What’s wrong with Sinn Fein do they not deserve a chance?

Agree with all except Sinn Féin, the only one of the 4 you mentioned who I am at least willing to give a chance to prove themselves, if they fail to do so, back in your original list they shall go

“FG ought to get a whipping too for their minister threatening to abolish a local council cos they didn’t like it’s voting decisions. How can any FG candidate not distance themselves from the govt after that?”

@ Ryan: What are you talking about?

If you are referring to Donegal County Council, you should know that it is required under the Local Government Acts that a council needs to pass a budget each year and, if no budget is passed, the same law allows a minister to intervene.

This fact was reported in several articles on this site, but unfortunately facts like these can slip people’s minds between the story and the comments section!

Time to give sinn fein a shout..

to brndnbnr.

That’s exactly how i’m thinking too.

Vote for one good independant. No transfers.

A Dail of genuine local people.

The people in my town are mostly smart and decent people. There are a few independents to vote for.

Sinn Fein are still a party, and a very insular party at that. I have no doubt that they will gain most in the local elections, but when push comes to shove they will vote with the party line rather than the right thing to do at the time. For independent politics to work, it is essential that no one group dominates locally or nationally.

And also beware of the “recently resigned from the party” independents who would turn FF again at the first chance.

To Brendan.

Yes I thought about the recently resigned. There are a few. I would hope that in the context of things that nobody would be blind enough to vote for a party defector. They participated in lies and will continue with lies.

The entire crop must be changed and I mean everybody. The decent ones will see the writing on the wall and accept the will of the people and will likely still play an important part in the running of the country. New, decent and educated people is what we need to put in to the Dail.

I have a question about transfers. What about giving transfers to other new independents to offset the liklehood of some hardliners going all out voting with parties ?

go raibh maith agat.

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To Susan.

It’s good to see your frustration with the current crop besides SF. SF though are as involved in the political game that plagues this island as any other. If FG had won the last election outright and continued as they have then L would win this upcoming election by an absolute landslide. SF wouldn’t even be considered while the L option was untested.

But they have been tested and have failed spectacularly. If SF is our default last hope then the political game is surely over.

I’m in Meath East. Whoever is independent, intelligent and decent I will vote for. I don’t know you yet but you will get my vote. And maybe transfers to the rest of the independent, intelligent and decent people.

I can’t wait.

@ Con: Nope, just wondering what other option there is other than austerity when the State is spending more than it takes in through taxes and can no longer keep borrowing to close that gap?

Minus the cost of servicing the private banking debt inflicted on us without our consent, the exchequer about broke even last year…..but you know that already.

@ Were Jammin: That was last year but, omitting the banking debt, what about the period from 2008-2012?

Even if there was no private bank debt, the collapse of tax revenue would still have necessicated austerity.

Ryan,

Most countries run a budget deficit most of the time and it makes perfect macro economic sense to do so. It’s really only the Eurozone countries that are required to borrow their own currency in the market at an interest rate determined by the market. Fiat currency issuing nations like the U.S and U.K do not need to obtain their own currency in the market to finance a budget deficit for example. When they do choose to issue government bonds the primary objective is to implement monetary policy, not as a necessity to raise revenue. In addition, when those countries do ‘borrow’ in the market, they effectively decide what the yield/interest will be unlike the Eurozone nations subject to the tender mercy of the speculators.
If they wished, the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England could simply create as much money as their host nations require by pressing keys on their central bank computer. In practice, they are a little more discrete in their money creation. The usual mechanism is that the government will issue new bonds and ‘sell’ them to the commercial banks etc. A government selling its bonds reduces the total money supply, and so tends to increase the market interest rate, as the central bank reserves (base money) held by the commercial banks are exchanged in return for the government bonds.
In the reverse transaction, the central banks ‘buy’ the previously issued government bonds in return for central bank reserves in an asset swap. This has the effect of increasing the money supply and so reducing the interest rate to try and stimulate economic activity as has been seen in the massive Quantitative Easing programs of the past few years.
The central bank reserves are created electronically at will on a keyboard by the central bank as necessary to maintain liquidity in the interbank market. In this way a sovereign country can never really default on its own currency denominated debts as the central bank can always ‘buy’ back that debt with newly created central bank reserves which every commercial bank requires to function.
In contrast, the Euro single currency was deliberately designed to allow speculative financial capitalism to profit massively from member state sovereign debt as monetary policy is now in the hands of the neo liberal ECB instead of democratically elected governments.

@ Coddler: Yes, I am aware of all of that but would describe it differently.

With all of the above in mind, does that mean the Anti Austerity Alliance (AAA) proposes that Ireland leaves the Euro and the EU?

Always enough money to pay themselves well, but cut the poor.needy etc.. lab/df/df sicken me! Roll on May

Lab/fg/ff should read

@Coddler

I’d like to ask you a question Coddler…………since the US QE regime, whereby effectively devaluing their currency……..why does the Dollar still float at about $1.35?

Ryan,

Yes, it may be necessary to ultimately leave the Eurozone if it continues down the current destructive neo liberal path. The EU project may yet be salvaged but there is also a reasonable chance that the Euro will break up anyway if there is not a reversal of current policy as it’s too damaging for the peripheral countries like Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Greece.
In the short term, as part of the Euro, my own proposal (not AAA policy) would be that Ireland borrow directly from the commercial banks to cover any budget deficit and implement a stimulus program. The commercial banks create most of the new money in circulation today when they extend credit. In issuing credit, banks simultaneously create brand new electronic deposits in our bank accounts. The central banks create around 3% of the total volume of money in circulation in the real economy, that is the physical notes and coins. (They also create central bank reserves which are not in circulation).The remaining 97% approximately of money in circulation is created by the commercial banks when they issue credit.
This capability of the commercial banks to create new fiat currency money by just pressing keys on a computer can be harnessed by Ireland if we chose to do so. Governments borrowing directly from the commercial banks is not prohibited under the current treaties of the EU. In addition, the banks should value this approach as loans to governments would be classified as the highest class of risk weighted asset under Basel 3 and so would help the banks meet higher capital adequacy ratios.
The credit to the Irish state would take the form of long term loan contracts to be repaid over period of say 30 years. The terms and interest rates payable would be very favourable they would be ‘negotiated’ with the almost entirely state owned but nominally still private banks like AIB and PTSB and so much cheaper than the yield demanded by the sovereign bond markets.

Padser,

I’m not an FX expert by any means but I would guess that since the ECB has also been engaged in massive QE , both the Euro and the Dollar have devalued roughly in parallel leaving the exchange rate between the two relatively unchanged.
Unfortunately the ECB’s trillion euro plus QE stimulus has primarily benefited the commercial banks who precipitated the crisis in the first place. Instead of finding its way to the real productive economy to create jobs, much of the liquidity has been used to speculate on the stock markets fuelling the beginning of another unsustainable bubble. The Irish banks responded to this injection of cash by refusing to lend it to viable businesses or households. Instead they purchase Irish government bonds yielding a much higher interest rate precisely because the Irish sovereign is a much higher risk due to the private, illegitimate, odious bank debt imposed on us due to the collapse of those self same Irish banks. It’s an ingenious Catch 22 and we are the chumps.

@conor thanks for your explanation, please explain in laymen terms, my tiny brain just had a major malfunction due to information overload.

I meant @coddler

Hopefully this time round there will be plenty of candidates running as a vocation – because they KNOW they can do a better job.

Government party Councillors get rewarded by being appointed to the boards of those hundreds of mostly useless quangos. Example: Councillor Hilary Quinlan, Waterford, appointed to the Board of Irish Water