Would you like a job paying a hundred grand a year? Any clown can get one of those. In fact, it helps to be a clown. For we speak now, as you may suspect, of that spectacular country within a country, the Wonderful Land of Nama.

Probably you haven't given Nama a great deal of thought lately, what with the country falling apart. But Nama hasn't gone away, you know.

What's Nama for? There was a time when we bothered to ask that question. Now Nama just sails on, almost ignored, spending countless millions in pursuit of something or other.

In 2009, Mr Cowen and Mr Lenihan had a second Great Idea. Their first Great Idea, you may recall, was to guarantee all bank loans when the bankers asked.

The second Great Idea was to create a body that would suck all the poison from the insolvent banks -- the bad loans. This would allow the banks to recover and flourish. Thus, the National Asset Management Agency was born. (In the great tradition of banking, the dead loans that would never be repaid were deemed to be "assets".)

If you read the debates of three years ago, you'll find one phrase repeated over and over: "get credit flowing". Nama would "take the distressed assets off those balance sheets and get credit into the Irish economy flowing more quickly" (Mr Cowen, July 8, 2009).

And: "The basis for introducing this legislation (is) to ensure the return of the flow of credit to businesses. . . facilitate the flow of credit to the real economy. . . allow (the banks) to focus their resources on discharging their essential role in the economy, which is to provide credit" (Mr Lenihan, November 8, 2009).

From April to November of that year, the Dail record is alive with similar assertions. Some TDs, such as Leo Varadkar, believed Nama would "not get credit flowing to businesses or homeowners". Some, like Pat Rabbitte, seemed unsure, commenting: "If it does not get credit flowing again in the real economy, the whole purpose of this financial engineering. . . will be for nothing."

Whether or not you thought it would work, all agreed that the purpose of Nama was to "get credit flowing".

About three months ago, the Nama chiefs appeared before the Public Accounts Committee. Bizarrely, in the entire transcript of that discussion (which is a book-length 46,000 words) there's not a single mention of the supposed purpose of Nama -- i.e. freeing the flow of credit to the real economy.

It simply doesn't seem to have occurred to those running Nama -- or the politicians quizzing them -- to discuss the prime purpose for which the thing was allegedly set up.

Nama bought 11,500 bank "assets" with a face value of €74bn, though the market value was much less. (Only one in five of these 'assets' is paying interest.) Nama paid €31bn for them. It aims to pay back €7.5bn of that money to the State by the end of 2013, €16.5bn by the end of 2017 and the final €7bn by the end of 2019.

Frank Daly, Nama chairman, told the committee what Nama was for. It has a "mandate that requires us to get the best financial return for the taxpayer". Brendan McDonagh, Nama chief executive, said: "Our objective is to get the most we can for those assets over a period, so we do not lose any more money for the taxpayer."

Quite sensibly, some might conclude, Nama seems to have ditched the nonsense about "getting credit flowing" and is desperately trying to sell damaged "assets" to pay back as much of the €31bn as possible.

In short, to make Nama less of a debacle than it might otherwise be.

Oddly enough, some don't think either of these aims is the purpose of Nama. Michael Noonan, minister with responsibility for Nama, told the Seanad in October that he wanted Nama "to get the Irish property market moving again". He'd "prefer if there was a more systematic way" to do that, but, y'know, there ya go.

If the purpose of Nama is fuzzy, the agency has become a massive player in the lives of bankers, developers, estate agents and finance professionals, the kind of people who helped the politicians screw the economy.

Last year, Nama paid about €15m in "portfolio management" fees and €2.4m in "internal audit" fees. About €10m in legal fees. And €75m to the banks for help in "administering" loans.

Yes, the State that paid tens of billions to "recapitalise" the banks, and more billions to set up Nama -- all to bail out the banks -- is paying the bankers handsomely for helping with the administration.

There were seven Nama staff at the start of 2010 and 100 at the end of that year. And 200 at the end of 2011. The average salary is €100,000 a year. The chief executive is on €430,000,

And between 110 and 120 former developers are now employed by Nama, to "manage" their loans, at salaries of between €75,000 and €100,000. Two developers are paid €200,000 a year. And then there are about 90 receivers employed, at €180 an hour. (With a 40-hour week, that's €370,000 a year.)

And here's how clowns get €100,000 jobs. Nama chiefs explained that employing developers is a hard-nosed business decision. And these lads demand big bucks.

If Nama didn't employ them, it would have to employ more receivers at €180 an hour to manage the 'assets'. Now, let's think that through.

Why do receivers get €180 an hour? Presumably because their unique skills enable them to do a superb job of managing the 'assets'.

But alternatively, Nama pays €100,000 a year to dozens of developer clowns -- and we know their skills consist chiefly of recklessly borrowing millions from idiot bankers.

If these clowns can do the job, then the skills required to manage 'assets' aren't so rare. The dole is full of bright people who could hack it.

How to get a €100,000 job? Create a company, borrow recklessly, crash the company and get hired to help clean up the mess.

Nama was supposed to aim at getting back the full €74bn face value of the 'assets' (the State, in recapitalising the banks, compensated the bankers for the discounts that Nama imposed).

Nama isn't doing that. It's aiming for just the €31bn it paid. (And if the clown developers help get back what Nama paid for their bad loans, then for every euro they get back above that they'll get 10 per cent commission.)

What is Nama's future? Nama commissioned a review from a former banker, Michael Geoghegan. With great public spirit, he did the job without a fee over 10 days. He's now advising Mr Noonan -- again without a fee.

Much of his nine-page report is technical stuff about management restructuring. Being a banker, he sees things through a banker's eyes -- he thinks hiring more "entrepreneurial skills" would help and is exploring the possibility of part-privatising the work and doubling Nama's staff. And applying private-sector "incentives" to the top salaries. Oh dear.

Nama is like the bank guarantee. Or the job-crushing austerity policy. Or any other big, crazy notion. Having taken the plunge, politicians must stay the course, regardless of the effects -- because, well. . . just because.

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Originally published in