What you want to say? Open Thread, 16th November 2011 November 16, 2011
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.69 comments
As always, following on Dr. X’s suggestion, it’s all yours, “announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose”, feel free.
Socialist Voice – New Issue out now… November 16, 2011
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, Irish Politics, The Left, Uncategorized.7 comments
The latest Socialist Voice from the Communist Party of Ireland is now available. To download please click on following link: SV-83
It’s a very interesting issue, not least the appreciation of Peter Graham and the articles on Occupy Dame Street. Here is the contents…
Should Ireland remain in the euro?
Occupy Dame Street: The left must become involved
Occupy Dame Street:A positive development but lacking a class understanding
Did Lenin ask for a stimulus package?
The unemployment experience.
Job losses batter Co. Waterford
Crisis in social housing worsen.
The impact of the crisis on women (part 2)
Out of the dark and into the light
Ninety years of struggle
Peter Graham
The IRA: from insurrection to parliament Tommy McKearney, The Provisional IRA: From Insurrection to Parliament
All Aboard The Bandwagon …… November 15, 2011
Posted by irishelectionliterature in Uncategorized.4 comments
So off we go again, hopefully a Summer full of fun in Poland/Ukraine.
There’s the draw to look forward to, then who gets named in the squad… and who declares for Ireland too 
(incidentally 10 of tonight’s starting line up were Irish born and rared).
I suspect there will be new Ireland Jerseys on many a list for Santa.
I feel old looking at the Euro 88 highlights below. Still, what a fantastic day that was…
Labour man leaps from bridge of ship to… er… the deck. November 15, 2011
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics, The Left.9 comments
Well, that happened quickly enough. Funny we should be talking about signs of discontent in the Labour Party, or if not quite discontent a sense that the formerly monolithic front presented to the world hides at least some intriguing dynamics behind it. There’s Willie Penrose, who the news comes today in the Irish Times that:
…he has resigned his post today after a Cabinet meeting on the closure of the Army barracks in Mullingar.
I’m always interested in Ministerial resignations. Granted Penrose was a Minister of State, but nonetheless, a resignation is a resignation. Of course it’s not quite like leaving a political party. Now there’s a journey that so far only Denis Naughton has taken, and him from Fine Gael as well.
And Penrose doesn’t yet seem likely to follow him…
The Tánaiste said the proposal to close barracks had been on the agenda for months and added that the issue of Mr. Penrose resigning the party whip “does not arise at present.”
And perhaps because of that reason this is unlikely to overly perturb either Gilmore or Kenny, still sitting on their super majority. But perhaps they should be a little bit concerned because all this is in advance of the main show of the Budget.
Funnily enough there was some discussion in the media back in March when the Cabinet was announced that some people weren’t entirely happy about being left in or out of the names…here’s something from that week:
Mr Penrose said today he sought clarity on what exactly his ‘super junior’ role would involve before accepting it. “I asked Pat Rabbitte for advice. I wanted to make sure it was an opportunity to make a contribution.
“Maybe, being a barrister, I’m overly pedantic but I wanted to ensure I was fully au fait with the precise terms of the job I was getting,” he said.
Mr Penrose said his seeking clarification did not cause the half-hour delay yesterday in announcing members of Cabinet.
And here’s a very tactful piece from Harry McGee in the IT from that time…
Accepting that Ms Burton was disappointed, he dismissed the suggestion that there had been any agitation behind the scenes. He said the only person who had raised questions was Willie Penrose, who sought clarification on his super junior role from Mr Gilmore.
The spokesman said Mr Penrose’s interjection had nothing to do with the half-hour delay in naming the Cabinet on Wednesday. “The trip to the Áras by the Taoiseach took longer than expected and the Taoiseach also took longer [than anticipated] informing the new Ministers,” he said at yesterday’s Government press briefing.
Anyhow, that was then this is now Penrose appears to have some support amongst LP councillors in the area. The Irish Times notes that:
A number of local county councillors were also said to be considering resigning from Labour over the issue.
