Does Money Pumping Work?

by billy idle Sun Mar 22, 2009 23:54

Am i the only who thinks that most of the commentators solution to this crisis is to return to the situation that pertained just before the crisis broke ie cheap credit and reckless lending. Is this what capitalism is all about?. Is it a credible that 80% of the US economy is now based on its own consumer spending, with the likes of Ireland and Britain not far behind. Capitalism also appears to be about using using, destroying, consuming etc. the earth resources as quickly as possible under the unlimited economic growth models which seems to dominate all the major economies.

Sustainability appears to be a dirty word in all this judging by the actions of most governments around the world to this crisis!!

by NapkinEconomist Mon Mar 23, 2009 07:54

It seems to me that the government is paralysed like a rabbit in the headlights. Perhaps what is needed is an ideas bank to inspire them into doing something right to sort out the short sighted money haemorrhaging mess that is the Irish economy / social services / infrastructure / education system

some of what we need to do:

bring in STRONG WHISTLEBLOWER PROTECTION LEGISLATION so we can clean out corruption and cronyism.

Bring criminal cases against all found to have abused the banking / finance system. treat these people like any other thieves. put them in prison as examples. confiscate their assets.

Decouple saving and lending from speculation.Banks cannot do both.
Create state owned saving / lending orgs. Let the corrupt banks fail. bailouts are a waste of money as we can see with AIG et al.. Instead Spend the same bailout money on boosting local infrastructure and industry

Put restrictions on flow of money abroad. Stop Rich folk investing all their money abroad so they have to invest in irish projects / businesses (link this to citizenship)

All Irish citizens pay tax in Ireland. otherwise, fuck off. No exceptions Bono!!

give the defaulting property speculators property owned by Taxpayers banks to people on the housing list paying rent allowance (at very reasonable rent), thereby fulfilling a social need and saving the state loads of wasted money paid out weekly to rich property owners, (often untaxed) and pushing down exhorbitant rents

lower prices on electricity, communications, broadband, thereby reducing the cost of doing business to normal european levels.
strongly enforce pricing on petrol / diesel / fuel and increase penalties significantly to stop gouging at the pumps and similarly on food prices in the supermarkets.
Just generally bring down the cost of living / doing business here.

If any foreign companies are scarpering after their tax breaks run out then nationalise their facilities and place them under the control and ownership of their workers and let them at least try to make a go of it themselves with the skills they have learned. this kind of thing has worked to some extent in venezuela etc.

re-negotiate the corrib gas deal to something that actually benefits the irish people. No excuses for not doing this. Those that negotiated the terms and made the legislation have been shown to be completely corrupt. Surely that's a very strong case for re-negotiation?

tax people earning over 100,000 properly.
These folks should pay for university fees / most normal medical expenses etc because they can easily afford to.
tax secondary property other than peoples actual residence (2nd / third houses etc).
remove the ridiculous ceiling on PRSI.

Strip out all the excess paid politicans and ministers. Cut the political class to the bone. Make them fear the people again!!!
Bring all renumerations in line with countries with sane working political systems. It's insane that bumbling cowen gets paid more than the leader of america!!.
Make pay commensurate with specific qualifications for the job. Require ministers to actually know something about what they are responsible for. If they don't, that is just plain ridiculous and should not be tolerated.

Change the terms of employment in the public sector. Make it possible to fire useless dead weight people pushing paper wasting tax payers money. Abolish pensions altogether . Make everyone entitled to just the standard (means tested) state pension and free basic medical care.

Strengthen law to protect employees from exploitation at the same time but MAKE ALL WORKERS EQUAL, except for fair and structured salary differences for TANGIBLE qualifications and skills. (skillbands?)

no more private healthcare. Give each hospital an administrator and an office and a computer and a budget based proportionally on number of people it caters for in it's catchment area and the most common treatments needed. Give everyone a health swipecard with their medical details on it. Facilitate links between hospitals for patient transfer etc.
Then ABOLISH THE HSE TOTALLY!!!!

Break the monopoly doctors have by allowing good cuban doctors to come here to work and allowing irish medical students to go there.

foster local small industry
invest in education but put "survival" courses in there too (fixing stuff / growing food / starting a business / ecotech / social awareness )
start growing our own food again on a larger scale. How about sugar beet ethanol for example?
reduce imports (tax those big chains which kill off local industry and provide only low paid jobs in return. Force them to buy more Irish goods)
increase exports
reduce energy dependency and invest in energy / water projects / public transport

Most of these things are pretty obvious ideas to anyone who thinks about it for all of 5 minutes

Do any of the current crop of Irish politicians have the balls to tackle any of these issues and do the right thing?? Sadly Not as far as I can see

Any one have other / better suggestions to add?.
Maybe we could make a suggestions webpage with the best ones, then send the link to Mr Cowen in case he needs a few fresh ideas!!

Heh, maybe I should run for office in the next election with this platform!! :-)

by Newbie Here. Mon Mar 23, 2009 12:50

Too much debt is bad.
Appropriate debt is good.

How many people would own their own house and car if they had to SAVE up all the money first?

McWilliams is dead right.
We can borrow our way out of this.

(Obviously,cutting out all the waste and greed etc.,and putting a lot of people into jail, at the same time of course.)

A lean-and-mean and efficient Ireland should not be afraid of debts which can be paid back.

by Grandfather. Mon Mar 23, 2009 13:21

We will burden our grandchildren even more is we DON'T sort this out (start borrowing) now.

by Margaret Mon Mar 23, 2009 19:30

Don,t mention the GAS & OIL reserves lying off our west coast,who will benefit from that?

by Bust Tue Mar 24, 2009 10:00

Every time you build a house or a bridge you "make capital".

