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

[ashman]

Seafoid

I think you use the word neo liberal to describe anything you find unpalatable.  The bottom line is that is true free market ideas had applied to 2007/08 crash then banks that were insolvent would have been liquidated .  Unfortunately the global financial system was interconnected to a scary level.  After Lehmans was let go the whole house of cards was exposed.

Governments and central banks  put serious capital to rescue illiquid and insolvent institutions.  Whatever this was it certainly not what the Chicago guys had envisaged.

[seafoid]

Ashman

The ideology has morphed over time as all ideologies do. Thatcher spent  lot of time going on about enterprise but now the focus is more on pure speculation. And it has more or less iterated itself to irrelevance.

The Paulson treatment of Lehman itself, to let it go to the wall, to send a strong message to Wall St about Moral hazard freaked global capital, who had priced none of this and was expecting to be bailed out. The incoherence was especially strong after the first TARP was rejected by congress. So that was the last outing for pure Chicago School Schumpeterian creative destruction. Schumpeter must have been too influenced by ww2 in Germany. Of all the creative stuff that came out of Chicago in the early 80s, house music was easily the best. It will still be going strong long after Milton Friedman is reduced to an historic figure of post Keynesian thought. 

Back to 2008.  It took a while for the PTB to regain their poise and foist QE on us. And there is huge difference between liquidity and solvency.
QE has bought some time but there are a lot of zombie companies who wouldn't be with us if rates were back to 4%. Which is why rates are not going to go back to 4%.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrYdN3ghyQ4
"Certainly someone who is frozen is not alive
But neither are they dead they are in a third state
And biostasis is the word  I would use to describe it"

Insolvent would my choice of word. Many Italian , American and French banks.

the old x is the word you use to describe to anything you don't like is a great chestnut. I think the present economic system is unfit to serve all the  small people who pay into their pension funds and trust those advising them.

The problem is economic  stagnation and shifting economic wealth towards the top 1% , while it may seem like a great bunch of lads , just reinforces the tendency.

[ashman]

Sea

You are not really answering me .  There was nothing "neo liberal" about irish politics really. Just are our socialists /Marxists are not really that either. Only in Ireland does the "left " oppose property tax and water charges .  We like populists .

Therein lies our real problem rather than any ideals.

[seafoid]

Sea

You are not really answering me .  There was nothing "neo liberal" about irish politics really. Just are our socialists /Marxists are not really that either. Only in Ireland does the "left " oppose property tax and water charges .  We like populists .

Therein lies our real problem rather than any ideals.

Ashman

You have a good point. The core Irish model is McCreevyian really. Spend money to buy off interest groups. I think all politicians in Ireland are populist as well. Nobody with a sense of the state and making it better, John Kelly of FG maybe 40 years ago had that but nobody now. Now sitting above that core I would say that all the memes are neolib. Department of Finance is managed by neoliberals. No new social housing since Govt investment in poor people is poisonous to neolibs.  The expansion of credit . Light touch regulation etc etc ad pactum sunt servandis or whatever it was

[SLIGONIAN]

Fair play Seafoid, im reading a great book atm called the Establishment and how they get away it by Owen Jones, it basically spells out in clear terms how govt functions and who they serve.

Basically you have outriders who are all lined up as policy spokepeople for tv and will be available at the drop of a hat to drive home the spin, then you have the media who are controlled by wealthy elites and want wars/controversy and can ruin a mans career with a headline no matter if its true or false, how all the corporations from health/oil/weapons manufacturers pay for big dinners and donate to parties to affect policy, then you have controlling of the Police force of the day, then you have the scroungers of the state ( and no im not on about social welfare benefit fraud) I am on about corporations being heavily subsidised by public funds like rail companies in the uk who get the railways maintained and allowed to make millions in profit. All public assets up for privatisation like the NHS which is completely underfunded to ensure poor service to allow for the excuse.Then you have tax dodgers like Vodafone/google/facebook/starbucks etc.. who hilariously the Big 4 advise. And guess who the govt use for tax compliance policy the Big 4 conflict of interest maybe one thinks.

