We are in denial over the economic crisis

Of all the half truths, misnomers and falsities propagated during this economic crisis – and, indeed, there have been many – the notion that the public are willing to ‘share the pain’ in terms of tax hikes, wage cuts and redundancies is surely one of the most risible. While there is a general acceptance that we are in dire straits as a country and that tough decisions have to be made, no one, predictably enough, wants these tough calls to affect their lives. Almost everyone wants someone else to take the hit: take from the other guy, sure, but keep your hands of my pile, if you will. Marches or disruptions held by the Gardai, teachers, bus drivers and others have all shown that people are far from willing to under go the sacrifices necessary to restore a semblance of fiscal order. This should come as no surprise, self-interest being such a large part human nature. Self-interest, in itself, need not be automatically reviled either; it is, after all, the motivating factor behind so much progress and endeavour.

The problem, however, is that in the time since the economic tsunami hit our shores, a self-serving myopia has plagued the public’s view of the situation. Most people don’t grasp the gravity of the mess we are in and seem to believe that other people aside from themselves both can and should pay our way out of the abyss. These ‘other people’ are chiefly the vaguely defined ‘fat cats’, the politicians and, of course, the utterly despised bankers. The only trouble is, though, that the notion of these groups being able to shoulder the entire burden of economic correction, therefore leaving the average worker unscathed, is nothing but an attractive myth. The myth is compounded by the incorrect belief that normal workers are the only ones suffering while the rich are getting off scot-free.

In reality, most of the rich have suffered greatly, just like everyone else. Sympathy for the rich is always going to be thin on the ground, but nonetheless, many have seen their fortunes decimated. At least €350bn has been lost in financial and property assets in the last two years, meaning that the majority of our Celtic Tiger-created millionaires no longer exist. The pot of wealth generated during the boom years has dried up and simply taxing the wealthiest severely will never generate anything like the amount of revenue necessary to keep us afloat. The negative effect that punitively taxing the wealthiest would have on the economy is also disregarded by quasi-socialists, such as Vincent Browne and the Labour party, who perpetuate a myth that stokes the flames of class resentment. Taking more than half of a millionaire’s income will simply make it not worth his or her while to earn more, spend or invest, the very things we need to stimulate the economy.

Moreover, the popular refrain that normal workers didn’t create the mess and so shouldn’t have to pay for it is meaningless. The fact is that we our now in free fall, and, simply because ‘ordinary’ workers make up most of the economy, ordinary workers will have to pay their share. There is no way around this, and to say otherwise is nothing but denial. Despite this, since the much-maligned emergency budget, an increasing level of hysteria has prevailed over how the ‘pain’ is spread. Despite the fact that they are the best paid in Europe, our teachers are outraged over the pension levy and hikes in the income levy. We even hear the laughable story of a 51-year-old teacher earning €63,000 who, according to herself, will be financially insecure for the rest of her life. Raise a glass too to the bus driver who doesn’t like the new timetable on his route and decides to hold the city to ransom by striking with a hundred or so others drivers. And then, even though an incredible third of our overall spending - €20bn – goes on welfare, there is indignation over the removal of the Christmas bonus. We need to get real here and avoid the populist nonsense which has been dominating discussions thanks to the opposition parties and large sections of the media.

Before the budget, we had a choice: either trim the fat from the public service – and that means letting thousands of people go, forget the citizens of could land who say otherwise – and probably raise taxes slightly, or leave the bloated sector alone and raise taxes significantly across the board. Wrongly, the government went for the latter option, but only because the anger from the unions and thousands of laid-off public sector employees was obviously something it didn’t want to have to face. That said, while opting mainly for tax hikes rather than cuts was foolish, the average person’s tax burden here is quite low. Remember – despite what lefties will tell you – that before the budget 20 per cent of income earners paid 77 per cent of all income tax and an incredible third of earners paid no tax at all. The budget maintained this general pattern more or less, with high earners once again paying most.

If we cannot pull together, instead of creating divisions and blaming anyone and everyone for this mess, we will take all the longer to recover as a nation. We can take the knocks on the chin, or we can shirk away in denial – it depends on whether we want to be constructive or destructive. The fact is that everyone must pay their share, there is no alternative.