The Labour leader on Westmeath County Council, Cllr Michael Dollard, told local radio this morning he would resign from the party if the Government ignored the views of Mr Penrose.
Last month, about 1,000 people protested in Mullingar over fear the barracks may be closed. Mr Penrose told the rally Mullingar’s 200-year military history could not be sacrificed for a proposal “which does not stand up to scrutiny”.
So, now that Penrose has pushed himself out of the window will Dollard go the full way and leave the Labour Party?
Europe on my mind… November 15, 2011
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, European Politics, Irish Politics.21 comments
Very interesting editorials in yesterday’s Guardian and Irish Times about the Euro crisis, both of which echo points made here by many of us in comments over the past fortnight. And it supports the contentions made that the dynamics in play are markedly different to those seen previously.
As the Irish Times notes:
Over the past fortnight, as the economics of the euro zone crisis have moved into the most dangerous territory yet, there has been a historic shift in the politics of the single currency bloc, and the European Union more generally. In just two short weeks two prime ministers have been forced from office.
This has happened almost entirely as a result of pressure from the most powerful of their counterparts. The stick used to drive Greece’s George Papandreou and Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi from office was the threat, explicit for Greece, and implicit for Italy, to withhold financial support for their bonds unless they got their acts together.
And while it acknowledges that both Berlusconi and Papandreou in their own, rather different, ways had:
…not only failed their respective peoples, they failed to live up to their responsibilities to the 350 million citizens of the euro area. By so doing they contributed to pushing the single currency closer to fragmentation. The economic, political and social costs of the euro breaking apart are so great as to pose a threat to the way of life of all the continent’s citizens. It is the duty of each and every one of the zone’s leaders to do whatever it takes to avoid that outcome. Neither Papandreou nor Berlusconi met that responsibility. They got their just deserts.
But it notes that…
But if the much more aggressive response of core countries’ leaders to the political failings of their peripheral counterparts is not disproportionate to the scale of the threat, it raises many questions and concerns. The effective unseating by the core countries’ leaders of two of their counterparts is unprecedented. Having set the precedent, other member states – the small and enfeebled ones in particular – cannot but be concerned that they too will be subject to similar pressures. In the absence of any real institutional counterbalance to the newfound “leadership” role that France and Germany, in particular, have taken upon themselves, there has to be a risk of a repeat with less justification. Such are the risks of unaccountable power.
And that’s the core point that many of us have made. The institutional aspects of the EU have been ignored by France and Germany. What’s most remarkable is how slowly this has been recognised by the media and commentariat, or perhaps more accurately how loath they have been to publicly recognise it. Because this reality makes a mockery of the rhetoric of the Union. Indeed it makes a mockery of the various contortions we ourselves as citizens of this Republic [for those of us living in this part of the island] have been forced to go through at both Nice and Lisbon.
Those Treaties import, the supposed strengthening of the institutions of the European Union, is rendered irrelevant by the emerging Franco German ‘leadership.
What’s also particularly striking is how unfit for purpose the EU has proven itself to be, and in particular the eurozone. This is so clearly now an entity that was forged in hard but not difficult times and with no real experience of genuine political or economic crisis across its lifetime. One can only suppose that this lack of a tempering exacerbated the already extant contradictions between institutional and national aspects of the EU and further weakened it in respect of determining which of those two pillars would supplant the other when given the opportunity.
And whatever the faults of Berlusconi and Papandreou, and they are legion, the manner of their departure is not merely unprecedented but hugely concerning. And the Irish Times reference to ‘unaccountable power’ merely points up that one of the explicit purposes of the EU, to pull away from national domination is now hollowed out almost entirely.
