‘Guns and Roses’ a new Left alternative in Irish politics?

[shay]

The marchers last Saturday want to fix the economy as long as someone else pays.

[Declan]

The marchers last Saturday want to fix the economy as long as someone else pays.

What a load of nonsense. Unless you've something constructive to say keep out of discussions that are obviously too hard for you to understand. 

[Donagh]

The old Right and Left divisions do not have the same relevance in an increasingly globalised world economy. The choice facing Ireland today is between the European social model of society and American individualism. With 70% of our laws emanating from Europe and our dependence on American investment, with the resultant need to please them, our scope for independent decision making is very limited. One decision we could make to prevent the mistakes of the past from being repeated , would be to introduce Capital gains Tax on profits from House sales. This would prevent the runaway crazy prices we have witnessed during the boom, and keep prices of the average home within the reach of the average working family.

Really? So what do you make of the Latin American countries who have managed to forge a different path over the past few years?

[Declan]

So what do you make of the Latin American countries who have managed to forge a different path over the past few years?

Aren't they coming from a much lower base so to speak Donagh though? We have inequality here but not on the scale as Venezuela, Bolivia etc.

[Lecale2]

I don't think there's much room for manoeuvre for Ireland so long as we are wearing the EU straight jacket.

[lynchbhoy]

I would agree with the first and later points that Donogh puts up

however I dont think a 'left' government would be as 'left' as in previous ideology.
A modern day left would be most likely just left of centre, as our current gov is just right of centre.

I dont think that would be a massive swing and I dont think the problem is of an ideology either.

We need unscrupulous people to take control, to put the coutry first and radicically overhaul the public sector to make it more efficient and not losing money when it shouldnt be eg health sector.
Put regulations in place for the private sector, ensure that illegality and so on is heavily penalised and that all facets are monitored properly, without the usual 'ah sure it will be grand ' half arsed way we seem to do way too many things here on this island.

creativity in creating revenur - wave,wind farms electric generation, also I am for the nuclear power plants , at least as an initial stopgap. Sell electric to europe/uk, lessen dependency on imported fossil fuels.
Use our underutilised fields for bio-fuels and crops for sale overseas (and locally).

Change foreign investment company tax laws/incentives.
Tax them fully, but give them back even more in rebates after 5,10, 15 etc years operations in Ireland - relating their bonus back to the number of staff employed in the country etc
there are a lot of incentivised things we can do to get more investment, its all down to money. An initial bonus then a longer term bous plan will get more over here. I wouldnt even care so much if we dont make barely anything on them at all, just to get jobs and revenue into the country.
Introduce a green card system for Ireland. No green card, no work.
Along with safe pass training day for consruction workers, there should be a 'professional trade exam' . Anyone looking to perform in the construction industry in a trade should have to pass a practical exam (Irish person or non national). this will lessen the amount of cowboys in the construction game. You need a safe pass and your 'carpenter level 3' cert to build stud partitions in new houses on a building site.

I dont think any of the 'lefties' out there now are die hard marxists. I know there are still a few left in SF, but I dont think that that kind of politics really will translate into moder day society.
There is a place for some of those ideas, just as there is for full on right wing capitalism.
We need people that will not be swayed by money or 'whats in it for them' as we have seen our governments and political representatives (all but a few) get up to this past 20 years.
I dont think there is enough decent people that could form a government that we need, so we will have to hope that through the muddling about , FF, FG, Lab, Green, SF, Ind get it right between them.
It wont be the first of second time, things will virtually right themseves in time anyhow and the gov / dail could almost be a hinderence more than a help in doing this.
Guess who will try to take credit though.

[Lone Shark]

Arguing over left and right in a crisis like this is quite frankly pointless. This is bordering on a national emergency the scale of which we've never seen before and relying on ideology to sort it out will get us nowhere.

Put simply, we need to get back to useful work. It's that simple. We are a productive people, located on an island which has a lot of natural advantages. our focus should be output, whatever that may be. However, that means that in order to straighten things out, unproductive work, unproductive spending and waste cannot be afforded. For example, the traditional right would not like the following, but it would have to be done:

(1) The financial markets should exist to serve investment. Not to facilitate those who want ever more elaborate and tax free ways of gambling. Seán Quinn's CFD's are a case in poiint - what possible good can be served by such a product? If Seán Quinn has money that he wants to invest in Anglo Irish, let him do so by buying their shares. The idea that people paid stamp duty on houses they could barely afford but that Brian Cowen removed stamp duty on this financial trick is abhorrent.

