Lex Foutish
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If the opposition don't meet to discuss opposing government policy, what on earth do they do?
Not sure, but I reckon they don't spend their time formulating economic policy!
George Lee Resigns?
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Not sure, but I reckon they don't spend their time formulating economic policy!
If the opposition don't meet to discuss opposing government policy, what on earth do they do?
Give it a few days and Gift Grub will address your query
George never said he was going to solve all the problems - all he said was that he would try to help. Most people complain about the state of the country but do nothing about it. He took a chance and it didn't work out. I think having the bravery to leave when he realised it wasn't going to work shows true character. It would have been far easier for him to simply stay where he was.
Complainer
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There was no bravery here.
Politics is inherently competitive, at every level. TDs have to compete with their peer TDs in their own party. If George didn't expect to have to compete, he was a naive fool.
It sounds like he sat around for 9 months waiting for the phone to ring with Enda granting him some title or role. It doesn't work that way. You have get up of your This post will be deleted if not edited to remove bad language and make things happen yourself. If he wasn't capable of making things happen within FG, he would certainly have never survived a Ministerial role.
Good riddance.
Marathon Man
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Y'know...that all sounds like the same caustic drivel we've been getting for the past few days from mainly FG, along with other politicos. GL didn't like what he saw and got out. He's gone.....Get over it.
The country is in a shambles. The bankers and developers, spurred on by FF and their friends, have got us in a hell-hole and all everyone wants to do is bash GL!! C'mon let's take a deep breath and see where this is getting us - nowhere fast.
The emperor and all his retinue, along with the would-be emperors, have no clothes. Somebody has said that the emperor has no clothes......and everyone wants to execute him?????
He's gone...really, really gone........now ....get over it!!
I think the 'Good Riddance' is a pretty good indication that complainer has got over it!!
Look, it takes no insight or intelligence to use the followong soundbites:
Bankers, Builders and developers are being bailed out
Where's my NAMA
438,000 unemployed
The state of the country is a disgrace
Any fool can spurt out these phrases, and lets face it every fool is. But where's the follow through? I want to hear a well explained description of what actually got us here (loose credit and an inflationary spiral that the majority did not question) and then plausible solutions. Calling FF or FG muppets is not a plausible solution.
83% of liveline listeners backed George so I wouldn't exactly say there is a rush to execute him.
At this moment I would contrast him with Brian Lenihan. Diagnosed with cancer he still has the guts to carry on. I would say that half the country had no time for him before the diagnosis but the majority have now accepted he is an honest and intelligent man who is not in politics for cynical reasons.
To get back to my point, it is a very lazy and inaccurate consensus to assume all of our politicians are either currupt or idiots. But that's what people want to believe evidently, so much so that a quitter like George Lee (returning to his cushy job) will have more popular support than the true statesmen who are making huge scarifices to try get this country back on the rails with genuine solutions rather than populist soundbites.
George Lee thought Fine Gael's policy (and the government's) of trying to cut the deficit in 5 years was too harsh and he would have prefered a longer period of time. I think he referenced the UK's approach as an example of what he prefered.
I have no idea if he is right or wromg but this approach would seem to be at odds what other economists are saying.
Which goes back to a point made earlier on this thread, one which I agree with based on listening to him over the years on RTE, that George Lee should have joined the Labour Party.
Yep, the government, regulator, banks, builders, etc are not pantomime villains. We need to accept our part in it and move on from that denial.
I have to say that the readiness of people to move on is questionable given the general lack of acceptance that maybe this whole issue is about 'George Lee' rather than the state of FG or politics in general.
The convoluted attempts to justify George's behaviour are simply another aspect of the general belief that collectively the vast majority of us had no hand, act or part in the state the country is in.
That's the most frustrating part in all of this.
I don't think that anybody is claiming that they have no culpability. Nobody can be that naive IMO. Anybody who bought a house in the last 10 years or got a mortgage top-up to pay for a fancy extension or even ran up a credit card debt and released equity to pay it are all involved in the banking crisis.
However ...
I had no hand in the effective non-regulation of the banking sector.
I had no say in the special 20% tax-rate given to builders relating to the sale of development land.
I was not personally responsible for forming the macroeconomic or microeconomic policies that our country was run with over the last 10-15 years.
So forgive me if I want a rant at those who were!
However ...
I had no hand in the effective non-regulation of the banking sector.
I had no say in the special 20% tax-rate given to builders relating to the sale of development land.
I was not personally responsible for forming the macroeconomic or microeconomic policies that our country was run with over the last 10-15 years.
So forgive me if I want a rant at those who were!
Fair enough.
There's an Abe Lincoln quote
"He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help"
George Lee criticised for Ireland but when given the opportunity he could not find the heart to help
Marathon Man
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I find that deduction very strange. Clearly Complainer wouldn't be posting if s/he'd got over it. Sounds like a pretty live issue.
