Fiscal Treaty Megathread [Poll Reset]

lkdsl

Having read the treaty, what's all the fuss about? It is mostly housekeeping about things we have already committed to. And if it puts a brake on feckless Irish governments' capacity to over-spend in the future, I'm all for that. I've lived through two disastrous periods brought on by excessive borrowing. I'll settle for slow but sure progress in the future.

K-9

lkdsl wrote: »

Having read the treaty, what's all the fuss about? It is mostly housekeeping about things we have already committed to. And if it puts a brake on feckless Irish governments' capacity to over-spend in the future, I'm all for that. I've lived through two disastrous periods brought on by excessive borrowing. I'll settle for slow but sure progress in the future.

I'm very underwhelmed by it, as were the markets and media generally at the time. Just politicians self-congratulating themselves before Xmas at getting some type of agreement. The austerity thing is a bit if a red herring as even Hollande and other mainstream left parties see the need for cuts and Higgins et al pointing to the IMF if we vote no, what do they think the IMF will insist on? And that's assuming the IMF will be able to lend to us.

coonecb1

lkdsl wrote: »

Having read the treaty, what's all the fuss about? It is mostly housekeeping about things we have already committed to. And if it puts a brake on feckless Irish governments' capacity to over-spend in the future, I'm all for that. I've lived through two disastrous periods brought on by excessive borrowing. I'll settle for slow but sure progress in the future.

Most of our problems weren't really to do with Greek-style fiscal indiscipline.

Rather, our banking system collapsed, needed to be bailed out by the Government. At the same time, our economy imploded and the number of social welfare applicants exploded, while the Government re-paid the vast majority of bank debt.

Our fiscal mess is a result of the above, it isn't the cause of the problems as such.

My point is that this fiscal treaty doesn't make allowances for the types of shocks such as when a country's highly leveraged banking system needs to be rescued by Government.

smash

Probably already been mentioned, but as far as I'm concerned the government should be shot for the pure propaganda that is stabilitytreaty.ie - It is not a stability treaty, to say it is would indicate certain stability once passed.

neantog

The population is gradually being conditioned into accepting relative poverty as the norm in society.

The quality of debate surrounding this Treaty is seldom enlightening.

The current referendum debate consists mostly of one side reacting cynically, and arrogantly, against the other side.

The YES side promote the mad "logic" of "the markets", as superior to the logic of social egalitarianism.

The politicians, political parties, and trade unions, representing the NO side, do not present a convincing argument, and appear defensive, unprincipled, and even complacent, against the shouty accusatory onslaught of the YES side. These people, one and all, are obviously very much supporters of the status quo, and are primarily driven by future electoral calculations, and personal ambitions.

It would make much more logical sense, if people debating the Treaty, were to ditch the fear factor, and present their arguments, as based on dispassionate logical analysis and assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the issues involved, instead of constantly, wearyingly, mostly basing their arguments on arrogantly reacting to, and rubbishing, an opposing viewpoint.

The argument on both sides of the debate, is very much dominated by this sense of fear, which is a great pity, because, of course, the population are in for a severe kicking, whichever side wins the referendum.

But, of course, the fear factor, is the most essential component of the YES side's armory. Remove that, and the YES side's argument falls to dust.

A debate, such as this, is likely, on both sides, to be dominated by economists, and accountants - that is, people who are trained to value money and banks, above people and society.

Ordinary people must analyse the issues surrounding the Treaty Referendum, for themselves, and not rely on the representatives - charlatans - on either side of the debate. This is essential. If ordinary people were in the habit of
researching and analysing political, and social issues for themselves, then it is certain that the country would not be in this mess.

I'll vote NO as a rejection of the rapacious reckless free-market ideology dominating the EU, and Ireland.

K-9

coonecb1 wrote: »

My point is that this fiscal treaty doesn't make allowances for the types of shocks such as when a country's highly leveraged banking system needs to be rescued by Government.

It does actually, it Allows for extreme circumstances. Assuming it didn't, isn't that a good thing? FF would have been stopped in their tracks going past the 60% limit.

smash wrote: »

Probably already been mentioned, but as far as I'm concerned the government should be shot for the pure propaganda that is stabilitytreaty.ie - It is not a stability treaty, to say it is would indicate certain stability once passed.

Stability is in the name of the Treaty.

K-9

neantog wrote: »

The argument on both sides of the debate, is very much dominated by this sense of fear, which is a great pity, because, of course, the population are in for a severe kicking, whichever side wins the referendum.

But, of course, the fear factor, is the essential, the most essential component of the YES side's armory. Remove the fear factor, and the YES side's argument falls to dust. Sadly, the NO side are incapable of correctly and honestly analysing the issues, and thus demolishing the YES side.

