“The Irish Government..tends to take a neoliberal position"

[seafoid]

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/brexit-a-referendum-on-ireland-s-future-1.2476474

a long way from the 1980s and how people viewed Thatcher...
I wonder how many voters are neoliberal. The f**kers

[seafoid]

I suppose having American stopovers in Shannon, not building social housing, giving that concession to Shell, not investing in rail, paying off bondholders, PPP, giving bookies tax breaks, selling Nama property to hedge funds, killing the national pensions reserve, 12.5% corporation tax, the double Irish, tax scams, the IFSC, light touch regulations etc would be all fairly neolib. But this will never come up in the election unless from people RTE class as extremist like Joe Higgins. Fianna Fail and the Blue shirts are bought and sold.

[Eamonnca1]

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/brexit-a-referendum-on-ireland-s-future-1.2476474

a long way from the 1980s and how people viewed Thatcher...
I wonder how many voters are neoliberal. The f**kers

I think a lot of them vote on a "he fixshed de road" basis.

[ashman]

I suppose having American stopovers in Shannon, not building social housing, giving that concession to Shell, not investing in rail, paying off bondholders, PPP, giving bookies tax breaks, selling Nama property to hedge funds, killing the national pensions reserve, 12.5% corporation tax, the double Irish, tax scams, the IFSC, light touch regulations etc would be all fairly neolib. But this will never come up in the election unless from people RTE class as extremist like Joe Higgins. Fianna Fail and the Blue shirts are bought and sold.

Great whinge by give me your costed alternatives for the Socialist Utopia.

What we have in Ireland is oppositionism rather than opposition. A really good article of the ST today by Andrew Marr on this.

[seafoid]

I suppose having American stopovers in Shannon, not building social housing, giving that concession to Shell, not investing in rail, paying off bondholders, PPP, giving bookies tax breaks, selling Nama property to hedge funds, killing the national pensions reserve, 12.5% corporation tax, the double Irish, tax scams, the IFSC, light touch regulations etc would be all fairly neolib. But this will never come up in the election unless from people RTE class as extremist like Joe Higgins. Fianna Fail and the Blue shirts are bought and sold.

Great whinge by give me your costed alternatives for the Socialist Utopia.

What we have in Ireland is oppositionism rather than opposition. A really good article of the ST today by Andrew Marr on this.

Hanging onto the NPR and not paying off the bondholders would have saved around 60bn, enough for a few social houses
Neoliberalism is fucked anyway

http://www.thomaspalley.com/?p=164#more-164
"The euro was introduced in 1999, the high-water mark of neoliberal economics. As such, its institutional design embeds neoliberal monetary theory which in many regards rests on the same economic principles as the gold standard. These principles are that fiscal policy is ineffective; inflation is caused exclusively by money supply growth; and the real economy quickly and automatically returns to full employment in response to negative shocks.

Principles discredited

All three principles have been fundamentally discredited by the current recession"

The ECB cant even hit its own inflation target FFS.

Wait until all that neolib  debt in the system is dealt with by a massive dose of inflation following the wave of deflation that has already started . Only way out of the latest crisis. TINA There is no alternative. 

[Eamonnca1]

I suppose having American stopovers in Shannon, not building social housing, giving that concession to Shell, not investing in rail, paying off bondholders, PPP, giving bookies tax breaks, selling Nama property to hedge funds, killing the national pensions reserve, 12.5% corporation tax, the double Irish, tax scams, the IFSC, light touch regulations etc would be all fairly neolib. But this will never come up in the election unless from people RTE class as extremist like Joe Higgins. Fianna Fail and the Blue shirts are bought and sold.

Great whinge by give me your costed alternatives for the Socialist Utopia.

What we have in Ireland is oppositionism rather than opposition. A really good article of the ST today by Andrew Marr on this.

It's paywalled. Anybody got it?

[seafoid]

I suppose having American stopovers in Shannon, not building social housing, giving that concession to Shell, not investing in rail, paying off bondholders, PPP, giving bookies tax breaks, selling Nama property to hedge funds, killing the national pensions reserve, 12.5% corporation tax, the double Irish, tax scams, the IFSC, light touch regulations etc would be all fairly neolib. But this will never come up in the election unless from people RTE class as extremist like Joe Higgins. Fianna Fail and the Blue shirts are bought and sold.

Great whinge by give me your costed alternatives for the Socialist Utopia.

What we have in Ireland is oppositionism rather than opposition. A really good article of the ST today by Andrew Marr on this.

It's paywalled. Anybody got it?

the ST is a neoliberal rag

[magpie seanie]

I suppose having American stopovers in Shannon, not building social housing, giving that concession to Shell, not investing in rail, paying off bondholders, PPP, giving bookies tax breaks, selling Nama property to hedge funds, killing the national pensions reserve, 12.5% corporation tax, the double Irish, tax scams, the IFSC, light touch regulations etc would be all fairly neolib. But this will never come up in the election unless from people RTE class as extremist like Joe Higgins. Fianna Fail and the Blue shirts are bought and sold.

That's a key statement. The widespread media attitude to non right wing politicians is crazy.

A very good friend of mine really surprised (disappointed) me in a conversation about Joe Higgins recently. I think the conversation was fair play to him over something and he was very intelligent when out comes "yeah, but you wouldn't trust him to run the economy." It's a stock phrase used against anyone with the merest hint of left-ward leaning which I wouldn't usually associate with her. So much wrong with it it's unreal. You have to buy into the fairytale that our government "runs the economy". Even FF's disastrous policies (deemed too mild by FG if memory serves) needed a global financial meltdown to properly wreck the country.

