Of course we haven’t seen the worst of it, we haven’t had any riots yet

Minister Noonan’s economy is thriving.

It was thriving in the 1840s also.

James, do you actually think that he thinks that? This frame of mind could be part of our over all problem.

Very true.
….. and the last 15% is going to be the hardest!

And maybe your spelling will improve, but I doubt it.

Wats up Maurice, did you get out the wrong side of bed this morning?

Totally unnecessary Maurice! I’m sure you are perfect!

Oh my god he said their instead of there, string the bastard up : )

For that minority of the top few percent, which of course includes the politicians & senior public servants highly culpable for the mess & poor decisions since, the gravy train merely slowed a little – it didn’t stop.

For the rest of us, the toll of a lack of jobs for near 1 person in 5 (of available workforce) likely to continue 5 to 10 years at least will be a massive burden on our living standards. This represents a waste, in production of real wealth, goods & services (our prosperity!) , of at least 15% of our GDP every year – in money terms €20 to €30 billion every year, just for Ireland.

Tho’ Andrew Haldane of the Bank of England has written about such massive losses – the ones we should really be looking at – almost no other economists, politicians or media commentators have said anything about this.

What’s more, it need not be so – it is a policy choice, pure and simple, by the variously stupid (plenty of those) & vicious ideologues of the European & Euro-zone authorities (including our own here).

If we ever needed any cast iron proof that ‘democracy’ – acting in the interests of the majority – has failed, these last few years leave no doubt whatsoever.

Even the IMF, historically no friend of ordinary citizens, have realised that the ‘Austerity’ mantra is killing jobs & stalling recovery. But the EU & ECB authorities have ignored them.

Exactly the same mistakes as were made in the great (man made) depression of the 1930s have been repeated.

There is no shortage of money to provide fiscal stimulus spending right across the Eurozone – the Euro is a fiat currency & need be borrowed from no-one at the aggregated states level. Even if we pretend that money must be borrowed, an authority backed by the currency issuer controls the interest rate – as happens in sovereign currency countries like the US, UK & Japan, which already carry far higher gov debt, yet only pay 1 to 2 percent.

The Euro system is a fraud perpetrated on ordinary citizens in the interests of the wealthy elites who have almost entirely captured what little democracy we had. Make no mistake – a very nasty & greed driven ideology is determined to destroy the social democratic basis of Europe.

When, as individual countries with our our own currencies, it is unthinkable that we would deliberately impoverish regions within those countries, sharing that currency, on some spurious grounds of ‘competitiveness’.

Would we have accepted rich County Dublin grinding poor County Kerry into the dirt, turning it into an unemployed and starving Greece or Spain? As in “….the beatings will continue until morale improves…” ?

NO – we would certainly not.

When a currency is shared, we must accept we are all joined together. If one region or another is deemed economically less productive (which is rarely a ‘morality’ tale, rather near always a question of local resources & infrastructure) than another, the answer is not to punish them into starvation, but to apply +positive+ investment measures to aid development. And accept that for fundamental reasons of Geography, History & Demographics, different regions will never be equal in their productive capability measured in pure monetary value.

Enough is enough.

Time for the ordinary citizens of Europe to get out on the streets, in solidarity with each other, & stay there until the disgusting, lying, thieves, fools & ideologues of the ruling elites either adopt the real policies for recovery or resign.

Don’t be fooled thinking Ireland’s turn to become Greece or Spain, with half their young people with no job prospects for years, even decades, will not come. It most certainly will.

Want to see how incompetent our ‘authorities’ in the EU really are? Read this ‘inside’ account of the last EU Summit in Brussels:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/eu-summit-reveals-a-paralyzed-continent-a-874359.html

@Mike, a tad long winded but spot on

mike hall you are totally correct pure and simple policy choice
we have the most dangerous government in power

Spot on Mike.
As regards the youth unemployment issue.
If we take into account the young, native, Irish people that our government have exported over the past few years,
I think we are already well up there with Greece or Spain if not worse.

Even young people in our area that are lucky enough to have a job, are leaving these jobs to get out of this doomed country.
A country ran by Inbred Sleeveen Europuppets.

nothing worse than being young, free and single in a town with no others like you left in it, just like the 80′s all over again

Amen Revolting Peasant.
Amen.
When a government in a country acts like Lapdog, Stoogeen, beggars,with an inferiority complex.
I cannot blame these young brave people from heading off.
However I’m sure our “fine leaders and protectors” will box off some nice, crony, soft little, Stoogeen jobs for their own children.

Well said..but nothing will change

Mike Hall – don’t forget the private sector investment bankers & the construction industry who happily lent and invested money irresponsibly – thus accruing the monstrous debts that were later, in partnership with the political establishment, laid at the feet of the public exchequer.