Miss California shows us that we don't really care what people have to say.

If you wanted to hear some well-articulated views on a contentious social issue, a beauty pageant probably wouldn’t be most people’s first choice of venue. The cliché of the vacuous but well-meaning beauty queen hopeful who wishes for an end to world hunger is a well-worn one. Few expect such women to express real opinions, but to pander to the judges by recycling contrived platitudes about peace and love. But what happens when an aspiring beauty queen actually does give a genuinely heart-felt opinion?

Miss California, Carrie Prejean, found out for herself at the Miss USA competition last Sunday when she was asked by one of the judges whether she thought all the states should legalise gay marriage. Her reply - that she felt marriage should be between a man and a woman - likely cost firm favorite Prejean the crown, with one judge commenting: “The judges were really against her, they were bothered by her answer.” And then, unsurprisingly, the vitriol began spew forth. Like some petulant child who hadn’t gotten his way, gay celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, who posed the gay marriage question, quickly branded her a “dumb bitch” on his blog.

Unbelievably though, Hilton claimed that it was not her views on gay marriage that annoyed him, but her supposedly divisive answer, saying that he “would have appreciated it had she left her politics and her religion out, because Miss USA represents all Americans.” Excuse me, leave her politics out? But was she not asked a straight forward question to which she gave an honest answer? The blogger also complained that her answer “alienated millions of gay and lesbian Americans, their families and their supporters.” If he is indeed concerned with representing all Americans, presumably Hilton would also have been indignant if the contestant had “alienated” millions of fundamentalist Christians with a pro-gay marriage answer.

Liberal

Look, the issue here isn’t whether gay marriage should or shouldn’t be legalised, but the intolerance shown by supposedly liberal people to view points which don’t match their own. I mean, why ask the poor girl if there is only one answer which is acceptable? Do we want to actually talk about contentious issues like gay marriage or just bully people who don’t subscribe to a certain outlook? It seems even more mean-spirited and frankly hypocritical to shun Miss California so readily when you consider that only 30 per cent of Americans even support the right of gays to marry. But this, of course, is disregarded, because in the politically correct age dissent from a particularly rigid liberal view is not tolerated. In Ireland it is no different.

Only last Tuesday, on TV3’s Midday show, the controversial subject of embryonic stem cell research was tackled with precious little attempt at balance or presenting conflicting viewpoints. The parents of a child born blind were guests on the show to discuss their moving story and their plans to seek non-embryonic umbilical stem cell treatment in China. Senator David Norris joined them to argue why we should allow embryonic research and expressed his concern over the “smooth-talking, dangerous, sophisticated people” who oppose the practice.

Then presenter Alan Cantwell made it clear how it felt about the issue by referring to that “crackpot, loony crowd in Youth Defence”. And to top off the “minutiae of the pros and cons” - as the show was risibly described - Martin King weighed-in in favour by rhetorically asking “why shouldn’t we allow it?”. So there you have it: not a single person on the show who was clearly opposed to the issue. Wow, what a balanced and reasoned discussion indeed. Ironically though, the show’s other presenter, Colette Fitzpatrick, had the biggest insight of the entire show when she remarked on how immature we are in this country when it comes to such debates. Yes, we are, and her show on Tuesday was a perfect example of that.

Not so gr8 - how text speak became the language of love

Picture the familiar scene: the lights are low and the air is oven-hot, the music loud enough to make your eardrums bleed. Wave after wave of drunken pub-goers crowd the dance floor like ants over a melted ice cream cone in June. Then, out of the corner your eye, you see her. Struggling to remain vertical in her six-inch heels, she could be trying to ice-skate on stilts, but to you at that moment she is most beautiful creature you have ever seen. And, joy oh joy, she’s walking - just about - towards you.

After screaming pleasantries into one another’s unfortunate ears – and after permanent hearing loss is assured for the both of you - you share a not quite magical kiss (say, a little more ‘Night of the Living Dead’ than ‘Sleepless in Seattle’). The night draws to a close and you make your way home with a name and phone number, the promising seeds of a second meeting.