(2) There are certain "lifestyle" choices on offer now that quite simply are a waste. Obviously they should be on offer for sale, but the idea that most products have a VAT rate at 21% when a whole raft of luxury goods that people buy for status value and which create no Irish wealth could easily bear a bigger rate is wrong. A special "luxury" VAT rate of 50%, applied to things like the following - 4x4 vehicles for those who don't have a proven working need (not too stringent, just enough to knock out the city types), golf clubs that cost thousands, overpriced homewares like lamps, cutlery sets etc., mahoosive televisions, elaborate sound systems, the list could go on forever.

(3) Following on from the above, a real crackdown on black market stuff (shopping in the states etc.) as well as tax cheating of any kind.

(4) Needless to say we need a huge cut down in administration - the cost of government at every level, expenses incurred and the like. This carry on of elected TD's getting full time staff who simply work to guarantee their re-election is disgraceful.

But equally, if we do all this, there is also waste at the lower levels which would have to be tackled as well, and the left would have to swallow the likes of the following

(1) Low level benefit fraud. If Seanie Fitzpatrick should have his assets seized by the CAB (and he probably should until he pays back his loan to the state) so should the mother claiming lone parents allowance when she's moved in with a new boyfriend. If some step back allowance needs to be created, so be it - but fraud is fraud, at every level.

(2) We simply cannot afford the excessive levels of beauracracy within organisations like the HSE. It needs real reform, with thousands of employees to be let go and simply an end to petty demarcation stuff from consultants, porters and 23k a year administrators. No strikes and alternative employment would be arranged for those removed - in PRODUCTIVE areas like revenue enforcement.

(3) The high minimum wage is an issue, however I agree with the left in that we're going about it the wrong way to reduce it. I would suggest instead that we create a system whereby an employer can take on any individual who is unemployed for three months or more, and pay them 50% of the minimum wage, with the state making up the difference. This can cover training times etc., with the proviso that after six months of employment on this basis, the employer must then make the position full time or else let the employee go again. There needs to be some element of training involved so at the very worst, the employee leaves with enhanced skill, while this must be a new position - no employer who has made anyone redundant in the previous six months is eligible. It will give employers greater flexibility to try things out.

(4) Further to the above, there is a lot of work that needs doing in this country - and the idea that we are going to have half a million unemployed doing nothing for their dole money can't continue. One or two days work per week, whether it's as mundane as tidy towns, or perhaps helping out at a local council office, becoming involved in state school building programmes, whatever. Unemployed teachers should be offering themselves to do afterschool classes for those who would like a helping hand or a second voice but can't afford grinds. There are countless ways that this could be done.


Obviously they're just my thoughts and I'm very unelected so they have no mandate whatsoever, but my point is that endless squabbling over left vs right is not going to achieve anything when essentially the problem is our lack of productivity and not paying our way - something which is a problem at the top and the bottom of Irish society.

[Silky]

We need a revolution. Not a violent one where people are shot or interned but a revolution all the same. Maybe an Army coupe that would put a benevolent dictator in place for a few years to sort things out.

Without the need to worry about re-election he/she could make the hard decisions necessary to sort the country out once and for all. When ever its sorted we put controls in place to prevent this nonsense happening again and could hold elections again.

[Zapatista]

That's all cool Lone Shark but -

Put simply, we need to get back to useful work. It's that simple. We are a productive people, located on an island which has a lot of natural advantages. our focus should be output, whatever that may be. However, that means that in order to straighten things out, unproductive work, unproductive spending and waste cannot be afforded. For example, the traditional right would not like the following, but it would have to be done

The position you are starting from is false. We cannot get back to work. There is no work. We may be a productive people but we are not in the position to be productive. The brain drain is not far away. Unproductive work will soon be no work. It will also slow down the movement of people and the movement of capital. This slow down is only starting to gain momentum. We are currently borrowing more than we are earning and the projection is that it will continue and the amount borrowed will increase while the amount earned will continue to decrease. While we have natural advantages we clearly have equal disadvantages. The competing economies on the island coupled with the fact that we are an island are only two of those disadvantages. The investments we had in Ireland which are now pulling out have served their time heree. They will now serve their time elsewhere and that won't be any less than 10 years.

