Game Over for the present Gov IE, they have lost control.

Unfortunately “everybody knows” is competently correct, OW. The time for effective action is long gone. Or at least effective actions given the current realities of the domestic political situation.

Ireland was always a bit of a pretend country. All the difficult problems that normal small countries have to to deal with were deal with by successive governments by either outsourced them (usually to the UK) or by completely ignoring them. The events of 2008 were dealt with in the usual way, either ignored or attempts were made to outsource them. But this time the governments bluff was called and they found themselves sliding inexorable deeper in a disastrous situation.

A bit like the mid 1950’s. The only difference is that unlike the 1950s its not a matter of just stop doing stupid things and things will quickly improve. Very fundamental changes will have to be made to the state if it is going to recover any time soon. But I see absolutely no mandate so far to make these changes. So in the short term you are looking at paralysis. Very frustrating when most of us here know that the substantive changes are just a matter of the greedy VI’s reigning in their greed. But getting those changes though will be pretty much impossible until the current complacent political situation gets a severe external shock. Too many VI’s, and all will fight till the bitter end to defend their advantage. It seems losing your banking system, being locked out of the bond market, and having to get a bail out from the IMF is still not enough to inject an air of reality into the current Irish political universe.

There are really only two alternatives. The first is to stick with the Troika’s program. The other is some variant of Morgan Kelly’s approach involving a crash program of deficit reduction. Both entail major risks of one sort or another. Which you prefer is likely to be fairly closely related to your personal circumstances.

For “insider” such as the government, the Troika program is by far the more appealing prospect, since it provides the best chance of maintaining the current social hierarchy.

Which is the better option for someone who will always be a net recipient of transfers from the state, and currently is provided with many services entirely free by the state?

Don’t think either approach will effect the social heirarchy as MK’s approach will involve huge reductions to the welfare budget in a very short time period something which will be more keenly felt by the “outsiders”. The troika way, painful as it is, gives the space to rebalance things more gradually. It also increases the national debt and future interest repayments but as said earlier there is some scope for renegotiating that further down the road. The best thing to my mind is to stay on the road rather than fall off the cliff.

I see Blamegame has just put it more succinctly.

You are assuming I’m some newbie poster, my posts go back to 2006 I’ve been watching via the net since 2003 and you’ve missed my fundamental observation.

My original post starting off this thread for the purpose of clarity

An observation I have been making clear from day one but seems to fly by the general discourse. All I have highlighted is that FG have now conformed to this brutal pattern. So what am I yakking about.

I’m not talking about defaults.

I am not talking about EURO crisis resolutions.

I am talking about source.

I am saying there is no plan becasue there is no VISION and to paraphrase JMC… the Vision has been “outsourced”.

It’s a Sovereign lobotomy.

Advocate is the generally used term, but hey, your profession is devil’s agent I suppose :smiley:

Fine. Just sack the boards of them and have the organisation report to the relevant civil service department. It is the boards of quangos that I object to, not the work that they do.

Er, yeah and they’re paying for all of these out of their own pocket so that’s fine, innit…

Well, they are considering bits of legislation. Best practice as espoused by FG themselves was to publish heads of legislation as soon as possible and allow debate to start before the detail is finalised. Instead we are getting the ususal same-ole imposed and not better for being thought of for a long time legislation. What are we vogons?

That’s because you are in Dublin. For the rest of the country it’s bollocks.

Again, the FG promised honesty even if it hurt. We are talking about failure to deliver on promises, not what is a sensible promise to make.

FoI is something that really exercises me. I don’t know why as lots of good stuff comes out still, but then you see some of the stuff in wikileaks and you know there is so much more.

Yes they can. If they can’t, legislation can be provided to make it so. They don’t have to publish anyone who is not current on their payments, but anyone who is not is effectively in receivership and that would be published anyway.

For sure there are some awful ole gombeens in FG. That doesn’t mean that we should let them away with failings that are within their power to do something about. Even if all they do is express frustration themselves, at least they will be living up to their promise to be open about what’s going on.

It’s depressing, it’s a lost decade, but that seems to be about the size of it.

Nice one lads. Nice one. We’ve hit the Consensus Jackpot! Yippee! The Plan is no Plan whooowowo!! Go Plan “no Plan”!

What a waste of a thread. :angry:

Hey, the six-thousand or so members of the 'pin are not the problem. It is the two million other people who want to be back in 2006 or 2005 at the earliest. While there might be movement about all sorts of other things, denial is still rampant about the state of the economy and particularly government finances.

