Ratings agencies… July 10, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, Irish Politics.add a comment
What of the latest from the fabulous ratings agencies, those heroes who year after year gave the all-clear to financial institutions, and more importantly their policies such as the use of sub-prime lending, who later… er… collapsed.
Not only but also they comprehensively failed to anticipate the further collapse of the Icelandic economy (in fairness that was Standard & Poors).
All that as a given, what then of their prognosis for the future of this island, or at least a part of it?
Moody’s has cut Ireland’s government bond rating to Aa1 from AAA, making it the last of the three main agencies to strip Ireland of its top credit rating.
It’s odd though, because…
“Moody’s concluded that there was a case for only a moderate rating downgrade at this stage in light of the decisiveness of the policy response as well as the government’s strong balance sheet position prior to the crisis,” it said.
Hmmm… strong balance sheet position? Decisiveness of policy response. Only a moderate rating downgrade… This doesn’t quite sound like the fiscopalypse (try saying that quickly… go on, give it a try) we’ve seen trumpeted here there and everywhere. How one earth could they possibly take away that sort of a reading of our situation?
And how then to explain Moody’s colleagues in the ratings game and their analyses?
Standard & Poor’s cut its rating last month for the second time this year to AA, while Fitch has downgraded Ireland by one notch to AA+ so far.
Well, you won’t find it in the Irish Times piece which then continues…
The euro hit the day’s low against the dollar and the spread between Irish and German government bonds widened after Moody’s cut the rating and said the outlook was negative.
Which is curious given the ’strong’, ‘decisive’ and ‘moderate’ comments earlier. So both negative and strong etc…
If one cares to mosey across to the wiki page on Moody’s one will discover the ratings schema…reflect both the likelihood of default and the probability of a financial loss suffered in the event of default.
And what are these ratings like?
Investment grade
AaaObligations rated Aaa are judged to be of the highest quality, with the “smallest degree of risk”.[1]
Aa1, Aa2, Aa3
Obligations rated Aa are judged to be of high quality and are subject to very low credit risk, but “their susceptibility to long-term risks appears somewhat greater”.[1]
A1 (Czech Republic as of February, Estonia as of April, Romania in May 2008), A2 (Poland as of February), A3 (Lithuania as of April)
Obligations rated A are considered upper-medium grade and are subject to low credit risk, but that have elements “present that suggest a susceptibility to impairment over the long term”.
Baa1 (Iceland as of February, Hungary as of March), Baa2, Baa3 (Latvia, as of April – worst economic contraction in the EU in the fourth quarter of 08, Bulgaria as of February)
Obligations rated Baa are subject to moderate credit risk. They are considered medium-grade and as such “protective elements may be lacking or may be characteristically unreliable”.
The reality is, though, that from the point of view of the ratings agencies AA1 isn’t great. It’s not great at all, and while it is true that despite everything that has happened, global financial crisis, collapse of tax revenues and rising unemployment, partial meltdown of our banking sector and NAMA, despite all these we remain at the second highest rating with Moody’s, let’s not get overly happy with that truth. The first step down the rung is slippy, so to speak.
By way of comparison let’s consider Speculative grade, or how low could we go?:
Speculative grade (Also known as High Yield or ‘Junk’)
Ba1 (Brazil, 2007), Ba2, Ba3 (Turkey as of February)
Obligations rated Ba are judged to have “questionable credit quality.”[1]
B1, B2 (Dominican Republic 2007), B3
Obligations rated B are considered speculative and are subject to high credit risk, and have “generally poor credit quality.”[1]
Caa1 (Belize, 2007, Cuba 1999), Caa2, Caa3
Obligations rated Caa are judged to be of poor standing and are subject to very high credit risk, and have “extremely poor credit quality. Such banks may be in default…”[1]
Ca
Obligations rated Ca are highly speculative and are “usually in default on their deposit obligations”.[1]
C
Obligations rated C are the lowest rated class of bonds and are typically in default, and “potential recovery values are low”.
Yeah, we really don’t want to be down there with the bottom feeders – or to be more accurate on the next level beneath them. No doubt about that at all. And whether one considers the agencies an appropriate means of determining our ability to provide assessments of bond ratings we are as it stands stuck with them to some degree – particularly those of us who believe that borrowing is central to any recovery. I certainly wouldn’t be glib about the reality that such ratings even such relatively small movement does make the argument for borrowings more difficult.
Their assessments are far from uncontroversial, and one look at the wiki entry will raise eyebrows as regards certain actions and reports.
In that light note the thoughts of centrist Democrat Matt Miller who noted on KCRW’s Left, Right and Centre on the 19th of June that…
We ought to take seriously the ratings agencies who were totally in bed and driving their own earnings by essentially taking a fall on pumping up the ratings of these securities they were at the heart of this mess and which led everybody to buy these with some sense of confidence – or at least cover their rear ends – because they were supposed to be AAA rated…
And again, last weekend…
Matt Miller:… the way the credit rating agencies… which were given by the government little specialised oligopolies essentially and that became the marker that everyone else covered their rear ends…and it was sort of if you had a AAA rating it was okay for all these institutions to hold all this crappy debt… and it’s not even being touched in the regulatory reform
Ariane Huffington: That is a major thing, that they’re letting the ratings agencies continue to be funded in the same way by the very people they’re supposed to be monitoring…
It’s heartening to know that the way they’re viewing these matters is different to the way they did last year… for the EU has agreed new rules that apply to credit-rating agencies. Thing is those rules come into effect next year, although the rating agencies claim they’re already implementing them.
Still, it’s also interesting to see where others further afield lie on the scale, so for Moody’s currently Japan and Hong Kong are on Aa2.
Here though is an interesting paragraph from Moody’s analysis of Aaa governments dating from last February…
Government activism compounds exposure to medium-term economic vitality
The effect of financial stability operations and fiscal stimuli is more subtle. Since the autumn of 2008, governments have repeatedly interposed their balance sheets to shelter the private sector from liquidity risk and to prop up the capital base of banks. These financial operations have resulted in an increase in financial and other liabilities (government debt) that is more or less matched by an increase in assets (equity ownership in, or loans to, banks and other institutions, potentially ownership of ‘toxic’ assets, etc.). Initially, there is no material net impact on the government’s net worth.However, these operations create a mismatch between the financial characteristics of the assets and liabilities of the government, exposing it to a fiscal loss – or gain – over time. What will determine the size and sign of the net impact on government net worth is the performance of the assets, ultimately linked to the performance of the whole economy.
The same effect applies to contingent liabilities arising from the guarantees that governments are granting liberally to borrowing undertaken by banks and now other institutions. The eventual impact of these guarantees on the government’s balance sheet depends on the financial performance of the guaranteed entities and therefore, by extension, on the macroeconomic performance of the whole economy.
Through financial operations and the expansion of their balance sheets, governments have therefore
compounded their dependence on the medium-term ability of their economies to regenerate and grow out of the current recession.Similar reasoning can be applied to the successive fiscal stimulus plans unveiled by governments. These plans entail a direct increase in government primary deficits, and therefore also an increase in government debt. This has no direct counterparty on the asset side of the balance sheet. If, however, these plans do succeed in preserving the productive potential of the economy (the original aim of Keynesian policy was to do so through government investment), then fiscal stimuli would enhance the government’s main asset, the power to tax, and thus generate the resources to cover the increase in debt. Fiscal stimuli, therefore, again compound the exposure of government debt affordability to the underlying vitality and regeneration capability of the economy.
And here is more…
The adjustment capacity of governments: assessing “fiscal space”
The extent to which a government can generate fiscal margin for manoeuvre can be summarized in two simple questions:By how much can government (further) raise tax pressure on the economy?
By how much can government (further) cut expenditure?
The answers provide the range by which a government should be able to improve its primary balance when the crisis abates. In each case, the assessment depends on the current level of taxation/expenditure, and the tolerance of the society for higher tax pressure or lower provision of public services. France and Germany have a similarly (high) tolerance for taxation, but as Germany’s current tax pressure of 44% is lower than France’s 50%, its ability to generate resources from a higher tax rate should – all other factors being equal – be higher. Historical experience is a guide in this case, but not proof of future capability. A government that has been able to generate large primary surpluses in the past, especially in a period of not particularly buoyant economic growth, is likely to be able to do so again (Canada, Finland, Sweden, etc.). But that may be less true if either its past fiscal performance owed to structural factors was eroded by the crisis (such as high growth fuelled by rising household indebtedness) or if new structural influences materialised (such as ageing, a trend of material significance in most advanced economies, or the lengthy absence of global trade stimuli) that create new constraints in coming years and decades. Against this background, we do not aim to provide accurate measures of adjustment capacity for each
government, but rather a credible order of magnitude.
This is achieved by scoring the margin for increasing revenues and reducing expenditure on a five-notch scale. We then combine the scores to derive a total adjustment capacity for the government’s primary balance. The resulting score represents a broad estimate of the fiscal space that a government might be able to generate when the crisis abates, on condition that the economy’s productive capacity is not permanently dented. A government with a low adjustment capacity may only be able to improve its primary balance by a couple of percentage points of GDP, while a government with a very high adjustment capacity should be able to improve structurally its primary balance by at least 5 percentage points of GDP.
Interesting in the figure that comes with this paragraph the ability to raise tax or cut expenditure can be either medium to high and set against Tax Pressure and Government Spending/GDP to arrive at a Fiscal adjustment capacity rating. So, for example, Austria has a Tax pressure of 48, has a Medium ability to tax further, has a Government spending/GDP of 48 and a Medium Ability to cut expenditure further. It’s Fiscal Adjustment capacity is therefore Medium. Of the states rated only the US comes lower than us on Tax pressure at 33 which is rated Medium. And on Government spending/GDP we are at 40 which is below the median and the average and is also rated Medium, which gives us an overall Medium. This isn’t great.
Another factor that impacts on governments’ adjustment capacity in a crisis environment is the degree of national cohesion. In countries that benefit from a very high degree of social and political cohesion, and strong allegiance to the central government, people can be expected to be more willing to make an additional effort to support their government. Where that level of cohesion is weaker, a higher tax pressure is more likely to be met with resistance, emigration of workers or tax evasion. There are numerous historical examples of societies where substantial borrowing in times of national emergency (including wars) have been first raised and then paid off through popular support. To some extent, we therefore give ‘the benefit of the doubt’ to countries where we believe that national cohesion in the face of national emergency is unusually high.
There’s more, it’s well worth a read even if one has reservations about the analysis and conclusions. On the Economic Adjustment Capacity Scorecard it is competitiveness which is regarded as ‘questionable’ in the Irish case, not economic diversification (and it’s interesting to see how we are just behind Singapore on most rankings except for competitiveness, where we’re 15th out of 18).
Finally, it’s also worth considering Annex A: Moody’ past downgrades of Aaa sovereigns.