There’s a certain pathos to the Irish Times at the conclusion of the editorial:
Ireland also must be concerned at any pressure to force a member state to leave the euro. The forced departure of even one member could cause huge damage and threaten to cause the entire project to unravel. If one country can be forced out, then why not others, citizens and financial markets would ask. Confidence in those countries could evaporate with lightning speed, and a run on the weaker countries, including those too big to bail out – Italy, Spain and even France itself – could tear the project apart. The lesson must surely be: hang together or hang separately.
But in an European Union where the largest powers now overtly dominate the project conceptually is already torn apart and as to the future? The question then becomes one of whether being in a ‘union’ that is not really a union is better than being outside it.
Indeed the Guardian goes, as one might expect, somewhat further:
The rise of the technocracy, to distort Michael Young’s famous phrase, is what we are witnessing. This ugly term conveys two separate things. The first is a contrast with a more familiar “ocracy” – that derived from “demos”, a Greek word which brings to mind the common people. Messrs Papademos and Monti have not had to worry about them since both are unelected. Not merely unelected in the Gordon Brown sense of taking up the premiership midterm, but truly unelected in the sense that Mr Brown would only have been if he had entered No 10 without having bothered to stand as an MP.
This is a genuinely disturbing event. And the Guardian continues:
…the former European commissioner Mr Monti was last week installed as a life senator just before being asked to form a government. Meanwhile in Athens a central banking bureaucrat, Mr Papademos, was called in to fill a vacancy created precisely because the previous premier had flirted with the dangerous idea of giving the people a say on austerity, through a referendum. Democrats have undoubtedly struggled in imposing wage cuts and other retrenchments on the people of southern Europe: another government could well fall victim to the slump in the Spanish election at the end of the week. But it is a logical leap from this observation to snapping up the first half of Churchill’s quip about democracy being the worst form of government – while disregarding his rider about all the other forms that have been tried.
Note that the institutions, or those drawn from the institutions are used to shore up the flagging polities. But also note that they are all but imposed. And it makes one blindingly obvious point that all too often is lost in the talk of technocrats…
If distance from popular opinion is the first thing conveyed by “technocrat”, the second is expertise. Brussels would like Europe’s leaders to tackle its sinking economy in the professional spirit of an engineer fixing an aeroplane. But pursuing this analogy highlights how forlorn such hopes are. Faced with a grounded plane, our engineer would start with calculations about the vehicle’s weight and the force required to overcome it; next he would consider the options for boosting the latter relative to the former. By contrast, those trying to fix Europe’s economy are working to the rigid rule that the weight of public debt must be reduced first by all available means – even if this greatly weakens the force of growth, which in the end is what must carry that weight. As a result, the economy is most unlikely to fly. Likewise our engineer would be greatly concerned by the balance of forces across the two wings, whereas Europe’s elite imagines it can force all the adjustment on to the indebted periphery, while leaving the likes of Germany alone.
Asymmetric adjustment will not lead to balance, not least because the Germans depend on the periphery’s spendthrift ways to sell their exports. But then economics is not engineering. It remains as much an art as a science, and its judgments have such vast implications for who gets what that they will always be contentious politically. Don’t bank on the technocrats being able to stay above the fray for long.
And then consider that they will have, personally, little or no democratic legitimation, and slim enough mandate. This can only spell trouble.
But then again it’s been trouble all the way, and what of the latest example? The Greek Conservatives, no doubt aware of the poisoned chalice they’ve been handed in the shape of the ‘national government’ are pushing the chalice away given that all it contains are the very austerity measures that brought down PASOK. As well they might. If it can break one government it can surely break two (something our own Coalition might like to ponder). How soon until some bright spark in the EU decides to suggest the retention of the technocrats and jettison the elected representatives. In the name of stability, of course.
Labour backbench unrest… yes, but on what issue is it again? November 14, 2011
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.58 comments
Interesting report in the Sunday Business Post at the weekend about plans by the Government to abolish financial support for post-graduate students. This will save all of €50 million in the coming year. The Department of Education wouldn’t comment on the report but already it has provoked a fairly strong reaction, as reported in the Irish Times:
USI president Gary Redmond said he was dismayed and shocked at the proposal.
