Monday, January 18, 2010

Will it get any better

So new information released today from Ernest and Young is showing that they expect that the UK is facing a decade of pain in its attempt to move from the current down turn.
This to me seems very interesting as it shows that we as a country must be very much further behind in our own current attempt to move from this cycle.
If we look at the main difference between the two governments economic strategy there is a stark difference whilst in the UK they have said that there would be the need to start reducing the countries deficit over the next number of years they have vigorously pumped billions into the economy through quantitative easing and a major focus on both capital programmes and support for SME's through government loan guarantee schemes.
Here in Ireland our government has taken the coarse of removing cash within the economy through social welfare cuts, wage cuts and departmental spending. This is fine in there attempt to reduce the public spending which they themselves have made uncontrollable but there short sightedness in doing so along with the new wave of cross border spending has in effect taken a total of over 8 billion Euros per year out of an economy that is free fall due to its over reliance on the property sector for both employment and tax returns.
So what happens next well if we look closely at the governments plan they have stated that a further 4 billion in cuts is needed to reduce the current spending by government. So we now face a scenario that if the cross border spending stays current which i would see as there is no reason for this position to change we will now face a total reduction of cash into the economy of 16 billion within a 2 year period.
To me i think that this will be to tipping point that will put this country into a depression that this country has never seen before with mass emigration, huge mortgage defaults, broken families, increased homelessness, a rise in crime and a huge increase in mental health problems as the reality of families situations come to bear on them.
This country needs to be stimulated both economically and mentally to give the people of this nation any chance to move forward.
We are a productive nation as history shows we have some of the worlds greatest talents in education, science, business and entertainment. We also have a country of people who given the chance can make the correct social choices when needed.
I for one cant see any current political party within this country that has the determination to make the huge changes that are so much needed within the establishment so to enable us as a nation to rebuild in a fair and social equal way.

Monday, January 11, 2010

Let it snow

So the last few weeks weather is starting to recede.
having spent the weekend playing with my kids making snowmen and having some fun with them in the snow i got a chance to catch up on the papers yesterday evening, I was shocked to see the headline of one of the papers likening the response from the government to dads army well i am afraid that even dads army would have more structure to an event like what has happened.
What annoyed me even more was to read that the minister of transport said that he had a right to spend time with his family when he was away on holidays well that's very true minister but remember that you have been of from practically the beginning of December so i think you get to spend more time with your family than most do.
if you think about it i recon that these guys at the top of the political pile must think that they are superstars or top sports people.
but the complete joke of this is even though the guys that play at the top of the football have to work over the holiday period playing 2 games in a week between Christmas day and new years.
this is part of there contract of employment so what is the difference between them and our Representatives in government well simple, Once they are in power the write there very own contracts which i find very strange can you imagine an employee of a large MN getting a job and then handing his employers a new work contract say this is how it is for me like it or lump it.
This is exactly what has happened to us as a nation instead of us the voters being the masters and the politicians being the slaves to us they have some how reversed this on to us. They forget that they are on a contract of employment with the country that is reviewed ever 4 years or so depending on when they decide to call an election.
they have done the same with us with Nama which i feel should have been put to the voters to decide whether we shall pay all of this money over the next decades to the banks for screwing over every single person on this island whether they work or not as with the higher level of taxes that are going to be needed over the next number of years to pay for all of this.
People say that now that Nama has passed into law that there is nothing the normal person on the street can do to reverse this, well i feel that there is a simple solution to ensuring that the government is forced to nationalising the banks then conducting a staged write down of the bad loans that are there as i bet over the next 12 months there is going to be a need of a number of recapitalisation's of the banks after Nama which again is put to the burden of the people of this island. A quick process to make this happen would be to pick a specific date and to organise the entire population that hold bank accounts with all of these banks to go and demand a full withdraw of all of there available cash. This would send the banks into a spin as it is known that they do not have near sufficient cash in had to cover this type of action which then would have a two fold reaction in the country it would immediately be deemed to need government intervention and also the stock value would nose dive immediately which would call for a suspending of its shares these two events would combine into forcing the government to a full nationalisation to hold the intrinsic value the banks hold in the countries economy.
may then the government would begin to realise that change is needed and swift action must be taken

Saturday, January 9, 2010

new thinking an irish begining

Its Saturday evening and i am just after watching a documentary on the election of Obama as the president of America.
what has strike me was that the whole campaign was started from a very small base comparatively in the percentages in the US.
From this i have been thinking as i know we as a nation would find it very hard to build up the type of media hype that surround this campaign but in my thinking it must be possible to get people to start engaging in believing that change can happen within this island.
To do this we must start from a small base maybe it is from this page or not that is not for me to decide but by using the campaign methods that can be learned from the Obama election there could be the start of a new way of political movement that with the support of the ordinary person on the street a new beginning could happen within this country.
what shocked me most in watching this film was the diversity of campaign workers that were involved in the behind the scenes and the amount of belief that they generated out to the voting public.
interestingly before the first of the runoff's an American reporter that had been following Obama stated that although he had many valid points that were of high value to his sound bits were not very good as i listen to this the programme cut to one of his speak writers that was preparing his speeches and he explained that Obama had until the full beginning of the campaign wrote his own speech's from this and from some searching on YouTube i can say that there is a huge difference as from his pre campaign you could say that there was over a 100% improvement on his speeches.
what this brings me to is the point that if a group were to come together and started working in a different way than the usual political norm then maybe there would be a chance of a new political beginning in this country

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Politics in a new Ireland

In relation to the current climate in both the politics and economy in Ireland i feel that there is an opportunity with like minded people that a new political entity can be established within the country that is based on the frame work of providing a fair and just society that will provide a long term vision of how the country should and can be run.
In its present state this country is run on the premise that those who have the most to loose through the current banking fiasco are the ones that is being protected whilst the vast majority of the population are being left to pay for this.
Is this right not in a million years in my opinion but the problem is how to begin to bring around the momentum of change needed within the mindset of the normal citizen that to bring this much needed change a seismic shift is needed in both political and economic thinking.
If we look at those most effected by the current situation that we now find ourselves in it is clear to see that a progressive attack is being made on the working fabric of society to an extent that these very people that can bring around the change needed by there pure size in the electoral vote are at such a stage of self defence in many cases keeping there lives afloat just to meet there families needs that they have no longer the will power to become involved with what could be a defining moment in Ireland's history that could provide the change required to once again enable the people of the country to take there lives back into there own hands and provide a clear future for the children and the further generations of this once proud country.
In my view there needs to begin a movement that engages in the areas of the population that have been most effected and those whom over the next number of years will bear the brunt of the disarray that the country is now in these include.
The Unemployed.
The Civil servant's.
Low income earners.
Middle income families.
Students.
within this group is the key to the building of the new Ireland that is now needed to move forward. This is also the group that has the biggest block of votes within the country and yet these very people are the one's that are effected the most in this current situation.
If a change can occur then i feel that it is within this group that the support base must be built and from small steps taken to engage the thinking within this area change can happen.