Only a handful of Aaa sovereigns have been stripped of their top ratings during the past 25 years. The short list of “fallen archangels” comprises Norway (1987), Finland (1990), Sweden (1991), Canada (1994), Japan (1998) and Iceland (2008). Of those downgraded prior to Iceland’s downgrade last year, all but one (Japan) regained their Aaa status within a decade or less.
A reflection on the circumstances and assumptions that led to past Aaa downgrades as well as the reasons for their subsequent re-accession to Aaa status provides helpful information in the current context.
The common thread underlying all past Aaa downgrades was a rapid and severe deterioration in government balance sheets. More than that, Moody’s believed that there was a very low likelihood that the countries could implement the considerable adjustments necessary to stabilize the fiscal position, much less reverse the vicious trajectory of public debt by returning the primary fiscal position to balance or surpluses, within a roughly 5- to 7-year time horizon.
In Norway’s case, the initial driver for the one-notch downgrade to Aa1 was the government’s over-reliance on oil revenues, which imperiled the fiscal position as well as the country’s economic growth model when oil prices fell precipitously in 1986. Despite initial progress in adjusting to the oil price collapse, Norway’s fiscal situation was further weakened by the financial crisis which struck as well as Sweden and Finland in 1990. In turn, the impact of that crisis on Swedish and Finnish government finances was the trigger leading to those sovereigns’ one-notch downgrades in late 1990 and early 1991. The depth of the recessions in Sweden and Finland and the sheer speed of the deterioration in those countries’ government finances due to the relatively short-term maturity structure of their government debt led to additional one-notch downgrades one to two years later (indeed, Sweden was downgraded yet again in early 2005).
The reasons for the subsequent regaining of Aaa status in each of these cases (Norway in 1997, Finland in 1998 and Sweden in 1999) was a concerted sacrifice by all segments of the society in response to the initial crises, including mutually agreed wage restraint, accompanied by significant structural adjustment, in particular of the fiscal framework through tax reform and the establishment of fiscal rules. The economies were also able to benefit from the gains afforded by improvements in the competitiveness of their tradeables sectors, and this progress was consolidated by continued fiscal discipline even after the worst effects of the crisis had faded.
Canada’s foreign currency rating was downgraded to Aa1 in 1994 when its general government debt/GDP ratio was approaching 100%, and when the federal government’s interest payments consumed nearly 30% of its total revenues. As with Sweden and Finland, Moody’s expected that the effort involved in bringing the deficits down – which were prevalent at all levels of government – would need to be so profound and maintained for a relatively long time, that it would prevent a return to Aaa-range debt metrics within the medium term and leave open the possibility that both policymakers and the population would develop “reform fatigue.” Also, as in the Nordic countries, Canada’s debt was relatively short term, and the heavy presence of cross-border investors in the local debt market increased market volatility, so the foreign currency rating was downgraded by another notch to Aa2 a year later along with a one-notch downgrade in the local currency rating.
Canada regained its Aaa ratings on both foreign and domestic currency government debt in 2002. In all of these cases, Moody’s had, in retrospect, perhaps underestimated the growth regeneration capacity of both the Nordics and Canada as well as the determination of these societies to recover from crisis through common sacrifice. These characteristics are some of the most important factors behind Aaa ratings: it is why no Aaa country is assessed as having a payment adjustment capacity lower than medium in Moody’s sovereign bond rating methodology.
Japan’s downgrade from Aaa occurred later than the others and went much further over the course of three years, falling to A2 for the government’s local currency rating. This was motivated by similar concerns about worsening debt affordability when a protracted recession compounded by persistent deflation took the debt/GDP ratio well above 100%. Although the actual payments burden represented by debt was extremely modest because of ultra-low interest rates, Moody’s assumed that ongoing large deficits and the continued
rise in government debt would eventually result in a meaningful rise in interest rates that would translate into a considerable increase in payments pressure. Also important were the considerations of the very poor demographic trends – which would translate into an even more burdensome payments responsibility on a per capita basis and erode private savings – and the expectation that once Japan liberalized its capital account, risk-averse Japanese would shift part of their investment portfolios outside Japan. Among the reasons why the government’s ratings were subsequently upgraded in two steps to Aa3 was that both assumptions regarding interest rates and portfolio diversification never materialized – it turned out that the Japanese can live with a larger debt burden than previously assumed.
Interesting, that last statement, is it not, particularly in light of the piece during the week referencing Will Hutton.
Invitation to a sandbagging… the Criminal Justice Bill in the Irish Times. July 9, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics, media.1 comment so far
Janus like the IT faces both ways – again. Consider it’s editorial yesterday on the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill. After outlining the nature of the problem and suggesting that ‘our existing criminal code seems inadequate’ it continues:
This is the context in which the letter sent to this newspaper by 133 lawyers who are directly involved in both prosecuting and defending those accused of crime raises serious questions about the appropriateness of the response proposed by the Government in the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill.
Among their concerns is that allowing a conviction on the uncorroborated opinion of a garda may be unconstitutional; that it marks a departure from the principle of jury trial not thought necessary by countries who are faced with the threat of international terrorism; that it permits secret detention hearings; and that many of the issues raised by the Government in promoting the Bill have been addressed in previous legislation.
The signatories to this letter include many lawyers who act as counsel for the Director of Public Prosecutions in seeking to convict those accused of committing serious crimes. They are in daily contact with the victims of crime, who frequently also have to appear in court as witnesses for the prosecution. As they state in their letter, they see at first hand the effect of crime, particularly violent crime, on individuals and communities. They also have a close-up view of the criminal justice system with all its strengths and failings. It is significant that so many prosecutors do not appear to think this Bill, if it becomes law, will make their task easier.
Well, it’s unlikely, despite the glib heading of the editorial – given the seriousness of the topic, ‘Criminal lawyers’, that the lawyers are in this one for the money. Perhaps, just perhaps they feel that there’s a problem here. So what are we to make about the final paragraph…
The signatories also warn of the impact this “impetuous legislating” might have on respect for the rule of law. It is an unusual, but not an unprecedented, step for practising lawyers to air their views in the public interest on pending legislation. They call for the Bill to be withdrawn to allow a short consultation period for reasoned debate. It would have been helpful, and more useful, if these practitioners had offered their alternative to deal with a serious problem.
Hmmm… well, now I wonder about that particular formulation in the final sentence. Look back at the sentenced in the second paragraph which argues that somehow the gangland situation dismal as it is doesn’t warrant measures thought excessive in states which face international terrorism. It is entirely reasonable for a group of lawyers to argue that a proposal brought forward is unworkable or in some sense inapplicable. It moves things to an entirely different basis for them to be proposing ‘alternatives’. That’s not exactly their function and they’d be open to charges of undue activism if they did so.
But all that was but a curtain raiser for the following today, an article in the Irish Times by Stephen O’Byrnes, late of the Progressive Democrats and a man who I had some dealings with many years ago. He’s a nice guy, no doubt about it, but to my mind he’s seriously wrong in his analysis of the Bill.
As with the Irish Times editorial he argues that:
For years now, the vast majority of decent law-abiding people have cried out for similar action to be taken to combat gangland criminals, the drugs godfathers and their hired killers. This cry went up especially after the murder of Donna Cleary, Anthony Campbell, Baiba Saulite, and the Limerick trio of Brian Fitzgerald, Shane Geoghegan and Collins. And it was the murder of Collins that finally tipped the balance. Belatedly, in the eyes of most citizens, the Minister for Justice last week brought forward a new Criminal Justice Bill transferring various “organised crime” offences to the Special Criminal Court where the gardaí can offer expert evidence on the activities of the defendants. Clearly the gardaí will also be greatly assisted by the new Surveillance Act which will allow for the admission of surveillance evidence, and convictions can be secured on that basis, without having to rely on witnesses.
But again, what of jurors? How do no-jury trials assist this, where is the evidence that jurors have been suborned by criminals? How does the Bill protect witnesses. In fact he notes that it is witnesses who are the obvious weak link in this chain…
So while it is clear the gardaí have the intelligence, they find it impossible to bring prosecutions because people are terrified to assist them and/or to offer witness evidence in court. Where witness statements are secured, these are often withdrawn in court, due to intimidation of these witnesses or their families. And if there are individuals brave enough to come forward and give evidence, other gang members will sit in the court intent on intimidating jury members.
There is an argument there, and I find it compelling, for having court proceedings largely in camera, open only to the press. But that’s not the argument he’s making.
He continues with what is an absolutely bizarre reading of the situation…
Yet, notwithstanding the growing criminal mayhem of recent years, and the scandalous level of non-prosecutions in gang murders, this vital reform has been roundly condemned by bodies that profess concern for human rights.
The Irish Human Rights Commission, whose website opens by declaring solemnly that “the protection and promotion of human rights is [its] core value”, states that the new Bill is “not human rights compliant”. The Irish Council for Civil Liberties proclaimed that Ahern’s Bill “tramples on the rule of law”.
A search of the websites of these august bodies, however, reveals no public statements following the murder of Campbell, or Cleary, or Collins; nor was there any chain letter from the Four Courts. The Collins murder was the particular atrocity that put the human rights of every law-abiding citizen under threat, and which the Minister admitted was the tipping-point for the new legislation. Such selective concern for the human rights of citizens engaged in criminal activity from human rights and civil liberties bodies nauseates most right-thinking people, and does serious damage to the reputation of these organisations.
How is it selective for a Human Rights group whose interaction is with the state and its legislation to concentrate their focus on that state and that legislation? What possible point is served by such groups issuing statements that no-one – bar O’Byrnes – expects or would read? They have no influence on the ground one way or another. And the same holds true of the critique by the lawyers. They have no rhetorical influence on those who commit these crimes
O’Byrnes concludes by taking a lash at the Oireachtas and the Opposition…
But what did the Oireachtas make of the new Bill which, if it operates as envisaged, should, at long last, tip the balance of justice in favour of law-abiding society and away from the gangland criminals whom it has heretofore clearly favoured? After all the special debates of the last atrocity of the past decade, with Opposition parties pleading with the Government to take effective action, here surely was the time for virtual unanimity.
Sadly, when the Bill was debated in the Dáil last Friday this did not happen. Echoing a lot of the media commentary to date, various Opposition politicians extolled a jury system that is demonstrably incapable of functioning in the exceptional circumstances of today’s criminality. Deputies suggested witness protection programmes (is that where law-abiding citizens want to end up), and repeated daft and impractical proposals from the Human Rights Commission, such as having an anonymous jury (whatever that is), screening the jury from public view, or linking the jury by video to the court.
And there were repeated protests about the time allocated to consider the Bill, which is set to pass all stages tomorrow.
As if the case for this reform has not been debated up and down the land for at least the past decade, in the Oireachtas, the media and among the public.
Well, that – unfortunately – is nonsense. These particularly contentious measures have not been debated up and down the land for the past decade and it’s specious of him to claim otherwise. The debate, such as we’re having, has already lapsed into unwise anecdote.