But, then, I suppose, a debate, such as this, is likely, on both sides, to be dominated by economists, and accountants - that is, people who are trained to value money and banks, above people and society.

Ordinary people must analyse the issues surrounding the Treaty Referendum, for themselves, and not rely on the representatives - charlatans - on either side of the debate. This is essential. If ordinary people were in the habit of
researching and analysing political, and social issues for themselves, then it is certain that the country would not be in this mess.

For my part, I am voting NO, the fear factor has no place in my calculations, rather a rejection of the rapacious reckless free-market ideology dominating the EU, and Ireland.

I've trained in Accountancy and I see the downsides in Accountancy and treating people as numbers.

I see the Yes argument as as far more sympathetic to the ordinary unemployed person as the No side. I don't want to see ordinary Public Servants seeing their pay slashed, nor SW recipients seeing their children starve.

I want to see this country get its finances in order, but not with large elements of society starving. There is a reason Governments don't look to default just like that. and it's because people don't have a clue what default means.

People right it off as some pain in the short term, well children starving is a short term gain I'd like to avoid, it will always happen, but I'd like to not add by the 100's of thousands.

padma

I'll be voting No, as listening to gilmore tonight gave me a headache and its late night and I've been thinking, so, the fiscal treaty is to keep our budget mighty tight under european law and at the end of 2013 if we need more money we can have the ability to borrow more thus, blowing the idea of tight budgeting what am i missing here. He kept going on about how we can't keep borrowing to pay for the running of the country, yet his whole ethos is to have the security to be able to borrow at the end of 2013. what am i missing? Is it the second we borrow more we blow our budget. Austerity is crap, take more money out of normal peoples hands balance our budget, then borrow wtf?

K-9

padma wrote: »

I'll be voting No, as listening to gilmore tonight gave me a headache and its late night and I've been thinking, so, the fiscal treaty is to keep our budget mighty tight under european law and at the end of 2013 if we need more money we can have the ability to borrow more thus, blowing the idea of tight budgeting what am i missing here. He kept going on about how we can't keep borrowing to pay for the running of the country, yet his whole ethos is to have the security to be able to borrow at the end of 2013. what am i missing? Is it the second we borrow more we blow our budget. Austerity is crap, take more money out of normal peoples hands balance our budget, then borrow wtf?

We have to borrow to borrow, mad as that sounds. Austerity is crap but you ain't seen nothing yet, if you think the No side have the answers.

MrPudding

Stark wrote: »

Mandatory euthanasia to replace retirement. No, hold on, that was Lisbon.

I thought Lisbon was the multi-story abortionplexes...?

MrP

padma

K-9 wrote: »

We have to borrow to borrow, mad as that sounds. Austerity is crap but you ain't seen nothing yet, if you think the No side have the answers.

tbh it's a terrible treaty, the germans are holding back on it, hollande wants to change it and kenny and gilmore have no balls to come out and say what they truly think of it. The threats being made is getting up peoples goat and like me, most people when told to do something under threat will do the opposite

. So, Europe is falling apart Merkel and co, are acting like dictators cos they've managed to have a few quid saved for a rainy day. Spain is up the creek without a paddle, everything needs to shift and the treaty if rejected may move Europe to shifting its policies. If the idea of Europe as a democracy is to advance a rejection of the treaty should be accepted and a new way paved forward which is agreeable to the future of Europe and Ireland.

Scofflaw

padma wrote: »

I'll be voting No, as listening to gilmore tonight gave me a headache and its late night and I've been thinking, so, the fiscal treaty is to keep our budget mighty tight under european law and at the end of 2013 if we need more money we can have the ability to borrow more thus, blowing the idea of tight budgeting what am i missing here. He kept going on about how we can't keep borrowing to pay for the running of the country, yet his whole ethos is to have the security to be able to borrow at the end of 2013. what am i missing? Is it the second we borrow more we blow our budget. Austerity is crap, take more money out of normal peoples hands balance our budget, then borrow wtf?

It seems contradictory, but it's fairly straightforward. Reducing the deficit to zero over a short time period hammers the economy - and as a result, doesn't actually eliminate the deficit, because the rash of business failures and increased unemployment that results undercuts the tax base and raises the welfare rolls to swallow the savings and more.

So you need to reduce the deficit gradually - Ireland's current deficit reduction path is pretty steep, about as steep as you can safely go - which means that you're still borrowing for a while in order to support the gradual path of reduction.

