a dreary raining budget day and on the radio literally every station was obsessing over the collective kicking we are all about to get and I decided that no matter what the comes our way, I for one, will find a way to get over it…. Somehow.

Dear Budget 2010,

I don’t really care any more whether you get it wrong or right, I’m not concerned with ‘fairness’, that concept went out of fashion with our leaders many years ago. I do have a genuine concern for all human suffering, but not solely specific to Ireland and how our taxes are run or not run, specific to the cause of people everywhere, in particular those in countries where there is war, or people are starving, in our own country I fear most for our children, but the truth is that no matter how bad it gets here that we are still better off than most of the world.

I have sat and watched my industry contract, quite painfully, the commissions we survive on have been halved in the last year, and transactions are down by 50%, the maths is simple, and the reality is that only through incredible dedication, long hours and additional effort have any broker houses been able to get this far, we have taken our medicine and yet come back for more. Many of my professional colleagues are unemployed, some have really lost faith, not only in our nation but in themselves, and that to me is one of the true tragedies of this recession, it has put out the fire in some of our best and brightest.

Meanwhile the whole industry has been tarnished by the avarice of few, even Matthew, a whole 2000 years ago saw that the ‘rain falls on the just and the unjust alike’, the most culpable remain the most unpunished, the most broken remain the most unassisted, and this is lovingly referred to as ‘modern society’, rather we should judge ourselves by gauging the condition of the most-worse-off members of our society.

So do your best, cut whatever you want to cut, take what little we have left to take and blow it as you see fit, I don’t really care, because I feel I speak for much of my generation in saying that we will figure things out and get by, we will find answers, industries and solutions to our problems faster and better than you (our government), and we will prosper eventually, not because of you, but in spite of you.

To those that go abroad, I hope you have wonderful adventures, and are the new generation of ambassadors who have made this country a place to be proud of across the four corners of the earth, to those that stay, don’t give up, just keep swinging, you’ll hit something eventually. To those out of work, I’ve been there, I was on the dole as recently as 2003, but you can and will bounce back it just isn’t easy to see that when life has you on the ropes.

This is the same land where people have survived through horrors for generations, frankly I’m rather unimpressed by whatever comes our way when weighed up against the devastation of the Famines, I don’t feel like wavering knowing that generations before us sailed with uncertainty in coffin ships to arrive in a nation that sought only their work of their backs as long as they kept their traps shut. Where signs read ‘no dogs, blacks or Irish’… In that order.

We have survived civil war, occupancy, tyranny, ruin, being banned from speaking our native language, being removed from our native land, almost every misery has been heaped upon this small island at some point in time and yet we keep coming back for more.

I hope you are getting the picture…. There is nothing you can do to hold us back, the more you beat us the more tenacious our resignation to prosper, the harder you hit the harder we bounce back. You lack the creativity to provide answers, don’t worry, we have it in droves and we will execute new plans in a more timely manner than you could ever hope to do, not because we want to, but because we must, and what must be done will be done.

So do your worst, come what may, me and thousands of others like me will bounce back come hell or high water. You don’t bother me and you certainly don’t scare me.

Sincerely,

Karl