“There is not even any pretence at fairness in this proposal.
“A student, no matter how talented, would not be able to continue in education any further than their own financial resources would permit,” he stressed.
The union is calling students, parents and “all members of the community” to take part in its national protest against education cuts in Dublin on Wednesday.
But more interesting again is the news that the pressure to roll back the abolition of Third Level fees is provoking a response inside the Labour Party. The SBP notes that:
The move will increase pressure on Labour TDs who are already nervous about education cuts. The SBP has learned that a group of at least ten LP TDs met last week in Leinster House to discuss their growing concern over the possible re-introduction of college fees.
The meeting which took place outside the parliamentary party was described by the deputies as an ‘informal dialogue and exchange of ideas’. However there are clear rumblings on the backbenches over the prospect of tuition fees.
As was put to me, interesting that the Labour TDs would make noises on this. Why not SNA’s or other much more high profile issues? Though the answer, as was also put to me, was that this reflected the LP base. As it happens this site would be strongly against the reintroduction of fees believing that these are best funded out of general taxation, but it is certainly striking that this is the very first issue to have evoked anything even half public in the line of a rhetorical divergence from LP TDs.
The obvious point being that if they think this is problematic wait until things get really hairy a month or two down the line with the Budget and its fallout, and then next years Budget, and the one the year after, and the one the year after that…
One TD who attended the meeting said it represented ‘the first sign of a subtle resistance on a specific issue’ while another said that a return to college fees would represent a ‘red line issue’ for many deputies.
Most of the TDs who attended… were elected for the first time in February. They included Waterford TD Ciara Conway, Dublin West TD Patrick Nulty, Clare TD Micahel McNamara, Dublin mid-west TD Robert Dowd, Galway East TD Colm Keaveney, Louth TD Gerard Nash and Dublin South TD Alex White.
The more cynical amongst us will notice that one or two of those are TDs in constituencies where SF or the ULA has done well, or quite realistically might do better in future. And it is fascinating to hear the protestations of loyalty from the attendees…
Colm Keaveney said there was ‘nothing sinister about a group in the Labour PArty sitting down and talking about any subject. We’re not a centrally controlled organisation, and its about dialogue and the exchange of ideas. Nobody should feel threatened by it and nobody has picked up the phone to say we cannot do this’.
That’s as may be, but some might wonder what does the leadership really think? And more to the point what they intend to do?
Saving €600 Million by combating Social Welfare Fraud? November 14, 2011
Posted by irishelectionliterature in Economy.8 comments
Since this Government took office, one of the constant chimes has been reducing the Cost of Social Welfare by combating fraud. A figure of €600 Million in savings has been repeated by Joan Burton and last night, on The Week in Politics, by Fergus O’Dowd.
As ever Michael Taft has some excellent thoughts on the subject ….
The Claim of €600 Million in Social Welfare Fraud is a Fraudulent Claim
Left Archive: The Women’s Movement at the Crossroads, An Reabhloid Pamphlet, Peoples Democracy, c. 1987/1988 November 14, 2011
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Left Online Document Archive, People's Democracy.13 comments
To download the above document please click on following link: PD WM
This document, published as an An Reabhloid pamphlet, by Peoples Democracy concentrates on the issues facing the Women’s Movement in the latter part of the 1980s [and many thanks to Jim Monaghan for donating it to the Archive]. It notes that the situation is ‘enormously different to that of the early 60s and 70s. Then the women’s movement, along with the socialist, trade union and anti-imperialist movements, were very confident. Today all three are under attack, with a general shift ot the right in the political climate. Women have suffered the most attacks, a situation made easier by the demobilisation of the women’s movement North and South.
And it continues:
The fundamental questions of strategy which faced women in the early eighties are still burning questions today and… must be resolved through a period of discussion and debate involving the broad feminist movement and the anti-imperialist current.
