I very rarely agree with David Quinn, however .......

On flight path to disaster but no-one knows how to land

Discuss:

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"Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest." Mark Twain

“When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes. Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain.” Napoléon Bonaparte

changin the flight crew would be a start.

I read a similar article that compared our "soft landing"(Remember that phrase anyone?) to a controlled decent into terrain. Its when a plan comes out of a cloud bank or some such and finds its right at a moutain or ground level with no time to react.


Im not a memeber of either but i doubt FG or Labour would have had such a close relationship with the developers as FF did.

The point of the article seems to be
"Yes they have screwed up but would the other side have done any better?"

Thats a bit of side track. The last 10-15 years have been unbridled free market low regulation reagnomics and are ending in disater.
I dont see any harm in letting the other side in with a shout. They couldnt screw things up even more right?

Are the people who lead us into this mess the people to lead out of it?

There is no evidence to support the argument that a FG/Labour govt. would have got us into the current mess. Our problems arise from cronyism on a huge scale, caused by FF being too long in power. Neither of the other parties have the same relationship with the property/ building industry that FF have and so would not have had the same incentive to pump up the property bubble. The external problems would have caused instability in a FG / Labour govt. as they seem to have opposite attitudes to the public service but again, would we have all the quangos if FF were not in power? If the public service had not expanded and if Benchmarking had led to increased productivity, we would not need the cutbacks to the same extent. The reason the levy is being introduced is because the public sector wage bill is too high and the govt. don't want to reduce it through the alternative methods of layoffs or wage cuts.

Their Councillors never seem to have problems granting dodgy planning permissions, so one presumes they have some relationship.

Have you been listening to Labour recently? They want us to borrow more, and cutback less.

They never tell us where we can go to borrow though! Maybe they haven't realised that the amount of Sovereign Debt that will be required this year, as every other Country runs budget deficits, far exceeds the available pot.


What is the least worst alternative?

__________________
"Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest." Mark Twain

“When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes. Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain.” Napoléon Bonaparte

Wait a second, I thought we had a soft landing in 2007?

I suspect that a FG Labour alternative is off the agenda - it is impossible to underestimate Eamonn Gilmore's ego - he will continue telling us that "yes he can" until the shine wears off Obama. It is time FG faced facts and realise that Labour will not want to join them in govt. Labour will get the votes of the 2 teacher family and FG should try and win the support of the private sector. They need to get back to their message of cutting public spending, not increasing it as Labour want.

That is a very good point.

I have a suspicion that FF could try and go populist very handy after the battering their TDs got today, but if FG take the bait and try to follow the herd we are f*cked!

__________________
"Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest." Mark Twain

“When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes. Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain.” Napoléon Bonaparte

with FF in charge we are more like this....

"Can anyone truthfully say that if Labour and Fine Gael had been in power the economy would be in better shape today than it is? It is extremely doubtful. They were all for flying high and fast as well."


Most people in Ireland "were all for flying high and fast as well". The delusions of grandeur ("economic miracle", "one of the richest ... happiest ... best quality lifetsyle ...", etc.) infected society as a whole (apart from the most disadvantaged, who became practically invisible).

I returned to Ireland at the height of the much-vaunted 'boom', after several years working on a project in a so-called '3rd World' country. I was profoundly shocked. The arrogance of many Irish people was matched only by their obvious incompetence. The amount of money being squandered on all sides was staggering - endless consultants' reports (largely worthless vanity exercises), State-funded quangos and politically expedient projects of all kinds (obviously unproductive, when one began to look for concrete results/benefits), and so on. Coming home to this from a desperately poor country, where, by necessity, precious resources must be used carefully and wisely, I regularly found myself left speechless with anger.

The pervasive attitude seemed to be: "grab as much as possible for as long as possible". Medical, legal and business elites were raking in the dosh for all they were worth. Further down the feeding-frenzy chain, even small domestic repair/maintenance jobs became a blatant, shameless rip-off.

And all of this was merrily led by our grossly over-paid political masters and mistresses, of all persuasions. However, these elites were simply the rats propagating the social plague. Our entire society became contaminated. Even people of modest means suddenly felt the need for a flashier car, a more upmarket address, additional annual holidays in the sun or snow, regular trips to the latest, hippest eateries and ridiculously expensive coffee joints. Even kids became overweight shopaholics!

Probably, a change of flight crew would be a useful first step in the prolonged detoxification process needed by Irish society. But the passengers on Flight EI-2009 need to take a good look at themselves also!