The wooden stupidity of the right-wing

[blacbloc]

Two decades of neo liberal, free-market economics have taken us exactly where many people predicted: into a global economy wrecked by the stupid greed of unbridled capitalism. The culprits are all now shrieking for the blood of the public sector as if their own idiocy were not the chief cause of what has happened.

In Ireland the response to the crisis has been to batten down the hatches and reach for even more viciously capitalist strategies to deal with the situation. The government are forcing through policies under cover of 'acting responsibly' that they wouldn't have dreamed of mentioning even as little as six months ago: to wit, deregulation of pension fund management ( a real stinker that one, make no mistake).

Nowhere in mainstream media do we see any serious assessment of what the profit motive ultimately entails. I'm starting this thread to look at the drastic, aggravating mistakes the government are now making to compound their decades of chronic mismanagement. What has to happen before people concede that the unlimited growth model has been shown to be a disastrous failure? How many human lives are to be thrown on the scrapheap in pursuit of this unrealisable dream? We have just given 450 billion to bankers and stockbrokers with NO guarantees that they will not continue to use that money as unwisely as they did before.

Meanwhile, on other threads people are cheerfully talking of making 50K public sector workers redundant in Ireland. The assumption with that is that the private sector owns the nation's resources with which to do as it pleases and that those who work for the common good are merely their servants. This idea needs to be challenged urgently.

Among the government's failures in recent weeks, I'd include the following:

A failure to hold anyone to account for the property/financial speculation that has cost us all so much
A failure to properly nationalise the banks - as it is, the 450 billion has merely been gifted to the bankers to do as they like with
A failure to insist that the rich pay their full share of the cost of the situation which they created
A failure to recognise the lunacy of privatising health and other services - that this policy is merely throwing good public money at rotten ideas

[theparadigmshift]

Two decades of neo liberal, free-market economics have taken us exactly where many people predicted: into a global economy wrecked by the stupid greed of unbridled capitalism. The culprits are all now shrieking for the blood of the public sector as if their own idiocy were not the chief cause of what has happened.

In Ireland the response to the crisis has been to batten down the hatches and reach for even more viciously capitalist strategies to deal with the situation. The government are forcing through policies under cover of 'acting responsibly' that they wouldn't have dreamed of mentioning even as little as six months ago: to wit, deregulation of pension fund management ( a real stinker that one, make no mistake).

Nowhere in mainstream media do we see any serious assessment of what the profit motive ultimately entails. I'm starting this thread to look at the drastic, aggravating mistakes the government are now making to compound their decades of chronic mismanagement. What has to happen before people concede that the unlimited growth model has been shown to be a disastrous failure? How many human lives are to be thrown on the scrapheap in pursuit of this unrealisable dream? We have just given 450 billion to bankers and stockbrokers with NO guarantees that they will not continue to use that money as unwisely as they did before.

Meanwhile, on other threads people are cheerfully talking of making 50K public sector workers redundant in Ireland. The assumption with that is that the private sector owns the nation's resources with which to do as it pleases and that those who work for the common good are merely their servants. This idea needs to be challenged urgently.

Among the government's failures in recent weeks, I'd include the following:

A failure to hold anyone to account for the property/financial speculation that has cost us all so much
A failure to properly nationalise the banks - as it is, the 450 billion has merely been gifted to the bankers to do as they like with
A failure to insist that the rich pay their full share of the cost of the situation which they created
A failure to recognise the lunacy of privatising health and other services - that this policy is merely throwing good public money at rotten ideas

Brian and the boys have been told "tough socialism is back with a vengence" get with the programme and borrow borrow borrow.The IMF are looking for control of this nation,no two ways about it...the bail out's or economic stimulus or whatever way you want to dress it up, will plunder the country into submission.They havn't a clue what to do or what to expect next,they are morally corrupt so they don't mind selling this nation off...but where they will run and hide when anger rises is gonna be interesting.

[FutureTaoiseach]

The reality is that the Left shares the blame for the global financial crisis. This is because Carter and Clinton in the US signed the Community Reinvestment Act 1997/1995 which forced financial-institutions to have quotas of subprime and poor ethnic-minority communitiy borrowers or pay fines for not doing so. There is plenty of blame to go around and it isn't all one way. It's a classic example of the Left's ideological obsession with multiculturalism and diversity obscuring their sense of reason and making everyone suffer as a result.

[odie1kanobe]

and 7 decades of communism worked so well.

[martel]

The reality is that the Left shares the blame for the global financial crisis. This is because Carter and Clinton in the US signed the Community Reinvestment Act 1997/1995 which forced financial-institutions to have quotas of subprime and poor ethnic-minority communitiy borrowers or pay fines for not doing so. There is plenty of blame to go around and it isn't all one way. It's a classic example of the Left's ideological obsession with multiculturalism and diversity obscuring their sense of reason and making everyone suffer as a result.

That is something that the left wishes to hush up. Politically correct madness left minoritys with houses they could never afford to pay for. Some people had welfare checks accepted as proof of income FFS!

[blacbloc]

The reality is that the Left shares the blame for the global financial crisis. This is because Carter and Clinton in the US signed the Community Reinvestment Act 1997/1995 which forced financial-institutions to have quotas of subprime and poor ethnic-minority communitiy borrowers or pay fines for not doing so. There is plenty of blame to go around and it isn't all one way. It's a classic example of the Left's ideological obsession with multiculturalism and diversity obscuring their sense of reason and making everyone suffer as a result.

Carter and Clinton are on the left!!!!! You must be joking!!!!!!!!!!!

Look, here's the question: we live in a finite world of resources so the idea of endless growth is an impossible one to achieve without creating appalling and needless human suffering, right? That reality is coming home to roost right now and instead of confronting it, the government is scrabbling around to see how the fiction can be maintained.

[yehbut_nobut]

That is something that the left wishes to hush up. Politically correct madness left minoritys with houses they could never afford to pay for. Some people had welfare checks accepted as proof of income FFS!

Welfare was assesed as income for mortgage applications here in Ireland too, you know. Mortgage companies were fine with it back in the day. It's called GREED - nothing "politically correct" about it.

[theparadigmshift]

Carter and Clinton are on the left!!!!! You must be joking!!!!!!!!!!!

Look, here's the question: swe live in a finite world of resources o the idea of endless growth is an impossible one to achieve without creating appalling and needless human suffering, right? That reality is coming home to roost right now and instead of confronting it, the government is scrabbling around to see how the fiction can be maintained.

Id have to disagree,where do you get the assumption that we live in a finite world of resources?,it's false.

[Irish Liberty Forum]

The economic crisis was caused by governments (in particular by central banks), not by the market.

[ame="http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=iYZM58dulPE"]YouTube - Money, Banking and the Federal Reserve[/ame]

[Rebel CNC]

Two decades of neo liberal, free-market economics have taken us exactly where many people predicted: into a global economy wrecked by the stupid greed of unbridled capitalism. The culprits are all now shrieking for the blood of the public sector as if their own idiocy were not the chief cause of what has happened.

In Ireland, the Left are hardly blameless. When the good times were rolling, the Unions demanded their slice of the action and Benchmarking Bertie provided all they wanted.
There was no mention of "the patient comes first" or "think of the children". It was basically grease our collective paw with the loot from the property boom and we want less hours as you're at it.

Now that the revenue streams from the private sector have dried up, there are plenty of crocodile tears being shed re "poor patients" and "children without a voice" but no offers to benchmark against the new reality facing retail, construction, factory workers, etc.