The article itself is particularly interesting in detailing the ‘small but significant layer of socialists feminists in the early movement who, on paper, had a strong anti-imperialism, anti-partition stance’. And it attempts to emphasise the importance of linking those two elements with feminism. Here it pays particular attention to the Armagh Women Political Prisoners campaign ‘built by the Belfast Women Against Imperialism Group (WAI) in the late 1970s’.
Beyond the critique of other strands within feminism during this period what is also useful is the overview of a range of defeats and setbacks during that period, from the dismissal of teacher Eileen Flynn, the Joanne Hayes tribunal, ‘the rightwing campaign in the media against ‘unmarried mothers’ and drawing the net more widely ‘the anti-gay hysteria being orchestrated against persons with AIDs’. It also notes the ‘defeat of the divorce referendum and the SPUC campaign to shut down the abortion referral services of the women’s clinics’.
The document also has articles on ‘Fighting against the closedown of women’s clinics’ in the wake of the Justice Liam Hamilton High Court verdict which shut down pregnancy counselling services by Open Line and Well Women Centre. It also considers ‘Lessons from the Divorce Defeat’. And it argues that ‘this illustrates the power of the Catholic Church and the inability of bourgeois and reformist parties to tackle it. Far from confirming the appropriateness of partition the result reinforces the need to smash it’.
It also looks at ‘Development’s in the European Women’s Movement’. And it makes the interesting point that ‘the criminal failure of the labour movement to support women adequately produces much frustration among feminists about a ‘privileged men’s movement’ in the trade unions.
Here it also critiques ‘Right-wing governments and union leaders [who] are cynically exploiting this feminist resentment of the male-dominated world of work, arguing for a freeze on the wages of ‘high-paid’ workers. This strategy supported in Britain by the TUC and Eurocommunist influenced radical feminist, disastrously takes pressure off the capitalists and deepens divisions in the workers movement.
Sunday Independent Stupid Statement of the Week November 13, 2011
Posted by Garibaldy in Sunday Independent Stupid Statement of the Week.13 comments
Before starting, good to see that the Sindo uses its front page to allow for an appeal on behalf of the needy.
Some of the talent can’t afford to pay their bills or mortgages with what they earn and with work not being renewed.
“We have people struggling like everyone else, trying to get an interest-only mortgage, having to sell their car. This idea of them living in this ivory tower on huge wages is simply not true”
The people in question? RTÉ presenters, according to the state’s top talent agent.
On the other hand, Brendan O’Connor is back beating the it’s-all-the-public-sector’s-fault drum.
Maybe, quite simply, because people in the public sector, like Government ministers with guaranteed fat pensions even if they do lose their jobs, don’t understand, in their gut, the pain and uncertainty out there among the unemployed and among those who worry for their jobs in the private sector. They don’t know what it feels like to have no safety net, to not even know anymore what your pension will be worth, if anything.
The lack of that visceral understanding of fear and hunger perhaps explains why this Government, like the last, can so easily sacrifice a job or growth agenda to balance the books of austerity and to make sure that the boxes are ticked so that Europe doesn’t upset the public sector applecart.
Maybe someone can explain to him how NAMA and the current crisis came about. Very slowly, using lots of pretty pictures. He seems to have failed to grasp it so far. Perhaps one of his colleagues will direct him towards Gene Kerrigan’s column. More likely, though, he’ll get a wrap on the knuckles for forgetting to add the trade unions as well.
Marc Coleman continues his campaign to reverse the widely-held view that he is a fool. But fails to do even that in a coherent manner.
At the very least his [Brian Lenihan's] sacrifice has ensured that if the euro does shed members, Ireland will not be one of them. Two books of mine Back from the Brink and The Best is Yet to Come predicted how Ireland could attain economic balance by 2016 and new heights of prosperity by 2020, provided the right decisions are taken by Government.
