So Christine Lagarde thinks the Irish people are heroes.

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W200

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Just heard a report from the conference in Dublin yesterday where Christine Lagarde described the Irish people as being the” real heroes” in the battle to save our country and economy from disaster during the economic crisis.
The logical and verbal gymnastics required to reach such a conclusion are amazing.
In my opinion a hero is someone who volunteers to sacrifice there own safety, security, health and possibly their life in the interests of others. However the Irish people were volunteered, blackmailed, dragooned into saving the skins of various European gamblers.
How can you force someone to be a hero ?.o_O
 
I don't want to be a hero either. I want everybody who caused the disaster to be jailed. This includes bankers down to the grade of Assistant Bank Manager, Politicians, Solicitors, Builders, Propety Developers etc. And I don't care how long they remain in chains.
 
Leper said:
I don't want to be a hero either. I want everybody who caused the disaster to be jailed. This includes bankers down to the grade of Assistant Bank Manager, Politicians, Solicitors, Builders, Propety Developers etc. And I don't care how long they remain in chains.
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I agree. I’d add Union leaders and all of the other main players in the Social Partnership agreements. They sold-out the majority of the people of Ireland to vested interest groups over and over again by destroying our competitiveness and the sustainability of our taxation system and generally agreeing to massive increases in current spending even though it was funded by capital transaction taxes from a boom.
As far back as the mid 90’s we were warned by everyone and their dog that what we were doing was unsustainable but Bertie the socialist was still happy for Joe O’Toole to keep going back to the pay rise ATM for his members while Bertie, not to out-done, gave massive increases in welfare and the economic wisdom of our Minister for Finance, when asked about the governments pro-cyclical policies, didn’t go beyond “I’ll spend it while I have it”.
The only complaint from the opposition was that the government didn’t spend more! The only exception being Richard Bruton, who stood up in the Dail and spelled out exactly what the government was doing wrong and where it would end up. He was right but of course he was ignored.
Meanwhile we had a new branch of the government called “Congress”, formerly the ICTU. Those jokers had a bigger say in how the country was run than most of the cabinet with David Begg calling the shots at Social Partnership while sitting on the board of the Central Bank and the ERSI. At least he’s a clever guy, unlike Jack O’Connor.
I think it’s a small miracle that things have only ended up this bad!
Christine Lagarde is a very charming lady but she was one of the people who made sure that we were landed with what was effectively European debt. The reality though is that 80% of our problems were the result of our own pro-cyclical policies, parochial politicians, the social partnership carve-up by the usual vested interest groups and the incompetence and cowardice of our central bank and department of finance. The group I blame the most are the parochial and economically illiterate electorate who keep voting for parties and people who will “look after them” instead of parties and people who will help the nation as a whole.
The people of Ireland aren’t the heroes in this, they are the culprits. The voted for Bertie and his cohort and now they are voting for the Loony Left and the Shinners. Those in the middle (traditional FG supporters) want tax cuts instead of reducing our debts and no one asks why we are so incredibly wasteful and ineffective at delivering public services. They have learned nothing. They still refuse to take responsibility for their own actions. They still want a government which will act like their Mammy and the solution to massive waste is to give the people doing the wasting even more money. I’d love to hear Ms Lagarde say that.
 
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Heroes ? , certainly not but I do think that as a Nation we have been stoical & responsible in dealing with the crisis .

Perhaps we are now to be rewarded for such stoicism , it would appear that moderate pay rises are to be granted across large swathes of the private sector , beneficial changes to the tax system & the USC are mooted , Brendan Howlin has undertaken to gradually unwind FEMPI legislation , he has also indicated a willingness to meet with Unions in coming months to discuss a gradual reversal of the pay cuts inflicted on the public sector with the pension levy also under review.

Both Mr. Howlin & Mr. Noonan have indictated broad support for social dialogue between the Government , Employers , Unions & the Oireachtas , " dialogue " is such a nice word but given the fact that such dialogue covers the twin aspects of wages & tax & involves much the same participants then " partnership " may be equally fitting ?:)

Is the fact that the current Government placed such emphasis on economic recovery that expectations have been raised & the fact that a General election is not too far away reinforced the view that they are essentially going to have to buy the next election a political inevitability ?

I think the answer must be yes - this Government must feel that they have done much of the heavy lifting & to simply hand power over without a fight is simply too galling.
 