Hence needing to borrow in the short-term even though you're aiming to eliminate borrowing in the longer term.

cordially,
Scofflaw

padma

how about two fingers to the bondholders, tell the banks (private companies) to give us back the money they owe the Irish state, start paying tax. get a big f off loan and then swim to the tropical island awaiting us.

golden lane

the treaty is basicly for individual governments to keep their spending in check.........

the loans are to enable the countries to carry on, that means paying back the loans...

to do that and borrow more it is wise to sign up to the treaty....

to default, is to go it alone.....

it is irrevelant who is to blame.........the country needs to survive.....

how can the government enforce austerity on the general public.....whilst still paying employees extremely high wages......

that needs to be sorted.........

K-9

padma wrote: »

how about two fingers to the bondholders, tell the banks (private companies) to give us back the money they owe the Irish state, start paying tax. get a big f off loan and then swim to the tropical island awaiting us.

I'd love that too!

Nobody wants to pay tax, whether it is Corporation tax, household charges or whatever. Raising taxes is bad and we've bought into that.

I look at France, Sarkozy introduced a wealth tax and he's a right winger. That's a left wing, ULA/Higgins measure here.

K-9

Biggins wrote: »

Thank you K-9.
While we might differ over some points and views, at least your willing to reply to some of my (and I guess others) individual concerns with good stable retort.

You had substance in your post to reply to.

Evilcamper

Tbh I think we need to focus on certain questions domestically than the text of the treaty. I would tend to wonder why prices seem to be increasing when incomes have dropped as it would indicate that some group in the country is exploiting the rest of us. I would prefer the govt and people try to sort this out than think too much of fiscal stability. It would also probably be reasonable to assume if we solved this outstanding issue, then we could probably lower social welfare and employment costs. I think these are the major issues in the country rather than how much control Europe has on us. I also tend to wonder why we keep blaming Germany for the treaty since there were probably more countries involved.

This Fiscal Stability treaty is really a choice between two bad outcomes!
It's a bit like asking how do you want to get into the cold swimming pool!
Yes, very slowly one freezing step at a time until you're fully submerged after several minutes of cold shock to different parts of your body or
No, a swift kick up the arse and straight in, all the shock at once!

The Euro appears doomed to failure as the foundations for stability were never built at the start, underpinning a collapsing structure has a very high risk of failure.

In this case it's better to just let it fall and start again!

Scofflaw

Deleted User wrote: »

This Fiscal Stability treaty is really a choice between two bad outcomes!
It's a bit like asking how do you want to get into the cold swimming pool!
Yes, very slowly one freezing step at a time until you're fully submerged after several minutes of cold shock to different parts of your body or
No, a swift kick up the arse and straight in, all the shock at once!

...and then a follow-on series of diminishing kicks and shocks. It's hardly surprising those are the choices, though - our economy did collapse, after all.

Deleted User wrote: »

The Euro appears doomed to failure as the foundations for stability were never built at the start, underpinning a collapsing structure has a very high risk of failure.

In this case it's better to just let it fall and start again!

No offence, but you appear to be starting from "euro delenda est" and working backwards to "why". The euro worked all right during the good times, but its creators failed to build in crisis mechanisms, something they're clumsily and hastily doing now.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

Scofflaw wrote: »

No offence, but you appear to be starting from "euro delenda est" and working backwards to "why". The euro worked all right during the good times, but its creators failed to build in crisis mechanisms, something they're clumsily and hastily doing now.

cordially,
Scofflaw

The Euro suffers the same fundamental fault as any other debt based fiat currency in a declining economy, the financial system is hard coded to operate in "growth" mode only.

The banking system depends entirely on growth to repay the debts that they have issued from creating money from fractional reserve banking.

Growth requires an ever increasing supply of (cheap) energy & manufacturing capacity as well as of course consumers with more money.

Currently we have none of those vital ingredients.

coonecb1

K-9 wrote: »

It does actually, it Allows for extreme circumstances. Assuming it didn't, isn't that a good thing? FF would have been stopped in their tracks going past the 60% limit.

What happens if the treaty is passed and 20 years from now we have to bail out the banks exactly the same as in 2008 (i.e. assuming the same guarantee, same amount of debt etc)??

The Government will be constrained and will have to let the banks default on their debt (i.e. burn the bondholders) OR the Government will bail the bondholders out, and be fined for driving up the deficit, thus making that same deficit even worse.

K-9

coonecb1 wrote: »

What happens if the treaty is passed and 20 years from now we have to bail out the banks exactly the same as in 2008 (i.e. assuming the same guarantee, same amount of debt etc)??

The Government will be constrained and will have to let the banks default on their debt (i.e. burn the bondholders) OR the Government will bail the bondholders out, and be fined for driving up the deficit, thus making that same deficit even worse.

We had very low debt in 08, second lowest in Europe, 24/25% of GDP IIRC. The blanket guarantee would never have come in I think and they'd have had to prioritise banks, no Anglo basically.

Scofflaw

Deleted User wrote: »

The Euro suffers the same fundamental fault as any other debt based fiat currency in a declining economy, the financial system is hard coded to operate in "growth" mode only.

