We've just been visited by Ollie Rheins from the EU, who shall be running the place from now on. It's not exactly official yet, but we are unable to borrow any money, the EU have a team at our Department of Finance who are directing things and the ECB are the only ones willing to buy our bonds. Our short-lived flirtation with independance has ended. That's what you get when you try to solve an economic crisis by cutting spending to try to balance the books. Let it be a lesson. Expect us to be availing of the EU/IMF rescue fund by early next year. That'll be fun.
Well, if you're going to get annexed by someone then at this flag already has a St Patrick's Cross incorporated into it. Just saying.
Cut spending and raise taxes. Or just piss in the wind. And if you don't like winding up the position of having to do that, costly social programs are to be avoided at all costs.
Yup, that's exactly what was done, and what they're continuing to do. It turned a needed €7.5 billion correction into a €15 billion one in less than a year.
That makes absolutely no sense. Cutting spending wasn't the problem- the reason your country is bankrupt is that it was obviously spending too much money in the first place.
^ Yeah, not sure what Rick's alternative would have been? Carry on spending way beyond your means? That's what got Ireland into trouble in the first place!
Nope. We were spending little or nothing more than we were taking in. Ireland was a model pupil of the type of economics espoused around here.
And you should be taking in more than you spend in order to correct a clusterfuck like this. From the beginning, or only after it was too late?
You do. You just wrote it. Ireland wants to spend spend spend. Sure they made cuts but obviously the cuts aren't close to bringing the spending levels below what the government is taking in.
Most of the Guinness sold in North America is actually made in a factory in Canada. I believe Guinness Draught is still made in Dublin and shipped here though.
There was little or no deficit before the economic crash. When that happened, tax reciepts plummeted very quickly. As soon as they did, they created a large deficit, which the government moved to correct with spending cuts. Then tax receipts fell further. Now we have an even larger deficit.
Yeah, I'm guessing the degree of cuts and tax hikes needed were not politically expedient or popular. If you're limited by "Not that! We can't cut that! We NEED it!!", then your priority is not salvaging your budget.
Because every Euro taken out of the economy had a multiplier effect on economic activity, resulting in fewer jobs, less consumption and thus less tax revenue.
I'm hearing the mantra "make cuts" repeated in a Borg-like drone, but I'm not hearing why actually doing that made things worse.
Only if your economy is driven by gov't spending. If it's driven by private industry and investment, then gov't spending has little effect on jobs etc. Cutting taxes and spending put more revenue back in the economy. You really should sue whatever school you went to, cause they sure fucked you up.
As I understand it you're not arguing with the fact cuts will be made at sometime you're just proposing that those cuts not occur until after the economy has recovered. That way government spending can help restart the economy (so called pump priming) and then be cut back. Is that correct? Big countries can play that game but small countries have a heck of a time in that they usually don't have large internal financial markets and that means they have to ask foreigners to buy their debt which, as you can now see, can be problematic at times. Of course, there are also speculators out there hoping to make money by either foreseeing bad things happening or in some cases making bad things happen (see how George Soros broke the British pound back in the 90's) but those tend to be rare & exceptional events.
Ireland has quite a small state. I don't think you're interested in reality, so much as repeating your dogma.
So let me get this straight, the plan is to spend money when you don't have it but quit spending once you get some?
No. Its spend when you don't have, spend when you do. This is the 21st Century leftie. Debt.......what's that?