At a book launch in Dublin last Tuesday, Pat Rabbitte took the opportunity to scoff at one of the book’s titles. But in a research note published last week George Magnus noted how “Ireland’s stunning turnaround stands out” and how — referring to our current account surplus — “no other country has been able to achieve an external balance shift of this nature”.
A year ago the Government believed in our ability to turn the corner, but outsiders scoffed. Now — if Pat Rabbitte is anything to go by — it may be the other way around But given the Government’s propensity to tax the economy back into recession — and its total failure to tackle overspending — and given the threat of double-dip recession — a relapse in our public finances cannot be ruled out. In that eventuality our ability to convince markets about our future will be crucial to re-entering the bond market next year. If government ministers don’t believe that message, no one else will either.
Perhaps he can send them a copy of The Best is Yet to Come, and that’ll convince them.
But this is topped by this week’s winner, Little Englander Jody Corcoran
Germany will soon have the Europe it has always wanted.
Given the day that’s in it, I couldn’t disagree more with the thinking behind Colum Kenny’s article on wearing the poppy. This obsession with the poppy as some sort of healing symbol in Ireland ignores the big picture of imperialist slaughter.
Bits and pieces… interest rates…interest rates and… Pope Benedict – traditional social democrat… Herman Cain, the cold snap and a blast from the recent past. November 12, 2011
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, Irish Politics, The Left.11 comments
I haven’t had any time to digest some of what we saw in Dublin Castle – though man, was it ever self-consciously inclusive, but the faces said it all as Michael D. Higgins entered the Hall in Dublin Castle. There was Mary McAleese looking pretty chirpy, Mary Robinson even more so, Enda Kenny doing his best po-face, Richard Bruton grinning broadly and various Labour Party worthies looking chipper too, not least Eamon Gilmore.
And in the crowd a broad range of people, some very familiar from the last two months. There’s Sean Gallagher, there’s Mary Davis and look there’s Peter Robinson! Anyhow, perhaps more on this later.
Let’s move onto a depressing quote… here’s Martin Wolf in the Financial Times.
Will the eurozone survive? The leaders of France and Germany have now raised this question, for the case of Greece. If policymakers had understood two decades ago what they know now, they would
never have launched the single currency. Only fear of the consequences of a break-up is now keeping it together. The question is whether that will be enough. I suspect the answer is, no.
Well, that’s just great.
On a not unlinked topic you’d also want to be very very optimistic to take the headlines in the Independent last Friday terribly seriously. No end of good news according to that paper from ‘ECB rate cut may be first of three that will save families €90 a month’ to ‘Early Christmas as second cut coming for mortgage holders’ and a subheading to the last of ‘Second reduction on way in December’. Erm… €90?
Well, I guess in Independent land when they say something is such and such they believe it to be so.
Yesterday’s cut sees the ECB’s key rate fall by 0.25pc to 1.25pc. Each 0.25pc fall in interest rates sees repayments fall by €15 a month for every €100,000 borrowed.
And…
Ernst & Young economist Marie Diron said the door was now open to more rate cuts.
“We think that the ECB will need to cut interest rates again in December,” she said.
Both Goodbody Stockbrokers economist Dermot O’Leary and Ulster Bank’s Simon Barry also said it was likely a second rate cut could come next month.
Economists have pencilled in a third reduction early next year, as the ECB battles to stave off what its new president Mario Draghi said was the possibility of a “mild recession” in the eurozone.
Except… there was a slight problem… in the same story it said:
Most lenders contacted yesterday said no decisions had been taken on whether or not to pass on the latest cuts to the 200,000 homeowners with variable rate mortgages.
The Irish Banking Federation insisted that Irish mortgage rates were low compared with those in the rest of the EU. But it admitted that very competitive tracker rates skewed the figures.
Last month lenders clashed with deputy Central Bank governor and regulator Matthew Elderfield when he told them to stop hiking variable rates and to pass on any ECB rate reduction to these mortgage holders.