The politicians (of the Liberal Free Market consensus had partnered with IBEC – multinationals, banks and large business) most deliberately ignored the advice of their senior civil servants – preferring rather their paid private sector special advisors (Peter Sutherland & co)

To blame senior civil servants is stretching the facts a little & engaging in a misguided scape goating (possibly driven by views sublimed from Independent Newspapers’ rags)

@ Michael Myke

Quote from the Nyberg report (…Causes of The Systemic Banking Crisis in Ireland…)

“….The Irish authorities had the data required to arouse suspicion about trends in the property and
financial markets. The relaxed attitude of the authorities was therefore the result of either a
failure to understand the data or not being able to evaluate and analyse the implications
correctly. Both macroeconomic and banking data could, particularly when combined, have
provided the authorities with an understanding of what was going on…..”

The Authorities referred to comprise the Central Bank, Dept of Finance & Financial Regulator – all with very highly paid senior public servants at the helm.

One might also wonder what they were thinking whilst Ireland joined a structurally deeply flawed currency union & what they have done since to try & correct those flaws?

As has been alluded to on Stephen Kinsella’s blog, just how many of these various authorities were themselves invested in the property Pyramid scheme? (Not necessarily saying how many actually realised how it would end, but how many quietly acquiesced?)

And exactly how much accountability has there been?

Not good enough in my view.

The financial sector are of course highly culpable for the mess, but they are private corporations & have no public interest mandate & do not pretend to represent any interests but their own.. I agree with Professor Michael Hudson’s views as regards the ‘financialised economy’ – it needs a severe culling. But, again, where is the demand for this from public authorities?

To the people who red thumbed this man’s point, I would love to hear why.

Because its unadulterated ultra Left Wing drivel. It’s based on economic misunderstanding and out of date rhetoric.

@michael j Collins:
Sorry to say you seem like you have not done your homework. They guy has a great point that he spells out very well, your basically saying he’s wrong with absolutely no explanation.

Which ‘Ireland’s’ economy?

Its the Troika’s ecomony. Ireland is in receivership. They will dangle a carrot of receding light at the end of the extending tunnel into the foreseeable future. Meantime they will continue to banquet as they share the pain, just as a wielder of the cat o’ nine tails shares the pain. They hold the handle, we get the lash.

The economic model is redundant.

Damien
We borrowed monies from the Bank of Last Resort. The debt must be repaid because we are still unable to live within our means. Talk of Troika Banquets are childish and silly. If we were to travel your road the State would be short twelve billion Euro for just next year with accumulated debt still a mountain in our backs. Just how would you deal with the smaller figure without collapsing what is left of our fragile economy.

We my arse.

I borrowed nothing.
And to deny the ongoing banqueting is duplicitous complicity in public fraud.

This globalised extractive banking cartel is exhausing the planet and its peoples to feed gluttonous elites. We are embarked on the 6th great species extinction and self-deluded deniers like yourself are part of the problem maquerading as the solution.

@Michael Colins/Paddy Rodgers
Is it possible for you to make a stand alone comment of your own or use your own brain to come up with something new instead of trotting out the same old party lines that you are fed.
in this year 2012 your puppets widened the gap considerably between rich and poor.
your great leader in a moment of clarity said some time ago that it was impossible to tax your way out of recession but in the two years hes been in power he has done the complete opposite. he promised to get ireland back to work but all he has managed to do is push 80,000 of our fittest and finest to the airports and ferries. he has completely ignored the mortgage crisis which will hit us straight between the eyes quite soon. you talk about collapsing our fragile economy but yet by overseeing this austerity on his people he is the one responsible for making it fragile. he, im afraid suffers from the same condition as yourself, self obsession and no amount rethoric can hide that

@ripedoffagain.

As Iceland bravely (and simply) did I’d take my chances with the “outside factors”.

But with an inept bunch of lying, toothless, spineless, incapable turncoats, running the country….
…..I’m afraid that our economy is doomed.

For him it is..his hammock is well oiled.

Sean
I thought the debate around childhood and adult suicides in the past few weeks would awaken either people’s brains or their conscience and lead them to stop the vulgar and nasty and hate filled language you use to describe a Government Minister.
Please behave like an acceptable member of the populace or shut your phone off.

Michael Noonan is taking more money from me than I can afford, in order to keep himself and his fellow liars in the style in which they’re accustomed. Therefore I’m entitled to express my opinion as strongly as I choose. They lied so as to gain power! That in my book is a crime.

An acceptable member of the populace? Wow! According to whose standards? The ones that our lying, dishonest, cheating, back-stabbing, traitorous politicians set? No thanks. I’d prefer to set my own standards of what is acceptable and to freely express my displeasure at those politicians who are not properly representing us.

Michael / Paddy / Mark Rodgers.

Again, FREEDOM OF SPEECH. He’s entitled to say whatever he likes, you can take him to task over it – as I am doing here with you, but you have no right to tell him what he can or cannot say – or that he should stop commenting. If you did, we would all have the right to tell you to shut up and behave like you had read the comments policy..

And what hateful language? I know someone who calls their friend the Garden Gnome as a term of endearment, it’s hardly hateful.. If he had called him something obviously nasty perhaps you would have a point, but I suspect you’re just doing what you always do – trying to stifle any criticism of our dear leaders and trampling all over other people’s rights and freedoms.

Keep doing it, and I’m sure the journal staff will remove your right to comment here again, what name will you use next time?

