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16-19C
Breaking stories
Time we started being patriotic
By Kieran Coughlan
This week, I turn to one of my other interests — economics — and I suggest that we have a lot to learn in this area from the French.
Some find the French arrogant, but I believe that the character they display is patriotism rather than arrogance. Yes, they may refuse to speak to you in English, and they may come across as cold — but boy, does their patriotism shine through.Last week, I was in France for just a few days to attend a wedding. I was pleasantly surprised to see the proportion of Citroen, Renault and Peugeot cars on the roads. I wondered how can a country like France, even with its population of over 60m, sustain three major car brands, while in many closely neighbouring countries with equally high populations, the car market is essentially served by foreign suppliers.
Not only were Citroen, Renault and Peugeot credible and visible brands, but all are in the podium positions of taking first, second, and third in recent French car brand market rankings.
The name I put on this phenomenon is loyalty and patriotism.
French loyalty and patriotism was further evidenced by the menu in the busy restaurants near our hotel in France. On the wine list was an extensive choice of Chablis, Muscadets and Bourgogne, all French — indeed there was no option of foreign wine, no Australian, Chile or even Italian wine.
It’s only because of their patriotism (which I admire) that they have been able to support their car and wine industries, which in turn provide huge employment. During my observations, the old proverb of “God helps those who help themselves” came to mind, and this was reinforced even more when on returning to Ireland, I heard in media reports that Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, said: “I don’t think there was any grounds for a quid pro quo”.
In other words, he was saying that just because the Irish voted yes to the stability treaty, that doesn’t confer any graces to us when it comes to restructuring our bank debt.
My gut feeling on our economic woes is that we should first of all be patriotic. In other words, just like the French, we need to help ourselves by keeping as much money as we can within our own shores, rather than buying imported substitutes. The idea here is that the money keeps circulating here, increasing everyone’s spending power.
For every southern hemisphere onion or apple on your local supermarket shelf, or for every bottle of New World wine, ask yourself when will somebody in that country return the money to us, by buying our goods and services?
The reality is they probably never will.
On the bailout, or restructuring of bank debt, this isn’t an issue which foreign sovereign countries or indeed the head of the ECB are going to decide for us.
After all, from their perspective of what benefit is it to them for us to have less debt, it’s our problem, not theirs — and we seem to be doing a pretty good job at increasing taxes and cutting spending, such that we will be in a position to stump up in making repayments.
The economic crisis spreading around to bigger, more significant EU member states makes us even more insignificant.
After all, there is no need to put out the candle when the barn is on fire.
The easiest thing for the EU would be to print euros to clear down debts to manageable levels, and then impose fiscal constraints so that we don’t run away with ourselves again.
Yes, printing money can cause a drop in the value of the euro, but exports out of the EU would take off, because they would be much cheaper, with a devalued euro.
Correction to last week’s article
Houses let under county councils’ Rental Accommodation Scheme were exempt from the NPPR (Non-Principal Private Residence) charge until 2011, but this exemption is withdrawn for 2012.
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