The ideas raised such as screening the jury are neither ‘daft’, impracticable or perverse in their outcomes. The issue of a strong witness protection programme is a necessity, not some sort of outrageous imposition on citizens. It is precisely the way to break the back of gangland crime because it attacks the foundations for it from within the community demonstrating both the primacy of the state and the inability of gangs to combat those around them who want them dealt with.
It’s surprising to see him so willing to pull away the oversight function, limited as it is, of the Oireachtas from this issue. Curious that he cannot seem to see that if the Opposition is generally perturbed by this legislation there might be more to that perturbation than political opportunism. Odd that he can so easily dismiss the concerns of tranches of expert opinion well beyond those who might ordinarily be liable to make noises.
Still, O’Byrne’s piece is drafted from Olympian heights as compared to that of Kevin O’Connor, a former RTÉ journalist from Limerick who writes that ‘lawyers’ are, as the heading suggests ‘Using Constitution to mask self-interest’ and then proceeds to berate the legal profession for all manner of misdemeanours.
Neither do the well-paid lawyers, who yesterday made alarmist invocations of the Constitution’s alleged “protection of the jury system”, to defeat this Bill. Excuse me while I yawn [?], but is this the same Constitution which failed to guarantee the “right to life” of some 20 of its citizens this year – three citizens a month gone to graves, failed by the Constitution of this little state of anarchy?
Or maybe the lawyers have in mind another Constitution, which does not protect that shopkeeper and the hundreds of people, similarly oppressed, who took to the streets of Limerick – and were filmed and recorded by the gangsters the opponents of the Bill seek to protect. That Constitution did not protect three decent men in that city from the ultimate sanction of the gangs.
He continues…
Let us name them: Collins, Geoghegan and Fitzgerald.
Men, whose deaths, in my view, are sullied by lawyers who deliver obstruction of a Bill designed to convict gangsters more speedily. The Bill would allow the Special Criminal Court to hear “opinion” police evidence and deliver sentencing without recourse to a jury.
Oddly, the opponents seem not to reason how the Special Criminal Court was brought about by fear of the IRA.
Why is it, when the little Republic was rampaged by armed groups who murdered its servants, it was alright to have a non-jury court – but not alright when the citizens of Limerick are threatened?
Is it because lawyers and politicians, sheltering comfortably in well-paid careers, feared militant republicans – who might remake their lives totally had they succeeded in controlling the State – more than gangs of drug dealers. Odd is it not?
Odd, too, they have amnesia about the acquittals before the non-jury courts – because judges in their collective wisdom felt it unsafe to convict, even when presented with a weight of evidence that a jury might be disposed to accept.
Being lawyers, the round-robin writers of yesterday’s letter to this newspaper are “judicially” selective in their evidence. In spite of their high moral ground, this is a game to them and they know how to play it, as shown by their inflated language about Ireland “being shamed before the international community”. What? The “international community” does justice better than Ireland?
And he concludes…
Altogether self-regarding in my opinion, is their opposition to a Bill designed to protect the majority – at some cost, it must be conceded, to the civil liberties of a minority charged with serious criminal offences.
Lawyers’ arguments are essentially technical, exploiting pedantry and linguistics to oppress the other side. In other words, lawyers make arguments separate from morality or fair play, on behalf of their customers.
On the rare occasions they invoke “morality” or “fairness”, it’s with a client’s interest in mind and not with the meaning of such concepts as understood by ordinary people.
So then, with some weariness, I regard this lobby rather on the same level, as say, publicans pitching for changes in licensing laws. By all means let their views feed into the debate in the Dáil, the peoples’ forum, with all its faults of mediocrity and silliness. But spare us their assumptions of superior morality or infallible knowledge about law and democratic process.
So there you go. A straw man constructed from curious assumptions about lawyers is created and then demolished in a manner which goes no way to addressing the actual concerns raised by the lawyers. The proposition is that lawyers are a self-interested and self-regarding lot, distanced from the troubles of mere mortals, etc. That their concerns are equally self-regarding.
And saying that I don’t want to in any respect diminish the embedded nature of the problem faced by communities riven by such violence.
Nor is it that I’m somehow beyond the scope of this violence. Myself and at least three or four others who regularly comment on here all live within a stones throw of a number of gun crime murders and the shooting of a Gardá. Campaigning for Tony Gregory, being involved in community groups and attending Garda community liaison meetings tends to blow away any overly idealistic views of these matters.
If ever I thought Tony Blair got it right it was in the ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’ formulation, if that had been carried through with any consistency. And that demands the centrality of community in all this in an active fashion. It demands protections for that community. Speaking of Tony Gregory, some were surprised some years back to hear his grudging support for ASBO like instruments where necessary.
But even if it weren’t the case that I believe in a multi-pronged approach, or that me and mine are growing older and growing up in an area that by any reckoning has its fair share of gun crime, it wouldn’t invalidate the proposition that this requires considerable caution and more than the Government has given it.
Bad laws don’t improve matters. Often they make them worse. What we need are protections for witnesses, not rhetoric about jurors (although that should be taken as read), the moving of trials to more secure locations, better intelligence gathering and surveillance by the Gardai and so forth. This legislation doesn’t address those issues in a coherent fashion and in some of its formulations is actively problematic in progressing the situation.
I think, for what it’s worth, that in this instance the lawyers (and I’m not their biggest fan) have done the right thing by pointing out what they consider to be intrinsic problems with this proposed legislation. The next step would be that of the state to reconsider that legislation in light of the criticisms. That’s genuinely being ‘more useful’.
Speaking of intriguing, check out the letter – under the heading ‘Trial by Jury’, from Eoin O’Malley of the School of Law and Government in DCU….
A winnable nuclear war (for some)… the flip side of nuclear weapons reductions? July 9, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in International Politics, US Politics.4 comments
Some weeks back an analysis of Fred Kaplan in Slate online was examined as an example of precisely the wrong way for the US to approach the situation there. That that issue has subsided for now is of no satisfaction, although there seem to have been some intriguing public expressions of discontent by the religious there. Something that may auger well for the future if as a political dynamic it can be sustained. But in the broader view the Iranian situation provides a clear cut example of how a light touch towards interventions may actually reap dividends. There is next to nothing that the United States can do there, other than expressing rhetorical unease or worse. Therefore it is probably best that the US does nothing and is circumspect about the level of rhetoric that it uses. Others are better placed to exercise levers that may sustain opposition within and modify the nature of the regime. And now the regime is in a very difficult place indeed for legitimacy is often lost and rarely sustained at the point of a gun. Paradoxically the prospect for change for the better within the constraints and limitations of the Islamic Republic may have have increased considerably since last month.
Meanwhile, by contrast, let’s applaud a piece in Slate by Kaplan this week which discusses in a cogent and useful manner the nature of the round of talks in Moscow between Obama and Medvedev. Now, I wasn’t thrilled, to put it mildly, to see Obama uncharacteristically making some comments about Medvedev as against Putin. Such stuff smacks of rhetorical politics at its worst. I can’t tell, indeed who can be sure, what the relationship between the two most powerful Russians is, but the idea that comments will influence relationships appears highly unlikely. Indeed, as with Iran such rhetoric can serve to generate the very outcomes one least wishes for.
Kaplan notes that for decades, and in particular during the Soviet era, nuclear arms reduction talks often functioned as a means of opening up useful channels for dialogue between the superpowers.
Even during their heyday, in the 1970s and ’80s, the chief benefit of SALT, START, INF, and the assorted other nuclear negotiations wasn’t so much their specific outcomes as that they gave the superpowers something to talk about—a forum in which their diplomats could engage one another, exchange information, probe and sometimes expand the limits of cooperation—in an era when it was impossible to talk fruitfully about anything else.
But he also notes that curiously the very focus on nuclear negotiations can lead to unintended consequences.
It would have been a grave mistake if President Barack Obama had come to Moscow with an agenda that focused solely on strategic arms talks. One lesson learned from the bad old days: If nukes are all the two powers can talk about, relations very quickly devolve into fetishism.
Back then, at the height of the Cold War, many diplomats, politicians, think-tank denizens, and journalists immersed themselves so thoroughly in the esoterica of “nuclear-exchange” calculations, missile throw-weight ratios, and “hard target kill” probabilities that they came to confuse this bizarre, abstract world for the real one.
And he makes what I suspect is a key point when he notes that should one…
Dip into the archives of such journals as Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, International Security, even the op-ed pages of major newspapers from that era, … you will find serious-minded officials and scholars spinning elaborate, quantitative (and, therefore, presumptively scientific) scenarios in which the Soviet premier launches a nuclear attack against the United States—hurling thousands of nuclear warheads, which explode with the force of billions of tons of dynamite (thousands of megatons) and spread vast plumes of radioactive fallout, killing tens of millions of Americans—because the calculations suggest that his most potent nuclear warheads could destroy all our land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles in a surprise first strike.
Such scenarios ignored a few basic facts: that U.S. submarines, prowling under the ocean’s surface and thus invulnerable to attack, would still hold thousands of nuclear warheads, which could be fired against the USSR in a devastating retaliatory blow; that some of the land-based missiles and bombers would survive the first strike as well; and that—above all else—the whole mathematical exercise simply did not reflect the way that any leader of an established power, including Russia, has ever thought about the use of force.
He points to a basic fact…
Certain calculations suggested that during the early 1980s, the Soviets did possess this theoretical “first-strike capability”—then-Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger warned of a “window of vulnerability.” Yet there is no evidence whatsoever—in the since-declassified Russian archives or anyplace else—that this “edge” altered the balance of power or emboldened the Soviets to take steps or issue threats that they otherwise might not have.
One can go further. In the late 1960s, Soviet and Chinese armies confronted each other, and nearly went to war, over a territorial dispute along the Yulu River. Yet the Kremlin leaders backed off because Mao Zedong possessed a mere handful of nuclear weapons and they feared that he might launch them in response to an invasion.
I’d never heard of that confrontation, but it is indeed an educative one. Far from the experience of the Second World War and the near scorched-earth approach that the Eastern front/Great Patriotic War generated with a massive loss of life and resources inuring the Soviets to further mass casualties, they acted as rational players. And he usefully notes that contrary to media view of nuclear weapons as being activist tools their real value is in their deterrent effect.
This is the thing about nuclear weapons: It takes just a few of them to give their possessor the power to deter an attack. Beyond that, the math darts off into abstractions. (For instance, many are apprehensive about a nuclear-armed North Korea or Iran, not because they expect either country to achieve “nuclear superiority” but simply because they might be able to resist pressure, as China did in the late ’60s, by brandishing a mere handful of them.)
But here’s the thing. There are always those who will take a, perhaps we could term it, perverse view of such matters. And Kaplan points to:
…today’s Wall Street Journal, nearly two decades after this Cold War remnant should have dropped out of the public discourse, Keith B. Payne argues in an op-ed piece that the arms accord outlined by Obama and Dmitry Medvedev—which calls for each side to reduce the number of its warheads to between 1,500 and 1,675 and the number of its missile-launchers to between 500 and 1,100—”has the potential to compromise U.S. security” because having “very low numbers of launchers would make the U.S. more vulnerable to destabilizing first-strike dangers.”