Not morons. Foolish to think otherwise.
They know exactly what is going on.

Some got a soft landing at everyone’s expense

Its the ongoing land clearances for neo-colonial financial elites who control IrelandInc and its PR-op-agenda so tightly they can even brag publicly about IrelandInc without fear anyone might point out that the corporate state is one of the prime identifiers of fascistic systems.
Poverty is an input into their extractive economic model as it enables cheap labour for a spurious economic growth which is actual simply profit growth, as the population at large is elided from their model. Numerology trumps mathematics when you eliminate people from economics. Voodoo.

@Damien so you also suspect its a land grab then? i suspect its got to do with the drying up of fresh water all across central asia and africa, within our lifetime, northern europe will become the ‘bread-basket’ of the world and land in countries like ireland will be seriously expensive

Not just land..its what it says on the Pentagonian tin.

Full Spectrum Dominance; land, sea, minerals, outer and cyber space.
Its a gluttonous omnivourous protoplasmic multi-centred parasitic psychosis grounded in our biological origins and evolved beyond any human control through centuries of imperial conditioning and collective regimentation and rationalisation into a programatic system now operating from multiple nodes of distributed control at war with each other and themselves for the monoplisation of the planet and beyond.
It has reached an unprecedented crunch point, in that the unstoppable force of its greed is running into the immovable reality of finite resources and consuming itself into the anthropocene 6th great extinction of species in full confidence it can repair the consequences of its rapacity with technofixes ad infinitum.
Some of us remain unconvinced. It finds that antithetical to its sub-human ends.

Neil
The Irish Times on Saturday last gave us an excellent overview of the economy in 2012. It was packed full of facts and figures and really intelligent commentaries on the performance of Ireland during the year. Did you read it? What a pity because all of their experts completely disagree with you. They believe the Taoiseach and his Government did extremely well in most areas of their responsibilities with a few areas disappointing. Internationally Ireland won back massive respect and that is probably reflected in the number of inward investing Companies. In fact the recognition of our Taoiseach for his steadfastness and relative success by Time magazine and a German Press group displays our continuous green eyed disease of wanting to drag everyone down to YOUR level.

Michael you are suffering from the same ideological self-delusion that predicted a soft landing when many of us were warning of what happened.

The Irish Times is responsible for that collective delusionary wishful thinking and denial of reality.
Lose the partisan bliinkers.

You’re either paid to write this rubbish or you’re an idiot. Or most probably both.

An independent businessman is not the answer either. They would be obviously vesting interests in their own direction. The country would go further into capitalistic regime if we use a successful Irish businessman running our finances, we need to get away from capitalism and invest in a better, more sustainable country. We need leaders in all fields. A good Irish business figurehead is probably needed just to deal with the troika, then decent, well thinking individuals to sort out our country.

Dig out a copy of the proclamation for 2016.

See you all at the GPO.

It won’t change until the lower paid public service workers stop covering their own sectoral arses and stand in solidarity with those excluded from any participation.

Thats how they keep us divided and exploited, with a pyramid of privilege. The economy is away with Pharaohs. It thrives on exclusivity.

Until we get holistic it will serve an increasingly steep slippery-pole elite of dynastic gluttons.

This is the type of shite that gets fired out by people that believe everything they read in the indo and hear in Newstalk.

I’m a qualified teacher working for 12 years, I’ve a hons degree, Hdip and masters. I take home less than €550 per week. Ain’t I loaded!!!! Out of that I pay all bills, mortgage, family costs etc. While I’m not crying the poor mouth my wage is not extravagant and to say otherwise is delusional.

The vast majority of public sector workers earn in around this amount, many even earn a nice bit less. In this country if you are in the longer term unemployed category you get over €200 per week, throw in allowances and housing, don’t forgot to allow for medical card and travel passes and such. The main problem in this country is that someone working on a low or on the min wage has no incentive.

And don’t forget that large multinationals pay practically zero tax in this country. It’d be far more beneficial for the country if revenue shut down all the tax loop holes and made it their business to get the low 12% tax they should be paying. It’s a joke when a niteclub in Dublin pays the same amount of tax as billion dollar companies like google, Starbucks and Microsoft.

@ Eric, from what you said you have the brains to earn more. With the time off as a teacher you should. Many people don’t have your intellectual skills or the time after work to improve there position.

Well said

I wonder what new benchmarking scheme (to bring them into line with the private sector) would do to public sector wages….. Would they go up or down? By much?

You don’t know what you think?

Difficult to understand thumbs down on this response – is it wrong? There’s not even much of an opinion here to disagree with! Why no correction and just a couple of lazy red thumbs?

Leigh party faithful will red thumb anything,
you are correct, the mortgage crisis has been totally ignored.
fine gael just like fianna fail have taken the side of the banks over its people
democracy has failed the people because when they cross the threshold of leinster house, self preservation and the promise of plum jobs in later life blinds them

almost right leigh, it was an e.u ruling that (according to the government) ‘ forced’ the courts and the banks to bring in the ruling. thats their version of it anyway,the rest of us know full well that it was engineered by the government on behalf of their mates in the banking sector.

