Really old men running the world.

You don’t become CEO over night.

all those old men were young once. You start at the bottom and work your way up

They are the equivalent of CEOs they are the top tier of government. Responsible for several million people , several billion euros/dollar/ riyal. Budgets every year

your local librarian is a public servant

At first glance I thought the thread title said 'Really old men ruining the world' which might not be altogether wrong either.

60 is the new 40.

70-something isn't old.

That's an interesting assertion, but are we not living in the days where people from different industries like entertainment & commerce can now seamlessly crossover into politics without turmoil?

The way to the top is simple, 70 to 100 hour weeks, as a given.

It's how everyone who is there got there and it is how most who are rich are that way as well.

Lot of younger driven people now go in to the corporate world, ideas of national public service etc are increasingly viewed as reactionary, nationalist,by the bourgeoisie left priests. It is also where you can make serious money.

Or who have gained a lot of life experiences.

Yeah and are making great decisions.

Trump

Putin

Xi Jinping

Between these 3 they are destabilising the whole world.

This is it in a nutshell.

Previous leaders would have gotten to their 60s or 70s before things like now treatable diseases or the ciggies, or their liver exploding got them.

Are you sure about that? Can you not get to the top by having a lot of subscribers and going viral?

Power has always been about money.

This stuff about politicians changing things at the stroke of a pin rarely happened.

I would say in the 20th great changes brought into being by politicians include FDR's new deal, Attlees and Bevans foundation of the NHS, LBJ pushing of civil rights in the US, the foundation of European Coal and Steel Community and then EEC.

To me almost all great political acts came into being around times of great social and economic upheaval or in the aftermath of acts such as major wars.

In Ireland it would be Lemass's opening of Ireland and Donncha O'Malleys education, then joining EEC all of which have huge long lasting effects.

But big business, big media have always played a part in Western democracies.

What we might have had years ago were statesmen who could actually lead and get a vision across.

Now we have inept bundlers and spoofers chasing social media likes.

And IMHO a huge problem with all Western democracies are in fact elections because most politicians want quick solutions before next election.

The thing is we do need those elections to often remove the shysters.

Sadly in Ireland we have no alternatives, yet.

Not to mention the women who had high profile positions in Ireland, and they proved that women can just be as useless as men.

Now there are no visions, just slogans.

Be careful what you wish for, the old guys climbed the ranks. Here is a list of how old leaders were when they became leaders of their country.

• Adolf Hitler - 44
• Mao Zedong - 56
• Stalin - 44
• Pol Pot - 51
• Nicolás Maduro - 50
• Hugo Chávez - 45
• Vladimir Putin - 47
• Leo Varadkar - 38

Irish President is 82.

All are variants of Socialist, bar Varadkar who is just a bland apparatchik and Putin who likes the brutality and control of that political outlook.

Netenjahu, Putin, Assad, Kim Jong Un, the Saudi and Arab guys, Hamas leaders that aren't dead...and that's just in today's world

Compared to them even Thatcher seems pretty mild, Theresa May and the lettuce absolutely harmless

Dee Forbes was great for RTE.

Which one, there have been a string of them? The current incumbent president Nayib Bukele is an ethnic Palestinian. His father was an Islamic imam, his mother’s parents were Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic, respectively. One of his wife’s grandfathers was a Sephardic Jew. How did he end up in El Salvador. What is going on in Latin America of late? Javier Milei is president in Argentina. Both appearing at a recent American Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)

The crypto bro one.

Putting Varadkar on that list is some laugh.

Its like if you are looking at a list of America's Most Wanted and Homer Simpson pops up at no 10! 😂

Ah being fair Leo Verruca shouldn't be on that list.

The rest were way more capable ... even if it was at slaughtering people.