Bankers insisted they should be free to set their own mortgage rates.
And reading the papers subsequently the stuff about ‘€90’ savings a month looked bizarrely optimistic, not to say unrealistic, for many mortgage holders, as was noted here last week. Indeed the €90 figure seems a bit high even were all three interest rate cuts to materialise. But that’s the headline on the front page of the Independent.
What’s most irritating is that this could easily be refashioned to avoid the breathless good news spin in such a way as to put some real pressure on mortgage providers who are clearly significantly out of line with ECB interest rates and on a government and financial regulator which at the very least should be living up to the rhetoric the electorate was offered at the last election.
The Business Post filled the first and second pages of its Property section with the same topic. And oddly enough it echoed the thrust of the Independent articles.
If there is a matching cut in all variable rate loans – and it is not clear whether there will be – the total will rise to over €200m [cut from mortgages].
And then…
Multiply this by two or three if rates fall further in 2012, and the impact on purchasing power is significant enough. This will be offest to some extent by a lower return on savings with some drop likely in deposit rates [odd isn't it how this argument isn't meant to hold water with retaining social welfare payments of one sort or another - wbs].
Thankfully the SBP brought in at least a half note of realism…
Deeter and Conway felt there would be cuts in SVRs, but said that it was not clear whether all banks would follow the ECB lead in full. Deeter said that with rates varying the market at the moment some banks which already charged lower SVRs could have a case for not following the full reduction.
Anyway, the only other mention of it in the SBP was in Cliff Taylor’s column where he correctly noted that:
You would have to smile at the the posturing of politicians calling on the banks to pass on interest rate cuts to customers. On one side, the banks face these demands. On the other, they are under intense pressure from the ECB to shrink their balance sheets and hold onto as many deposits as possible in order to reduce their reliance on emergency funds from the ECB and Central Bank.
And continued:
They may grudgingly follow with some variable mortgage rate cuts to keep everyone happy, but for the moment, our banks do not particularly want your business.
Hmmm… that’s sort of prescient in light of the developments this week where AIB and BOI set their faces against passing on the cuts.
So from the off everyone, Independent and SBP alike, knew that some banks won’t pass on these reductions making all the figures quoted entirely hypothetical. Perhaps the Government and Financial Regulator will seek to impose their will.
Perhaps.
Last week on NPR’s Religion podcast [Oh yes, I listen so you don’t have to] there was an interesting point made about how the Vatican’s recent statement calling for a shared body of rules to manage the global financial markets went unnoticed in the US, in part because as was noted ‘many Catholics have little idea of the Catholic Church’s attitudes to the economy’. One priest, Fr. Thomas Rees, argued that the OWS activists may have an unlikely ally – The Pope and he added ‘this will surprise those Americans who think the Pope is a Republican because he opposes abortion and gay marriage, but when it comes to economic justice he’s to the left of President Obama, heck, he’s even to the left of Nancy Pelosi… he did not accept the trickle down theory, condemned the scandal of inequalities and sees a role for the government in the redistribution of wealth. When was the last time you heard even a liberal Democrat use those words? So if you’re having a tea party don’t bother inviting the Pope, he won’t come. But if you see a white solar powered vehicle heading towards Wall Street it might just be the popemobile…’
Hmmm… Benedict, traditional social democrat, why yes, right down to the social conservatism. Met more than a few of them in my time. Most likely true, and doesn’t that speak volumes in itself?
Now here’s a truly depressing article from Slate on the Herman Cain sexual harassment case. As Dahlia Lithwick notes some of his defenders have moved to a position of denying that sexual harassment itself can even exist. The best part of Lithwick’s mordant analysis goes as follows:
Or take the legal stylings of Kurt Schlichter, who asserts that “the only things you need to file a lawsuit are the filing fee and a printer. Facts are optional. … Where sexual-harassment law once protected women from being forced to be the playthings of crude lechers, it’s been transformed to enforcing a prim puritanism that drains the humor and humanity from the workplace.” The humorless line is the route Sen. Rand Paul chose to deploy as well: “There are people now who hesitate to tell a joke to a woman in the workplace, any kind of joke, because it could be interpreted incorrectly.” You catch that? Humorless puritanical women have weaponized sex-discrimination law as a part of their global war on humor.