None of this solves our Visionary deficit.

This is interesting. I have thought for ages that leaving the Euro is the obvious thing for us to do, the sane thing, the way to break free of the loan sharks to some extent and regain control. This is put into words here! What is the problem with leaving the Euro though? Can we not get out of it and leave the other member states peacefully earning their own Euros, enjoying that currency, and we get our own one on course? Or do we automatically annihilate the whole Union as we hurtle towards out low value currency? Why are all government people totally terrified of the re emerging Punt Nua? Surely then if we get our money into shape as a New Punt, we can do like Iceland and plummet into recession, devalue, get thru it, then genuinely get ourselves on track and actually turn that famous corner Brian L kept alluding to. That’s my stance on this anyway!

It sure was fun in 2005 and 2006 though, wasn’t it? All those interesting fake tans, pink champagne, shopping trips to NYC, the average Irish child having visited Disneyland 5 times, and your plumber’s housekeeper having 11 investment properties in Beijing… Those really were the days

Have I not been saying this from day one or is it a quest to create my own mythology?

Japan is proof beyond all doubt that unilateral default is by far the best way out.
After default the plan should of been to

Eliminate NAMA - allow firesales & rents to come down
Reform Bankruptcy and make it a hell of alot easier
Eliminate Labour Court JLC rates
Reduce the minimum wage
Eliminate the deficit
Reduce the Dole
Reduce public sector pay
Reform the insurance industry
Close Local Authorities and make one national authority or provincial authorities with ones for the cities if necessary and for Gods sake reduce rates businesses pay!!!

Open up the 2 Uranium mines in Donegal that Eamonn Ryan made illegal & build a nuclear power plant - even build it in the UK and feed it here via an interconnector - we need cheap electricity.

There I have addressed all the reasons businesses quote for leaving Ireland for Eastern Europe while making conditions better for businesses to thrive and for employment to grow. Living costs will come down and those in negative equity canhave a second chance instead of continuing for 35 - 40 years paying out money on jumbo mortgages when it could be better spent in the real economy.

Its FACT that we would be better off doing this. Japan owed the govt debt bonds to its own people, Japan had its own currency, Japan is an economic powerhouse yet Japan was screwed for 20 years because they refused to bite the bullet.

We are doing the very same except we are in a much worse position

+1

and those are the reasons Ireland will be in such a terrible state economically for a long time. :frowning:

BlameGame is obviously referring to Irish career politicians in that post.:smiley:

The Morgan Kelly approach definitely carries the potential for social upheaval IMO. An external default simultaneous with an 30% decrease in government spending internally would inevitably a) massively reduce the ability to make payments to whatever group from the public purse and b) ( as a direct result ) greatly increase the likelihood of social unrest.

Those who are financially dependent on the state,including but not limited to the politicians, the public service and those dependent on welfare are fairly clearly best served by the Troika approach. The “outsiders”, because it keeps the money flowing (for now at least) and the "insiders"because not only does it keep their own cheques coming, it also preserves their privileged position.

Many Irish group’s self-perceived interests are well aligned behind the Troika. The fact that one of these groups is also the one that makes the decisions makes the outcome inevitable.

Personally I think Kelly’s approach would be a massive gamble. I’m not convinced. however, that the Troika program is necessarily going to deliver a better result. As Open Window says…it’s not really a proper plan…more of a pretense at one that on examination is not at all convincing. Plainly put, as presently constituted, it has no chance whatsoever of working.

Thats because one feeds off the other.
The deficit prevents reality from hitting.
It keeps wages and spending at inappropriate high and unsustainable levels.

If the budget was balanced tomorrow, government spending would have to slashed by about a third - thats the reality !

It is only when we can no longer borrow sufficient levels that the real cuts will be forced upon us.
No government has the balls to do it beforehand.

We’re fucked !

p.s. a friend of mine asked me where I saw house prices going.
I simply told her that at this point, house prices were irrelevant.
The situation has moved far beyond that now.

They are only in charge as long as we ask for money from them

Either we continue as we are, getting nowhere except deeper in debt, or we break free and take the consequences that flow from that. I’m going to be poorer either way but at least with the second route I have some self-respect and a chance to rebuild. I’m for revolution.

actually it would be the start of real capitalism in Europe - bailing people out is cronyism and is not capitalism