Lazy racism really, does the fact that nearly 400,000 non nationals have left the country since 2009, present an inconvinient truth or are you simply looking for an easy scapegoat. Unemployment running at 14.5% and a continuing decline in our domestic economy are the causes of young Irish people not being able to find work. Blaming non nationals is just plain and simple racism.

Finbar can you show us the figures that back up your comment that east European labour is being brought in to replace Irish workers?

Or is it just blind ignorance?

How do you marry your opinions here….

a) Hardworking people have left
b) People here can’t get a job
c) All the jobs go to “cheap” Eastern (generally you mean Central) Europeans?

.. unless what you mean is…

a) All the “hardworking” people (who weren’t willing to take poorly paid work because there are no jobs in their sectors) left Ireland to go to economies where there was work in their sectors
b/c) People here WON’T take the poorly paid jobs that hardworking Eastern Europeans take.

Eastern Europeans came in and took jobs that were widely available and poorly paid because they weren’t being filled by Irish people. Those jobs are still there but people were used to getting the high wages of the boom and don’t consider it “worth” doing a job for little money – better to do nought and let the State take the rap. The situation is further compounded by the defunct Social Welfare system that doesn’t encourage people to find work by hamstringing them when they do (for example couples who live together and are both out of work).

Stop blaming people outside of your own ethnic group for problems that are home grown and have home grown solutions.

“Why are all the hard working ppl leaving this country”, And you aren’t leaving?

Maybe they know what the Govt don’t. Spend your way out of recession!!

im sorry mate but its absolutely possible that 48% of people can be wrong, didnt this government get in with a massive majority?

80% of people are idiots.

62.7% of people know that

And 73.4% of statics are made up on the spot

in the words of the great Homer ‘statistics! you can use statistics to prove anything that even remotely true, eleventeen % of people know that’

Demagoguery is the easiest way to win elections, as ye should all know

Its already down a good bit, and going to drop to around 22% below what is was. What do the begrudgers want? 30-40% ??

if they continue to reduce pay people will not be able to pay mortgages and personal debt, as the state owns the banks it will have to pick up the slack, which will result in more cuts and more unpaid debts, its a downward spiral, you cannot cut your way out of recession, you can only (a) devalue currency and introduce inflation, (it eradicates personal debt in record time) or (b) reduce the cost of living by lowering the price of goods and services, in a western, capitalist democracy “hahahaha” the people have been fooled into never allowing b to happen, the economy is not at the worst yet, there are several more austerity budgets to come from our unenlightened ‘leaders’ yet

Does that 22% decrease include the annual pay increases that have been handed out since the cuts? Does it include the meagre payment that is now being made to the fantastic pension on retirement! Nobody is arguing for cuts at the bottom but if you think there’s no fat still to be cut from the public sector you’re as far from reality as Noonan!

Yes, John…roll out the sweatshops.

That would be good for a start.

spot on ted, the lower paid public servants should form their own union, what a ridiculous situation whereby management and staff have the same union and both get the same % raises when one might be on €24k and the other on €120k, and they get the lower paid staff to back them in every vote

Lot of public sector red thumbs in action here, no one mention the elephant in the room.

The majority of frontline staff in the public sector are on an average wage! They have been hit several times with taxes etc and they are trying to do the job of 2-3 people because of staff shortages, so it is time to look elsewhere!

Next time you sit in a hospital and moan about how long you have to wait to be seen, why the nurses/doctors are taking so long to come back to you. That is all down to cutbacks in the public sector! It really can’t take anymore of a hit and it is such an easy target because people have this idea that its a cushy job! Yeah the people at the top might be cushy in their office, but if you want to hit the public service, you are hitting the average joes on the floor running around providing the service.

Le Sigh.
Why do I bother.
Regards,
A public servant.

A lot of the time you don’t bother

That’s the problem

What does that mean?
I don’t bother to turn up to work? I don’t bother to do my work? Or bother earning my living? Or paying my bills?

Noonan and co are completely detached from the reality of trying to survive in Ireland today. How can he make brash statements like this, when child benefit cuts, property and water charges haven’t even kicked in yet? I personally am going to be down at least €100 per month! That’s not much for some people, but it’s the difference between surviving or sinking to thousands of ordinary people.

Take your pick

Until public sector workers can be disciplined in the same manner as private sector then the joke that is the Public sector will continue unabated.

I’m not aiming this at you personally, my other half works directly in the HSE and is disgusted by what goes on daily, 50% of the people doing 100% of the work, the well known fact that its virtually possible to be sacked etc etc etc etc etc

The system is out of control

Troll

Cutting gards/doctors/nurses etc pay is a joke,they already work for modest wage putting in massive hours and dealing with pure ignorance..the cuts need to be made at the top some chap in a office doin feck all but practicing his swing for golf gets 200k,sack the guy in office and get someone in for a decent wage

Has anyone ever asked just who are we supposedly competing against and for what exactly? I mean everyone else is doing the same thing with their cuts so any cuts we make will only be relative to them, our main competition is the UK as an English speaking skilled economy as we never gonna be able to compete on labor cost with the likes if Poland or places further afield for unskilled or semi- skilled labour.

