Irish politics discussion thread

cowen didnt answer a question he didn't like. lenihan didnt answer a question he didn't like. they repeated their statements every time they were asked about resignation, their credibility, their authority to bargain on behalf of the country, and whether or not they lied to the country all last week.

personally, i have no problem with these questions being asked. yes, they should have been asked every day since sept 2008, but these two guys haven't made themselves very available for direct interview, and they just ignore every question they wish to avoid. the standard of accountability is contemptible, laughable. the opposition are as much to blame for this standard as anyone else, ever since b ahern was allowed mumble his way through the late 90's and beyond without ever once answering a direct question in our parliament.

yeah i don't have a prob with them being asked, i dunno, just the cheerleading i guess. it shouldn't be something to praise v browne for...

v browne has fallen a long way but tbf to the dude he's been asking the right questions all along- just that nobody listend to the crazy old bastid anymore

why did cowen etc extend the guarantee to all bank liabilities in the first place or whatever? i remember them doing this and it being seen as courageous or s/thing

sorry i'm a bit entrylev wrt the eire clusterfuck

that is not entrylev, that is the U&K current question that failed completely to matter as a result of today.

yeah but i can't even remember the stated reason at the time

i think it was just to forestall blind panic, like everyone would see the cast iron guarantee of eire plc and be reassured the whole house of cards was secure

apparently people who invest in banks shouldn't ever lose money, and a guarantee on deposits only or to the tune of some such wasn't an option.

basically, the four bank chairmen told the minister for finance that it was necessary one weekend, and he went with it. even after it was clear that they'd been persistently feeding the govt false info, he kept renewing it. last month saw us pay c.55bn to bondholders on behalf of the banks, that's where the crisis came from- the ecb said enough was enough and we had nowhere else to go come spring, when our current reserves run out.

xps, yes, that washed until you can send in some goon accountants to go over every fucking detail and make some actual decisions. two years on and the imf are doing that now.

http://imgur.com/O4FEM.jpg

i fall short of believing they're both criminally stupid, so i'm gonna call em both corrupt, with vested interests in propping up dead banks and ensuring full repayment of the correspondent debts that we will hear about maybe two decades from now

lenihan has gotten kudos from day 1 of this crisis. he's been wrong, hasty, inflexible and frankly naive ever since the guarantee,

why did cowen etc extend the guarantee to all bank liabilities in the first place or whatever?

There was perceived to be a real likelihood that the banking system was about to completely collapse, which would have shut down the economy as it would be almost impossible to buy, sell, or pay for anything. The bank guarantee scheme might not have been the best response to that crisis in retrospect, but I have a certain sympathy for people who were dealing with very big decisions in a very short time frame. Now, as other commentators have said, they maybe were asleep at their desks if they let things get that far, but that is another matter.

Government collapse begins.

http://imgur.com/k4MZF.jpg

WTF?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/ireland-business-blog-with-lisa-ocarroll/2010/nov/22/ireland

That's utterly brutal if accurate...interesting that the villain-of-last-month NAMA contributes just 1/40th of the total.

even more unimpressed with cowen than normal- his 'i know what i'm doing, fuck the lot of ye' steez doesn't mix well with his thundering 'row in behind me for the national good' re@ budget, four year plans.

he doesn't seem to realise that people are terrified of what he'll do given the chance to lock us into a four year plan. i cannot imagine how the national interest could possibly be served by giving him that kind of power as a going away present- what would be the point of being in govt after it?

imo he shouldn't even be given the chance to produce a budget for the coming year. he and lenihan have no justifiable right to dictate financial procedure to this country after the last half decade.

if fg and lab dont try to push the govt out before a budget, it will be yet another huge political mistake on their parts. thing is, this 'national interest' shit seems to freeze keny in his boots, allowing FF to wreak havoc while he backs slowly out of any challenge.

that other article seems less than rigorous, tbh. i dont think anyone expected our national debt not to go up by a couple dozen billion on top of the bailout? this isn't a cure-all bailout, it's merely formalising the terms

Speaking at a press conference in Government Buildings this morning, Green Party leader and Minister for the Environment John Gormley said his party would pull out of Government after the budget was passed. He said it was now up to the Taoiseach to set the date for the poll.

backstabbing on-the-fence carte-blanche. fantastically fucked combination of action/message/result here.

ps- thoughts on rte pulling the live feed last night?

Would it make political sense for Gilmore/Kenny to allow FF introduce a harsh budget and thus avoid some of the fallout for the cuts that will inevitably be made?

