Failing to get us out of this mess

I AM now very concerned that the new people we have in place do not have the bottle to sort out our current economic problems.

We have had three senior government ministers doing solo runs without cabinet agreement during the last week. Each with issues that will not assist in any way with our current problem. The idea of taking money from the less well-off has to be deplored, whether it is by imposing water charges, reducing overtime rates or increasing our national debt. Society needs two basic ingredients to sustain itself, shelter and food, both of which we have in abundance thanks to our maker. All we have to do is to ensure that these are distributed in a fair fashion. For this we need money. Unfortunately due to policies pursued over the past years our money has been unfairly distributed — 25% of it is now in the hands of 1% off the population. The French had a similar problem in the 1700s and the US in the 1930s. Both countries, using totally different methods, resolved their problems by redistributing their national wealth. Why can’t we abolish all tax subsidies and reclaim some of the tax foregone in recent years to reduce our dependence on foreign borrowings and increase our wealth and inheritance taxes to reduce the gap between the haves and the have-nots.

Seeing one of our senior ministers smiling while kissing and holding the hands of his French counterpart as they both walked into a poorly-lit room, and being told in the same news bulletin that our National debt is going to increase from €150bn to over €200bn in the near future, does not imbue a lot of confidence. I am reminded of a spectator’s comment at a Dublin/Kildare football match some time ago when two players were knocking chunks out of each other on the ground. “Get up lads, ye didn’t come here to make love.” Being informed over the airwaves by another government minister that some senior NTMA and NAMA executives volunteered to surrender their bonuses indicates that nothing has changed. Why are these people and other state employees still being paid more than our Taoiseach three years after our economy went belly up? I strongly recommend a book entitled Aftershock, by Professor Robert Reich — Bill Clinton’s Secretary for Labour, as bedtime reading for those responsible for getting us out of the current financial mess.