What do the economists really know?

Ireland is now like a terminally ill patient who wants to hear the truth but is being fed steaming great dollops of bulls**t.

“Oh, you’re grand; in no time at all you’ll be out of bed and running around like a five-year-old child,” he is being told by his friends and relations who come to see him in hospital. He knows that’s bulls**t but he doesn’t know just how deep it is. If he could only learn the truth, he might learn how to cope with it.
It could also be said that the people of Ireland are being treated like mushrooms. Keep them in the dark and feed them plenty of the smelly brown stuff.
We have got so much of it now that we are browned off. We were told earlier this year that we were over the worst of the crisis; that we had turned the corner and that by now we would be surging forward.
Like the terminally ill patient, we wanted to believe those who were telling us the good news. We were delighted to be told we were recovering. But we began to doubt when we couldn’t see or feel any signs of recovery. Now we have lost all confidence because now we realise we have not been told the truth.
I am not an economist. I don’t know anything more about the economy than does anybody else. I wonder if the economists themselves know anything more than the rest of us.
They have been contradicting themselves and each other. They tell us one thing today and another thing tomorrow. Then they have the cheek to tell us something completely different the day after that and expect us to believe them.
I hate to say this, but I no longer believe anybody. If we cannot believe or trust those we have appointed to look after us, we cannot have any confidence in the future. Why should we believe anything we are told by those who have been telling us lies all the time?
The key issue here is one of confidence and it is going to be extremely difficult to generate confidence in those we appointed to lead us after they have let us down so badly. We might have some confidence in them if they could put their petty political differences aside for the time being and joined together in trying to solve our economic problems.
Party political interests have been far more important to them than the interests of their country. So a national government or even political consensus on the way forward is out of the question.
Therefore in the absence of any kind of agreement between the parties, could we at least hope that Fine Gael and Labour might produce a joint programme for government at this stage?
They are almost certain to form the next government and, rather than producing separate plans now and agreeing a joint programme after the election, they should set out their stall now and let us know what kind of government we are going to get.
Otherwise we are buying pigs in pokes because any programme Fine Gael produces now might be vetoed by the Labour Party when they get into power and vice versa.
In the ordinary course of events, I would be opposed to such a move and I opposed the Mullingar accord between Pat Rabbitte and Enda Kenny some years ago. I rightly believed at the time that a joint platform then would throw out a lifeline to Fine Gael at the expense of Labour. that’s what happened because Labour were too weak then.
That is no longer the case. Labour may be as strong as Fine Gael after the next election, making them equal partners in Government. They should sit down together now and hammer out a programme as an alternative to Fianna Fáil. There is no confidence in Fianna Fáil – either at home or abroad – because they just do not have the numbers in the Dáil to get their proposals passed.
An early general election without an agreed pact between Fine Gael and Labour would not boost confidence because it would take several weeks before we would know the shape of the new coalition or the shape of the new programme.
Time is of the essence and so with an agreed programme in advance from Fine Gael and Labour, we might have some confidence that we were coming to the beginning of the end of this crisis.
Otherwise we are going to remain in the dark. It is wrong to argue that they couldn’t agree a joint programme until after the election when they will see how many TDs each party will have in the next Dáil.
The election can decide who will be Taoiseach and how many ministers each party will have. But a joint programme should be announced as soon as possible. It is the only way forward for the country.
My preference would be for a political consensus involving all the parties. Since that’s not going to happen, a joint Fine Gael/Labour programme would be the second best thing.
Meanwhile, I was intrigued at the decision of Gerry Adams to contest the next election here. He is taking a huge gamble because if he fails to get elected, he may be spelling the end of Sinn Féin in this part of the country.
From the Sinn Féin point of view, it is a gamble worth taking. The party has been in the doldrums in the Republic for a number of years. It has failed to pick up much of the support that Fianna Fáil has lost and is ineffective in the Dáil.
If Adams is elected, he should be able to provide the leadership that the Dáil party lacks. He might also reinvigorate the party down here. Louth may well be the cockpit for the next general election.