The standard procedure then is to send a casual text message to your pub princess, to which you will often receive a reply in ‘text speak’ so impenetrable that it could have been written by a blind, fingerless chimpanzee. Whole sentences can be boiled down into short acronyms, punctuation can be as scarce as water in the Sahara and vowels seemingly become unnecessary. What is worrying about this often bewildering lexicon, though, is that it isn’t used simply for convenience sake when other forms of communication are impractical, but has become an integral part of the process of meeting and getting to know people. Texting is not just a handy way to arrange a meeting or express a quick sentiment; it has become a conversational tool in itself. As a device, however, it is utterly inadequate for expressing any sort of real emotion or opinion.

Inane

Due to the way they are constructed, I could have the same text ‘conversation’ with a thousand different people and never know the difference. The same inane stock questions and phrases make up the majority of texts, meaning that one never has to think about what they are actually saying.

An expression such as ‘RALMAO’ (Rolling around laughing my ass off) may as well be meaningless because all it does is allow the speaker to avoid actually expressing how, in this case, funny something is. And yet, this is how so many guys and gals get to know one another during the early stages of dating. How could one ever decide if they wanted to see someone again in real life based on a few hundred characters in a text?

Then, of course, there is the very real possibility of misinterpretation. With no tone of voice to refer to, sarcasm and irony don’t translate so well, and while this is also true of something like email, people don’t rely on it anywhere near as much for flirting or long conversations. An apparently playful remark to a girl or guy of your fancy can end up sounding rude or even downright offensive, leaving you having to make it up to someone you barely even know.

And, for the love of God, if you have to text, always, always double-check whose name is highlighted when you press ‘send’. I once heard of a guy who (so he thought) text his best friend worried about whether he should tell his girlfriend about his illicit shenanigans with someone else. The best friend and girlfriend’s names shared a few letters in common. Needless to say, the text wasn’t sent to the right person and someone got dumped. I guess that was one text message, at least, that was pretty hard to misinterpret.



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Cuts foolishly ignored in favour of tax hikes

The budgetary storm has finally hit and the news isn’t overly comforting for young people looking for work for the first time. The government has decided that tax increases – euphemistically termed ‘income levies’ – rather than cuts in spending, will provide the bulk of revenue needed to fill the hole in the exchequer. The danger here is that a reduction in people’s spending power will exacerbate the downturn and result in further job losses.

More than anything, those coming from college into a job-starved economy such as myself would have wished for a budget that went some way towards improving their work prospects. There are few indications of this budget doing just that. A reduction in PRSI contributions for employers, for example, was absent and a work experience placement scheme for 2,000 graduates, while welcome, was limited in scope.

To his credit, Brian Lenihan at least acknowledged yesterday that our tax base is too narrow and needs an overhaul. However, while increased taxes will raise an estimated extra €3.6 billion, his budget has once again failed to deal with the government’s astronomical levels of spending.

With not far off 400,000 people on the dole, there is simply no excuse for continuing to shelter the public service from redundancies and wage cuts. This isn’t a matter of fairness or private sector resentment, but of fiscal reality. We no longer have the number of tax-paying private sector workers needed to foot a public pay bill of €20 billion. It is utterly illogical for the public service to remain its present size when the economy has shrunk so drastically.

There is little political will to tackle this, however, so instead the government has turned to trying to tax our way out of this economic abyss – a risky process.

Perhaps surprisingly, the dole – aside from the December bonus and payments for under-twenties – was left untouched. For a great many vulnerable people, especially those with families, this will come as a huge relief. However, for a single person without a mortgage or children such as myself, a modest cut in line with deflation would have been quite reasonable. This saving could he been better spent on retaining the full early child payment, for example, which was slashed by half.

One of the most dramatic elements of the budget is undoubtedly the decision to half dole payments to under-twenties to €100. The rationale behind this drastic cut is to encourage younger people into training and keep school-leavers out of the dole queue. While ensuring the dole is not an attractive option has some merit, the degree by which it was cut was absurd. Living on such a meagre payment would be beyond difficult. And, more to the point, just what jobs exactly would these people be training for?

We need hope from the budget

Clichés are used all the time to side-step debate and reinforce lazy assumptions, but some, at least, have truth in them. Anyone too young to remember the 1980s must now surely have the odious phrase “you have never had it so good” ringing very loudly in their ears. It was a sentiment we were raised on, readily deployed by our parents or superiors whenever we complained too much or languished in self-pity. But it was, at least in many ways, true.

