javaboy wrote: » That's all well and good but Enda Kenny isn't cool. We can't have someone uncharismatic as Taoiseach ffs! How the hell is he supposed to run the country if he doesn't look like someone you might have a few pints with? We need a real charismatic leader like Mugabe or Castro or Sarkozy or Berlusconi.
taidghbaby wrote: » all we hear is that the recession is due to global circumstances......and yes it probably is to a certain extent!! however our "celtic tiger" was also the result of global factors but they were well able to take ALL the plaudits that came with that-think 3 successive terms in office!! if your gonna bask in the success of the good times then you should also be big enough to put up your hands when things are going wrong!!
javaboy wrote: » I'm really confused. Even with hindsight, you would vote FF again? This is despite the fact that FF have made a bags of the economy. You say you vote based on what you think will happen if they win.... but you know what happens when FF win. You're living in it. And you'd still vote FF? You sound like a party voter to me.
Joker wrote: » That's a pathetic excuse for logic. You've seen the mismanagment now, and in the past. And yet you still voted for them. The FGers tried to save money to help us through a Fianna Fail-sponsered train-wreck of an economy! The result: the Fianna Failures got back in and spent it all and wrecked the economy. (Think CJH!) For God's sake people, wake the **** up.
brianthebard wrote: » How about Chavez?
jaycen wrote: » I am not in any way a party voter, I want my vote to mean something. Do you honestly mean to tell me that FG wouldn't have had the same problem? They would have halted the Banks from lending in such a wreckless way - come on.
FG havn't the best record on the economy at last glance either.
I don't rate Enda Kenny at all, his announcement (and personal contradiction) of a paycut was made without notifying his collegues (he even apologised on mike), is that any way to run an opposition or a country for that matter?
On an aside, seeing as you think I am a FF voter, I rate Richard Bruton much higher than Cowan and co but until he leads the party I won't vote for it.
mickdw wrote: » Sorry! However imagine if kenny was in charge. He was calling for much more give aways at the last budget and yet he says FF squandered everything. It is a very underhand budget though. that 1% levy is really dirty. They would have had to raise the tax bands a few % to gain as much as this levy gives them. People wouldnt accept a big percentage gain in their tax band so this is very sneaky.
jaycen wrote: » I am not in any way a party voter, I want my vote to mean something. Do you honestly mean to tell me that FG wouldn't have had the same problem? They would have halted the Banks from lending in such a wreckless way - come on. FG havn't the best record on the economy at last glance either. I don't rate Enda Kenny at all, his announcement (and personal contradiction) of a paycut was made without notifying his collegues (he even apologised on mike), is that any way to run an opposition or a country for that matter? On an aside, seeing as you think I am a FF voter, I rate Richard Bruton much higher than Cowan and co but until he leads the party I won't vote for it.
earlyevening wrote: » If you remember the election, most of the parties had the same basic points in their manifestos. They were all claiming they'd cut tax (even SF and labour). It seems they were all just trying to copy FF and not proposing much different - virtually everything would be the same if you had voted in some other party except I'd say their inexperience etc would have had them trembling with all the whoo - ha in the last few weeks. Where would anyone else cover the 10bn shortfall we had this year - the 2bn of tax cuts had to be made. They seemed reasonably fair to me.
ShooterSF wrote: » On 2 topics that do bug me why is this bank saving tactic so great? Where's the money to help out the working class family that borrowed from the bank and is now struggling to repay the mortgage? Will the bank be as lenient on them?
Also why the hell is child benefit still not means tested? Why should over 70s have to qualify for a medical card yet multi millionaire families still get a few quid into the bank account that they don't need?
j1smithy wrote: » A typical reactionary thread worthy of AH. Although I dislike the fact I have to pay more taxes, it seems an awful lot of people don't know how the country is actually run... its depressing actually...
javaboy wrote: » Unfortunately punishing the banks by letting them fail would be cutting our nose off to spite our faces. If the banks collapsed, we'd suffer a serious depression. The working class family (and everyone else) would have it much worse if the banks were allowed to collapse.