The irony is that Payne has form in such matters, as Kaplan recounts…
Within strategic circles, Payne is a well-known extremist. In 1980, he co-authored an article in Foreign Policy titled “Victory Is Possible,” by which he meant victory in a nuclear war is possible. In it, he wrote that “an intelligent United States offensive [nuclear] strategy, wedded to homeland defenses, should reduce U.S. casualties to approximately 20 million … a level compatible with national survival and recovery.” (As Gen. Buck Turgidson, the George C. Scott character in Dr. Strangelove, put it, “I’m not saying we won’t get our hair mussed up, but 10-20 million tops, depending on the breaks.”)
Funny. Except it’s clearly not. And here’s a further interesting paradox, as the numbers fall there is something of an argument that very low level exchanges would be survivable. Problem is that, as Kaplan has already discussed, we’re nowhere near such levels since both the US and Russia would even following the latest round of talks, should they be successful, retain considerable arsenals.
Kaplan sees this as an ideological attack from the Republican right, and he may well be right…
The Republican right can be expected to pick up on this line of attack—not because they agree with, or fully understand, its strategic implications. (However thuggish Putin might be, does anyone really believe that he would like to launch a nuclear strike against the United States or that he would venture such a loony risk?) The real agenda is to stave off a broader renewed détente with Russia, to keep up the pressure along its borders (especially in Georgia), and to forestall progress toward a U.S.-Russian policy to keep Iran from building nuclear weapons (which might make an attack on Iran unnecessary).
I think that last sentence, however much I might disagree with the earlier notion that Putin is ‘thuggish’, is central to this. One can be cynical and argue that for them it makes sense to paint Russia as an adversary rather than a partner, or one can take Kaplan’s line which is that in some respects they simply don’t understand the strategic implications.
But beyond that I think it’s key to recognise that for a very small minority such matters take a different line wherein we remain locked in the supposedly existential conflicts of the Cold War (and if one reads the last paragraph or two of Kaplan’s piece it is remarkable how even he reads this as a process where a near-adversarial relationship is now a given).
Payne’s original piece (copy here – worth reading in full) in Foreign Policy is an eye-opener – even for someone like myself who has never really been hugely exercised by nuclear disarmament, at least not since the mid to late 1980s (beyond believing that large states would retain them, that small states would most likely acquire them and that what is necessary in such a context is a strong international security framework to reduce the numbers held by the former and slow the acquisition by the latter).
It really does start with the heading… Victory is Possible.
Nuclear war is possible. But unlike Armageddon, the apocalyptic war prophesied to end history, nuclear war can have a wide range of possible outcomes. Many commentators and senior U.S. government officials consider it a nonsurvivable event. The popularity of this view in Washington has such a pervasive and malign effect upon American defense planning that it is rapidly becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy for the United States.
Recognition that war at any level can be won or lost, and that the distinction between winning and losing would not be trivial, is essential for intelligent defense planning. Moreover, nuclear war can occur regardless of the quality of U.S. military posture and the content of American strategic theory. If it does, deterrence, crisis management, and escalation control might play a negligible role. Through an inability to communicate or through Soviet disinterest in receiving and acting upon American messages, the United States might not even have the option to surrender and thus might have to fight the war as best it can. Furthermore, the West needs to devise ways in which it can employ strategic nuclear forces coercively, while minimizing the potentially paralyzing impact of self-deterrence.
What of this?
Strategists cannot offer painless conflicts or guarantee that their preferred posture and doctrine promise a greatly superior deterrence posture to current American schemes. But, they can claim that an intelligent U.S. offensive strategy, wedded to homeland defenses, should reduce U.S. casualties to approximately 20 million, which should render U.S. strategic threats more credible. If the United States developed the targeting plans and procured the weapons necessary to hold the Soviet political, bureaurcratic, and military leadership at risk, that should serve as the functional equivalent in Soviet perspective of the assured-destruction effect of the late 1960s. However, the U.S. targeting community has not determined how it would organize this targeting option.
A combination of counterforce offensive targeting, civil defense, and ballistic missile and air defense should hold U.S. casualties down to a level compatible with national survival and recovery. The actual number would depend on several factors, some of which the United States could control (the level of U.S. homeland defenses); some of which it could influence (the weight and character of the Soviet attack); and some of which might evade anybody’s ability to control or influence (for example, the weather). What can be assured is a choice between a defense program that insures the survival of the vast majority of Americans with relative confidence and one that deliberately permits the Soviet Union to wreak whatever level of damage it chooses.
No matter how grave the Soviet offense, a U.S. president cannot credibly threaten and should not launch a strategic nuclear strike if expected U.S. casualties are likely to involve 100 million or more American citizens. There is a difference between a doctrine that can offer little rational guidance should deterrence fail and a doctrine that a president might employ responsibly for identified political purposes. Existing evidence on the probable consequences of nuclear exchanges suggests that there should be a role for strategy in nuclear war. To ignore the possibility that strategy can be applied to nuclear war is to insure by choice a nuclear apocalypse if deterrence fails. The current U.S. deterrence posture is fundamentally flawed because it does not provide for the protection of American territory.
It is the final two paragraphs which are most revealing…
An Armageddon syndrome lurks behind most concepts of nuclear strategy. It amounts either to the belief that because the United States could lose as many as 20 million people, it should not save the 80 million or more who otherwise would be at risk, or to a disbelief in the serious possibility that 200 million Americans could survive a nuclear war.
There is little satisfaction in advocating an operational nuclear doctrine that could result in the deaths of 20 million or more people in an unconstrained nuclear war. However, as long as the United States relies on nuclear threats to deter an increasingly powerful Soviet Union, it is inconceivable that the U.S. defense community can continue to divorce its thinking on deterrence from its planning for the efficient conduct of war and defense of the country. Prudence in the latter should enhance the former.
What strikes me as fascinating is that, much as Kaplan notes in his own piece about such analyses in general, this discussion paper is abstract. There are remarkably few details as to the actual impacts of the weapons used. There are no projections of likely deaths, rather a sort of fudging as to what might be acceptable. In other words there’s no empirical basis to the paper. Now, some will perhaps say that that is missing the point, but I’d argue that it is precisely by rooting such discussions that we can see how incredible the idea of a survivable nuclear exchange would be.
And beyond that there’s this…which at the time Payne was writing had not been publicly theorised.
Workers’ Party, Annual Wolfe Tone Commemoration, Bodenstown, 2009 July 8, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics, The Left, Workers' Party.51 comments
Address by Comrade Mary Diskin
Workers Party Annual Wolfe Tone Commemoration
Bodenstown, Sunday 5th July 2009
Comrades,
As we gather once more at the grave of Theobald Wolfe Tone, the founder of our revolutionary republican tradition, we can look back on our efforts since we were last here with a good deal of satisfaction.
We have gained new members; we have revitalised our Party structures and expanded our work within working-class communities and workers’ organisations; we have restored a number of party branches where they had lapsed; Look Left goes from strength to strength, and is putting our message into the hands of workers, the unemployed, students, and those working in the home; our Research Section that did so much to expose the rotten nature of Irish crony capitalism in the 1970s and 1980s is once again producing effective socialist analysis of the crisis of capitalism.
The results of our hard work can be seen in our positive electoral results. Davy Walsh held our seat in Waterford and Ted Tynan was re-elected to Cork City Council. Already both Davy and Ted have challenged the cosy consensus politics that operates on their local councils, offering strong and independent working-class politics. The Party stood in areas it has not stood in for more than a decade, missing out on several seats by a whisker. That all our candidates can be said to have had good elections is a tribute not only to them as individuals but also to the branches in those areas and to the Party as a whole. People are responding to our message, and there are certainly many things that we can confidently look forward to building on in the coming months.
At the same time, comrades, the Party faces many challenges, not least the continued efforts of the most reactionary elements of US imperialism to persecute – and I mean persecute and not prosecute – our former President, Seán Garland. It is clear not only to us but also to any disinterested observer that there is no evidence to substantiate these charges. These charges reflect nothing more than the aggressive militarist policy of the discredited Bush-Cheney regime which sought at every step of its existence to frustrate any chance of a peaceful settlement on the Korean peninsula. That regime did not want to allow the people of Korea the freedom to determine their own future. Faced with its imminent demise, it sought to frustrate the possibility for change promised by President Obama by raising once more these ridiculous charges, and thereby poisoning the possibility of a fresh start between the United States and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. When we think about these charges, comrades, we do not forget their lies when they wished to start a war; nor do we forget the blood of the hundreds of thousands of innocents that stains the hands of Bush and Rumsfeld, of Cheney and Rice. They oversaw the most corrupt US regime since Nixon, and like him, they used an imperialist war to line the pockets of American big business at the expense of foreign civilians and the domestic poor.
I said earlier that any disinterested observer could see these accusations for the sham that they are. The Bush regime themselves knew that they had no evidence to offer. This is why they attempted to use the unjust 2003 Extradition Treaty with the UK during their attempt to nab Seán Garland from Belfast in 2005. That Treaty requires no evidence to be presented for a person to be extradited, and the Bush regime tried to use the UK treaty as opposed to that of the Republic, precisely because they had no evidence to offer. In December 2008, with their government already voted out of office, they tried one last desperate act to ensure that they would set the agenda in Korea for years to come.
It is a testament to both Seán personally and to our Party, to our work for peace and on behalf of working people, that a wide cross-section of the Irish public has come forward to support him and to oppose his extradition. The Committee to fight the extradition of Seán Garland has members drawn from across the political divide in the Oireachtas, as well as prominent trade union and cultural figures. All of us here must contribute whatever we can to the campaign.
If President Obama is serious about making a real break with the failures of the past, if he genuinely wants to engage with those Bush tried to bully, then he could give no clearer demonstration of his intentions than withdrawing the extradition request. The interests of justice and fairness, as well as promoting peace in the Korean peninsula, demand it.
Lenin stated that there was no economic crisis so great that the working class could not be made to pay for it. We have seen that the capitalists have taken this message to heart. Across the world, governments have rushed to splurge public money on propping up banks that have become the victims of their own massive greed. For decades we have been hearing about the all-powerful market, about how the almighty market would solve all our problems. The current crisis has revealed the re-hashing of the theories of Milton Friedman and his disciples by governments and academics to be just the arrogant and senseless bleating of a capitalist class, intoxicated with its own power. This crisis has revealed the extent to which capitalists have a single objective – the accumulation of ever greater amounts of capital. When that means privatization, deregulating the market, tax avoidance schemes, and no-union clauses then that is what they favour. When it means going squealing to government demanding handouts, the socialisation of losses, and temporary public ownership to enable their companies to survive, then they are in favour of that too.