Until the house of cards (or should it be of ‘houses’?) came crashing down, the Irish had come to regard low taxes and one of the lowest unemployment rates in the world as a given. This was the world a student could expect to live and work in after college. Whatever disappointments we encountered along the way, there was always the promise that, out in ‘the real world’, things would be better for us than previous generations. Now, for the first time in a long time, this is no longer the case.

In May, I walked out of a university lecture theatre for the last time and in September I graduated. Life since then has held both the sweet taste of opportunity and the sombre feeling of the loss of it. Days before my last exam I was offered what, as an aspiring journalist, was a dream job in a national newspaper. Then in November I was let go and the term ‘recession’ became more to me than just a word that endlessly filled newspaper headlines. For a while, I bumbled between temporary jobs like some directionless daddy long-legs, before eventually biting the bullet and paying a visit to my local dole office.

When you sign-on for the first time you lose many of your preconceptions about social welfare and its recipients. Suddenly you are aware that it isn’t just the lazy or the apathetic that collect the dole, it is also people who have no other choice. By the end of this year, up to 70,000 people with hard-earned third level qualifications will be among those who don’t have a choice. It would be foolish and arrogant to suggest that recent graduates and those about to graduate are hurting more than most at the moment – for the most part we don’t have other mouths to feed or mortgages to pay.

Nonetheless, as a graduate it is hard to escape a feeling of disillusionment with what we are to inherit. On our road to the world of work we were nourished on two, now hollow-seeming, principles: firstly, that western civilisation is ever-progressing, and that every new generation is better off than the previous one.

And secondly, despite whatever obstacles you may face, if you work hard you will succeed in life. Nice ideas, indeed, but what is the point of studying for three or four years only to be told, as I was in a certain fast food outlet, that even flipping burgers is a job which is out your reach. Most people don’t expect a free ride or an easy passage, but unless there is ladder there for people to try and climb, hopelessness is inevitable. Whatever measures Mr. Cowen and company propose tomorrow, they must at least leave people – graduates or otherwise - with the sense that shaping their own destiny is within their power. Feelings of powerlessness will only serve to prolong this mess.

But despite it all, there is reason for some optimism. Remember that irritating phrase about never having it so good? The expression was coined in 1957 in a speech celebrating the success of Britain’s post-war economy by the then British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan. If there was truth in that expression in the wake of the most horrific war the world has ever seen, then surely we can get through this current economic nightmare. In time, I’m sure there will once again be good reason to drive young people mad with that infuriating refrain: “you have never had it so good”.

Does anyone really care about the EU?

DO YOU consider yourself Irish or European first and foremost? George Bernard Shaw once said that “Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.” The famous line summed up, to Shaw’s mind at least, the absurdity of a loyalty determined by the accident of birth. Absurd or not, however, the power of national identity to influence, bind and rally people cannot be denied.

After all, it is this force which led millions around Europe to march dutifully to their deaths in the Somme, rather than rise up from their squalid living conditions in a workers’ revolt, as Marx had long anticipated.
Even where conscription did not oblige those to fight, a sense of nationalistic duty swept the hearts and minds of countless young men during WWI; in Britain, alone, where conscription wasn’t introduced until 1916, 750,000 volunteered in the first 8 weeks; a further million joined them in the next 8 months.

And while it was very much a European war in terms of where it was fought and the countries involved, those obliterated in its horrific barbarism were fighting in the name of Germany, or France, or Britain – not Europe. And now, as the Lisbon Treaty’s 479 pages lie in the dust-bin of political stalemate, it is worth considering just how important the question of national identity is.

That interest in the EU project has been on the wane for the last 25 years is hard to dispute; the EU-wide turnout for the 2004 elections was the lowest ever. This begs the question: is it particularly reasonable to except citizens in a particular country to feel connected with an organisation representing almost 500 million people in 27 countries, encompassing over two dozen languages and numerous cultural traditions? Despite the cynicism which politics is regarded with in this country, September’s pensioner protests over the medical cards debacle demonstrated the possibility of effecting change at a national level. Can the same be said of the EU? After all, a trip to the Dail from down the country surely seems more within reach to the average Joe than a flight to Brussels or Strasbourg.