I agree 100%. ....However that's what we're getting from the (same) primary people who got us into the mess we're in.
...and lots of them are in Dail Eireann! We seem, continuously, to elect orators. Dev once said "In England, you can say what you like as long as you do the right thing. In Ireland, you can do what you like, as long as you say the right thing" I'm not a Dev fan, but I reckon he was absolutely right.
Plenty of people did question the policies and strategies of the Government, but no, Brian Linehan told us to "Stop talking down the economy!" " The fundamentals are fine!" You say the majority didn't question it. The majority weren't involved! Relative to the electorate, a tiny, deeply entrenched, minority orchestrated this, aided and abetted by the Government. A significant minority of the electorate are in trouble , mainly due to over-borrowing, having been dragged along in the property/credit euphoria that was "never going to end", but the majority weren't involved. We are now.....and the most vulnerable are paying the highest cost!
Meantime the same crowds are running the show, and all the respective side-shows.
Nobody mentioned Live-Line here until now. I think, if you check them out, that the figures on this board come *nowhere* near 83% in favour - hence my comment on this thread.
I don't follow your logic and reasoning on this one at all. Yes you do have to have the guts to carry on - it's either that or give up. Unfortunately many of us, including Brain and myself, have to get on with things, but that doesn't make us any better at what we do.
Right...Then what in the name of God were all the tribunals for? We clearly have had - and probably still do have - politicians, along with pressure group and institutional power brokers, both state and private sector, who were accepting millions (e.g. Haughey) and favours/dig outs. There's no such thing as a free dinner, and we're paying for it now - and will do so for a long time to come!.....and, as I see it, the only change is that a new hymn sheet has been passed around the same choir groups. Idiots...I'm sure that there must be some in the Dail, but there's more outside, who put them in there in the first place.
Lenihan had a far better reason for retiring from public life than George Lee did, but he hung in there.
Marathon Man
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You hear plenty of people saying that they're in trouble, but you don't hear from *anyone* who is not - and you won't. I have a lot of genuine sympathy for people who, for example, bought their first home and are now in negative equity. However it seems to me that many of the greedy people who, again for example, sold property and reinvested to buy even more and are now in trouble, are now making bleating the most.
Not everybody is in that boat. Most people quietly got on with their lives. The notion that *everyone* is in hock and that, as such, we are all responsible is a fallacy. An awful lot of people are (in hock) and a lot of people are responsible, but to blame and tar everyone is simply avoiding the truth.
Marathon Man
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Your point?? Lenihan is sticking to his guns, while Lee is sticking to his principles.
Besides..what did you expect Linehan to do? Roll over? I think he and I have more self-respect and determination than that. As I said we get on with it!
Lenihan became minister for Finance in May 2008. I think just about everyone knew the wheels were coming off the economy by then.
The root cause of our current problems is a Fianna Fail government that outsourced the running of the country to vested interest groups for 10 years. They called part of Social Partnership and the rest of it economic stimulus. What it amounted to was tax breaks for builders which created a credit fuelled bubble which in turn generated massive tax receipts that were used to pay off the unions. The government didn’t govern, it just made sure there was enough cake for the guys who were running the show to gorge themselves on.
I know I’ve been banging on about the above for years and other posters are probably sick of hearing about it but once the government is not governing for the people the people are in trouble. Social partnership outsourced the running of our state to vested interest groups. Bertie Ahern didn’t just not do his job, he allowed unelected people to do it for him. Whether they were bankers, developers or trade unionists (or all of the above) they had no place dictating how the country was run, be it in back rooms or in “partnership” talks.
There is a touch of the one party state in this country, where a change in the leadership of Fianna Fail is more significant than a general election, but Bertie and his unwillingness to do his job was the problem. Social partnership is now dead, the property developers are gone bust and the bankers are no longer masters of the universe. The government is governing again; the landscape has changed. Brian Lenihan (the acting Taoiseach) is doing a good job and, probably, has the right policies. If Bertie was still in charge I would vote for anyone but FF (to say I despise him is way short of the mark), but he’s gone so I am back to voting on economic policies. FG’s policies are off the wall and Labour would beggar the country for generations. George Lee backed the wrong horse.
Marathon Man
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Purple, at worst, I'd probably nit-pick at some of your post. We mightn't be in tune, but it sounds like the same song.
I don't think it's that George Lee backed the wrong horse - all the current horses, imho, should be taken to the knackers yard - but that he found/realised that major change was needed and nobody wanted to change. But that's the bed *WE* made.
I don't think it's that George Lee backed the wrong horse - all the current horses, imho, should be taken to the knackers yard - but that he found/realised that major change was needed and nobody wanted to change. But that's the bed *WE* made.
