Sunday 12 May 2013

RESPONSE TO THE “SUNDAY INDEPENDENT”


Two weeks running the “Sunday Independent” has devoted many pages to personal criticism of me.

These criticisms were supposedly based,

first on the content of an article I wrote in the “Irish Independent” about the unwisdom of a threat of suicide being made a legal ground to allow abortion, and 
second on a few tiny extracts from a  long ex tempore speech I gave at the European Insurance Forum on the need for Europe and Ireland to have a growth model that was sustainable, politically, financially and environmentally.

In the speech, pointed out that our economy will only grow sustainably, if it is seen to be paying its way.  We still have a problem in Ireland in that we are, even now, borrowing for some of our day to day Government spending, not just for debt service.   I said that increasing borrowing in these circumstances was leaving today’s burdens on the shoulders of our children, and I did not believe that was right. 
We may look to others to stimulate their economies, but that is not as easy for them as we might like to think.  I said that it had been estimated that the average baby born in Germany has an implicit debt to pay, of nearly 200,000 euros, for entitlements and debts, promised or incurred, by its elders in Germany itself. Similar conditions apply in other EU countries to whom we might look for stimulus.

I also drew attention to EU research a few years ago that showed that by 2050, because of ageing and low birth rates, the debt/GDP ratio of almost all countries in Europe would grow to between 400% and 500%, if policies then followed   remained unchanged. That’s about 6 times what it is today.

Changes needed to remedy these problems would be called austerity by many, but they are inevitable, I argued, because money is only lent where lenders are confident they will be repaid. And sentiment on that can, unfortunately, change overnight.
Similarly, western consumption patterns may need to be adjusted to become environmentally sustainable. Some might call that austerity too.

If western consumption patterns were to be replicated across the world by the 3 billion additional people who have, since 1990, entered into competition with us for scarce energy, scarce water and scarce food resources, humanity would face possible catastrophe. 
The lifestyle of the average German consumes 40 times as much water as that of the average Egyptian. CO2 emissions per head are much higher in Europe.  The amount of acres needed to produce enough food for European consumption patterns is much greater too.

But since 1990, the arable area per person in the world has halved, and yield improvements have not kept pace. Some forms of fertilizer, like phosphate, are in finite supply.
I then suggested a sustainable  growth model for Ireland and Europe. I put forward ideas, including more innovation in the public sector, educational changes, and targeting our R and D at things that can make our lives more sustainable. 

In my earlier intervention on abortion, which also displeased the “Sunday Independent”, I pointed to the inherent legal and ethical difficulty of using a suicide threat as a basis for legitimating anything, and to the fact that an unborn child in Ireland has inherent constitutional rights, the first of which is the right to live.
The “Sunday Independent” did not engage with any of these concrete arguments, which I put forward on the basis of evidence in each case.

Instead its whole thesis was that, because of who I am, my character, where I was educated, and my income, I simply should not be allowed to express a view at all. Strange, from an advocate of free speech!

The paper even accused me of being a demagogue.  Attacking individuals, rather than debating real choices, is what demagogues do.

That is not what I did, or do, and I leave to its own readers to decide if it is the “Sunday Independent“ itself that is acting  as a demagogue in this case. 

3 comments:

Gerry Regan said...

Seems a common-sense thesis you lay out, John. I find your numbers particularly compelling.

Unknown said...

John,
I think the Sunday independent merely pointed out in an all be it vitriolic way that your opinions are not personal opinions but opinions based on your vested interests. They also pointed out fairly but equally vitriolically that you do not have first hand experience of living at the margins of society. I suggest that when you feel strongly that the current model is broken you really mean that in order for the very wealthiest to stay as wealthy, then the ordinary people will need to be poorer, and of course this is true. We can call that austerity, greed or any other word of our choosing but it is a reality that many ordinary people are facing in order to sustain a system to concentrates wealth in the hands of a few. Finally, perhaps the "socialist" element of your argument would have had more weight if you offered to give up all or a substantial proportion of your unsustainable public pension, particularly while you continue to earn substantial income from vested interests that do not have the public interest at heart. Regards Brendan Farrell brendanmjfarrell@gmail.com

Marlows said...

Perhaps the Sindo writers thought it was a bit rich for someone trousering 3 pensions from the taxpayers in addidition to a huge salary from bankers who are profitting from a crisis which bankers created, to be demanding banksterity be imposed on those struggling to survive?

BTW: one of the reasons that there is so much debt on our children and grandchildren is that your FG insisted on putting the gambling debts of billionaire bondholders on their shoulders.

PS: how may your consumption patterns need to be adjusted to become environmentally sustainable?

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