What have we come to

FarmerBrowne wrote: »

Heard a bit of MLMD addressing her party today, gave lip service to health and homelessness but waffled on for ages on a referendum for a United Ireland. This seems to be their big one so they can give the 2 fingers to unionists, would be more in their line to focus in on trying to plan how they are going to implement their ludicrous election objectives than harping on about a United Ireland that most people really couldn't less care about or don't want.

Why not obth?

You can strive for a united ireland while fixing the current issues we have right now. Both things are kind of separate from each other.

Tony EH wrote: »

Nobody's being "kicked out" after a couple of years though. In the case of FG, they've been in place for just under a decade and they've done nothing about the problems that face younger folk in this country. Worse than that, they don't even seem to be ideologically disposed to bother doing anything about those issues. They were given the trust of the people in 2011 after FF blew things spectacularly and all they did was just let the kettle boil again to where we are now and we're looking at another potential bust scenario coming soon.

We have, frankly, ridiculous situations facing far too many people in this country, with regards to basic living requirements. A modest house will set you back a criminal amount of money that hocks you into debt until you're an OAP and the alternative is extortionate rents by a cartel of private landlords who can up the rent price every 12 months if they wish. We may have so called "full employment", but jobs (many of which are mickey mouse) are transitory these days and simply cannot be counted on. You can, literally, be in work one month and out the next on the whim of the employer. And all the while you can watch granny die on a trolley in A+E.

Something needs to change. We need to move away from this idea that there's "endless" growth, constantly pushing a situation until it blows and we all get thrown back to square one. We cannot keep going around and around like this.

Precisely why FG need to be in opposition and not in government:)

Deleted User wrote: »

It’s more the electorate.
They want a boom which inevitably lead to a bust.
I’d prefer neither extreme.

I don't think this is the case. The electorate want stability, not boom and bust, which doesn't benefit the vast majority of them. The electorate want to be able to plan their lives, which a lot cannot do because their futures are so grim at the moment. A lot of them won't own their own home, will be in a constant state of flux in in private renting, will lose their job(s) at some point and ultimately be beholden to a situation that's absolutely out of their control.

People I've talked to are sick of this. They don't want this merry go round of boom and bust any more. It doesn't help them.

We have grown adults, in their 40's, being forced to go back to mammy and daddy, because they can't even buy a tiny 1 bed apartment that reasonably distanced to their place of work. That's a crazy situation.

frillyleaf wrote: »

How will SF actually form a government if FF refuse to work with them?

It seems odd that SF didn't run enough seats but maybe they didn't expect as much support . It really could come down to a numbers issue if they can't fill all the seats!

All seems to very quiet, I wonder will there be another election and if so SF will likely lose a lot of seats due to recent video clips and information about their candidates :eek: We will likely be with FF FG by the end of May !

If everybody holds to their current positions there will be another election. That is inevitable.

frillyleaf wrote: »

How will SF actually form a government if FF refuse to work with them?

It seems odd that SF didn't run enough seats but maybe they didn't expect as much support . It really could come down to a numbers issue if they can't fill all the seats!

All seems to very quiet, I wonder will there be another election and if so SF will likely lose a lot of seats due to recent video clips and information about their candidates :eek: We will likely be with FF FG by the end of May !

I think SF would do better if there's a new election.

They can spin it as them being excluded from being part of the government despite being the most popular party so I don't see why anyone would switch from them.

And if they're smarter about placing candidates they could win a lot more seats (albeit possibly at the expense of some PBP and other left wing candidates)

Foxtrol wrote: »

If voters read the SF manifesto, a vote for them doesn't point to wanting stability though. Several of their policies would fundamentally change elements of our economy.

It is a huge gamble in the hopes of getting increased services. They may want personal stability but voted for the opposite.

I didn't vote for them myself, but I've talked to a lot of folk that did over the past few days and there were some surprising people involved too. People that I'd never thought with take a punt on the Shinners...ever.

But the overriding trend throughout all the feedback was that people are uncertain of their futures and simply do not see FFG (especially FG) being responsive to those fears. The folk I talked to want stability in their futures as far as being able put a roof over their heads. They reckon that the jobs market has been lost to chance long ago and understand that the job they're in now may not be there in a few years time, but it's the housing situation that was uppermost in everyone's minds.

I understand their fears completely too, even though I'm pretty ok at the moment. Still have a long way to go on a mortgage, mind you. But we're relatively ok. But, as one girl pointed out to me, she and many of her peers don't even get a sniff at a mortgage and under current trends, never will.

That's the stability I'm talking about. The stability of people's lives as far a basic living requirements are concerned.

The "fundamental changes" in our economy may be what's needed, I don't know. But what I do know is at present we follow a model that guarantees a bust, because markets are uncontrolled and are let get to a point where they go bang. With this neo-liberal way of doing things, we have collapses that are built in and while that may be considered "stable" by some, the vast majority of people don't view it that way.

Yurt! wrote: »

A very good summation of a lot of people's feelings. Headline GDP figures aren't bankable for a hell of a lot of people.

Yes, I feel people will vote on what is applicable to their own situation. When do many families are unstable in housing - which is a very basic need - they will vote for whatever party will address this. Same as health. I suppose it is difficult for people to think in terms of the overall economy when they have no hope of owning a home and are paying extortionate rent every month.

Bill 2.0 wrote: »

It's only about 1 in 5 people that rent in this country and that includes people paying a pittance of rent for social housing.


The media told you housing was a huge issue and you believeed it hook, line and sinker.

And roughly one in four people voted for Sinn Fein, which would easily match your figures if you include people who aren't renting, but are still living in their family home despite working good jobs because they can't afford to rent. It's clearly a big issue, to pretend otherwise is ridiculous.