Well Purple - are ya still in Business after all these years? - I guess it must be 2006 since I was last around these parts - telling anybody who would listen to me that the property monster was going to be the ruination of this country and we needed to cop on - then Brendan banned the lot of us for talking down the economy and that we were talking thru our asses
God I wish he had been right and I'd been wrong - man its been real - the high flying hi-tech export company I was with is now in receivership and we are currently conducting its last rites thru the High Court -all the patents and technology has been sold off to Asians and Americans - I've been in and out of work for the last year or so - mainly working under contract for liquidators - its been great fun.
The Thread grabbed my interest because around the time I stopped posting around here - I finally decided to stop giving out and put my time and money where my mouth and keyboard was and get involved in the political process - 4 years now and its been an alternating illuminating,depressing,hopeful and infuriating experience - I looked around at all the partys on offer - I was in the communist party at college - but I was young and that's where all the cool chicks were and as the treasurer I quickly became the only sane one connected with the real world while the intelligentsia sat around,smoked pot and dreamed of conquering the world - since then I've worked in private business the whole time and I'm a classic liberal - on social issues and on economics. So the left was out, Labour was ruled out even tho they have some smart people and probably our best former minster of finance in Ruairi Quinn, Fianna Fail - forget it - going against all my FF genetics going back to 1916 - Fianna Fail need to be disbanded for the good of the country - they have nothing left to say - The EU, ECB and the Germans ,thru the mandarins in the Dept of Finance are running this country now and will be for the foreseeable future regardless of who is in power - you can thank Bertie and Brian for that - if you're happy in a one party state - keep voting for them. The far right a la Declan Ganley scare the life out of me - so all that was left was Fine Gael - I agreed with about 25% of their platform - which was about 15% more than anybody elses - yeah a good number of them are a bit too conservative for my liking - but hey- thats life - you gotta convince them
So I joined up at the very bottom - paid my membership fee - got to know my local councillors and candidate in the GE and got out there leafleting,canvassing,organising public meetings ,hanging posters and getting chased by dogs - its one hell of a way to get to know your neighbours and the state of the country in general - in fact - there are some evenings I come in after canvassing for 2 hours after work when you feel like saying - "well f^ck the lot of ye - you get the government and representatives you deserve" - I did some canvassing for Obama in 2008 with my octoganarian grand-uncles in CA - and after Ireland -it was an invigorating experience - I'll give the yanks one thing - they take their politics and their democracy seriously - sometimes I wonder if we deserve one at all - not that I've lost an election yet! - we won the seat in Dublin South East in 2007 - we won Lisbon I in Dublin DSE - my 2 candidates down here in Carlow of whom I was their campaign manager/election agent/speechwriter/canvasser both won in the locals - first time FG has had 2 councillors in the area since the 1920's - and we won Lisbon II - all the same - I find Irish people will whinge to the high heaven about everything and anything - but expect somebody else to do the heavy lifting, expect somebody else to come up with the answer to the frustration they are experiencing, expect somebody else to dream up the concepts, ideas and then like a spoilt kid in an icecream shop - will proceed do your head in as they if and aa and pick and mix - and yet - will vote somebody into Dail Eireann because they got the lights fixed on the street - you get what you deserve folks - and if you're not in - you cant win.
thats the politicians rant over - now back to Georgeous George - I was coming down the steps of the high court on Monday morning feeling pretty good as my case was successfully wrapped up and then my mobile phone went nuts and I listened to George announcing his resignation - I was in absolute shock and I think the entire party was aswell - nobody saw this coming - my immediate reaction " well thats the next election down the swannee - the people will never forgive us for messing up Georgeous George , the peoples champion- and Kenny will probably be asked to walk the plank - and I dropped kicked my coffee cup into the liffey at over 30 kms per hour - sue me Gormley!! -
I'd been a bit frustrated at the freewheeling and slow pace since the locals - admittedly we sucked it up and did the national interest thing over Lisbon, on NAMA we were skillfully flanked by the FF PR Machine - so far - this NAMA thingy is going to end up looking very like Richard Brutons Good bank/Bad Bank proposal at the rate things are going and far more expensively for the taxpayer- but perception is everything and nobody bothers to read 80 page policy documents except wonks like myself - so I thought I could understand where Lee was coming from. If Lee had issued his statement, had a brief word on the lunchtime news and left it at that - Kenny would be gone as leader now. but Lee didn't leave it at that - As I drove home from Dublin - he was on evey single media outlet until midnight that night -and in the process - changed my mind about the whole thing - pulled the party firmly behind Kenny who did the smart thing -issued a statement and left it at that - while George managed to expose himself as.........well lets just say.............as well known local FFer came up to me yesterday with a grin as wide as the Shannon and said " Yis poor feckers.........ye though ye were getting a smart politician.....George though he was the messiah....and in the end he turned into Osama bin Laden..suicide bomber.. and blew himself and the whole lot of yis to kingdom come" - it was hard to disagree - despite the brave face in the media- we'll be scraping the party off the ceiling and the walls for weeks if not months to come in the aftermath of this.