Blair and Brown, as the leaders of New Labour in the UK, embraced the new capitalism and promised an ever rising graph of profits and job creation. They were part of the Bush military merry-go-round. They were the leaders of the politics of privatisation and light touch regulation. And suddenly the house of cards collapsed. Families in Northern Ireland and Britain are paying with their jobs, their savings and their homes. Brown is now so unpopular he can hardly keep a cabinet intact for a month.
No ruling elite has embraced the market with more zeal than that of the Republic. Since the foundation of the state, politics here has been a case of tweedledum and tweedledee. At no time has this been clearer than during the last two decades. Going back to the bad years of the 1980s, both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael implemented a policy of slash and burn, of corruption and emigration. During the boom years, both sought to rule the country in the interests of the multi-nationals, the property speculators, the construction companies, and the financiers, often while feathering their own nests. Truly the state was the executive committee of the bourgeoisie. Throughout the period of the boom, we in The Workers’ Party pointed out that not enough was being done to boost public services, to improve real wages, and to create sustainable growth.
Now that the boom has come to an end, we can see how Fianna Fáil squandered it. From 1998 to 2007, €58 billion was amassed in tax. Scandalously, that most regressive of taxes, V.A.T., lay at the heart of the increased tax take. The government used this windfall to cut taxes still further for the richest, not to invest in health and education – education spend lags behind the OECD average. In short, at a period when domestic and foreign companies have been making unprecedented profits in Ireland, ordinary people have been subsidising their tax breaks and tax avoidance.
Now we are paying for their mistakes as well. In the Republic, unemployment stands at 11.9% and most likely will rise to close to 20% over the next year. Emigration has returned as a serious problem for our young people. We are told to tighten our belts for the sake of the country, while the super-rich continue as before, very often as nominal non-residents for tax purposes. The so-called alternative, Fine Gael, would behave no differently. We should remember that at the General Election of 2007, the Fine-Gael/Labour alternative fought the campaign on the grounds that they would be better for business and would offer lower taxes. Only socialism offers an alternative, we cannot expect to get real change from any coalition in which Fine Gael makes the running.
The recent elections showed that there is an appetite for real change among the electorate in the south. Voters rejected Fianna Fáil, and many are looking to the broad Left to provide leadership to overturn the policies that have wasted the greatest economic growth this country has seen. However, we cannot ignore the fact that the party that did best was Fine Gael. Left unity is essential. The individual left parties are each too weak to be the engine of significant change. Progressive forces must find better ways of cooperating. The trade union movement must play a major role – its position as a social partner, as the largest organisation representing workers, and as the organisation within the left with the greatest resources – mean that it has a great responsibility. We welcome the efforts by those in trade union movement who challenge the neo-liberal consensus through their economic analysis and alternative policies. If the left is to produce the type of detailed economic policies necessary to provide a credible alternative, then the trade unions must increase their efforts in this area.
The Labour Party, as the largest political force on the broad left, also has a duty to stand up for workers. The likelihood is that it will play a decisive role in the formation of the next government. The fate of the Green Party should be a warning to it. It must not allow the attractions of power to cause it to acquiesce in a government that attacks the living conditions of workers and destroys public services. Instead, we need a left that pushes relentlessly its own vision of a better society – a secular society; a society where the state invests heavily in a concerted programme of job creation in state-owned enterprises; where laws and policies are made in the interests of the people; and where an integrated public transport policy ensures that commuters can get where they need to go, and that the environment is protected at the same time. None of this can happen with a government committed to private enterprise.
The need for Left Unity is perhaps even more critical in Northern Ireland. Eleven years after the Belfast agreement politics have become even more sterile and locked into sectarian isolation. At the recent European election the turnout was less than 50% – where often in the past a turnout approaching 80% could be expected. There was no progressive candidate. This situation demands innovation and energy from the left.
Of course we will be back on the streets very shortly. The Lisbon Treaty re-run is scheduled for October 2nd this year. This is an insult to the Irish people.
We express bitter disappointment at the cowardice demonstrated by Taoiseach Brian Cowen in failing to defend the democratic decision of the Irish people and in accepting a deal in Brussels which is no more than a promise of a promise.
In June 2008 the Irish people massively and democratically rejected the Lisbon Treaty. During that campaign we raised many serious issues about the ending of Irish military neutrality, about the militarisation of the EU and the promotion of the international arms trade within the EU, about the common foreign and security policy and about structured co-operation. Each of those issues are very serious in their own right and raise fundamental questions of democracy.
The Brussels’s deal not only refuses to confront the real question, but raises complete red herrings. The deal makes a song and dance about the “threat of conscription” being ended. This was never an issue raised by the NO campaign.
When the PR gloss from this deal is stripped away the Irish people will recognise that the commitment of Merkel, Berlusconi and Sarkozy to the militarisation of the EU remains undiminished; that their commitment to tie the EU even closer to the nuclear armed NATO remains; and their commitment to allow the EU to intervene in 3rd countries remains. They will further realise that the EU led attack on jobs, attack on wages; attack on democracy; and attack on social services remains unabated. This is exactly what we rejected in 2008, and I am convinced that in October the people will deliver the same answer.
The Ryan Report on Institutional Child Abuse was published in mid May. Despite the fact that the report was published in the middle of a major election campaign it dominated all headlines and continues to make headlines. The march of Solidarity with the Victims of Abuse, on Wednesday 10th June in Dublin, was a hugely emotional affair and gathered at least 7,000 participants.
Why is this issue important for the Workers’ Party? On a very basic level it affects some of our members. On a personal basis I know five members / very close supporters who were incarcerated in Industrial Schools. On a political basis the report raises huge issues for debate and possibilities for political action. The report shows very clearly the historical collusion between the Catholic Church, the ISPCC, the Judiciary, the Dept of Education and the medical profession.
While in some areas the situation has moved forward, in other aspects the situation has not changed one iota. Even when the state has put child protection structures or regulations in place the reality is often that they are not working. There is a serious lack of social workers available in the HSE to deal with referrals. The absence of 24 hour social work call has been highlighted in recent tragedies. A serious and growing problem is the almost total lack of child psychiatric services in the state. The Education and Welfare Board, for example, is not effective and is seen as a waste of time and money by most teachers and Boards of Management.
The HSE child care and fostering system is a shambles. It is a fact that every night in Dublin teenagers, and even children as young as 11 or 12, who have been loose on the streets all day congregate in city centre Garda Stations like Store Street and Pearse St. At about 8.00pm the HSE duty social worker arrives and collects the number of these children for whom there are hostel beds available. The remainder of the kids bunk down in sleeping bags on the floor of the foyer of these stations. These are modern day scandals and must be tackled.
Church influence, while not as overt as in the 1940s or ‘50s, still continues. Education, in the Republic, at first and second level is still dominated by the RC church; the colleges of education which produce primary teachers are either Roman Catholic or Church of Ireland. The only exception is the graduate programme of Hibernia College. There are approximately 3,200 primary schools – over 3,000 of which are Catholic. In the North the sectarian divide in education remains undiminished. We must campaign as a party, as a youth movement, and as part of a great broad campaign to open up society and to liberate the country from the continuing cloak of theocracy. This is one of the best opportunities we will ever get to open this debate.
The Workers’ Party believes in a society where citizens are free to practise their religious beliefs subject to respect for the rights of others, to change their religious affiliation or to choose not to hold any religious belief. No church or religious belief should be endorsed or conferred with any special rights or privileged position by the state. Politicians, elected to public office, should not use that office to endorse or express religious views or preferences in the course of their public duties.
The Workers’ Party demands complete separation between church and state and by that we mean there is no place for the special position of any church, denomination or religious belief in the public life or institutions of the state. The Workers’ Party is committed to the primacy of a secular democratic society based on principles of equality and justice and supports the need to defend the state against all those who seek privileges and special treatment on the grounds of their religious belief, whatever that belief.
The Workers’ Party believes that it is the duty of the state to create public institutions and spaces which are religiously neutral and this includes schools, hospitals and places of work. Faith based schools, of whatever religion, serve to divide youth and foster difference. All children should be educated through and in a properly integrated system of education. The state should abolish religious declarations and oaths for public positions including eg the office of President and judges in the republic, with immediate effect and should be constantly vigilant against any church-state agreement or arrangement which might attempt to impose a position on political decision-making.
We come to Bodenstown today to reiterate our commitment to the revolutionary republican tradition inaugurated by the United Irishmen. That tradition has several core components – it is democratic, secular, socialist and internationalist. The United Irishmen were part of a broader international movement – that had as its aim greater human freedom and social justice – just as we are today. The last quarter of the eighteenth century saw the beginning of modern politics with the American and French Revolutions which put government by the people, of the people and for the people on the political agenda for the first time. Tom Paine was a central figure in the American Revolution, a member of the National Convention of the French Republic, and his Rights of Man distilled the principles of revolutionary democracy. It was this work that inspired the United Irishmen – as Tone put it, Rights of Man was the ‘Koran of Belfast’.
Paine died 200 years ago this year. As with Tone, when we look at Paine’s writings, at his secular democratic republicanism and his plans for a government that would ensure social justice, we see his continued relevance. When sectarianism continues to shape life in Northern Ireland; when the votes of those of us who are neither unionist nor nationalist mean less than those who support the sectarian blocs; when working class schoolchildren will continue to be sacrificed to those of the middle class; when public services are under threat from a right-wing coalition representing the unionist and nationalist bourgeoisie; when our economic policy stresses call centres not high value, high skill jobs in public-owned businesses; then we see that we must continue to pursue the United Irishmen’s programme of the Unity of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter to create a government in the interests of the people of no property. As we have fought sectarianism for 40 years we must now fight the newest offspring of sectarianism, racism – both north and south – which festers and bubbles at every level in society.
The left has an opportunity. We in The Workers’ Party, with others, must grasp it. As part of the New Departure of the 1960s, Cathal Goulding identified the need for republicans to engage on every front of the people’s struggles. This remains the case today. The struggle against capitalism in the conditions of the current crisis must be fought on every level. At the economic level, to defend jobs and conditions, and to frustrate the efforts of multi-nationals to flee the country without proper compensation for workers, as has happened at Waterford Crystal and Visteon in Belfast.
At the ideological level, through Look Left and our other publications, especially the work of the Research Section, and in arguing our case in both old and new media, especially via the internet. And at the political level, through building the Party, by becoming more active in our communities and workplaces, in recruiting new members – in short, through educating, agitating and organising. As I said at the start, we have had a good year. Let’s make next year a better one.
Thank you comrades.
Riddle me this… the Irish Times and capital expenditure. July 8, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, Irish Politics.1 comment so far
From the IT editorial on Monday.
WHEN THE building boom reached its peak less than two years ago, one in six of the labour force worked in the construction industry. Since then, the numbers employed in the sector have fallen sharply and the Construction Industry Federation (CIF) has warned that a further 100,000 may lose their jobs unless a decline in public investment is quickly reversed.
The Government, in its emergency budget last April, again cut the public capital programme and this year capital spending is likely to be one fifth lower than in 2008. CIF director general, Tom Parlon, presenting his mid-year review, said that as house building and commercial property projects remain stalled, the Government’s infrastructure programme offers the construction industry its only hope.
