Possible FF / FG Coalition – Good for the Economy?

golfwallah

Dr.Tank Adams wrote: »

FF and FG are essentially the same thing in a different guise imo, neither have proved to be paticularly to the economy in the past and I see no reason why that would change if they joined.

Noted economist John Kenneth Galbraith once said: “All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.”

Most people would agree that the major issue facing us all today is the economy – evidence that austerity is the big subject of the moment appears almost every day in the newspapers, on radio, TV and on the internet.

Why is then, that the big issues for our politicians are the argument about retaining the Seanad and how their parties will fare in the upcoming local elections?

And the present Labour/FG coalition continues with their version of austerity, while it increases borrowing to fund an overpaid public service (e.g. increments still in force for higher paid public servants and an out of control health service budget), waste and over-generous welfare handouts.

The electorate are getting fed up with politicians from all the major parties for their continued failure to face up to the real glaring issue of fixing the economy.

This leaves an emerging gap in the market for a more direct approach - but where are the leaders going to come from to lead us out of the mess?

Lucinda Creighton, Michael McDowell, Shane Ross (possibly forming a new party)? I doubt it – no sign of any of these folk making the economy their major issue.

Does this mean we are stuck with future coalitions between FG, Labour, FF or Sinn Fein?

Dr.Tank Adams

golfwallah wrote: »

Noted economist John Kenneth Galbraith once said: “All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.”

Most people would agree that the major issue facing us all today is the economy – evidence that austerity is the big subject of the moment appears almost every day in the newspapers, on radio, TV and on the internet.

Why is then, that the big issues for our politicians are the argument about retaining the Seanad and how their parties will fare in the upcoming local elections?

And the present Labour/FG coalition continues with their version of austerity, while it increases borrowing to fund an overpaid public service (e.g. increments still in force for higher paid public servants and an out of control health service budget), waste and over-generous welfare handouts.

The electorate are getting fed up with politicians from all the major parties for their continued failure to face up to the real glaring issue of fixing the economy.

This leaves an emerging gap in the market for a more direct approach - but where are the leaders going to come from to lead us out of the mess?

Lucinda Creighton, Michael McDowell, Shane Ross (possibly forming a new party)? I doubt it – no sign of any of these folk making the economy their major issue.

Does this mean we are stuck with future coalitions between FG, Labour, FF or Sinn Fein?

I think a real leader should do more than just confront anxiety, they should actually tackle the problems and try to solve them. This is one of the fundamental problems of politics, too many spoofers more than happy to talk about the problems, but not nearly enough willing to actually do something pro-active about them.

Mr.Micro

Dr.Tank Adams wrote: »

I think a real leader should do more than just confront anxiety, they should actually tackle the problems and try to solve them. This is one of the fundamental problems of politics, too many spoofers more than happy to talk about the problems, but not nearly enough willing to actually do something pro-active about them.

Well in truth that rules Michael Martin out. He had 11 years as a minister and was a player in the last Government. He is now leader of FF, so what is he going to do different to make him a real leader?

johnnyskeleton

Dr.Tank Adams wrote: »

I think a real leader should do more than just confront anxiety, they should actually tackle the problems and try to solve them. This is one of the fundamental problems of politics, too many spoofers more than happy to talk about the problems, but not nearly enough willing to actually do something pro-active about them.

Confront anxiety as used by Galbraith means addressing the cause of that anxiety. No one is suggesting that a good leader is one who identifies the important issue and simply says "there, there"

Dr.Tank Adams

Mr.Micro wrote: »

Well in truth that rules Michael Martin out. He had 11 years as a minister and was a player in the last Government. He is now leader of FF, so what is he going to do different to make him a real leader?

No I don't think he is, personally I never want to see FF in government again. They've been in power for two major economic f*ck up's in the last thirty years and they'd probably do the exact same think all over again if they got into power, they just don't learn, nor do many voters unfortunately.

michael999999

Dr.Tank Adams wrote: »

No I don't think he is, personally I never want to see FF in government again. They've been in power for two major economic f*ck up's in the last thirty years and they'd probably do the exact same think all over again if they got into power, they just don't learn, nor do many voters unfortunately.

Here in kerry, all the old fianna fail heads are coming out of the woodwork again. Dan kiely and tom mc ellistrim launching themselves to run in the next election. These were the guys that backed bertie all the way for decades.

Fianna fail pigs will always be close to the trough!

theequaliser

Don't forget poor John O' Donoghue! How could the Irish people be so ungrateful to the soldiers of destiny, who ruled this great land of ours for 60 years of our freedom!

We were so lucky to have them working tirelessly on our behalf, indoctrinating some new laws into Irish laws, including nepotism, politicising of all authorities, slieveenism, (get the picture)

Someday history may be unkind to these exact same soldiers, dream on

realitykeeper

An alternative to a FF/FG coalition would be a permanent merger of those two parties. Its time to end civil war politics.

touts

I think we need a strong Center Right party to tackle the crisis in the out of control spending on Welfare and Health. Most of the rest of the Economy has seen reform but Health and Welfare are struggling because in Health we have a Minister who is too close to the issue and can't take hard decisions that might impact on his earning potential after he is booted from office. In Welfare we have a minister who can't make tough decisions that might make people uncomfortable.

