Exactly. .....

and yet he will get pucks of votes he and his shower of shysters....

amazing how our great minister for finance is getting away with just hiding though all this....

Every single member of cabinet is afraid to put their head up above the pulpit for fear of being decapitated.

Next cabinet meeting: draw straws to see who's gonna be the fall-guy. My money's on Biffo.

No, this took years to accomplish.

Since joining the EMU,Ireland yielded control of monetary policy to Brussels,giving up the historic option of inflating its way out of budgetary deficits and excessive debt burdens. So the state is now just like a big business that has to balance its books. Leaving the Euro could be technically very difficult and considered only as the last desperate resort if the ECB imposed too harsh and humiliating austerity as the price for a bailout.

THe EMU brought a huge advantage of very cheap capital at very low interest rates but unfortunately the government let the economy rip on low interest rates when instead it should have been raising taxes to restrain unsustainable economic growth. Finance Minister McCreevey raised the stamp duty to about 8% on new commercial property but he should also have raised it to 20% or more on houses and eliminated all the tax incentives on houses except for depressed areas.

If the government fails to provide leadership and endangers the country by postponing the necessary hard austerity decisions ,the electorate will punish Fianna Fail and reduce it to a minority party in the next general election.The trade union and special interest votes won't be enough to save it.

Cowen is grasping at straws, he doesn't know what he's at. Take the 'Smart Economy' BS. It's like the captain of a sinking ship saying he will save the passengers by building an aeroplane.

FF have been in government 11 years and only now they are talking about diversifying into IT, etc. Anyone would think Cowen wasn't at the cabinet table the last 11 years.

Cowen as minister for finance and Taoiseach has presided over the sinking of the Irish economy and has proved unable to save it. He has offered no leadership whatsoever. He has for example provided no incentive through short term taxation reform to encourage the creation and retention of jobs.

He has no economic philosophy from what I can see. At least Charlie McCreevy had an economic philosophy which encouraged job creation. Instead he sits on the sidelines and watches as everything crashes and burns and feels its not his position to intervene.

His raising of the VAT rate was a typical ill concieved knee jerk decision which has spectacularly backfired with people going up the north. The result is we have lost 2.5 billion in VAT, not increased the take.

I hate to say it but the guy is just to slow to react and not dynamic enough.

There is no 'don't know' option on this poll, indeed, the last one I looked at
(about Hilary Clinton) did not have that option either. Is this a recession thing,
or a polarisation thing?

It's very cut and dried with no middle ground.

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Biffo is keeping in touch with the grassroots throughout.
Last week the Mercedes was parked for several hours near Tullamore railway station while he visited the home of died-in-the wool-FFers.
The poor old driver was frozen while Biffo was inside in the warm and (allegedly) pouring back brandy. "Spirit of the Recovery", perhaps?