Well, it’s true that the construction industry did rather too well, to be kind, out of the boom. But doing well hasn’t been an impediment to the current largesse of the state to say… the financial sector. And while it is also true that a functioning financial sector is necessary…what of this?
The Government aims to bring the public finances into greater balance over time. This requires major spending cuts – both current and capital. A sharp contraction in the construction sector is part of the necessary adjustment to achieving a healthier and more balanced economy in future. And financial constraints now impose difficult choices. For the Government this means, as a recent Economic and Social Research Institute working paper has suggested, that “public capital projects should be undertaken on the basis that they have a long-run return to the whole economy”. Any other basis is likely to prove wasteful of taxpayers’ money, and counterproductive.
But…
This year the economy is likely to shrink by 8 per cent, while from 2008 to 2010 the International Monetary Fund has forecast a cumulative decline of 13.5 per cent – the largest contraction among advanced economies. By year-end the budget deficit could reach 12 per cent of Gross Domestic Product. These figures clearly demonstrate the Government has very limited scope to help a sector struggling to adjust to a new and painful economic reality. In any downturn, governments find it much easier to cut capital spending, rather than current spending. Lower capital spending, affecting the provision of roads, schools and hospitals, results in a poorer public infrastructure – but the repercussions are delayed. On the other hand, lower current spending has an immediate and direct impact.
So, is the IT arguing for or against capital spending? Is the point about repercussions being delayed meant to indicate a positive or a negative. Ad likewise with ‘lower current spending’ having an ‘immediate and direct impact’…
After all, it’s hardly an original thought that the poor standard of many areas of our public infrastructure has in the past and currently, as for example those of us with even a passing familiarity with our primary and parts of our secondary, education sector is an embedded problem. Sure, we could put off expenditure on these areas… and no doubt for some ‘repercussions will be delayed’, although again only for those who have been blind to the continuing protests about that infrastructure during the ‘boom’ and how many areas haven’t even been addressed. But isn’t that precisely the sort of short term thinking that has plagued this state since its foundation?
And isn’t it fascinating the way the public discourse is shaped as regards certain areas of the private sector, for that, after all is what the construction industry is and the financial sector too. Favoured and less favoured. And we pay for it either way.
Or is this another classic IT editorial which skillfully evades settling down in a specific ideological position while tilting a certain way?
Mind you, in view of the thoughts about the budget deficit reaching 12% of GDP interesting to read in the Observer this weekend an article by Will Hutton which, while admittedly dealing directly with the UK experience (and there are obvious divergences from that in our own case), engages with the thoughts of Japanese economist, Richard Koo of the Nomura Research Institute… whose…
…prognosis is alarming. The Americans, British and especially the mainland Europeans are far too complacent. We simply don’t understand what happens to firms and economies after a credit crunch.
And that…
We are anticipating green shoots and sustained recovery far too early. Indeed, unless western governments spend and borrow beyond anybody’s current imagining, the risk is that the west – and Britain with it – could still topple into a 1930s-style depression. David Cameron’s Tories insist Britain has to reduce its budget deficit fast – just like German fiscal conservatives – but they are basing their judgments on fair-weather times and fair-weather economics. What we are living through is so abnormal it requires abnormal responses.
Koo believes that the Japanese experience of crunch and aftermath provides us with a better template of how things will go.
Koo observed that Japanese firms in the 1990s and early 2000s had changed from profit maximisers to debt minimisers. Between 1970 and the early 1990s during the long yang (”sun” or “light”) upswing, they had steadily built up their debts to finance investment and growth; from the early 1990s on they used every spare yen to pay these off. Even as interest rates fell to zero and firms seemed to have profitable opportunities for growth, they would still pay off their debts rather than invest. Japan’s $15tn collapse in asset and share prices – equivalent to three years’ GDP – traumatised them, because it meant that their grossly devalued assets no longer matched their liabilities. To restore their balance sheets to health they had to reduce their debts. Demand from Japan’s corporate sector dropped by 20%.
But he also notes something that is intriguingly familiar…
Japan is criticised widely for allowing its national debt to rise to 180% of GDP after year after year of high budget deficits. Koo’s reply is that, given the scale of the shock, without government deficits Japan would have experienced a 1930s-style US depression. Indeed, in The Holy Grail of Macro Economics (2008), he explains the Great Depression as a result of US companies becoming debt minimisers in the wake of a property crash and banking collapse that was not compensated by sufficiently large increases in federal spending and borrowing. Koo’s “super Keynesianism” applies in the downward yin [downswing] phases of the cycle; he is much more orthodox on yang phases [upswing]. Don’t worry about debt-rating agencies marking down high-spending governments’ debts, he says; investors will buy public debt in yin phases – just as they will Britain’s or the US’s.
And here are other echoes…
Companies may be less indebted than Japan’s in the 1990s, but by British standards debt is high. Lending to companies fell in both April and May. Part of the problem is that loans are astonishingly expensive because of Britain’s monopolistic, risk-averse banks charging the highest margins and fees in the G7. The result is that companies are repaying debt and not investing. As in Japan, low interest rates are having little traction.
The pound’s huge devaluation and starting with low levels of public debt means that we are better placed than others. Yet, looking around the North Atlantic economy, it is clear that debt minimisation strategies are becoming commonplace. This is the story in the US and in Germany. Indeed, as Paul Krugman argued in my interview with him last month, Germany could become “Nipponised”, relying on exporting its problems to the rest of Europe.
And Hutton concludes…
Even if Koo is only partly right, the economic debate in Britain and beyond is out to lunch. The consensus is to assail Gordon Brown for dishonesty and political disingenuity for still arguing that the state can maintain spending and borrowing despite a budget deficit this year of £175bn; leader-writers across the political spectrum congratulate themselves for their economic literacy in damning him for not saying where and what he is going to cut. A more telling criticism is that he is not spelling out how serious the situation is – and has lost his nerve over the radicalism that will still be needed to get through.
Obviously Britain cannot run deficits of 12% of GDP indefinitely – but cutting them aggressively in a world of debt minimisers will prompt a depression. The correct policy is three-pronged. The government must spend and borrow radically until the downward phase stabilises – but in such a way that spending commitments can then be radically reduced in stabler times. New banks need to be created and old banks broken up to deliver more competition, more credit flows to business and less systemic risk.
It’s an interesting question, is it not, as to how long a state can run a 12 – 13% deficit? We don’t, I’d hazard, have the luxury of being able to sustain it as long as the UK (albeit Michael Taft believes it is sustainable to borrow €16bn per annum for at least two years above our current levels and still not be hitting the Eurozone average). But nor does it seem like we can avoid running deficits larger again than 13% for quite some time. Quite a conundrum.
Mutterings in the ranks of the Green Party… July 7, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics, The Left.37 comments
Worth reflecting on a number of reports in the papers yesterday about the Green Party…First up the news that one of the very very few Green candidates – three councillors to be precise (although they did rather better with Town Councillors) – elected, Brian Meaney of Clare County Council was opining for all and sundry on his leader…
John Gormley’s [whose] decision to abandon plans to impose a €200 holiday home tax on mobile home owners showed “a lack of bottle”, one of his party’s councillors said yesterday.
Clare County Council member Brian Meaney, one of the few Green county councillors to survive the June elections, said holiday homes “benefit from local services; roads, lights and everything else”.
And he continues…
“They should make a contribution. Some of them cost as much as proper houses. The Minister should not have backed down in this way to an agenda set by Joe Duffy and Liveline. It showed a lack of bottle. He should have stood his ground and made it clear that people should pay for services that they get.”
Such holidaymakers, he said, had “no problem and no difficulty” with paying up to €1,500 a year to landowners to site their mobiles, and yet they objected to making a contribution to the local authority.
But wait. He’s not arguing the tax is wrong, but that it should have been more clearly fought for. An interesting position to take, presumably outflanking Gormley to his… er… Green side.
And, in fairness, he’s at least being consistent with a GP approach towards such services. The bin charges got them into particular trouble amongst parts of the left and near the entirety of the further left. It has been interesting to see the angst amongst parts of the left over their seeming volte-face from former polices, but in truth the Green Party while similar to has never been entirely of the left, and despite an activist and campaigning bent much the same has been true of its approach to campaigns. To argue, as some do, that they’re insufficiently socialist, or from milder quarters insufficiently social democrat, is to miss the point. That’s not their gig and it’s unlikely ever to be. I’m coming to the conclusion that if they’re able to push social democratic outcomes in the current context we’ll be lucky, and I’m not certain that it wouldn’t be in spite of rather than because.
Another thought struck me that Patricia McKenna, amongst others – the names Maher and O’Leary spring to mind for some reason, may have made the error of leaving either slightly too late or slightly too late from the GP. The European run was always going to prove a difficult to impossible exercise for McKenna. It’s outcome, the hobbling of the official GP candidate (the number of de Burca’s second preferences that went to McKenna was just shy of 3,000… no love lost there, one can only wonder at what the dynamic was in terms of McKenna’s second preferences – and a further curiosity, it was one P. de Rossa who gained the lions share of de Burca’s transfers, a whopping 7,000 of them, with Joe Higgins getting 2,000 and MLM getting 1,467)), was hardly unexpected, but that candidate was never likely to take a seat although she was more popular on my reading of the percentages than her party, and particularly in a context where other Green party candidates fell at the first hurdle (although, although, look at the figures and there must be more than one or two GP former councillors who might reasonably consider that give a slightly fairer wind on the day they’d have been home. I can count at least three off the top of my head. I’m sure there are more). Who is to say that she wouldn’t have found her proscriptions, or perhaps more accurately her critiques, more favourably received in the aftermath of the melt-down of their councillor base, not least by the former candidates – and it will be telling what if any stance they take. And while sure, they didn’t have that many to start with, three isn’t exactly sterling numbers to take on the future.
Reading Meaney one could see how his analysis might well dovetail neatly with a sort of neo-McKenna like critique where the Green Party has been… well, insufficiently Green. It’s not as if McKenna didn’t hold a sort of kind of approach to environmental matters in the EU in the same way where she had little or no problem with following the edicts of Brussels in that sphere. So that sort of very clear but very limited attack on the current policy of the party in Government might have had some traction as we move towards the reworked Programme for Government and Lisbon II.
Indeed, and I’m not for a second ignoring McKenna’s lack of popularity within the GP, her analysis was in certain respects vindicated by the results of the local elections.
What’s also interesting abut Meaney’s contribution is the timing. He after all, is in the near unique position for a Green Party elected representative of having no fear about the future as regards a date with electoral destiny (Malcolm Noonan, the new Mayor of Kilkenny is another who basks in similar safety). The next locals won’t be for five years, and who knows, perhaps as in the 1990s we simply won’t be able to afford them for a while further yet…
So to hear him give an opinion on these matters, and in such a pointed way is startling. We simply haven’t heard the like for some time and many of those who did make such noises have subsequently left.