However both those departments show why we need a new party. FG can't do it because it is full of old vested interests like Reilly who are out to protect themselves and their mates. "Labour" have stopped being a party representing working people and instead are now the "Welfare" party. They are incapable of introducing any of the necessary reforms (maximum payment caps, vouchers, taxing benefit payments, stopping child benefit to those who dont need it or who live outside the state). Fianna Fail can't do it because they have lost all credibility and face at least 10 years of rebuilding (if they even can). A coalition involving any of those disfunctional parties is doomed to failure.

So a new Center Right party is now essential to get this country back on it's feet.

Idbatterim

"Labour" have stopped being a party representing working people and instead are now the "Welfare" party.

Labour in my opinion are the party for welfare and public service...

chopper6

theequaliser wrote: »

Small businesses are crucified by inept and backward looking Local Authorities and their Agents and County Councillors through increased rates, metro north levies, increased planning levies, water rates on schools(need I go on)

Why blame local authorities when it's largely the fault of private landlords and "upward only" rent reviews?

golfwallah

chopper6 wrote: »

Why blame local authorities when it's largely the fault of private landlords and "upward only" rent reviews?

I’d say it’s pretty clear from the evidence of what has been happening. You only have to contrast Local Authorities to Private Rentals.

Private landlords during the Celtic Tiger pumped up rents and were in a position to use “upward only” rent reviews - not good for the average citizen. And, yes, it’s taken time, but the market and the courts eventually began to sort out this problem when demand fell and commercial renters gave the landlords the choice between customer insolvency / no rent or a negotiated rent reduction.

Councils, on the other hand, have proven much slower to react to changes in the economy in any way other than increasing rates, borrowing or reducing services to Joe Public.

To be fair, they have divested themselves of their own loss making waste collection activities. And even though they still have the staff, the net effect is probably better than the truck loads of money they were losing on waste.

But they still have bloated budgets. Examples are the Library Service (average cost per book borrowed in Fingal Co. Co. Libraries is €10 and their loss making golf courses are being subsidized by about €600K per annum). The market will be a lot slower to sort out this problem, costing many private sector people their jobs through insolvency.

But dare the Councils expose these inefficiencies to public scrutiny – not likely. Costs are aggregated to such a summarised level in their published accounts and budgets that it is almost impossible to find out what any particular service is costing, without having questions raised by Councillors. So the general public is not in a position to find out what is going on as a matter of routine – thanks to the highly summarised format of accounts agreed between the Department and the County Managers. After all, why let the public in on this little secret by rocking the boat with true financial transparency? Good grief, this might put County Managers in a position where they would have to act!

Idbatterim

all this talk about the bloody Seanad and saving 20million! The welfare budget is 20 billion, its time to get serious about things. What is 20million as a % of our deficit or annual spend? A fraction of a percent! Its all bloody smoke screens and mirrors...

golfwallah

Idbatterim wrote: »

all this talk about the bloody Seanad and saving 20million! The welfare budget is 20 billion, its time to get serious about things. What is 20million as a % of our deficit or annual spend? A fraction of a percent! Its all bloody smoke screens and mirrors...

Exactly! And that’s the whole point of this thread – to ask people to think about alternatives to the current policies of a longer than necessary period of debt overhang. While we have this enormous debt, a growing percentage of our annual budget is sucked up with interest and debt repayment instead of being spent on the productive activities that will benefit the majority of people in the long term.

As I see it, coalition is based on compromise. And the current coalition is based on parties with fundamentally different philosophies:
• FG - generally favours free enterprise, affordable taxes, and a “levelling up” approach of the population’s abilities to compete in the world markets, with public spending and welfare being funded from the available budget balance.
• Labour - generally favours public spending, higher unaffordable taxes and a “levelling down” approach, whereby an increasing proportion of the population’s income is used to support unaffordable public spending and welfare, with any shortfall being funded by borrowing.

FF & FG may be denying it, but more and more people are now seeing that they are almost indistinguishable in their political philosophies.

And what other alternatives are out there? FG & SF or FF & SF – perhaps, but it’s highly unlikely. And what about the independents and the FG rebels? Well we’ll always have a few single issue independents under PR and the “rebels” look increasing likely to re-merge with FG.

raymon

golfwallah wrote: »

FF & FG may be denying it, but more and more people are now seeing that they are almost indistinguishable in their political philosophies.

You have not provided any basis for the "FF are the same as FG " argument.

golfwallah

raymon wrote: »

You have not provided any basis for the "FF are the same as FG " argument.

I have actually pointed out the generally perceived commonalities – if you read my last post. Moreover, the practicalities of Dail seat numbers will do more to dictate what happens after the next election than any specific policies.

Specific policies will not be fully known until the next election, so debate about them at this stage is pretty futile. Current debate is more down to perceptions of the relative FG & FF positions in the Irish political spectrum. As I see it, the major parties are generally perceived as centre right with FG right of centre, FF as slightly left of FG, with Labour further left again.

After that, numbers will take over and the question remains – will a more centrist FG / FF coalition be more in our long term interest than the current centrist FG / very left of centre Labour?

By the time the next election comes around, I believe more and more people will have moved towards thinking that it is.