Is it just me or is anyone else profoundly unimpressed with FG.
I would have expected they might stand up to Europe and call their bluff at least but instead they have bailed out the banks to the tune of 24 bn.
I also had the idea that they were going to try a little bond holder burning and debt sharing with the European banks but seem to have folded quicker then Superman on laundry day.
Is the only difference between FG/Lab and FF/Green SFA?
Cheers
Extramild
You are most certainly not alone.
Read my posting in various threads over the recent while. I think I even made up a little lyric about it.
Like Fuck you Enda, Fuck you Michael; yous are more of the same, same old story, same old game.
There are certain rational reasons why they are doing what they are doing but they are not making a great game of explaining it and further more they’re not taking any initiative of gettin appropriate air-time on Pravda to push their points accross.
The reason is that these boys have received their orders from their Corporate Banking and Department of Finance masters and other senior ranks of the civil servants.
Forget the public civil service briefing documents. Don’t we know (see the recent Moriarty tribunal) that the Civil Servants don’t record or minute anything important.
Basically the briefings went like this:
Senior Civil Servant: Welcome Mr. Kenny to your new office.
Enda: Wonderful. I’m here to make some changes.
Senior Civil Servant: Yes, of course you are, but first let me show you how it all actually works around here…
There’s been a gross sell-out by the elites
Just in case people don’t get who are the elites, this is them:
We’ve been done by these gangsters and gurriers too too often. I really want payback.
I only expect FG to be more honest in their dealings with the public. When the push against Kenny by Bruton and co. failed any hope I had for true reform and a new direction in Irish politics evaporated.
It doesnt say much for democracy. Truth be told they dont really have a mandate for any of the policies that they are now implementing as they were elected to do the opposite in many cases.
So, as with the Lisbon Treaty, what was the point in voting at all? It seems they just do what they want in any event. Remember Lisbon was voted down despite being supported by each of the three main political parties. They then re ran the vote on the back of sensationalist scare tactics designed to frighten people into changing the way they voted. All done at the behest of a disapproving Europe. Sound somewhat familiar?
So yes, FG=FF lite - and you can probably add Labour in there as well.
The positive is that we may be witnessing the end of that old artificial divide.
The worry would of course be what it may or may not be replaced with…
Enda Kenny seems to be taking a Wizard of Oz approach to leadership in so many ways - still in relative hiding, has lots of adoring Munchkins to talk him up… the comparisons are endless.
I just want my magic shoes.
Banking recapitalisations were a big disappointment to me. None of those banks should be kept open in their current state. They have been very badly run and are insolvent. I was rather hoping Noonan would put them out of their (and our) misery.
Kenny and Noonan are unlikely to tell the EU to ‘go hang’ for their money. Any renegotiation/write-down/default is going to be done quietly.
Yes, I’d fully expected the new government to burn bondholders in their first 3 weeks in office.
Not how politics works in this country and you know that larry, where is you smiley? 
Only an open revolt woudl have sorted that out. It could have been peaceful and effective. Thing is few punters walking the streets had a balls notion as to rules of the game. Thats why democracy is the cheapest form of control as stated by many a muser here and elsewhere. That is why the square continues to get bigger and is still number 1.
Well the fact that you (and the many more like you who would echo the sentiment) are under no illusions as to the fact that political parties do not do what they are elected to do simply highlights the fact that there is no democracy.
What we actually have is more difficult to define.
Some sort of optical illusion perhaps 
One of James Joyce’s major themes in his work was the paralysis and stultification of Irish society; a century later, and what has changed? The postboxes were painted red and now they are green. Where is the radical action needed to deal with this crisis? The govt are paralysed like rabbits in the ECB/IMF/EU headlight. Real solutions have been offered but ignored/disparaged. We need to get off the pot or eat shit, because we are just sliding slowly under the morass. Its as if the govt hope things somehow work themselves out. Lets stop being delusional. We are in a depression and its going to get worse. Even Joe Stiglitz says we need to default! FFS wake up you dopey cuntface, Kenny:
Not exactly rocket surgery, is it? The alternative is a slow lingering death.
Ah yes. But those with their hands on the levers of power are happy enought to maintain in the current warp mode, collect their pension and sail off into the sunset, safe in the knoweldge that it is those behind them who will pick up the tab.
Meanwhile those behind them (including yours truly) are venting on the Web…
Actually, I was pulling a September on it.
To be less sarcastic about it for a moment, I’m not sure what this thread is about, because I never got the message from FG/Lab during the election that they would immediately default on senior bank or sovereign debt. Nor that they had any white rabbits to pull out of their hats. There was Leo Varadkar’s stupid soundbite about “not another penny” that’s getting replayed again and again, but on the whole the main policy I remember them talking about was that they’d try to get the IR down, which is indeed going to happen in the coming weeks.
I think people heard things they wanted to hear, not what the new government was actually saying. Besides which, did people seriously think that FG/Lab had some way of getting us off the hook? If that’s what anyone thought then they really need to question their own naivity rather than making unfair accusations of duplicity about the new government. To my eye the new government are clearly in the process of negotiating our structured default, which is a process I fully support.
Fwiw, I didn’t vote for either FG or Lab.
But, what you’re saying here can’t happen until the underlying institutional and business paradigms that got us here (and are still in place), are addressed.
How do we do this? Well, one way towards it - you could start with Oceanclub’s blog, ‘quotes from the Irish property bubble’ - and for each and every quote there, ask yourself, what institution and institutional norms did this person represent or more accurately, was a personification of… And what character of interest and world outlook underlay the institutional norms professed through the personification?
Then, when you have clearly described and delineated each institution, and what each institution represented (and still represents) as understood by what its ‘talking heads’ were (and still are) parroting… then you decide what each institution should by rights represent, and what norms it should be fostering, that are truly in the best interests of the country.
Our institutions will not do or effect anything that is not in their nature. So, until there is root and branch reform of our country’s institutions (political, business, economic), they will continue to act within their nature.
You can shuffle ‘the guard’ around all you like, but it is the exact same thing as the way Lenihan shuffled the guard around in the banks. Nothing changes.
What about the U-turn on ‘Labour’s way or Frankfurt’s way’?
That said, I agree with the general thrust of your post (refreshingly rant and histrionic-free 
), especially about the naiveté of many who seemed to believe that a new government had the wherewithal to magic us out of this financial mess.
PS what’s pulling a September???
this 24 billion was passed off as “FF promised it so there was nothing we could do”
does anyone really think that Enda and Noonan really have a say in any of this ?
Put like that, what we are talking about is the equivalent of Perestroika in the USSR. Thankfully I have the option of emigration because I am not prepared to have my face rubbed in shit forever.
Of course they haven’t.
But unfortunately there are still many punters out there who think they do. That said, media coverage over the last few days might bring them around to revising that opinion 
Times are tough for FF supporters hmm?
September is a poster on this forum, look up some of his posts
I don’t think radical change over a short period of time is good. I have noticed a few welcome moves by Fine Gael in the wider area of policies. It’s frustrating that the economic area will take a while to get right but I think it’s far too early to be judging them.