@5*filly then you will be happy to know that the service is clamping down, retrospectively i might add, on sick leave to name one issue, civil/public servants will have to produce sick notes or be docked pay from the previous 24 months for whats called ‘self assessed’ sick days, some people might be happy about this seeing most of us never received sick pay, and many public servants regarded their allocation of paid sick leave as holiday entitlements, i however find it to be grossly unfair, to do this to some of the lowest paid people in the country is very vindictive, by all means introduce it as a current and future measure but dont punish people for breaking a rule that didnt exist at the time, stalin would be proud of this one

Stop using nurses and teachers as examples.
Try looking at some if the clerical workers that work for various departments that have not got a clue what they are at.
I deal with loads of departments regularly, the level of incompetence and lack if ability is beyond belief.
A relation works for dep of health and the stories of laziness and stupidity that she relates are unbelievable.
We need to introduce realistic goals and targets, no need to take on the unions, take on attitude and work practices, introduce competition to keep your job – 1 in 8 to be made redundant based on ability and productivity.
Shake up the system.

A high percentage of civil servants are just marking time, i am dealing with them for over 30 years now and it shows little signs of improvement. 90% of youse would not last a week in private industry.

5 star, you are so right!

The problem isn’t sick pay. It’s the least of your worries. Nor is it the gent earning 200k in an office.
The problem is that I, as an extremely qualified professional, can spend more of my time on the phone to other hospitals trying to find out results of tests just done for my patient. So disjointed is it that in most cases it is easier to rerun the test from scratch than it is to look up the results on a different hospital system. That is a major flaw, and is a major waste of my time.
The problem is that nobody asks those of us who know how the system works how it could be made work better. Everybody has an opinion, but unless you work in the area, you’re very much unqualified to talk about anything.
It’s the fact that there is a full complement of HR in every Irish HSE hospital and yet a department of HR in HSE head office. What on earth do we need all these people for? What on earth can they possibly be doing?!
The SW card is a classic example of waste. Why do you need a SW card? In order to get SW you should require a passport, not a card that means nothing anywhere else on the planet!
The Irish public / civil service is complex, awkward, disjointed, there are layers of everything everywhere. It needs simplification, not complication.
Every member of every public / civil service should be sacked and rehired on a need basis. Reform please. Don’t cut my salary, I work for it, and if it is cut, I can get up and leave no problem. You don’t want that.
Reform, reform, reform.

@ John..you obviously know your trade and have ideas on how to improve but the only way it will happen is if you and your colleagues come together and put it fowred as the government haven’t a clue as they themselves are not suitably qualified in their areas..a influx of money to set up a system that helps save a doctor’s time now will have paid for its self in no time,

100% agree James! They NEVER ask what changes are needed. I have worked in places where the CEO was an accountant before taking on the role and they get to decide what cutbacks are made! What do they know about frontline staff! They wouldn’t last 5 minutes! Of course its the people that are already being pushed to the limit that suffer. We kicked and screamed for help and the response was ‘it will get worse’. So i said goodbye!

I know one thing for sure.
That having to pay an overinflated, Celtic Tiger, Ponzi scheme mortgage/loan that was miss-sold by a corrupt/criminal banker is not good justification to get a public sector pay rise.

In the private sector,
if you can’t pay your mortgage, THEN YOU CAN’T PAY YOUR MORTGAGE!!

It is just ridiculous the amount of money that is paid to public sector workers that is immediately handed back to corrupt/criminal banks, to pay for the gambling debts of corrupt/criminal bankers.
CORRUPT/CRIMINAL BANKERS THAT DESTROYED MILLIONS OF LIVES AND BROKE AN ENTIRE COUNTRY!

Everyone else got bailed out!!
Except for the people who are paying for the bailouts!!
WRITE DOWN/WRITE OFF THE PERSONAL DEBT NOW!!
AND BAILOUT JOE PUBLIC!!
YOU DONE IT FOR THE DEVELOPERS, BANKERS AND BONDHOLDERS OVERNIGHT!!!
NOW DO IT FOR YOUR PEOPLE!!
OR GET OUT!!

5 star is correct about its virtually impossible to be sacked. Many people in the hospital I work in have been caught skiving off work, robbing colleagues money from lockers and assaulting colleagues. Some of these people have been doing this years and yet get a months probation or suspension for a week.

However the likes of myself on the frontline are on average wage, taxed and worked to breaking point. Im doing masters myself in the midst of this with my own money and using my own holiday days so I can build up my skills on top of what I have to ensure patients are receiving optimum care. I am dedicated to my job. I cannot take anymore. It won’t be worth my while staying in Ireland. Il take my skill set elsewhere where I will be appreciated.