[ashman]

We never had neo liberalism in Ireland .  Largely irish elections are popularity contests won by populists.  In the "boom " years spending " on health , welfare , pay etc increased on a massive scales.  Elections were bought and all promised the sun , moon and stars. When the boom ( overdraft) ceased the commitments were still there.

Neo liberalism my nelly .

[seafoid]

I suppose having American stopovers in Shannon, not building social housing, giving that concession to Shell, not investing in rail, paying off bondholders, PPP, giving bookies tax breaks, selling Nama property to hedge funds, killing the national pensions reserve, 12.5% corporation tax, the double Irish, tax scams, the IFSC, light touch regulations etc would be all fairly neolib. But this will never come up in the election unless from people RTE class as extremist like Joe Higgins. Fianna Fail and the Blue shirts are bought and sold.

That's a key statement. The widespread media attitude to non right wing politicians is crazy.

A very good friend of mine really surprised (disappointed) me in a conversation about Joe Higgins recently. I think the conversation was fair play to him over something and he was very intelligent when out comes "yeah, but you wouldn't trust him to run the economy." It's a stock phrase used against anyone with the merest hint of left-ward leaning which I wouldn't usually associate with her. So much wrong with it it's unreal. You have to buy into the fairytale that our government "runs the economy". Even FF's disastrous policies (deemed too mild by FG if memory serves) needed a global financial meltdown to properly wreck the country.

Re Lisbon Joe Higgins said

I am no eurosceptic, but the Lisbon Treaty is basically a bankers and corporate ramp with little in it for the ordinary joe


Just read this

081014 Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin has suggested that Ireland's membership of the EU has helped it avoid the type of financial meltdown being experienced by Iceland.
Speaking at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg, Mr Martin asked the public to reflect on Europe's support in the crisis and a danger that Ireland could be marginalised within the EU due to its rejection of the Lisbon Treaty. "We can see the difficulties that Iceland is having as a country that is on its own. This suggests that being at the heart of Europe is far more preferable than being on the margins of Europe and going the isolationist route," he said.


This kind of crap is still regurgitated

Fintan O'Toole completely misread the no vote in Ireland (The fear factory devastated Ireland's flaccid political class, June 14). It is invariably described as an incoherent alliance of left and right nationalists. In fact Eurobarometer polls show that the Irish have been and continue to be among the most enthusiastic Europeans. In October 2007 three-quarters of those polled in Ireland agreed "that EU membership is a good thing". This compares with just 34% of Britons.
The common thread that drew the seemingly incoherent worries of the Irish groups campaigning against the Lisbon treaty is democracy. The left didn't want to cede power to Brussels to determine health policy, the liberal right didn't want to cede power to determine tax, conservative Catholics didn't want social policy regarding abortion or euthanasia determined by the EU. Whether the Lisbon treaty in fact ceded this power to the EU is a matter of debate - a debate the yes side didn't entertain. But there was a common fear that democracy was under threat.If the EU responds to the concerns of its supporters it can extricate itself from this problem. If it chooses to ignore these concerns it will deepen the divide between the political elites and the citizens. This will leave us vulnerable to the rhetoric of populist nationalist parties and all that goes with it.
Dr Eoin O'Malley

that whole centrist parties =  sensible, rational , trustworthy, competent while lefties = dangerous, deluded, careless is still the dominant RTE discourse (look at how they interview Wallace or Daly) but in reality it died when the Troika arrived and FF bent over. Or even before that when FF went incoherent .

Where was democracy when the bondholders were pleasured and the cost loaded onto the sovereign balance sheet ?

[seafoid]

We never had neo liberalism in Ireland .  Largely irish elections are popularity contests won by populists.  In the "boom " years spending " on health , welfare , pay etc increased on a massive scales.  Elections were bought and all promised the sun , moon and stars. When the boom ( overdraft) ceased the commitments were still there.

Neo liberalism my nelly .

the bailout was neoliberal. Anglo was neolib.  The no fiscal leeway is neolib. The good old days have been gone 7 years, Rip . Did you just wake up ?

[Bord na Mona man]

We never had neo liberalism in Ireland .  Largely irish elections are popularity contests won by populists.  In the "boom " years spending " on health , welfare , pay etc increased on a massive scales.  Elections were bought and all promised the sun , moon and stars. When the boom ( overdraft) ceased the commitments were still there.

Neo liberalism my nelly .

the bailout was neoliberal. Anglo was neolib.  The no fiscal leeway is neolib. The good old days have been gone 7 years, Rip . Did you just wake up ?

Surely neoliberalism would have been to let Anglo sink and walk from the smoking wreck?

[seafoid]

We never had neo liberalism in Ireland .  Largely irish elections are popularity contests won by populists.  In the "boom " years spending " on health , welfare , pay etc increased on a massive scales.  Elections were bought and all promised the sun , moon and stars. When the boom ( overdraft) ceased the commitments were still there.

Neo liberalism my nelly .

the bailout was neoliberal. Anglo was neolib.  The no fiscal leeway is neolib. The good old days have been gone 7 years, Rip . Did you just wake up ?

Surely neoliberalism would have been to let Anglo sink and walk from the smoking wreck?

Neoliberalism is trickle up. So paying off the bonds in full was very much in the correct spirit. And FF paid for it in spades. 

[Rossfan]

I see Lucyloo and the Renua neolibs launched their election programme today.
Tax cuts for the better off all over the place it seems. God help the poor, sick, disabled, unemployed,etc if these cnuts ever get their way.
Hopefully the GE will be the last we'll ever hear of them.

[seafoid]

I see Lucyloo and the Renua neolibs launched their election programme today.
Tax cuts for the better off all over the place it seems. God help the poor, sick, disabled, unemployed,etc if these cnuts ever get their way.
Hopefully the GE will be the last we'll ever hear of them.

Probably. It looks like a weird mix of catholic fundis and mean bastards