The reality is the Capitalism only works for the rich elite, but sadly as they go to even more extremist right wing policies people are waking up and Capitalism will crumble eventually, a fairer system is possible and a revolution will change everything.

Most people are not as informed as they should be so probably give into fear and im sure fine gael will use the exact same tactics as tories did in the uk with fear propaganda and the devil you know rhetoric, but heres the thing yes this charade may continue but id say 10/15 yrs things will change as people wake up.

I personally wouldn't vote labour, fine gael, fianna fail or sinn fein.

[seafoid]

Fair play Seafoid, im reading a great book atm called the Establishment and how they get away it by Owen Jones, it basically spells out in clear terms how govt functions and who they serve.

Basically you have outriders who are all lined up as policy spokepeople for tv and will be available at the drop of a hat to drive home the spin, then you have the media who are controlled by wealthy elites and want wars/controversy and can ruin a mans career with a headline no matter if its true or false, how all the corporations from health/oil/weapons manufacturers pay for big dinners and donate to parties to affect policy, then you have controlling of the Police force of the day, then you have the scroungers of the state ( and no im not on about social welfare benefit fraud) I am on about corporations being heavily subsidised by public funds like rail companies in the uk who get the railways maintained and allowed to make millions in profit. All public assets up for privatisation like the NHS which is completely underfunded to ensure poor service to allow for the excuse.Then you have tax dodgers like Vodafone/google/facebook/starbucks etc.. who hilariously the Big 4 advise. And guess who the govt use for tax compliance policy the Big 4 conflict of interest maybe one thinks.

The reality is the Capitalism only works for the rich elite, but sadly as they go to even more extremist right wing policies people are waking up and Capitalism will crumble eventually, a fairer system is possible and a revolution will change everything.

Most people are not as informed as they should be so probably give into fear and im sure fine gael will use the exact same tactics as tories did in the uk with fear propaganda and the devil you know rhetoric, but heres the thing yes this charade may continue but id say 10/15 yrs things will change as people wake up.

I personally wouldn't vote labour, fine gael, fianna fail or sinn fein.

I think it will fall over sooner than 2026, Sligonian. No growth is here already

Numbers are dreadful.

1. USD 9 trillion in QE globally and not a single OECD Central Bank can manage 2% inflation, their only target under monetarism . No inflation because ordinary workers are not getting payrises because all the money is going to the rich. And this is counterproductive. If you have a cow you can only kill and eat it once.
2. 3 trillion USD in bonds are now yielding negative rates.
3. There are NINE growth stocks left in the SnP 500.
4.  USD 1 tn was taken out of the SnP 50o in buybacks in 2015 ie not invested

I think neoliberalism is fucked myself because of those 4 stats . This is without talking about ordinary people and disgust at greed and incompetence. Read somewhere that democracy in theory is popular but in practice is plutocracy.

[NetNitrate]

The thing about Ireland is that the left is a mix of what's considered left and right elsewhere while the right is also a mix of left and right.

As a result, policies of the left in Ireland are similar enough to the far right in UK (eg Euro Sceptics). Likewise in Ireland many of the left decry the bailout  of the banks but in the US, it was the right (Republicans) that decried the gov bailout of the banks and auto industry which was mainly supported by Democratic party (which is the left in the US). Even when Bush as President pushed for gov bailout of banks, he needed the Democratic congress to push it through. AIG shareholders tried to sue the gov for bailing it from failing.

Also in Ireland you have the left labeling FG a right wing party, but any social reform that came in this country (contraception, divorce, gay marriage) came in via FG/Labour coalitions. Right wings parties in US for example (Republicans) very anti Gay marriage.

Would argue that we are better off not having extremes and good gov needs to be a mix of positions.