Im sore over this - I travelled over 200 miles round trip for 3 nights , in common with hundreds of FG activists , to canvass for Lee in Dublin South last June - leaving my own charges to fend for themselves - the party gave George everything to get him over the line and I was looking forward to finally meeting him at the up-coming Ard-fheis ,getting his line on things , what he was working on , what was ****ing him off and if he needed any help...............and then he gave us all the 2 fingers and stormed off in a huff after 19 weeks in the Dail! - 8 months in the party! - I've stormed out of jobs when I felt i wasn't gettin the love that I was due - but I was 21 the last time I did it! - a classy exit it was not and it appeared to me that he'd been listening to the voices in his head for a bit too long.
Politics I have found , is a funny game, you are in this together, yet at the same time, you are alone - you really get out of politics - what you put into it - its real life concentrated - you have to persuade,manipulate,bribe,flatter,earn trust, earn brownie points - and that's only with the missus to get out the door to the meeting in the first place! - After 4 yearsof having done a lot of the donkey work and earned a lot of brownie points - but at the same time having learnt tons more and been taught a few harsh lessons a long the way - Im finally coming into positions of influence within the local party - I will be taking up 2 prominent positions in the constituency organisation - one is purely ceremonial and I could do without -but they came in a package - the other one is the one I've wanted and gives me a real chance to really shake up the constituency organisation ,get some new blood in, gives me power over the country councillors to get that mob into a semblance of a disciplined troop until I abolish county councils full stop when I become minister for the environment
- this appointment is both a reward for past endeavours, realised potential and persistent lobbying by myself for the chance to do it - if you dont ask - you dont get - I now have an opportunity to make what I will of my new position - I will also be watched and rated by others as to how well I do in it ,what ideas I chose to deploy and the results and if I have the potential for a more testing and senior gig - politics is not the public service - there are no increments and seniority sh^te - well not in FG anyway - its the most ruthless of free markets - everything is fair game - the higher up you go - the bigger the stakes - both on the table and potentially thru your back... I have loads of ideas about how I want to reform this country from top to bottom - so have many of my colleagues and so do many of our opponents - some might be good , some might rubbish - but unless you fight to have them heard in the first place.......... you have to play the game as best you can - make the best of what you have - be it family name,contacts,ideas whatever- take your courage in your hands and go for it - its a massive game of chance - you can be in the right place at the right time with right face for the right gig - or you can be just be plain unlucky in that your party are just not this seasons must have - its a cruel game - I've helped elect some idiots and knocked out some very smart people - but if you don't show some initiative ,grit and serious grab your opportunities - don't expect to do anything - George was given the economics committee - we all got letters telling us George was in charge of the economics commission within the party and that he would be inviting submissions and coming down to discuss it with us................nothing happened - George- you got the gig ye wanted..........you got the opportunity to prove yourself - but you did nothing.......I have no idea what he was expecting - nobody in the party does - but you don't get anything for nothing in the FG party - you have to want it ,grab it and prove your worthy of it - its pretty darwinian in here - if you can't stand the heat..........
Its a pity George didnt get to know the FG party outside Leinster House - because thats where the true power of the party lies - we are the activists,organisers,funders and fundraisers and we do have the power of life and death over the elected representatives - **** us off and you're history. If all George wanted was influence - he should have come and talked to us all around the country, got a group together to flesh and promote his ideas - the backroom boys are far more influential on matters of policy than the Tds................as much as they would like you to think differently......a lot of them are very smart -but simply havent got time to develop policies properly with the demands of getting and staying elected.
I really dont think Lee knew what he was getting himself into -I really wish he had had a chat with our last celebrity economist - Garrett Fitzgerald - who came straight from RTE punditry into the party - yet he took a much more long term approach - had to deal with a party leader who actively hated him (Cosgrave) yet showed deft political skill,great social skills,serious organisational abilities to manouveur his way into a position of power and influence and ultimately the Taoiseachs office - where he was unlucky enough to be handed the biggest credit card bill in history (up to now) by Charlie and stuck with a labour party totally infested with militants - still it was an achievement and George could have talked to him for advice - I dont know the man - in common with over 90% of the party - we never knew him apart from we saw on TV -so Im not going to comment on it any further - just to wish him the best of luck - yeah we're sore - but life goes on - I just hope that when He finally calms down that he doesn't regret what he has done for the rest of his life.
Ive rambled on way too much - suffice to say - stop talking about it , waiting for other people to do something about it and get out and do it yourself!
because if you don't........... I'll be running the joint in 15-20 years time -yeah - Im slightly ahead of schedule - yeah 15 years time!
If that isnt motivation enough!!!!
Have no regrets - Ye will be dead for long enough afterwards!