Madam, – Let me see if I have this straight. The Fianna Fáil Government spends 10 years fanning the flames of a property boom to the sole benefit of an exclusive golden triangle of bankers, property developers and the party coffers. A free-for-all ensues in the public sector where pay rises and defined-benefit pensions are handed out like sweets at a child’s party. Any suggestion that the boom is unsustainable is greeted with derision. The party continues in the hallowed grounds of the Galway Races Tent, where the back-slapping and merry-making drown out the sounds of the oncoming storm.
The property market, alas, dries up, as predicted. The banks write off the loans of the property developers, who then retire debt-free to the golf courses of the Mediterranean. The resulting black hole in the banks’ balance sheets is plugged by the Government using billions of taxpayers’ money. The bankers and their supposed regulators – clutching generous pensions, bonuses and golden handshakes to their collective bosom – also jump ship and join the developers for a carefree life on the golf courses.
Prosecutions are looking doubtful. Meanwhile, back on home soil, the hardworking taxpayers – many struggling to pay large mortgages on average properties – are told they have had it good for too long. In the interests of patriotism it is time to tighten their belts, face a 10 per cent hit in their living standards and pay over the odds for goods south of the Border.
This to pay for the above circus of greed and the uncontrolled behemoth that is the post-boom public sector. The ringleader of the farce lectures people around the world about the benefits of the Celtic Tiger while apparently preparing to run for president of a once-proud nation.
Is there a movie in it, I wonder? – Yours, etc,
A chara, — Stewart K Kelly (March 26th) rightly highlights the dominance of local considerations come election time in Ireland, at the expense of the national interest. While it is indeed unfair to blame politicians for responding to the electorate’s local concerns, it is also unfair to blame the electorate for voting in its own local self interest.
As long as we have an electoral system that rewards politicians for pandering to local interests over the national interests, the situation will continue unchanged. Our current electoral system prevents all but popular local vote-winners from entering politics, meaning that to stay in power, national politicians are forced to “look after” their local area.
The time has come for a discussion on a new electoral system for Ireland, one that encourages the electorate to vote on national matters ahead of local matters, and that allows politicians to focus on a vision for the future of the country, not just their local area. – Is mise,
Madam, – It appears that world leaders are in denial about the causes of the present global crisis. The banking chaos, far from being the cause, came in response to the growing necessity for more and easier credit necessitated to camouflage the real problem: the irreversible decline in the requirement for production jobs worldwide, and the gravitation of whatever jobs remain to the low cost economies of the East.
This is the result of phenomenal technological progress over the past quarter-century and the only way to cope with it is to accept the reality and devise social change to accommodate the success of mankind’s ability to provide any commodity in abundance.
Suggestion that bank reform and a return to “growth” in lending and borrowing is the recipe for future success is idiotic and dangerous and will only confound an already serious problem. Growth in any mature body is either obesity or cancerous. Both are detrimental to that body. This applies to economies as well as living entities.
The G20 leaders must confront the reality of the seismic change brought about by the discovery of the philosopher’s stone, ie the silicon chip.
Failure to devise and implement urgent social change to distribute fairly the fruits of this technological miracle could have catastrophic consequences.
The main cause of our present difficulties is not failure but the success of our intelligence and initiative. We must learn to enjoy the virtual paradise we have the potential to create on this Earth, or we may very well end up destroying it. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – With regard to FX O’Brien’s letter (March 31st) on the Government’s predictive powers, I recall that during the late 1990s quarterly tax revenues consistently exceeded the Government’s predictions by a considerable margin.
At the time, I realised that the Government didn’t understand the economy or how to manage it. It’s unrealistic to expect that, just because the public finances are now moving in the opposite direction, the Government will suddenly gain the economic management skills that it demonstrably never had. – Yours, etc,