Jim Power: Prudent policy to come face to face with political reality
After a relatively successful local and European elections for the two largest Government parties, Taoiseach Simon Harris will have to decide whether to go for an early election or wait until March next year.
A prominent US economist once said that “the first law of economics is scarcity; there is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics".
This recognises the reality of politics where the long-term doesn’t extend beyond the next election, because pragmatic politicians and want-to-be politicians realise that to achieve anything or to affect policy change, one first of all has to get elected and attain power. To get elected, one has to do what one has to do, and very often a populist approach has to be adopted that will rarely tick too many boxes in a purely economic sense.