FFS.
But it gets worse – if possible. His woes multiply. And rightly so if there’s a scintilla of accuracy in the claims being made. Latest problems? Two more women have come forward into the public domain with allegations of sexual ‘misconduct’. What’s fascinating to me is how the discourse around the claims made by the latest and most high-profile person, Sharon Bialek are being rebutted by some Republicans.
Read the comments on Slate, or the pronouncements of those in the media on the right and it’s not that they dispute these claims but simply seem to regard them as not intrinsically that serious. But Bielak’s claims in particular seem to me to be on the face of it about as bad ‘misconduct’ as one can find.
Then, as noted in the Irish Times there is the minor issues of the candidate’s rather sketchy appreciation of some aspects of geopolitics…
The former pizza magnate’s ignorance of domestic and international politics – the fact he did not know who the neo-conservatives were or that China possesses nuclear weapons – have received far less attention.
So far.
Though Rick Perry’s moment in the sun would appear to be over from the moment he forgot one of three Government agencies he intended to cut. Sheesh. One of just three. Given that his days as front-runner were now long past perhaps he thought his stock might rise as Cain’s fell. Not much chance of that now. One imagines.
Okay, you won’t usually hear a good word about the Government here, but… for once I have to admit that I think they’re getting it right. And more over the ones getting it right are perhaps the least loveable trio in the Cabinet, for the announcement this week that:
The Government has spent €16 million on 200,000 tonnes of gritting salt to cope with any cold snap this year and claims to be better prepared for bad weather this winter than at any time in the past.
And who was that trio that delivered the news?
Flanked by Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan and Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar, Minister for Defence Alan Shatter this morning launched a Winter-Ready information campaign
Though, by God, they’re playing it up for all its worth…
He said the presence of his two ministerial colleagues alongside him indicated a degree of “joined-up thinking going on at the heart of Government”.
Mr Varadkar said the State will be more than prepared than ever before. “Having said that, Mother Nature is more powerful than any Government so it won’t be business as usual” if the country experiences another major weather event.”
Let me slip in a cheap dig about how this is yet another example that demonstrates how the market is simply incapable of assuming a raft of functions that only the state and subsidiary institutions can take over.
But in fairness this is all sensible stuff…
He said 200,000 tonnes of salt had been purchased at a cost of €16 million. This is twice the salt levels bought last year and three times what might be expected to be require in a normal year. He accepted that all the salt might not be needed. “You are damned if you do and damned if you don’t,” he said.
However, Mr Varadkar he warned it would will not be enough to grit every road and a list of key roads and areas that would be treated first had been drawn up.
Normal functioning in relation to the Government will resume in these pages soon…
And speaking of Government’s, past and present, what of this lovely letter to the Irish Times this week…
Sir, – Notwithstanding Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan’s response (November 8th), criticisms of the Government’s delay in enacting climate legislation promised in the current Programme for Government remain valid. Once again, a policy decision that is critically important to all of our futures is being long-fingered. It would appear that intensive lobbying by vested interests has won the day once again. This cannot continue. As a voter who gave her No 1 to the Labour Party in the last general election because I accepted its commitment to progressing climate legislation in government, I wonder why its Cabinet representatives have remained largely silent on the issue up to now? I sincerely hope that the Labour Party will use its influence in Government to ensure that this vitally important climate legislation is enacted without delay. – Yours, etc, DEIRDRE DE BURCA… Ranelagh, Dublin 6.
Voted Labour number 1? And the Green Party candidate in Dublin South East where – Ranelagh just happens to be situated – was… John Gormley!
Well fancy that!