But even if we cannot feel like European citizens, are there steps which can be taken to improve people’s perception of the union and its accountability to the people? Whether or not one feels solidarity with the Italians, Dutch or Swedes aside, the legislature of the EU, The Commission, is unelected – a fact which undoubtedly fails to inspire the minds of those unconvinced of the union’s democratic legitimacy.

It is the Commission which has the sole power to propose legislation for consideration by the European Parliament - the only directly elected institution in the EU - which it then can then amend, or accept outright. The Parliament itself has no right to propose legislation, effectively leaving the political agenda of the EU to be set by an unelected body.

Furthermore, before any amendments made by the Parliament are ratified, they must be approved by the Council of Ministers (Council) – a body made up of government ministers from the respective EU member states.

Commission

Irish MEP (Member of the European Parliament) Kathy Sinnott believes that a commission elected by the people would be a start in making the EU more democratic.

And according to Mrs. Sinnott, who sits with the Independents/Democracy bloc in Brussels, the Council typically only allows “about 80 per cent of the amendments [made by Parliament] go through”.

The MEP also believes that directly electing the Commission President through the people would go a long way towards changing the perception that the EU is detached from the people. And according to her, something similar to the U.S. system of a college of electors could be used to ensure that smaller EU countries have a significant say in such an election.

“It is important to have a weighted system so you are not lost if you are a small country,” says Mrs. Sinnott.

Another aspect of the process which serves to further alienate ordinary citizens is the issue of MEPs’ voting records in parliament. For a roll-call to be taken, in other words for a MEP’s vote to made known, an entire bloc – for instance the socialists or the EPP- in the Parliament must request it. In addition, the Commission President has the right to deny a roll-call on the grounds that it disrupts the business of the parliament. This effectively means that, come election time, the ordinary voter may have no idea what his or her MEP has been voting on for the previous five years.

No matter what level of reform ever takes place, however, it seems quite likely that an institution as vast and culturally incoherent as the EU will never be seen as readily accessible by the man on the street. And if our war-time example of the power of patriotism seems far removed from everyday life, disregard it; the almost religious fervor typically expressed at an Irish soccer, ruby or GAA match is testament enough to the fact the flags, borders and anthems still hold sway with the masses.

The day 80,000 gather, gripped by excitement, in Croker under a yellow-starred banner of blue, will be the day the EU no longer seems too abstract for most people to have a real interest in; and the day I’ll eat my T-shirt.

Technology’s grip is felt in every aspect of our lives and yet we don’t understand it

STRANGELY, it is often the things which are most influential in our lives which go unnoticed and escape thorough examination. Mankind has long proved adept at slipping into routine, and with such familiarity comes the notion of ‘to take for granted’. For most of us, much of our daily routine - what we eat, where we go, who we like, love and hate – is taken as a given - it just is.

Nothing shapes how we live so profoundly, and yet barely registers in our attention, as much as the advancement of technology. Despite being unprecedented in all of history, the fact that it’s perfectly possible to have breakfast in Dublin and dinner that evening in New York rarely fills us with awe. Every time we turn on the oven, get the bus, or send an email or text message, our ways of living, communicating and, even thinking, are being shaped in ways unheard of in times past.

Naturally, this raises an important question: does the relentless evolution of technology improve and enrich our lives, or merely cause more problems than it solves. After all, the very technology that allows the miracle of transatlantic restaurant-hopping also facilitated the leveling of Hiroshima and, with it, the obliteration of thousands. History has shown us that the most innocent seeming of developments can become deadly in the hands of the unscrupulous; today’s life-saving cure could well become tomorrow’s plague.

In many ways technology illustrates both, humanity’s greatest strength, and its crippling weakness: an insatiable appetite for improvement and an inability to ever be fully satisfied.

Consider if our proverbial Neanderthal friend ‘Mr. Ugg’, after discovering fire, had decided he was happy enough with his situation – that getting a little prehistoric with Mrs. Ugg beside the fire would keep him content for the rest of his days. And imagine if everyone else had followed suit. Well, that would have been the end of progress; the day man stopped striving for something better. The bizarre world in which we live is built on the struggles of people who wanted ‘something more’.