“When unions get higher wages for their members by restricting entry into an occupation, those higher wages are at the expense of other workers who find their opportunities reduced. When government pays its employees higher wages, those higher wages are at the expense of the taxpayer. But when workers get higher wages and better working conditions through the free market, when they get raises by firm competing with one another for the best workers, by workers competing with one another for the best jobs, those higher wages are at nobody’s expense. They can only come from higher productivity, greater capital investment, more widely diffused skills. The whole pie is bigger – there’s more for the worker, but there’s also more for the employer, the investor, the consumer, and even the tax collector.

That’s the way the free market system distributes the fruits of economic progress among all people. That’s the secret of the enormous improvements in the conditions of the working person over the past two centuries.”
― Milton Friedman

Milton Friedman, of Chicago Boys neoliberal fame, whose acolytes parachuted into Chile after the Pinochet/CIA bloody overthrow of a democratic government, before spreading their teachings viral via Operation Condor disappearances and torture regimes aross Latin America and beyond.

Grow a cell, if you can’t manage a cortex. That thug revived the 19th century Manchester School economics that brought Ireland ‘structural adjustment’ of consecutive famines.

Nice orderly account books, just like the ones Adolf Eichmann kept.

One thing i am sure off and that was Milton Freidman was a dick.

Damian, your grasp of history would appear to be as poor as your grasp of economics or is selectively cynical.
“The thug” Milton Friedman was a Jewish-American economist, who was awarded a Nobel prize for economics.
Eichmann was an anti-Semitic Austrian, who joined the German National Socialist Workers Party in 1932 and one of the architects of the holocaust.
Any parallels between the two are as weak as your rhetoric.
The Manchester school was founded by Richard Cobden. A personal friend, and acknowledged admirer, of Daniel O’Connell. Cobden made no secret of his opposition to the tyranny ordinary Irish people were subjected to.
I agree with you to the letter in all you say about Ireland. There is no doubt that the land question (coupled with the Church Establishment) is at the root of the evil. And here let me say that I go heartily with you in the determination to attack the land monopoly root and branch both here and in Ireland and Scotland….Wherever the deductions of political economy lead I am prepared to follow.”
Richard Cobden (in correspondence to John Bright, 1851)

@Sean

I might credit your critique of my grasp of history and economics if your grasp of literacy was sufficient to spell my name correectly.

Henry Kissinger received a Nobel prize for peace. Stick to your ideological last. Its as far as you’ll get with that breadth of vision.

Eichmann was an administrator, not an architect. My grasp of economics was sharp enough to see the PD train pulling the Troika takeover back in the late 80s. I’ve worked in marketing on three continents and have a respectable masters in history.
Teach your granny to suck eggs.

Apologies for misspelling your name Damien.
However, it is a shocking indictment of Ireland’s education system that you have a masters in history and such a poor grasp of nineteenth and twentieth century history. No wonder this nation is in crisis.

Yes, Sean, it was my poor grasp of the history of extractive imperial economic practise during the famines, and the fact that I lived through more than half of the 20th century in various capital cities while traveling a considerable acreage of the planet that created the economic mess; and not ideological neoliberal tunnel visionaries like yourself and Bertie the accountant driving their narrow self-serving agendas in full conviction of their infallible texbook theorisings.

How could I have missed it. Would you like a reading list?I suggest you commence with Michel Chossudovsky’s (Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa) ‘Globalisation of Poverty, Impacts of IMF and World Bank Reforms’.

Or is that old hat?

I’m afraid you are going to learn, eventually, that abuse does not constitute argument. Your neoliberal dictation has already failed us. You are not the economic doctor who will cure the problem.

Bertie Ahern a neo-liberal?

“Like me, Lemass was a practical socialist”
Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.

You would appear to be ill-informed. Again!

That you would believe Bertie Ahern speaks volumes.

And you giving lectures on educational standards??

You’re not a drop out; you’re a phukking flop out. Troll on, tunip.

Damien, I’m disappointed that, yet again, you’ve failed to think through your comment before posting.
You’re now claiming that Aherne was a closet neo-liberal, while claiming to be a socialist.
The same Taoiseach that presided over the most rapid expansion of the public sector in the history of the state? The creation of the HSE and hundreds of quangos is an advocate of small government?
What exactly did you mean by a “reputable” masters degree?
You can admit it. You got your degree online for $49.99 with a free signed photograph of Barach Obama.
You can’t seriously expect anyone to believe that you have a masters in history from a real university.

“Well Bertie pronouncing himself as a socialist wasn’t a surprise to me because funny enough, I believe Bertie Ahern is one of the few socialists in Dáil Eireann, and would have said that many many years ago,” Charlie McCreevy, 2005

Get back to me when you have your Junior Cert finished, Sean.

Hate to say it Damien, but you’ve lost this one.

The question is, will you sit down and learn something from this? Or continue to fight on the margins of the issue where you may have been somewhat right?

Or will maturity reign. I guess the latter

5*Fily, you hit the nail on the head with your comment. It’s a pity that many people won’t face up to the truth of your statement.