Purple said:
I agree. I’d add Union leaders and all of the other main players in the Social Partnership agreements. They sold-out the majority of the people of Ireland to vested interest groups over and over again by destroying our competitiveness and the sustainability of our taxation system and generally agreeing to massive increases in current spending even though it was funded by capital transaction taxes from a boom.
As far back as the mid 90’s we were warned by everyone and their dog that what we were doing was unsustainable but Bertie the socialist was still happy for Joe O’Toole to keep going back to the pay rise ATM for his members while Bertie, not to out-done, gave massive increases in welfare and economic wisdom of our Minister for Finance, when asked about the governments pro-cyclical policies, didn’t go beyond “I’ll spend it while I have it”.
The only complaint from the opposition was that the government didn’t spend more! The only exception being Richard Bruton, who stood up in the Dail and spelled out exactly what the government was doing wrong and where it would end up. He was right but of course he was ignored.
Meanwhile we had a new branch of the government called “Congress”, formerly the ICTU. Those jokers had a bigger say in how the country was run than most of the cabinet with David Begg calling the shots at Social Partnership while sitting on the board of the Central Bank and the ERSI. At least he’s a clever guy, unlike Jack O’Connor.
I think it’s a small miracle that things have only ended up this bad!
Christine Lagarde is a very charming lady but she was one of the people who made sure that we were landed with what was effectively European debt. The reality though is that 80% of our problems were the result of our own pro-cyclical policies, parochial politicians, the social partnership carve-up by the usual vested interest groups and the incompetence and cowardice of our central bank and department of finance. The group I blame the most are the parochial and economically illiterate electorate who keep voting for parties and people who will “look after them” instead of parties and people who will help the nation as a whole.
The people of Ireland aren’t the heroes in this, they are the culprits. The voted for Bertie and his cohort and now they are voting for the Loony Left and the Shinners. Those in the middle (traditional FG supporters) want tax cuts instead of reducing our debts and no one asks why we are so incredibly wasteful and ineffective at delivering public services. They have learned nothing. They still refuse to take responsibility for their own actions. They still want a government which will act like their Mammy and the solution to massive waste is to give the people doing the wasting even more money. I’d love to hear Ms Lagarde say that.
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Very good summary of what went wrong and what continues to be wrong.
 
Deiseblue said:
Is the fact that the current Government placed such emphasis on economic recovery that expectations have been raised & the fact that a General election is not too far away reinforced the view that they are essentially going to have to buy the next election a political inevitability ?

I think the answer must be yes - this Government must feel that they have done much of the heavy lifting & to simply hand power over without a fight is simply too galling.
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So the general population will suffer for the current government's vanity.
 
TRS30 said:
So the general population will suffer for the current government's vanity.
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The current government has done a good job but by doing the right thing they have become unpopular. They now have to pander to the ignorant electorate because if they don’t they will be replaced with a bunch of nutters and mutton heads from People Against Logic and their ilk and the Shinners.
In many ways that’s a better option than returning to the system where un-costed communist style 5 year plans were agreed between the bearded leadership of vested interest groups and a few government ministers, where union leaders talked to unionised civil servants about how much was to be taken from the general public and given to their members. There were a few other vested interest groups in the room such as IBEC and the IFA. None of them should have been there and none of them have any business at the top table when decisions are being made about how the country is run.
I’m a democrat and I believe in one vote per adult in the state. Therefore I wasn’t in favour of Socialist Partnership, just as I wouldn’t have been in favour of the electoral system they had in Northern Ireland which the civil rights movement protested against. The only people with a mandate to make the decisions are TD’s and the government, even if they are a bunch of Muppets. They failed in their duty to the people when they outsourced the decision making process to lobby groups and sectoral interests. That’s the worst crime Bertie and his FF government committed.
We are just regaining our sovereignty. I would hate to see us surrender our democracy again.
 
Purple said:
The current government has done a good job but by doing the right thing they have become unpopular.
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but in all honestly, was this government just doing what they were told / mandated to by Europe? Would it have mattered who was elected to government at the last election - "Ireland" was given a list of things to implement .. or else ...
 