And what of another report
which neatly demonstrated the problems the GP faces in relation to governance.
EXTRA TIME should be given for Dáil debate of tough new powers to be given to the Garda Síochána and Director of Public Prosecutions, the Green Party has said. But it will not insist that Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern complies.
This is a remarkable situation as described by the Irish Times….
The new legislation gives extra powers to the DPP to send gangland cases to the non-jury Special Criminal Court, creates extra offences to curb gangs, while some hearings could also be heard in secret.
And that should cause no end of concern for progressives and leftists. And indeed liberals and anyone concerned about the nature of the rule of law.
But…
The Greens were briefed on Wednesday by their justice spokesman Ciaran Cuffe, who voiced his opposition to the legislation when he spoke in the House on Wednesday, although he added that the Greens would vote for it.
Questioned last evening, Mr Cuffe said: “I would like to see more time, but I am not going to hold a gun to Dermot Ahern’s head over this.
“It is an important issue, but I don’t want to stop the process of government.”
It’s this curious tactic that I would, hesitantly, suggest has bled them of the support of many who would otherwise wish them well. This appears to be the Gogarty approach writ large. Explain ones reservations, or indeed outright opposition, and then do nothing to ameliorate the problem at hand. Far better to keep silent, even if that isn’t very satisfactory either.
And therein lies the crux of the problem. The Green Party in government focuses on a very narrow area of what might generally be termed Green issues. Local Government, Environment, Energy, Agriculture. But… the problem with government is that in the larger sense its remit is self-evidently much broader than these and however well the GP pursues its agenda they will continue to have the broader issues overshadow their particular concerns.
Or to put it another way… ‘the process of government’ overwhelms their inclinations and their capacity to criticise. The perception develops that it is the be-all and end-all and that the argument that they have only a limited number of TDs in a coalition and therefore they can only be expected to deliver a limited amount becomes in a sense self-fulfilling.
And paradoxically while no great news for those who remain wedded to that approach that also points to the limitations of the Meaney approach too. Because at the end of the day it’s not just about the environment, indeed day by day it becomes increasingly, for the vast majority of people in this state, not at all about the environment. And whatever achievements are made on that front appear – for worse in many many respects – in the scale of things so minimal as to be near irrelevant. Which is a serious problem for them in the near future and after.
Robert McNamara Dies July 6, 2009
Posted by Garibaldy in Film, International Politics.15 comments
Apologies for not posting for a few weeks. I’ve just read that at the age of 93 Robert McNamara has died. Given that he was the US Secretary of Defence during the Cuban Missile Crisis and was responsible for a great deal of the death and destruction wrought on the people of Vietnam, it might be expected that I would be unaffected by his death. However, I find myself feeling that his death is a loss. The reason for that is simple: in 2004 (I think) I went to see The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara and found myself both fascinated and impressed by McNamara as a man.
McNamara was a brilliant young man, and was headhunted by the US military during World War II. His job in effect was to provide statistical analysis of the effectiveness of bombing, and to apply his mathmatical skills to improve their efficiency. He talked interestingly in the film about the moral questions involved in improving the efficiency of bombing civilians in large cities. After the war, he worked for Ford, helping make it more successful and rising to become its President (the first non-Ford to hold the job) before joining Kennedy’s Cabinet as Defence Secretary. As with another President in whom a lot of progressive people place great hopes, Kennedy was keen on the use of US military power where he thought it could win, and McNamara was brought in to reshape the military. The result was a massive expansion of the US nuclear arsenal, and a Soviet response – in other words, McNamara and Kennedy were fundamental to the emergence of the arms race. Both also bear a great deal of responsibility for nearly bringing about nuclear war over the Cuban missile crisis. And as already noted, the extrance of the US into Vietnam was their idea too.
McNamara’s technocratic approach which had served him well during World War II proved to be his achilles heel when it came to Vietnam. While McNamara wheeled out statistics showing that the US was winning the war on every available numerical measure, he completely missed the point that the will of the Vietnamese people could not be broken, unlike the will of the teenage conscripts sent to Vietnam and that of a sceptical public opinion at home. As Defence Secretary until 1968, he had a huge amount of blood on his hands, despite his later claims that he saw early that the war was not being won, and that he opposed some of the more callous and brutal strategies desired by the military. McNamara afterwards served as President of the World Bank, when it was associated in many minds – including those of rabid anti-communists – with more progressive ideals than it is today, and he is associated with efforts to combat river blindness. In his retirement, he worked for various causes he was interested in.
The Fog of War – like McNamara’s 1995 memoir In Retropsect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam (which I haven’t read) – is of course an attempt by McNamara to justify himself, and to rewrite history. The most obvious example of this in the film is an event where he meets (if I remember correctly and I might not) a minister from Vietnam at the same time he was Defence Minister. The Vietnamese tells him that all they wanted was their independence but that the Americans wouldn’t let them have it. McNamara goes on a bit about China and Communism, then eventually says we would have let you had your independence. This is clearly untrue. There was no chance of the US happily letting the South Vietnamese state be overthrown by its people and an independent socialist Vietnam emerging. Anti-communism was too strong, not least within Kennedy’s government and its successor. They hoped to replicate the war in Korea, or perhaps be more successful.
Nevertheless, despite all the problems with the film, it clearly showed McNamara as someone with a good deal of humanity, especially in his later years. Despite it all, he did not strike me as being the same as his counterparts in the recent Bush regime. A complicated man, who worked to undo some of the damage he wrought and achieve progress in other areas, he was worthy of respect, if not perhaps admiration.
ADDS: BBC Obituary
The Irish Left Archive: Ireland One Nation, Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist), 1974 July 6, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist), Irish Left Online Document Archive.23 comments
Perhaps there should be a sub-section in the Archive of materials by non-Irish political formations referencing Ireland. In the main, as might be expected, such publications are focussed on Northern Ireland and the political responses to it. And this document here is very clearly of that type with a concentration on the events in the North around the time of the Ulster Workers Council strike.
A few words about Reg Birch and the CPB (M-L). This was not as it happens the sister party of the Communist Party of Ireland (M-L). The latter were aligned with the Communist Party of England (M-L), later the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (M-L). They were one of Hardial Bains progeny. It’s important not to confuse them either with the Communist Party of Great Britain, (M-L), a much more recent creation dating from 2004 which apparently has a number of refugees from Arthur Scargill’s Socialist Labour Party (and which we’ve mentioned previously). The genesis of the CPB (M-L) was in a split in 1968 led by longtime CPGB member Reg Birch to a Maoist position. With that sort of provenance one might expect it to take lines similar to the CPE (M-L), which indeed it did, being yet another cheerleader of Albania.
Given that it is hardly surprising that the party would take a strong line on the North. However, as will be seen in the text this diverges somewhat from other formations on the further left.
Also unsurprisingly the document, including a forward by Reg Birch, places the UWC strike within a context…
…that taken in Chile by the so-called Lorry Drivers’ Strike –lorry owners to a man — against Allende. They are but sheep in wolves’ clothing and are troops who in truth lack even the alleged loyalty of the Swiss Guards to the Vatican, for they will surely desert the long-dead Dutchman and that foreign flag of which they prattle on — the union jack — when confronted, as they must be, with the might of the Irish people, their vanguard the Irish working class led by an Irish Communist Party Marxist Leninist, in the true struggle necessary –National Liberation, a Free Ireland. The time is now.
I call upon all my friends, old friends, members yet (how sad!) of a foreign revisionist party, the CPGB, to throw away their illusions and their slavishness. Rest on the Irish people who are the best sons of the Irish working class. Take the cream of them, be it in Belfast or Dublin or any other small corner of that beautiful land, and build a true Marxist-Leninist Party for Ireland – emerge!
Far be it from me, with the confusion and reaction in England to preach. One task is clear to us all — Independence. You alone can lead the way in your own realm. It is yours. There are many warriors, true sons of Ireland, to join the battle. Out with the invader, be it from Westminster or the Vatican and all their servants resident, willing or unwitting.
STRIKE AGAINST BRITISH IMPERIALISM IN IRELAND! ALL OUT TO KICK OUT BRITISH TROOPS!
The document then continues with a potted history of the conflict in the late 1960s. Entertaining to see some of the language used… for example…
The recent campaign began with demands for electoral reform (such as one-man-one vote in local elections) and for an end to discrimination against Catholics in jobs and housings. Its members at first were largely middle class liberals, along with students who added to the demands their own empty calls for socialism [sic].
…
New tactics emerged as the movement gained an increasing mass character. Water pipelines were blown up [is this correct, I always assumed that it was loyalists who did that]. More militancy was shown in demonstrations…
…
–Only a united people will succeed in getting Britain out. Great strides toward unity have been taken in northern Ireland during the past year, but religious divisions remain. They are the secret weapon of British imperialism which it does all in its power to foment.
–More and more protestant workers recognise this and realise that the independence of northern Ireland is a myth and a sham. They see the price of privileges over the catholics is a British military dictatorship.…
Every political movement of the Irish people was preceded by unrest among the organised working class.
…
Introduction of the Act entitled ‘Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provision)’ is ostensibly aimed at those perpetrators of the cruel senseless, wanton violence against the civil population here in Britain. But no-one should be fooled by its temporary specious nature. In truth it is a further attack upon civil liberties and the right of freedom here. Neither will it do anything to stop these mad cowboys who are now characterised as the IRA – for which there is no evidence. Though we did believe it was a break-away section, self-styled provisional, who carry out these senseless acts.
Which perhaps offers us an example of function not quite following form, at least as compared with the rhetoric emanating from the CPI (M-L) during the same period.
Worth looking at is the photograph on Page 9 of a CPB (M-L) Rally in Trafalgar Square from 1971.
The ‘myth’ of economic pain and a grateful public… oh, and some thoughts about whether the public is aware of the ‘economic reality’… July 4, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, Irish Politics.24 comments
Reading Stephen Collins this morning I was reminded of a conversation I had during the week with an acquaintance in the Green Party. First though, what did Collins say?
Whether the €200 second homes tax should apply to mobile homes is utterly trivial in the scale of things, but the heat generated on the issue was a chilling reflection of how many people are still living in a fantasy world where economic reality has no place.
The report of An Bord Snip Nua, as the Expenditure Review Committee has become known, will be the first signpost pointing to the scale of the task ahead. While there has been talk of €5 billion in cuts next year, most people find such large numbers hard to grasp. It is only when the practical detail is spelt out that voters will realise what is going to happen. That’s when the screaming will start.
There is, in fairness, an element of truth about this. Whatever way things develop the reality is we do face a crisis and there are decisions that have to be made as to how to combat this. Taxes will, of necessity, increase, and indeed if the path the government seems set upon is taken then we will see cuts.
The problem, as ever, is that Collins limits the options radically as regards the space for movement by the Government.
While publication will inevitably stir up controversy and give hostages to fortune by enabling pressure groups to mount opposition to many of the specific proposals, there is a lot to be said for getting the report out in the open as quickly as possible.