I actually found his comments a white wash and offensive.
“Many of you don’t”.
I’m reading this while taking my first break since 8pm, and probably my last until 8am, given the various rushes that are about to happen.
Yes, there are lazy sods in the public service, there are lazy sods in every walk of life. It’s called life. The problem is that the lazy sods aren’t the problem. We’d like to think they are and that they’re draining our resources. They’re not, they’re the low paid porters, cleaners, general nurses (rarely so, but sometimes), clerks, secretaries, whoever. What is a drain on our resources is the fact that there is not one single joined up system that works. It’s a mush mash of systems that kinda works in places, kinda doesn’t. It’s the fact that nurses and doctors, highly qualified people, can spend more time chasing up paper charts, or paper results in a day than we can spend actually dealing with the patient.
We like to think the problem is simple and can be fixed by firing a few people, and kicking out the highly paid. It’s not. It’s complex, and it’s a pity more people don’t face up to the truth in that statement.

… Instead of having the general populist view that everybody who works in the public service is a waster, and a drain on the country’s financial resources. Because we’re not. Some of us put in a bloody hard day (night) at work, it’s not our fault that the system is broke. We’re not the ones who broke it. We’re only the ones who deal with the results of its horrific creation.

James, don’t worry.. There are some who understand where you are coming from.. Even as a patient of our health system I can see the tremendous wastage of people who are great at their works time.. I had a minor procedure a while ago and the amount of paperwork alone I thought was excessive.
Having had to report a crime and take part in an investigation the amount of time wasted hand writing statements..
And as for the lack of coordination between CWOs and the Dole office. That’s most likely just the tip of the iceberg..

NONE of the government agencies are joined up, it just creates more time wasted and more frustration for everyone involved, only a fool would fail to see it.. But for some reason those fools seem to be running the country..

@Michael

I hate to repeat myself for the dunces whose willed ignorance retards their learning curve to an ever downward spiral of pro-cyclical idiocy…but the show aint over, and you do not referee who wins or loses.

@James…more of a blackwash smear campaign than a whitewash, they are scapegoating our public services for the organised white collar criminality of speculating gamblers and premeditating stock market scammers runing the racket Joe Kennedy and his buddies pulled on Wall St in ’29.
If you think its not pre-planned read Michel Chossudovsky’s ‘The Globalisation of Poverty’ for detail.

The deadweight is at the top in the implanted toxic botox of self-servers mismanaging our health service to excuse its slashing to skeletal minimum for the public alongside private hi-tech pampering for our dynastic elites and their pets, both bipedal and innocently animal.
Michael, above, is a fine example of such bipedal hominid botox.

yep, despite that fact you just lost your job, your house and your family some positive thinking will make everything okay :)

If life gives you lemons get hold of a chicken and remove the breasts, chop them up and marinate them in lemon juice for an hour or two then fry them in batter. Make tandoori with the remainder of the chicken and eat with a slice or two of lemon on the side.

yes damocles, you persistently show how out of touch with reality you are, so what if theres no jobs and you cant afford clothes or medicine or transport, just always look on the brightside and drink lemonade, talk about deluded bullshit

why not just say ‘let them eat cake’?

I didn’t mention lemonade.

You can wallow in misery and bemoan the dying of the light, I’ll go and look for firewood to see if I can’t keep the light going a little longer.

when you lose your security come back to me with your positive outlook, i have a major issue with this whole ‘positive outlook’ our government promotes at home and more especially abroad, its sweeping the problems of mass unemployment, personal bankruptcy, home loss and spreading depression under the carpet, if we do not face up to these things how will they be dealt with? so far this government has done nothing about any of it, all i see from them is delusion and self-congratulation, and i did notice that you didnt say anything about lemonade my chirpy friend, what you said was even more deluded

“i have a major issue with this whole ‘positive outlook’ our government promotes at home and more especially abroad,”

Really? You should try to be less circumspect about it.

why?

Sarcasm through understatement.

You can deal with things and maintain a positive outlook, the two aren’t mutually exclusive.

i agree 100% my point being that in Ireland today the problems are not being dealt with but we are persistently being told to stay positive, things are not getting better on the ground but this government keeps saying it is, in that context it seems like they are ignoring the problems that effect peoples lives on a daily basis, its all very well saying ‘be positive’ but there simply arent any jobs or even any attempts to fix anything from the great leaders we have today, in my house we have a mini crises every-time the postman delivers a letter just in case its a bill or a summons, we live with huge stress and all this talk of positivity when nothing is being addressed does my head in, easy to say be positive when you get €2k a week wages

Similarly you can not wait around for the government to fix everything, stay positive and try to turn around your personal circumstances.

You may fail, but at least you’ll have stayed positive and tried.

Sitting around moaning that the government has done nothing is depressing for you and those around you.

Although apparently me being positive annoys you. Heh.

you see damocles this is my point about you being out of touch, this statement ‘Similarly you can not wait around for the government to fix everything, stay positive and try to turn around your personal circumstances.’, if you live in rural ireland, have lost your job, have no car but have a few kids, and this is the vast majority of the almost 500k unemployed here, staying positive is all well and good but there simply are no opportunities, its so hard to get people like you to understand this, ‘i would do something’ i have heard many times from people that arent in the situation, when i challenge them for suggestions they have none, there is no few quid to uproot even to a different town, many imaginative and naturally positive people are stuck and nothing is being done to help them become productive members of society again

@”The power of positive thinking” why are our kidz parents not learning about such power? because the didn’t hear about it from the state run media of fog!. People need to stop feeding off of 6:01 bull$h¡t, day in day out

“There simply are no opportunities”

Rubbish. I can think of 3 business opportunities I’d pursue in such circumstances off the top of my head.

with what?