[seafoid]

I think the republicans in the States would not be comparable to any centre right party in Europe. The Tories would never turn on the NHS, for example. That would be suicidal.
FG are a mix of socially progressive and fairly conservative. The only difference between the biggest 4 parties in Ireland is which special interest group they work for. Policies are interchangeable.

[magpie seanie]

Fair play Seafoid, im reading a great book atm called the Establishment and how they get away it by Owen Jones, it basically spells out in clear terms how govt functions and who they serve.

Basically you have outriders who are all lined up as policy spokepeople for tv and will be available at the drop of a hat to drive home the spin, then you have the media who are controlled by wealthy elites and want wars/controversy and can ruin a mans career with a headline no matter if its true or false, how all the corporations from health/oil/weapons manufacturers pay for big dinners and donate to parties to affect policy, then you have controlling of the Police force of the day, then you have the scroungers of the state ( and no im not on about social welfare benefit fraud) I am on about corporations being heavily subsidised by public funds like rail companies in the uk who get the railways maintained and allowed to make millions in profit. All public assets up for privatisation like the NHS which is completely underfunded to ensure poor service to allow for the excuse.Then you have tax dodgers like Vodafone/google/facebook/starbucks etc.. who hilariously the Big 4 advise. And guess who the govt use for tax compliance policy the Big 4 conflict of interest maybe one thinks.

The reality is the Capitalism only works for the rich elite, but sadly as they go to even more extremist right wing policies people are waking up and Capitalism will crumble eventually, a fairer system is possible and a revolution will change everything.

Most people are not as informed as they should be so probably give into fear and im sure fine gael will use the exact same tactics as tories did in the uk with fear propaganda and the devil you know rhetoric, but heres the thing yes this charade may continue but id say 10/15 yrs things will change as people wake up.

I personally wouldn't vote labour, fine gael, fianna fail or sinn fein.

I think it will fall over sooner than 2026, Sligonian. No growth is here already

Numbers are dreadful.

1. USD 9 trillion in QE globally and not a single OECD Central Bank can manage 2% inflation, their only target under monetarism . No inflation because ordinary workers are not getting payrises because all the money is going to the rich. And this is counterproductive. If you have a cow you can only kill and eat it once.
2. 3 trillion USD in bonds are now yielding negative rates.
3. There are NINE growth stocks left in the SnP 500.
4.  USD 1 tn was taken out of the SnP 50o in buybacks in 2015 ie not invested

I think neoliberalism is fucked myself because of those 4 stats . This is without talking about ordinary people and disgust at greed and incompetence. Read somewhere that democracy in theory is popular but in practice is plutocracy.

I really hope you are correct but I'm fearful that even Sligonian's guess is optimistic.

[Billys Boots]

FG are a mix of socially progressive and fairly conservative.

So why are they currently (and in fact always have) decimating the education system?

[magpie seanie]

FG are a mix of socially progressive and fairly conservative.

So why are they currently (and in fact always have) decimating the education system?

Rich people (who they work for) can afford private education.

[foxcommander]

FG are a mix of socially progressive

PMSL

[Billys Boots]

FG are a mix of socially progressive and fairly conservative.

So why are they currently (and in fact always have) decimating the education system?

Rich people (who they work for) can afford private education.

I'm beginning to think it may be that simple alright Seanie.

[seafoid]

FG are a mix of socially progressive and fairly conservative.

So why are they currently (and in fact always have) decimating the education system?

Maybe down to the balance of power within the party? I think they don't have the balls to cut teachers salaries so they cut the rest of educational spending. Sure aren't half of them teachers?

[Billys Boots]

FG are a mix of socially progressive and fairly conservative.

So why are they currently (and in fact always have) decimating the education system?

Maybe down to the balance of power within the party? I think they don't have the balls to cut teachers salaries so they cut the rest of educational spending. Sure aren't half of them teachers?

I do know a little bit about this - teachers' salaries, especially for new teachers, have been cut very substantially, to the point where the quality of graduates is falling.  I think any experienced teacher in a management position will confirm.