I'm obviously only speaking for my own social circle here but it does include people from a wide variety of backgrounds, and the vast majority - including "D4" types from very wealthy families - are just sick of being asked to pay four figures in rent for shoeboxes, and infuriated by a government whose housing minister very smugly stated that young people should be happy about being asked to pay more and more for less and less.

It's fairly simple really - increasing the cost of living while not increasing average take home pay over several years is commonly known as "stagflation". Stagflation doesn't get picked up by macroeconomic indicators which is precisely why those who live in ivory towers and only see economic reality through graphs and numbers on paper as opposed to average individual human lives, tend not to understand it or even realise it's going on. That's why, for example, Enda Kenny was so surprised in 2016 when he went canvassing, and admitted in several interviews that he underestimated just how little the economic recovery was translating into making it easier for people to get by.

Stagflation has continued in recent years, which means that while macroeconomic factors look good, peoples' quality of life (particularly those who are not homeowners) has been declining. Most people my age have far less disposable income now than they did four or five years ago, due entirely to increases in the cost of living combined with stagnating incomes.

People would always be angry with a government who presided over a situation like this, to a degree, but FG essentially poured petrol onto the fire by having obnoxiously smug, arrogant assholes like Eoghan Murphy going around telling people that somehow the stagflation that they were experiencing was a good thing. That someone who was evicted from their €900 per month apartment with its own living room and kitchen after a lease of several years should be delighted that the government has given Bartra the go-ahead to build a block just around the corner which will charge €1,400 per month for studios that don't even have kitchen facilities. This is classic stagflation - things get more expensive and their quality goes down.

When you combine this with increases in utility bills and also the general increased cost of doing anything social because businesses have been forced to pass spiralling insurance costs on to their customers, you have a recipe for an absolutely miserable generation. Throw the perception that the government not only doesn't give a f*ck, but is actually happy about the situation and happy to take advantage of it (Maria Bailey and Josepha Madigan where insurance is concerned, half the feckin Dáil where skyrocketing rents are concerned, etc) and you have a generation which genuinely, truthfully believes that the government, worse than just not giving a f*ck, is actively happy about the exploitation of this generation, regardless of how their quality of life is declining year on year due to this ongoing stagflation. Sh!t such as the Bartra issue and the whole O'Devaney Gardens redevelopment just exemplify the perception that Fine Gael genuinely don't care about how their "trickle up economics" is decimating the lives of those whose income is being trickled up.

Whether you believe that this is a government which simply doesn't believe in anything other than market economics and is a passive partner in the stagflation issue, or you believe (as many young people do) that they're actively fanning the flames because their cronies and clients are benefitting from everyone else's misery is somewhat irrelevant - the bottom line is that young people have entirely lost faith in the idea that the government cares about them. This is why #VoteLeftTransferLeft was such a big movement - the idea is that FFG don't care about the government's role in improving quality of life and controlling the economy to enough of a degree that wealth inequality and stagflation do not impact peoples' everyday lives, and that it's worth trying literally any other combination of politicians because at least they might do what we know FG will not.

Resuming the state building of social housing and tackling the insurance industry head on (instead of actively trying to game it for personal gain like those selfish gobsh!tes Madigan and Bailey) would be two giant measures a government could take to prove that it recognised this stagflation as a real problem and a "block" between macroeconomic improvements and individual quality of life. But no young person I've spoken to trusts FFG to get it done, since they sincerely and genuinely believe that FFG are lining their own pockets on the back of the crisis and don't care who gets hurt in the process.

Foxtrol wrote: »

If voters read the SF manifesto, a vote for them doesn't point to wanting stability though. Several of their policies would fundamentally change elements of our economy.

It is a huge gamble in the hopes of getting increased services. They may want personal stability but voted for the opposite.

I often use this analogy to explain why young lefties don't view political stability as a positive thing - the two halves of the Titanic are extremely stable at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, they've barely moved in the last hundred years and they're highly unlikely to move any time soon barring some kind of cataclysmic earthquake or eruption in their vicinity. Stability is exactly what you don't want if you regard the political system as fundamentally f*cking you over, in that context stability means it will continue to do so indefinitely. Most of us want fundamental changes to our economic system because right now it is badly hurting us and ruining our lives from several different angles simultaneously. Stability means this doesn't change, so as far as many in this generation are concerned, screw stability. It's the opposite of what we want.

Foxtrol wrote: »

Voting for quick fixes isn't voting for stability, even if your hoping for down the line is a stable life.

It is akin to wanting a stable life and going to Vegas and putting all your savings on red in the hopes of doubling up to pay for it. It is a damn lot easier than slowly saving your money but it isn't a decision based on stability.

People clearly felt improvements weren't coming fast enough in housing and health but with SF policies there is a clear risk of going back to double digit unemployment and a completely unsustainable budget.

Yes, our current economic model does involve cycles but with prudent management the down times shouldn't be as bad as what Ireland experienced the last time. SF manifesto would put us right back making the same mistakes again.

But, you don't know this.

What we do know, however, is that the current cartel is screwing things up for the vast majority of people on the island and they are desirous of a change that can possibly make things better re: their futures. They've had enough of the folly that has been the malaise this country has seen since the 90's and their done with that and I don't blame them one bit.

And nobody is talking about quick fixes either. Certainly not the Shinners anyway, who've said that fixing the problems caused by the lackadaisical approaches by FFG will take a long time to repair. Nobody is under any illusion that these issues are going to get done overnight. I haven't heard anyone that I've talked to say that they believe that it's all going to be tickety boo in a few years.

But they know FFG aren't interested in even trying.