+1. All these things should be means tested. Why are student grants means tested and these things not?
earlyevening wrote: » I thought old punters would be happy to do their patriotic duty and tear up their free med cards.
ShooterSF wrote: » patriotic duty
j1smithy wrote: » it seems an awful lot of people don't know how the country is actually run...
Wertz wrote: » Don't they? Well from the outside looking in it can only be apparent to an awful lot of people that it's actually run quite badly ....the proof of the pudding being last tuesday. Had provision been made during the good times, instead of squander, wastage and downright fraud then the essential monies for vital services that we are now being forced to cough up even more for, may have been more plentiful and we'd've avoided having to hit every single person in the country for even more tax to make up the shortfall of the "neverending" stream of stamp duty and VAT earned on large credit funded purchases during the boom years.
OPENROAD wrote: » Please tell me that he didn't use those words during the budget.
ShooterSF wrote: » Also earlyevening I'd be interested in your opinion whether FF should have made child benefit means tested?
cabrwab wrote: » I do think if i voted FF i would apologise as they gave the biggest pile of bull-plop last year to stay in power, however no more then any other party to get in there, but just for the bertie factor the pay rises they've being handing themselves over the last 11 years
j1smithy wrote: » Well for one it wasn't Brian Lenihan that actually wrote the budget, it was his team of civil servents. While Mr. Lenihan is a very intelligent man, him being senior counsel, it cannot be expected that he would have a the training to deal with the nuances of running an economy. He has his advisors and I'm sure takes their advice. They don't change no matter who wins an election. When people say, "you know they should have taken the heat out of the construction industry a few years ago and not let this bubble form" what they are really saying is that stamp duty should have been shoved up to stop people from buying houses. Layoffs would have followed, and people would have been pissed off. There would have been no boom at all, and we would have had relatively high unemployment earlier. It also would have been a disaster politically for the government of the time.
earlyevening wrote: » During the property boom, the puiblic were screaming for a reduction of stamp duty etc.
earlyevening wrote: » Now they're screaming that the stoopid government should have raised taxes during the boom. Now I don't like to say that the mob is stupid but...
Wertz wrote: » Indeed they were as the government were seen to be creaming it off the back of the cheap-credit fueled new housing market. Instead of actually doing it, Cowen who was finance minister at the time opted to hint that he might do it, leading to a stall in the market followed by a brief lull in house prices that was then compounded by matters in the US and now on world markets.
earlyevening wrote: » The "patriotic duty" line was the last thing he said in his speeech.
earlyevening wrote: » Its all very easy for any of us with the benefit of hindsight to say what should have been done. Its a different matter to take the big decisions on the day with the everyone looking at you waiting to say "I told you so..."
earlyevening wrote: » Everybody got big pay rises over the last 10 yrs. It must be remembered that the cabinet have taken pay cuts recently. Will you?
Dinter wrote: » He's the fukin Minister for Finance at the time. Who else do you think can take the "big decisions"? Perhaps we shouldn't have chained him to that massive office and limo and maybe we shouldn't have flung bundles of money at him to work less than fukin 90 days a year. The citizens of this country built the economy and they did it despite FF not because of them.
Agamemnon wrote: » We'll all be taking pay cuts with the tax increases. Besides that, politicians are meant to be public servants - they should always take pay cuts and lead by example when times are tough. We find that idea strange because Irish politicians are generally the most self-serving shower of parasites in the western world and we expect them to feather their own nests at our expense. But the rest of us are not working in the service of the electorate - I work to get money for me, not to serve my company. Politicians are supposed to serve a higher calling and we owe them precisely zero gratitude for paying themselves less of our money.
earlyevening wrote: » What do you want? Anarchy? Somalia has no government. Lets try that. They also have no electricity. Its not just FF you hate, but democracy. Jeepers.
Kent Brockman wrote: I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Democracy simply doesn't work.
