Criticism, analysis, response: The BudgetJam live blog. Email your comments here or comment below.
20.00 Technical problems -- including some of my own here locally -- have meant that this hasn't been quite the all-action day on the liveblog that we'd hoped for. But thanks to all the tweeters who have kept the ball rolling (Twitter hashtag #budgetjam), especially with news and views about protest actions in the coming days. More to come on that front, for sure. Also keep an eye on Facebook, and make friends with 'Budgetjam Ireland'.
In the meantime, as it's bedtime for a small person around here, I'm going to sign off, not with plans for action but with a little food for thought -- my appetite was whet by that whopper Therese caught. I think one way we could focus our budgetjamming message is to think hard(er) about the folks and forces who've brought us the bailout. The Phoenix has a terrific piece at the front of the current edition spelling out who literally profits by it -- that helps to bring the question into focus. So here's the challenge: cui bono? Who are the real players in this crisis? Clearly not most people on this island. But what about indigenous capital? Do our more right-leaning correspondents have a point when they suggest that trade unions, and public-service unions in particular, have had a big part in shaping the crisis and the response to it? (And would that be a problem?) Do the foreign institutions involved in the bailout have any competing interests? Can we build a league-table of who is served by the current plan and the myths sustaining it? And would that be any use to us politically?
Keep your thoughts coming!
19.40 Therese Caherty has fished us up a delicious column from Danny McCoy of IBEC, published in the Financial Times a mere 10 weeks ago (Sept 30), after what was billed as "the final scale" of the bank bailout was revealed. No link, as it's from the depths of the darkest seas of Paywallia, but here's a sample. It's "trust us, we have a plan", but addressed to foreign investors rather than the Irish punter. I particularly like the frank statement that Ireland is a 'test bed':
"Rating agencies and analysts have questioned the capacity of our small economy to cope with its emerging debt. Ireland has also become a test bed for state recovery strategies, including the introduction of austerity measures and the resolution of complex banking problems.
"Thursday’s figures reveal the undeniably high, but manageable, costs of the domestic bank bail-out. The one-off impact is to push the ratio of deficit to gross domestic product to 32 per cent. However, the Irish government has also committed to framing a budgetary plan to reduce the underlying deficit to 3 per cent by 2014. This plan will help to satisfy market concerns by providing clarity on the scale of the painful, but deliverable, fiscal adjustments needed in coming years. And underneath, Ireland’s economy is much stronger than it at first appears...."
19.05 Rory Fitzgerald at
Newswhip rounds up the case against the bailout, with plenty of established voices convinced it won't work. Two questions, though: (1) 'work' for what? -- i.e. should we take stated intentions seriously? And (2) what would it take for this consensus to penetrate the political process? Oh, and the Irish Times leader-column?
18.50 Interesting that the Labour party is more deaf than the Irish Independent's editorial-writer when it comes to the sound of the tide turning.
From Gavan: Who spoiled the fun? I just checked out the Irish Independent
editorial expecting to be able to continue Eadaoin's drinking game from yesterday. Seems my bottle of Buckfast will stay firmly in the brown bag for now. A precise enough summary of what has now become orthodox analysis:
"The inability to provide for default, or to countenance an exit strategy, are also undermining confidence. And the wisdom of the rigid refusal to allow any European bank to fail is also an increasingly hot-button issue.
Thus, nervousness and uncertainty is being ruthlessly exploited by the markets.These are flaws that have to be dealt with if we are to get ahead of this crisis.Ireland is paying a severe price for the failure to address such matters.That such a meltdown should be triggered by a country that accounts for about one per cent of the European economy says all that needs to be said.It is unreasonable for countries like Germany and France to expect Ireland to shoulder responsibility for what is an intrinsic fault across the zone.Many may feel that this country was treated unfairly concerning the bailout.
But we have not been singled out as a scapegoat. The truth is that Europe has no procedures in place for coping with such contingencies. Should Brussels continue to ignore these weaknesses the fallout could be catastrophic for the entire union."
In the life of this blog, editorials such as this one have shifted from a bend over for the medicine discourse, fixated on the national, to a sudden realisation that Ireland is a site of crisis. You would think that FF's instinct for preservation, if nothing else, would sense this shift and go for a populist 'we will not sell you out' grandstand?
18.33 By the way, did I dream the following change in the news heads on Morning Ireland: 7am -- “an estimated one in five people has stayed home from work due to the weather”; 8am -- “an estimated one in five workers...”?
Given the rates of unemployment and underemployment, the first one was tactless as well as arseways, wasn’t it?
We must see if we can find a name for the myth of the radicalism of the Labour party. (Answers on a tweet please.)
After Labour presented its Budget proposals today, here’s Roisin Shortall on Drivetime explaining that the party would cut 30,000 public-service jobs; that it accepts the bailout’s overall time-frame for spending cuts but would tinker with the details slightly; but that, with a glance over its shoulder at Sinn Fein and Left independents, it would introduce a new tax rate (a hardly rich-bleeding 48 per cent) for couples on more than €200,000.
Leading Philip Boucher Hayes to pronounce with great “Aha!” in his voice -- “Doesn’t this show there are really big ideological differences” between Labour and Fine Gael? This is sure to be a theme for the weekend papers. I wonder what would constitute a small ideological difference if the above manages to be a big ‘un.
Sinn Fein’s economic policies, meanwhile, are “simply unbelievable”, Shortall said, ruling out coalition with any party other than the Blueshirts, despite the latter being evidently Labour’s sworn class enemies.
