John Browne

With all the talk about Zombie banks I can’t help but wonder how many of our banks have actually joined the ranks of the undead. The more I read in the papers the more I have this sinking feeling that they’re all Zombies. Just looking at some of their current share prices (AIB 39cent, BOI 19cent, IL&P 63cent, Anglo nationalised) and the downgrades they’ve received from the big international banks and rating agencies, it looks like investors have no confidence at all in our financial institutions.
Given that the governemnet is underwriting these banks and that it’s own financial position is arguably in worse position one can’t help but wonder if we’re living in a Zombie country.
In modern mmythology and by that I mean the movies, Zombies seem to be created by bizarre rituals performed by high priests in secret ceremonys and the zombies then go on to create other zombies by taking their pounds of flesh. Does this seem familiar to anyone.
It would seem that the glib metaphore of the Zombie is becoming more and more apt every day when applied to our current financial predicament.
In watching the tv the other night I happened upon a well known fantasy programme in which zombies were running amok. These Zombies were described as “slow moving dimwitted creatures who are dangerous in numbers and can only be stopped by means of decapitation or severe cranial damage inflicted by bludgeoning”. Hmm maybe they’re on to something here.

In the immortal words of the Queen of Hearts “Off with their heads”

In advance of Budget 2009 Nev decided to have a look at previous years budget speeches and see how the speeches have changed from year to year based on differing economic conditions and environments.
The best way to look at the speeches was to look at the words that were used and to present them in a graphical format. That’s where wordle comes in. A certain amount of preprocessing of the speeches is required to put certain terms together like “stamp duty” and to remove small irrelevant words like “to, and, million” and numbers.
Wordle is a great tool for this kind of thing and has been used before by media institutions like the BBC for looking at reports and speeches in a different way.

Clicking any of the wordles below opens them in a lightbox. Clicking again brings you to their location on flickr.

By far the biggest word used in last years budget was “Government” followed very quickly by “tax”. Also featuring highly on the list is “Energy, economy, income, investment, health” and “Spending”. Adjectives featuring highly were “increase” in its various guises aswell as “new”.

Comparing Cowens 2007 budget to the 2008 budget reveals a couple of interesting things. in 2007 the word “Tax” seemed to feature more prominently than 2008. Also interesting is the use of Economic compared with Economy. “Relief” was quite prominent in 2007 aswell as “investment, health, support” and “people”. Just looking at the word cloud you could tell it was an election year.
Increase was present again in all it’s guises. The smaller words shouldn’t be neglected either as they show some of the things that only get passing mentions in budget speeches like “Farming”.

In Cowens 2006 budget “Childcare, children, education” and “Reliefs” feature highly compared to other years. Tax is bigger than in both 2007 and 2008. It seemed to be chasing “Reliefs” around the speech. Disappointingly “infrastructure” does not feature highly but is higher than 2007 and 2008