Yeah, like I’m going to share my ideas with the internet.

if you can start a business in rural ireland, with no capital, transport or credit, then you truly are a genius

‘..get hold of a chicken..’.
Job solved.

Then split your chicken in two, extract the eggs, and open an egg shop.
Remind chicken to cross the road with care as you need him and a lemon for luncheon appointment.
Bingo.

And now we know the chicken comes before the eggs.

First procure your chicken.

The egg came before the chicken.

Whence?

i must agree with Damocles on this 1, the egg has to have come before the chicken

Repeat: whence?

From Damocles’s hat?

from a very chicken-like bird

Then all it laid was a very chicken-like egg.

And Damocles’s chicken seems to have emerged from his lemon.

no, it laid an egg-like egg from whence chicken emerged

damocles chicken and lemon marinade came from some privileged reality where people can afford to start businesses at a whim and where no one can understand why everything isnt positively super!

aha..’.it laid..’

it being said chicken, which D produced from the sky blue lining if his eggless hat.

Go check. D’s chicken preceded D’s eggs.Which were subsequently derived post my bisection of said chicken.
QED.

You people can’t contrive to lay your hands on a chicken?

You aren’t even trying.

“Ooh, it must be the government’s fault”.

But we DID, Damo…

It was under your hat with the lemon.

“you truly are a genius”

I have my moments.

Done let the fact that we are a nation of border line alcoholics skew your view.

As for the Christmas spending, I think a lot of it is to do with people sayin feck this, im gonna enjoy myself.

Part 2:

BBC – The Trap, What Happened to Our Dreams of Freedom, 2of3 – The Lonely Robot: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbBVKK4wPK4

Part 3:
BBC The Trap – Part 3/3 – “We will force you to be free” – Greek Subs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voHbU6gaPos

I agree with this totally – but your previous comment seemed to but the blame at the door of people who HAVE found work – just because you noticed that many of them are not Irish.

It’s not an opinion, it’s a fact maybe you should learn the difference! Your point is opinion based on nothing other than prejudice and ignorance, looking for an easy target to blame.

With no domestic economy, there is no one to pay tradesmen, this is non nationals fault how? What if all the countries accepting our immigrants took your lazy racist attitudes? Answer there would probably 500,000 more young Irish unemployed stuck in this country. For any Irish person to scapegoat immigrant workers is the height of hypocrisy and stupidity.

No offence but it’d be great by the way if you used the reply to your own thread that you started rather than replying to the entire story – difficult to understand the context of your posts when they are all over the place.

If English can’t be spoken – and I believe it should be an essential qualification for Health and Safety reasons – then blame the employers recruitment policy. Being foreign and willing to work, however, should not be an issue. Perhaps you should suggest something that would get young Irish people into work? There are still plenty of ex-construction (skilled, semi- and unskilled) workers that could take the jobs if they weren’t concerned that the ridiculously high wages of the boom have now disappeared.

*shakes head* in my opinion Chris, you’re living in a dreamland….

We’ll agree to disagree, then, Kimberly. *waves*

110% agree with you

But dont new babies get new pps/prsi numbers?

@ jack, have you thought that the reason there are not ” as many big company’s closing down as there were 12 to 18 month’s ago” is because there are not as many ‘big’ company’s out there, there already gone! there are still lots of smaller businesses losing staff and closing down on a daily basis, it’s just that because its on a smaller scale it doesn’t get reported by the media,except maybe local radio or papers, but certainaly not by r.t.e (the governments favourate broadcaster). people are being conned by the e.u, the government and the media into thinking the worst is over, trying to put some positive spin on the situation, but mark my words ,once the markets recover from their christmas break the euro will again start to drop, there are big problems starting to show in france with rumour of the french needing some sort of financial help, there is also talk of britain exiting the e.u if these things happen then the whole house of cards will collapse.

John, you are right. They should be paid on productivity, would knock about 60% off most of their wages.

Once again dodging the real issue.
Systemic reform.
Not hissy little reform measures, proper roots up, top down, turn it all around, reform.

@James Connolly, I agree with you in relation to reform but the public are seriously sceptical of any mentioned in the PS. Benchmarking was to bring reform and then after that CP agreement is. Myself I have not seen any when I deal with the PS. Real reform would have to be similar to what happens in private sector where staff mainly do not get additional pay or freezes to change.

There has been major reform in the area of health, not enough, but it goes to show the depth of reform required.
With respect to CPA and other agreements that were sought to enable reform, the basis of these was not reform, the basis was job/salary protection. If reform is to be deep and long lasting, nothing can be safe, and it certainly cannot be done on the basis of “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine”.

Thank you consultant John Paul.

Dream on.