Bunch of TRATIORS.

http://www.broadsheet.ie/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/0003f20c-640.jpg

it makes no sense for gilmore or kenny to allow a budget through tht they will be blamed for anyway. The irish political psyche does not allow for consideration beyond 'this is happening now'

regarding cowen being given the power to negotiate a bank bailout and a four year budget as a going away present, i pretty much agree with most of what fintan o'toole says.

though i'v e not heard it in any other media yet- tbf i've been away from radio etc all day- has anyone heard anything to the tune of 'ff shouldn't be allowed to do this before they go'? are people not wise to the 'it's in the national interest' line by now?

http://desmond.yfrog.com/Himg840/scaled.php?tn=0&server=840&filename=1u6d.jpg&xsize=640&ysize=640

again, pointless and diversionary from the media.

as far as i know, nobody as referred to either cowen or lenihan as 'liars' yet in a headline nor in any article.

http://bocktherobber.com/2010/11/reinventing-ireland

'those who can pay more, will pay more'

Mr cowen.

Eh, how? Where? No change to the beloved corp tax, cuts to far exceed taxes.

Dreams of the tax reforms needed fading rapidly.

Public sector pensions hit, but not unfairly imo. That likely tax hikes will include us disproportionately as opposed to high earners, well, speaks for itself.

No sign of any type of move towards taxing wealth/assets. The money made during the celtic tiger really did vanish, huh

tbh im more pissed off abt stuff like the school i went to having more prefabs than classrooms and almost no playground left. they wanted an extension when i started there abt 20 years ago and they still dont have funding. the population has like quadrupled since then. when i think about how that money got wasted when we had it. sure we have better roads, but we wasted all our money on ugly vacant commercial premises and now we.ll never have any money again.

ppl can be angry all they want abt the shifty deregulation and neoliberalism. but while ff can claim to have had the wool pulled over their eyes, they cant really claim to have invested in good infrastructure.

seems like it would have slowed the rate of growth and provided more sustainable employment in building?

like sure, shudawudacuda tho

like i guess limk was a good vantage point for this, a large prop. of ppl employed in building, a decaying urban centre. result a ton of expensive developments that nobody was moving into. felt like the admin. solution to the increasing donutification was to build more in the hope of attracting businesses, in the hope of attracting ppl back in. but the city is so unattractively empty nobody wasever gonna move in

well, where there's genuine need for public infrastructure, now's the perfect time to do it!

Except all money is ringfenced for the banks, to support the euro.

well thats what i mean?

not disagreein with you at all, just frustrated at the waste for no gain.

yah i mean we have no hope of a stimulous plan or anything. its funny to think abt that.

also

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/1124/breaking39.html

12% seems like an awful lot for the lowest earners

it is an awful lot.

but dont worry, they'll make it easier to take by cutting the shit out of rent supplement, dole, lone parents, whatever you want. as long as you have something worse than working for pittance, then you'll keep some mugs at it. good economics.

where the fuck are the taxes on wealth and assets.

how do you tax that tho? other than low interest rates, or an increase in local taxes for big houses etc

I may be underestimating the difficulty of getting a register of assets? Or am I? Why would that be so difficult?

There's huge asset wealth in Ireland, a lot of it rests with the very sections that have both benefited most from the boom and were disproportionately responsible for the property and banking crises. And many of them have little or no declared income now, just huge houses, mercs and golf club memberships to get through the day. Aside from the legitimacy of taxing wealth as a general measure, in our current circumstances it becomes damn near a moral imperative that assets are generating some income for the state in the recovery process.

Freely admit I'm riffing here, but I haven't seen a coherent argument as to why a wealth/asset income-generating approach would be any worse than the IMF loan-shark bailing out of the banks method.

I'm sure someone on ILX can give me one, tbh.

yeah i'd agree, but how would you go about it? i guess you could tax rental properties cuz nobody will want to sell them right now, but then ppl will just increase rent en masse

how would you tax liquid assets?

tax on rental properties already exists, the 200 quid NPPR levy. that'll rise.

How would I tax liquid assets? maybe

goal

on a transactional basis? thing about liquid assets is that they're at their most useful when easily transferable, so you'd have to keep that low.

assets like property- well, the govt are terrified to do anything with property, but the reality is that market is still fairly heavily overpriced for the most part. rents are falling all the time, and there aren't enough of us out there to fill the fucking things. the only thing that could help now is govt intervention on the purchasing side- use NAMA to clear the housing lists and get anyone with a long term need off rent supplement and into their own home. the amount of people with second homes they cant afford to keep vs the number of people without primary residences of their own will dawn on some bright spark one of these days

noonan, even when talking sense, creeps me out.

love cranky old economists. mccarthy just moaning and digging at today's uninspiring document.

Excellent work there

noonan, even when talking sense, creeps me out.

that's my mum's brother you're talking about...he is genuinely a great guy, likes good music, great to have a pint with. i'm starting to get a bit bamboozled with the sheer volume of opinions on ireland right now so can't really comment on his credentials. surprised he (or anyone) wants to be minister for finance but he does it seems.

sorry i realise my backing is utterly irrelevant to politics but hey hum...

no, look- his opinion on prime time last night was refreshing. He didnt like the plan, but for all the right reasons, was quick to agree that fg would be seeking the same level of savings, kept on topic and was more grounded than the other panellists.

But he just.... leers a bit, imo