The banking system depends entirely on growth to repay the debts that they have issued from creating money from fractional reserve banking.

Growth requires an ever increasing supply of (cheap) energy & manufacturing capacity as well as of course consumers with more money.

Currently we have none of those vital ingredients.

I think that's a more general criticism of "fiat currencies", rather than anything specific to the euro. It's certainly not something that would change if the euro were replaced with national currencies again, since those are also fiat currencies.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Varied

Vote yes for jobs.

Scofflaw

Scofflaw wrote: »

I think that's a more general criticism of "fiat currencies", rather than anything specific to the euro. It's certainly not something that would change if the euro were replaced with national currencies again, since those are also fiat currencies.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Unfortunately correct, but also very important to highlight the issue as it looms large in any attempt to resolve the issue, especially if you factor in the fact that the BRIC nations are still currently growing but at the expence of the western established economies.

All the wealth is flowing away the countries that "exported" their manufacturing industries over the past couple of decades.

Ultimately, the only result we're going to see is (real wealth) deflation, either as a dose of hyperinflation, wiping out the value of savings or as a real asset price reduction coupled with falling wages.

I hope that I'm proven wrong!

Duiske

coonecb1 wrote: »

What happens if the treaty is passed and 20 years from now we have to bail out the banks exactly the same as in 2008 (i.e. assuming the same guarantee, same amount of debt etc)??

The Government will be constrained and will have to let the banks default on their debt (i.e. burn the bondholders) OR the Government will bail the bondholders out, and be fined for driving up the deficit, thus making that same deficit even worse.

There's an "exceptional circumstance" clause built into the treaty. While it does not outline what those circumstances might be, i would imagine that propping up failing banks would be near the top of the list.

macraignil

Some very good points already stated.
Just curious what a democracy is(I grew up in Ireland). Voting yes or no to me is like deciding between FF and FG to run the country.
Yes would be similar to saying it is OK to kill Michael Collins and let the English use our ports and harbours. Then Europe might allow us borrow from the Euro monopoly money fund (if we agree to have an unachievably accurate budget that would mean we were as likely to have a surplus as a deficit).
A no would be like saying give away part of the island because we can't afford to run the full landmass. Having the Euro without some sort of structural funding would be like keeping the english pound and claiming to be independent.
Any chance we could just give India Coillte or a few islands if they allow us to start using the rupee? Hyperinflation similar to what was allowed to happen when we joined the Euro could happen again in this situation so we would need to have a government with some sort of social conscience first.

lightspeed

Im not sure if others were as surprised as me but tonight Germany and France said that they owe a duty to Greece to keep them in the euro and help them however possible even though Greece will not abide by any austerity package whatsoever. They will not even make any changes to the retirement age of 55 in Greece. Take that into account and then ask what will happen to Ireland if we vote no? Well worse case scenario could be that we end up in Greece's shoes, that does not seem to bad. They have already had over 100 billion euro of debt written off, perhaps if our cowardly politicians were not so eager to please our fuher we could have struck a bette deal, at least with the Anglo promissory notes payment.

Another important issue is what about Spain? Its generally accepted that they wont even meet the revised and reduced deficit targets, so how will they reach the targets set out in this treaty with 25% unemployment and now they are only beginning to get to grips with their bankng crisis. So how that gonna work out?

This treaty is nothing but a piece of paper to try get Angela Merkel by another year to survive long enough to get reelected next year. The markets are not going to suddenly relax because people agree to words on page. Hollande tonight said even Eurobonds are on the table and thats exactly what is needed. The whole EU is so fundamentally flawed. In the USA they dont just abandon the troubled states to fix their own financial problems with no federal funding and huge interests rates to pay but thats not the case in the EU. Hence the absolute failure of the european recovery.

Germany was irresponsible when they lent the money to so many banks during the boom years to begin with now they think they can just lend more money, charge large amounts of interest and enforce austerity so that they dont have to pass any measures of austerity on their own people. They have never had such low unemployment since the fall of the berlin wall and posted growth of 0.5% Gdp just yesterday. The germans seem to forget that they are in a single currency that risks collapsing.

There is an all one community approach on federal law, single currency and immigration but with debt there is an on your on own approach. Its just too flawed to work. I will be voting no cause the longer this game of Jenga continues, the longer it will be before the Germans bite the bullet and agree to issuing Eurobonds to help Europe recover.

Don't forget that Germany needs the PIIGS to act as an anchor for the Euro to keep its value low so their exports remain competative, without the PIIGS the Euro could easiliy jump 30% or so relative to the US dollar.

Goodbye trade advarntage.

PaddyORuadhan

Varied wrote: »

Vote yes for jobs.

In AUSTRALIA!