You could call it "printing capital".

Capital is valued in money , either coinage (gold for instance) ,or trusted notes.

(Gold is just an ordinary metal,by the way,we just put more value on it than tin or lead.)

Minting gold coins thousands of years ago is EXACTLY the same as printing paper money today.

Its the value that is put on it that counts.

Everyone would like to have a gold ingot in their attic ...or a €100,000 Euro banknote.
Same difference.

by Sceptic Tue Mar 24, 2009 11:27

Reply to Margaret

"Don't mention the GAS & OIL reserves lying off our west coast, who will benefit from that?"

There are no known commercial oil reserves offshore or in the Irish area of the Atlantic continental shelf.
As for the Corrib Gas field the main value added will accrue to Ireland - to labour, service providers, commerce generally, the balance of payments and associated tax revenues. The only thing absent in royalties but the low level of royalties was agreed before the field was discovered. The problem is that the royalties have to reflect the realities of the level of difficulty in finding in exploiting the resources. Offshore drilling in the Atlantic is among the most difficult in the world and the reserves are few. Had there not been a round of licenses with minimal or no royalties the gas would not have been found. We did try in the first round post 1975 to extract max royalties. But nothing was ever found and the firms with the wherewithal to explore were unwilling to continue. Incidentally there is nothing to stop the State exploring itself but its very unlikely that it would be able to do so at less than a multiple of the cost that the majors can do it for. These are the realities. Emotional guff about our resources and multinational sand the like ignore these salient realities.

by Viking Tue Mar 24, 2009 12:33

Norway did its own exploration after the initial finds.

They formed the state owned company "Statoil" well known in Ireland.

They had to borrow heavily and nearly bankrupted the country in the process.

It paid off though.

Norway is now easily the richest (in real terms) country in the world and is impervious to the recession.

They call themselves "Blonde Arabs".

They are now helping to fish their bankrupt first cousins in Iceland off the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

by 1 of IMC Tue Mar 24, 2009 13:46

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by Just popped in Tue Mar 24, 2009 16:06

Sceptic wrote "There are no known commercial oil reserves offshore or in the Irish area of the Atlantic continental shelf."
The General feeling in official circles is

"But if Irish government publicity - from a symposium it organised last November to drum up interest in oil and gas exploration - is to be believed, then there are rich pickings lurking under Irish waters. "Atlantic Ireland is one of the few remaining regions remaining in the North Atlantic offering opportunities to explore and develop major hydrocarbon resources," it trumpets, saying there are an estimated 10bn barrels of oil to be found. At current prices of $60 a barrel, this means Ireland could be sitting on $600 billion of reserves - if the government's sales-pitch is to be believed.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/6391449.stm

Sceptic wrote "But nothing was ever found and the firms with the wherewithal to explore were unwilling to continue."
The Irish State has decided not to invest any State Resources in exploration activities and therefore has no sure knowledge of what is or not out there. Why should the MNC companies continue to take all the risk, when they can concentrate in other jurisdictions that put up some money e.g. Nigeria and share the risk. The government instead sunk the Nations Resources into building houses. We are now paying a massive amount annually for the next thirty years to Hedge and Pension funds outside the State in connection with securitised mortgages. Because House Values have decreased by 50% and more, we have nothing of value to represent this foreign investment. Yes, we have blown the entire lot. We could sink 130 Exploration Wells each year if it were not for this atrocious Government and there hang-up at anything that comes from the West "Fish, Oil, Gas". In no way would our prudent politicians risk taxpayers’ money in sinking wells with a thirty to one chance of striking oil (I remember these odds were quoted in the Dail a number of years ago). Our politicians are real smart; but are not in the same ring as the International Financial Buccaneers. Yes, as regard the now poor citizens of this State are concerned; your above statement is true. But out there in the wider world, there are oilmen and Financial Buccaneers having a right old laugh at how easy it was to pull the wool over Irish eyes. Yes our government knows that there is oil out there, or isn’t out there; depending on who they are talking to and what size of envelope is offered. The tribunals evidently are not enough evidence for some people of what really goes on!

The Norwegians knew there was oil of their shores, because the same rock structure existed as off Holland where gas was found. Where you have Gas, you get Oil! The same rock structure stretches down by the Orkneys, Shetland Islands; but we believe our government when they tell us that there are no oil or gas reserves out there. Will we ever wake up? This pantomime of our Skeptics being in the ascendancy is now going on for near to fifty years.

by Skipper. Tue Mar 24, 2009 16:34

During the Celtic Tiger times we could have targeted our energies and resources and willpower to at last open up our neglected marine resource, both above and below the seabed.

Instead our leaders waxed lyrical about "Bertie Bowls" and "Olympics for Ireland" and other such infantile nonsense.

We don't elect leaders,we elect bungling idiots.

by Magnus Tue Mar 24, 2009 16:49

Iceland is returning to its marine roots.
No bankers any more.

Plenty more fish in the sea though:

http://www.thisisgrimsby.co.uk/news/Icelandic-trawler-l....html
.

by MARGARET Wed Mar 25, 2009 00:16

UP-DATES for "SCEPTIC"
http://colmrapple.com/?cat=7

by Michael Gallagher Wed Mar 25, 2009 08:28 liberypics at yahoo dot ie

As the small print says on me medical card...."make sure you know the cure for your disease before you overspend on sticking plasters...."

I wonder will Questions and Answers on RTE ever broaden it's horizons?