There is only one way out of this. I agree that swapping idealist Governments will not change the process of of getting out of this mess (in the future it would prepare us better though) as there is only one peacefull way out. We need to take the hard decisions and weather the storm. It is bleak up ahead and we must accept that, brunt it, deal with it and begin to prevent it from happening again. All the calls for Government change is a knee jerk reaction. The Government should go as they lied to win an election but it won't make a difference to the shit we are in.

[Lone Shark]

Zapatista that is nonsense. Look around you, within Ireland, and within the globe. There is plenty that needs doing. We have a country that is painfully short on infrastructure, that has untapped natural resources that we can't even conceive of, that has countless people falling by the margins and you say that there is no work to be done? I can't have it. Just because we don't have "extra" money to set aside for projects is not the issue - we need to divert the resources we have and aren't using wisely enough into productive ends.

We simply need to look beyond the constraints of what we have traditionally looked on as paid employment. We need to pay our way in the world and there is no shortage of ways in which we can do that. As was pointed out, we can supply electricity, scientific innovation, food, gas, tourism, commerce (as opposed to finance) and a world of other options. We have people, and the world wants things that we can give them - we just can't make a quick buck they way we got used to.

I simply cannot accept that there is nothing to be done. Only a year or so ago we were all running around like blue-arsed flies trying to keep up with everything that was going on. It simply can't be the case that just because some zeroes have been knocked off some balances somewhere that we suddenly have nothing to do.

[Lecale2]

I like your thinking Lone Shark.

[Declan]

Some good points there LS - Unfortunately the gobshites in charge of this country are in denial. Can you believe this?? How in God's name did this idiot ever get a position in Public life?

Wednesday, February 25, 2009, 11:07
Public finances 'under control', says Tánaiste
DAVID LABANYI
The Tánaiste has said the public finances are under control and ruled out further spending cuts or changes to the tax regime until next year's budget. 
Mary Coughlan also cautioned against talking down the economy saying we have to "make sure that our international reputation is not damaged to such an extent that we will not have access to borrowing requirements, that we will not have access to money for our banking systems."
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland programme earlier today, Ms Coughlan said the Government had made a decision on the amount of expenditure for this year and "we must remain within that".
She defended the Government's response to the recession saying it has a three-fold plan (the father, the son and the holy ghost of past tax revenue) to restore the public finances, manage the economy, sustain the banking system and sustain jobs.
"It is not true to say that we are not managing the economy and it is not true to say that the Government and all those within the Cabinet are not acutely aware of the absolute necessity of managing the public finances . . ."
She said spending cuts of €2 billion this year had been found and the Government was working on a plan to reduce spending by €4 billion next year.
She said the Commission on Taxation would put forward new ideas on taxation and noted that the tax base in the State was very low. The Tánaiste said it was important any new taxes did not impinge on employment.
"We have indicated nationally and internationally that we are going to reduce even more public expenditure and we are working towards that now. That is for next year's budget."
Asked if she was confident that the approach taken by the Government to recapitalise Bank of Ireland and AIB would work, the Tánaiste replied: "I really would love if we found ourselves in the situation where we won't talk ourselves into an even bigger crisis than we presently are in". She said the biggest issue facing business was access to working capital. "There is huge interaction between the banks and the Department of Finance to make sure that money is well spent and it does what it does."
Shortly after the Government announced details of its recapitalisation plan which will see the State contribute €3.5 billion to Bank of Ireland and AIB both increased their bad debt forecasts.
AIB almost doubled its projections for loan losses to €1.8 billion, or 1.37 per cent of the overall loan book while Bank of Ireland raised its three-year bad debt estimate to € 4.5 billion - and in a possible worst-case scenario of € 6 billion - from €3.8 billion.

[Billys Boots]

There is huge interaction between the banks and the Department of Finance to make sure that money is well spent and it does what it does.

If that means what it says then it's official - the lunatics have taken over the asylum.

[Evil Genius]

There is normally Good News and Bad News when discussing situations like this, but from where I'm sitting, the Bad News is that "There is no Good News".