TRS30 said:
So the general population will suffer for the current government's vanity.
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I think the Government has done a good job to date , however their efforts have not been reflected in opinion polls which continue to reflect the fact that much of the electorate have little memory when it comes to past failures & misdemeanours - hence the support levels for FF & SF , a total curse on all their houses attitude benefits Independents.

As such I think the Government have little choice but to plump ( & hope ) for moderate pay increases allied to some form of tax relief in the private sector & gradual reversals of pay cuts/ pension levy + the same tax reliefs in the public sector thus benefitting as much of the general populace as possible.

In terms of expediency & pragmatism I think that the Government deem it imperative to carry the Unions with them as there is absolutely no doubt that the Unions currently sense blood in the water & an opportunity to improve terms & conditions for their members , the Government must surely sense that dialogue with the social partners is the best way to ensure moderation in all fiscal matters allied to the fact that if they fail to woo ICTU then further suitors such as FF & SF will undoubtedly attempt to do so.

Interesting times ahead !
 
For me it's all about balancing our books. We are currently bringing our budget deficit down bit by bit. It's working....why not just leave things *exactly* as they are until the only net outgoings are the interest payments on the bail-out finances? Then we would be in an extremely strong position to negotiate a writedown. But by having a give-away budget, we will no doubt start adding to our national debt by running budget deficits again thereby weakening our hand further....
 
Firefly said:
For me it's all about balancing our books. We are currently bringing our budget deficit down bit by bit. It's working....why not just leave things *exactly* as they are until the only net outgoings are the interest payments on the bail-out finances? Then we would be in an extremely strong position to negotiate a writedown. But by having a give-away budget, we will no doubt start adding to our national debt by running budget deficits again thereby weakening our hand further....
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That would be the adult thing to do. It would benefit the country as a whole most and reduce the burden that we have imposed on our children through our greed and stupidity. Therefore we won't do it.
The two groups that have suffered least; public sector employees and the retired with pensions in addition to the state pension, will, as usual, elbow their way to the front of the queue for pay increases and tax cuts.
 
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I dont know which speech was worse and which person sickens me more,Christine Legard and her speech or Bono with his "People of Ireland bailed out Ireland" speech.:mad:
 
I love how FG and Labour are playing the whole "employment" card all the time now.Anytime the IMF are in town they go out of their way to do this.

For every 1 job created 4 people have left these shores for other countries.They also like to include all these "jobsbridge" type schemes as full time jobs and employment in their "employment figures"
Why wont FG and Labour admit that?
 
flowerman said:
I love how FG and Labour are playing the whole "employment" card all the time now.Anytime the IMF are in town they go out of their way to do this.

For every 1 job created 4 people have left these shores for other countries.They also like to include all these "jobsbridge" type schemes as full time jobs and employment in their "employment figures"
Why wont FG and Labour admit that?
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I think the real question is whether there is a better alternative to the current government.
FF wouldn't have had the backbone to do what FG has done and without Labour the Unions would be causing more damage than they are causing at the moment.
 
Purple said:
I think the real question is whether there is a better alternative to the current government.
FF wouldn't have had the backbone to do what FG has done and without Labour the Unions would be causing more damage than they are doing at the moment.
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I would tend to agree with you over FF, especially when they have MM as leader.He is not going to be the hero with regards FF.

But why is it when the real facts that I pointed out above are put to FG and Labour they ignore it and try to waffle their way out of it.

The employment figures are false and they are blatant lies that are constantly put out there by FG and Labour.
 
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It's easy to get the numbers on activation schemes:
http://cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/er/lr/liveregisterdecember2014/
Annex- Live Register Activation Programmes.

The numbers are steady 2014 over 2013 which can be construed as these programmes are not being widened as one might have thought with some of the spiel about investing in reactivation courses but can also be construed as they are not having a distortionary effect on reported figures as they don't vary wildly from year to year.

Net migration is predicted to be basically zero this year or very close to it.
 
The problem with FAS, or whatever they are called now, is the quality of the courses they run. That quality is limited not by the trainers but the trainees; many of them are so under-educated that their ability to learn is well below what is required to become economically valuable in the workplace.
 
In 1738 Benjamin Franklin said "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
With social partnership we gave up essential liberty by surrendering the governance of the state to vested interest groups, to purchase a little temporary prosperity for the so-called social partners. As a result we lost our prosperity and our economic independence. Benjamin got it spot on. I wonder what Ms Lagarde would think of that?
 
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