Sunday Independent Stupid Statement of the Week

As all us keen Sindo readers know, the current crisis is the consequence not of any systemic problem with the capitalist system, but of poor regulation and bad decisions made at the very top of the banking, property and political sectors. Oh, hold on a minute. The problem is actually government red tape, holding back capitalism and squeezing profits through silly things like health and safety. Unsurprisingly, Batt O’Keefe thinks the same as the three – yes three – journalists who wrote this story. Sounds like a bloated enterprise to me. They must be members of one of those trade unions sending the country down the tubes because of their selfishness. You can imagine how the rest of the article reads from the opening line.

Enterprise Minister Batt O’Keeffe is preparing a blitz against the mountains of red tape that threaten to strangle Irish businesses and swamp out struggling entrepreneurs.

Marc Coleman has an interesting piece, in which he mounts an assault on the rural gombeen politicians of both main parties, and their role leading us to where we are. This is a gambit in his ongoing campaign for a new political group, the underlying argument seemingly being that the urban bourgeoisie needs complete victory over their country cousins. We get two for the price of one in this article.

Knowing how useless Fine Gael is at opposing anything, Brian Cowen is now preparing to bring in a property tax. Not enough that we pay the highest marginal effective income tax outside Scandinavia, or that our life savings are robbed by stamp duty bills, or that we pay the highest management fees in Europe, or that protectionism and state control of the economy — not to mention the highest indirect taxes in Europe — have given us the highest cost of living in Europe.

Yes, protectionism ans state control. Clearly the defining characteristics of the southern economy over the last two decades.

And this gem too.

Fine Gael appears opposed to both but in reality, like every Labour leader before him, Eamon Gilmore will tell them what to do and they will do it. That is particularly the case now that Richard Bruton, Leo Varadkar, Lucinda Creighton, Brian Hayes and Simon Coveney will be — even if they make it back on to the frontbench — cowed.

I’d also like to nominate two whole pieces. One from Celia Larkin – who apparently has never heard of Margaret Thatcher – on how women entering politics would automatically make it a more consensual and practical business. And the other from Ruth Dudley Edwards, who has somehow talked herself into becoming a huge fan of Conrad Black’s.

And finally, not a stupid statement but a disturbing one, in a discussion of the southern economy from Róisín Burke. It puts all the discussion about stamp tax – clearly the Sindo’s economic/political theme of the week – into some perspective, and what the economy really needs.

But it’s not the key source of employment it was. The services sector, with its 1.4 million workers in everything from hairdressing to catering and financial services, has far eclipsed manufacturing’s 220,000 employment figure.