I take absolutely no pleasure from seeing a lot of good, ordinary people losing out, but frankly, talk of "Left" or "Right" governments, or Wind Farms/Nationalisation/eliminating waste & bureaucracy/chasing fraudsters etc isn't going to solve the problem.

The simple truth is that too many people have "lived high off the hog" for too long and now the hog is dead. Which means (to stretch this Metaphor to breaking point), it's back to "spuds and buttermilk" for the foreseeable future.

And any politician or economist who tells you otherwise is either a fool or a knave (or both).

People need to accept that they're in for a prolonged period of high unemployment, high taxation, reduced services and a (much?) lower standard of living than they have grown used to. Which means cutting up the Credit Cards, fewer (or no) foreign holidays, an end to second homes, not changing their car every year or two and only eating out on genuinely special occasions etc. In fact, it will possibly mean a return to the days of net emigration (that's if emigrants can find an overseas economy with jobs on offer)

For if they cannot (or will not) accept these strictures, then the economy, already under severe strain, is likely to implode completely. And if that happens, whatever Government is in power will likely end up like the classic scene in "Planes, Trains and Automobiles":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4CgLRcYN74
(For "Steve Martin wanting a way out of Wichita for Thanksgiving" substitute "The Irish Economy wanting a way out of Implosion" and for "Marathon Car Rental" read "The IMF/EU/World Bank etc")

P.S. I don't hold out any higher hopes for the economic prospects in NI, nor of the ability of Brown & Co to sort it out. Rather, the only scant consolation is that with the UK economy being so much bigger than the Irish one, Marathon might just give us a slightly better rental car than Steve Martin ended up with  

[lynchbhoy]

There is normally Good News and Bad News when discussing situations like this, but from where I'm sitting, the Bad News is that "There is no Good News".

I take absolutely no pleasure from seeing a lot of good, ordinary people losing out, but frankly, talk of "Left" or "Right" governments, or Wind Farms/Nationalisation/eliminating waste & bureaucracy/chasing fraudsters etc isn't going to solve the problem.

The simple truth is that too many people have "lived high off the hog" for too long and now the hog is dead. Which means (to stretch this Metaphor to breaking point), it's back to "spuds and buttermilk" for the foreseeable future.

And any politician or economist who tells you otherwise is either a fool or a knave (or both).

People need to accept that they're in for a prolonged period of high unemployment, high taxation, reduced services and a (much?) lower standard of living than they have grown used to. Which means cutting up the Credit Cards, fewer (or no) foreign holidays, an end to second homes, not changing their car every year or two and only eating out on genuinely special occasions etc. In fact, it will possibly mean a return to the days of net emigration (that's if emigrants can find an overseas economy with jobs on offer)

For if they cannot (or will not) accept these strictures, then the economy, already under severe strain, is likely to implode completely. And if that happens, whatever Government is in power will likely end up like the classic scene in "Planes, Trains and Automobiles":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4CgLRcYN74
(For "Steve Martin wanting a way out of Wichita for Thanksgiving" substitute "The Irish Economy wanting a way out of Implosion" and for "Marathon Car Rental" read "The IMF/EU/World Bank etc")

P.S. I don't hold out any higher hopes for the economic prospects in NI, nor of the ability of Brown & Co to sort it out. Rather, the only scant consolation is that with the UK economy being so much bigger than the Irish one, Marathon might just give us a slightly better rental car than Steve Martin ended up with  

thats effectively what the gov are saying which is a pile of rubbish.
if you belive that we cannot trade our way out as lone shark , myself and many others think then you certainly have the low level non-creative non-capitalist mindset of a bureaucrat !
yes less personal spending and longer period of unemployment ( tell us something we dont know) if the current Gov has its way.

However, further to Dclans last post, thats what you'd expect they woul dhave to say as they are in charge of the finances, but it is the kind of thinking seen above by eveil myles and brian lenehan that will keep us on our knees for th eforseeable future as these guys dont have the financially astute mindset required for creating revenue, or the balls to actually 'take the risk' and go out and try to do something about all this.

Its the rabbit in the headlights scenario.
Prolems arise and rather than do something about it, they are afraid to do anything other than procrastenate!