Progress

But in our quest for the perfect world do we risk overstretching ourselves? In John Gray’s fascinating, and indeed wretchedly depressing, Straw Dogs, the author argues that what we know as human progress is in fact an illusion and that, in fact, we are hurtling towards self-destruction. Gray cites the millions killed in the name of progress in Nazi Germany and the U.S.S.R as examples of how “Humanity’s worst crimes were made possible only by modern technology.” It can be argued quite convincingly that such atrocities do not outweigh the good that has been accomplished through technology, but just on what side do the scales of progress tip? Has more harm been done than good?

We do not have to look at such heavy questions to ponder as to what the point of certain ‘advancements’ is. The late Austrian philosopher Ivan Illich once calculated that, between working to pay for tolls, tax and insurance and waiting in it when idle, the typical American – and I doubt the Irish differ greatly – puts in 1600 hours a year into their car in order to travel 7500 miles. That works out at around five miles an hour, not much faster than walking. This raises a fascinating possibility: like so many things we buy, is a car more important for the possibility of freedom it suggests or what it says about us, rather than its practical use?

Then there are just the downright irritating examples of machines going where one would prefer they didn’t. A purchase at Tesco can now see you being told by a friendly automatic checkout lady - in a curiously un-Irish accent mind – to ‘please take your change’ over, and over, and over until you wish that robots felt pain, just so you could cause them some. After this delightful experience has you reduced to a quivering mess uncertain of your own sanity, ‘Robo-lady’ thanks you for shopping at Tesco. Why on earth anyone would want to be thanked by a machine is beyond me, but there you go; technology is constantly becoming all the more bizarre.

And about the machine’s accent: on second thought, as much as much as ‘Robo-lady’s’ British twang annoys me, consider the more colloquial alternative: “Listen bud, would ya eva take yer bleedin’ change!” You can stay ‘Robo-lady’, all is forgiven.

Aside from simply being irritating, the Tesco experience also illustrates one of our technological adventure’s biggest implications: its effect on jobs and the workforce. After all, flesh and blood may well have once sat where an automatic checkout now resides. A suspicion of new technology and its effect on workers is nothing new, however; the Luddites of the early 19^th century smashed looms in the belief that new technologies would replace them as workers. So, is the advancement of new technologies good or bad for jobs?

Wages

Such a motion was debated by two leading economists, Paul Krugman of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and David R. Henderson of the Hoover Institution, in 1996. Krugman argued that technology has a negative effect on wages by forcing people into lower paid jobs. By his rationale, a technological advancement which increases productivity replaces a job which would have been needed to achieve the same level of output: in his own words, “an investment that would have added two jobs will now add only one, so there will no longer be enough jobs created.” And so, the threat of unemployment will allow employers to lower wages and will result in worse, lower-paying jobs, despite a stronger economy.

Henderson, however, argued that while wages in the U.S. peaked in 1973 and are now lower, several important factors often aren’t taken into account. According to him, when improvements in quality and the ‘Wal-Mart phenomenon’ are accounted for, real wages in the U.S. have actually risen significantly since the 1970s. He reasoned that the technology which has slashed communication and transport costs has allowed supermarkets to sell goods at a fraction of the price they used to sell for in small shops. These savings and improvements in efficiency have, according to Henderson, allowed wages to go much further than they used to.

Interestingly, while the two economists disagreed over technology’s effect on wages, both said that, in the long-term at least, technology did not lead to a reduction in jobs. It seems that technologies which increase the profitability and size of companies can only lead to more jobs in the long run.

Accurately assessing the impact of technology on our lives is like trying to stop the sea eroding a pattern in the sand. Its effect is so multi-faceted and complex, with so many nuances and variables, that true comprehension is out of our reach. Technology has altered our lives beyond recognition and, as products of it as much as it is of us, we cannot step outside of it and observe it without bias.

One could say that technology is simply a tool and that how we use it is up to us, but even that seems uncertain and an overstatement of our understanding. For we do not simply use technology; it is not simply a blank canvas on which we paint. Technology uses and influences us too, and in ways we will probably never fully understand.