For a start, it might help to wake the public up to the reality of the choices faced by the Government. The Fianna Fáil-Green Coalition will, meanwhile, have the luxury of being able to say it is not committed to accepting any particular cut until budget decisions are made later in the year. It should also put pressure on the Opposition parties, to say what aspects of the report they would accept. So far, the main Opposition parties have been able to make political capital out of the Coalition’s difficulties, without offering alternative policies. Fine Gael has given broad brush strokes focused on spending cuts rather than tax increases, but has not spelt out the details, while Labour has mainly relied on denouncing every Government initiative.
And he continues…
A feature of the public response to date is that there has been far less resistance to income tax increases than spending cuts. The irony is that while the Government itself knows that the future prosperity of the country requires that the emphasis be placed on getting public spending under control, the softer political option is simply to dip into peoples’ pockets for more income tax.
The ’softer’ political option? It’s hard to think of a more unlikely phrase, isn’t it?After a decade or two of rigid adherence to tax cutting and a fear so great amongst the political classes that even the Labour Party – the Labour Party! – was forced in 2007 to introducing a policy of cutting the lowest rate to 18%.
That must seem odd to him, at least, given his cheerleading over the years for the tax cuts by the Progressive Democrats and others. They might have thought that their ideological preference was now entirely embedded. But as we’ve seen it’s not, or not entirely. That people might find tax increases more palatable than spending cuts which will incur cuts in services and provision is hardly that odd given rapidly rising unemployment where more and more – yea, verily, even of the middle classes – are finding themselves nearing dependence upon those very services and provisions. Suddenly talk of cutting welfare rates seems a little too close to home. Child benefit cuts in the context of wages that have decreased radically since the 2008 Budget are no joke, and so forth.
Indeed, one might argue that it is Collins who seems if anything unaware of the reality that those of us who still have pay cheques coming in weekly or monthly face as we see their value collapse and the prospect of worse to come. I mean, how insulated does one have to be from the very palpable fear that is abroad about how bad the situation is becoming on a personal level for most people in this state that one can glibly talk about ‘living in a fantasy world where economic reality has no place’?
Or perhaps people are intuitively coming to a conclusion as to their preference for how this should pan out and what policy measures should be taken, and it just so happens it isn’t his.
Is it that he can only believe the ‘medicine’ is working if there are protests in the street? Is this the yardstick he seeks?
I’ve stated before that there’s a balance here, that some reforms to our public sector are reasonable, that some expenditures are worth examining closely and stopping where appropriate, but at root if we want services we have to pay for them. And it seems that perhaps that message is getting through.
But let’s detach the issue of whether public expenditure control is the central and pressing problem we (or to put it his way, the emphasis must be on it to secure our future prosperity) face from this discussion for another time, not least because Collins himself admits that…
As well as cutting back on spending, there is a strong case to be made for raising more revenue for the exchequer by broadening the tax base. However, if the paltry second home tax is anything to go by, a genuine property tax will provoke the same kind of resistance as spending cuts, particularly if it is designed to raise a significant amount of money.
The report of the Commission on Taxation, which is expected to recommend a property tax, among other things, will form the second prong of the Government’s approach; its report is expected at the end of the month. Along with the spending cuts report, it should help to frame debate going into the autumn, and preparation of the critical 2010 budget.
Yeah, so he’ll stomach tax increases, but to him there’s still only one game in town. Well. We’ll see.
He makes though, a rather good point about the junior partner in government…
Another important element that will feed into budget considerations is the review of the programme for government, on which the Greens are placing a great deal of emphasis. There is an assumption in Fianna Fáil that the Greens will hang in there no matter what, but there have been clear signals that the junior Coalition party is considering all its options.
The decision by the Green leadership to consult party members indicates a willingness to raise the stakes. The problem is that once members are given a say, they may not be all that easy to control. Polls have shown Green voters very unhappy with the Government. This is bound to have rubbed off on a significant number of party members.
The dilemma faced by the Greens is that while they could face a wipe-out in an early general election, the party might cease to exist in all but name if its Ministers sign up to the kind of austerity programme that the country requires in the autumn.
I’m sure I’m misreading him, but is he actually implying that the Green Ministers would go it alone with an ‘austerity’ programme (again, is too he blind to how it is beginning to feel for employed and unemployed people?). Once I’d have said that was unlikely but… now… And indeed I’m not entirely convinced that the GP wouldn’t actually in the majority swing behind the Ministers. Whether though that leads to the same outcome, a wipe-out whether sooner or later is an interesting question in itself.
On that score I was talking to an acquaintance in the Green Party this week and this person suggested that Fianna Fáil after it made the 1987 cuts was actually rewarded for its pains. I pointed out that at the subsequent election it was left in a position where it had, for the first time, to enter an explicit coalition arrangement to which the response was, ‘well it didn’t lose as many seats as it expected’.
Well, that’s true, but I’m not sure it’s terribly useful as a means of gauging their support or that of their policies. What’s interesting is that although opinion polls saw them performing strongly once the campaign was called the health service cuts took precedence locking. Now, they lost 4 seats which was hardly a meltdown, but… there is, perhaps, a more interesting aspect to this because of course the party which most clearly expressed the cuts agenda, the Progressive Democrats saw their numbers fall from 14 to 6 (and it’s worth noting that they had two more seats than the Labour Party in the 1987 election which incredibly pushed Labour into 4th party status on 12 seats). Their decimation would suggest that the appetite for cuts was much lesser than some might think and might also give pause for thought to those who think that smaller parties can somehow buck trends. Indeed, I hope I’m not pushing it when I suggest that a not entirely dissimilar dynamic was apparent at the recent local elections when the Green Party did worse proportionately than Fianna Fáil. I’m aware the utility of the comparison is very very limited. The Progressive Democrats weren’t in power with Fianna Fáil, indeed they were in some respects its most excoriating critics. But by the same token they did pursue the supposed orthodoxy with greatest enthusiasm.
And here’s a further curiosity. It wasn’t just Labour (and Fine Gael) who benefitted, so too did the Workers’ Party returning 3 more TDs. One has to wonder if a similar dynamic will be evident for Sinn Féin and other left and further left parties at the next election as the ‘reality’ of the cuts takes hold.
So let’s think this through. If the 1987 experience is anything to go by then it appears political parties aren’t rewarded for their ‘courage’ in implementing ‘austerity’ programmes. Quite the opposite. Irish politics, arguably, changed fundamentally with the fracturing of Fianna Fáil as a serious party which could deliver a majority. It has never recovered and the appalling polling and electoral results it has seen in the past twelve months are in a way merely the continuation and exacerbation of that trend. Neither too did the Progressive Democrats. Sure, they went up, they went down. But the underlying direction of their subsequent electoral progress was almost entirely downwards.
I’ll point towards Michael Taft’s thoughts on this period for an economic analysis of the actuality as distinct from the perception.
Oh, one last thing amongst some I’ve talked to in the GP is an odd aversion to the cervical vaccine programme. In part that’s political I suspect, they were badly badly caught out in the backdraft from the Department of Health on that one, and didn’t handle it well. But, political or not, there’s some dark mutterings about the manufacturers of the vaccine, it’s effectivity, the screening programme etc… I guess we’re getting a sense of what price some of them place on preventative medical programmes, these days…
Seven (plus one) for Summer July 4, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Culture, This Weekend I'll Mostly Be Listening to....20 comments
I’ve done this before last Summer and the thought struck me that it would be fun to do it again. So here it is. Seven tracks that are providing me with a musical accompaniment to the Summer. They’re not exactly comprehensive, by which I mean some of them stand in for other tracks. So, for example, while I like the Manic Street Preachers song, there are better ones on that album by quite some way. But so far no one has got around to releasing a video on YouTube for them. And while some might say they’re not exactly Summery… well, this is my view of Summer and almost all of them bring to mind the long evenings and/or being at gigs with condensation dripping from the walls somewhere or another.
Manic Street Preachers.
Jackie Collins Existential Question Time
Great chorus and at least an echo of that snarling aggression which fuelled their peak of creativity in the early to mid-1990s – up to the point where Richey died (although I have a soft spot for Know Your Enemy from 2001). Sure, The Holy Bible is better, no question, but this is good, very good indeed and that’s a change after a series of really not so great albums.
All India Radio
Four Three
I could rave about these guys. They’re Australian, electronic and have been around since the late 1990s. They do ambient, television and film scores, pop and even New Order like dance excursions under their side project Big Spaceship. But their work as All India Radio is fantastic. This is a perfect summation on their melancholy take on dance. And for those of us who remember Screen Test with Michael Rodd from the 1970s and in particular the Young Filmakers’ short contributions that rather plastic looking spaceship looks fairly familiar (which is as it should be since one of their number claims to have made Super 8 movies of spaceships back when he was a kid).
Hawkwind
Treadmill
Well, it’s cheesy, it’s almost twenty years old and it does go on a bit, but there’s something about that guitar line that evokes Neil Young’s “Mr Soul”… in a good way. A three minute version would be a treasure. To me.
Doves
Jetstream
The album is neither as consistent nor as listenable as previous efforts, but… it does have its moments. This is 5 or so of them…
Sonic Youth
What We Know
Yeah, Sonic Youth indeed. Kim Gordon is 56. I hope I too am as fleet of foot and have learned to play the guitar (or the bass, I’m not fussy) in thirteen or so years. And while you’re thinking about that think about this… The latest album, The Eternal, is cracking. Riffs, melodies, discordance. Same as it ever was really. And like, say, Motorhead who have ploughed their own similarly individual furrow, you can’t ask for much more than that. Not really.
The Church
Pangaea
Taken from another somewhat disappointing album, #23, like that from Doves. Their latest doesn’t hit the highs of 2003’s Forget Yourself or even the more recent Uninvited, Like the Clouds which was fine albeit a bit Pink Floyd for my tastes (never a good thing). Mid-tempo compositions that leave a bit to be desired, but… there’s something about this track which does the business. Not least the way parts of the chorus reminds me of John Lennon…
Section 25
Looking from a Hilltop
A throwback to Factory’s finest hours. Now, no-one would ever say Section 25 were up there with New Order in the pop stakes, and arguably their more dour earlier side such as Friendly Fires was more effective, but… this’ll do. This’ll do.
Check out the ‘mobile’ phone on the video about 30 seconds in… dear God. It’s great.
And one extra, just for luck…
Blank Dogs
Setting Fire to your House
Speaking of Factory, here’s someone who one suspects really really wished they’d been back there way back then. Or otherwise it’s a pretty high quality pisstake (and consider that this is part of the no-fi or ’shitgaze’ movement… yeah, cool)… Apparently highly popular in New York where Mr. Dog, it’s one man behind the band, is based – and there’s some link to Crystal Stilts. And the video? Somehow New Order videos come to mind. But, gotta love that bassline, lifted almost straight from NO’s Movement.
That and a useful safety message implicit in the song
I’d be interested in others lists…
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