SJI Socio-Economic Review 2013

The 2013 socio-economic review from Social Justice Ireland was published yesterday.  The 360-page document called What Would Real Recovery Look Like? Securing Economic Development, Social Equity and Sustainability can be accessed here (5MB).

The report was preceded by this piece in The Irish Times on Monday.  The Irish Examiner ran a less-than-complimentary editorial yesterday which I imagine led to this reply today.

29 replies on “SJI Socio-Economic Review 2013”

The strategy of following the austere Zeitgeist doesn’t really seem to be going anywhere despite the spin.

But perhaps DOCM will be along to explain that the bucket does in fact hold water.

@Seamus

re: Examiner editorial;

In the interest of objectivity, the Examiner should have included a footnote at the bottom of the editorial, explaining how the Examiner/Crosbie Group debts/mortgages were holding up..etc etc.
Limited liability can be a fine shelter betimes!

The Social Justice Ireland report?

Another 360 pages of pious pontification by the looks of it and judging from Father Sean Healy’s two articles in the Irish Times And The Irish Examiner respectively.

By way of example, get a load of this:

“A large-scale capital investment programme is attractive because it would create new economic activity and jobs, particularly in the depressed construction sector.”

(Healy in The Irish Examiner)

The construction sector — whose boom was the core cause of the country’s economic crisis and whose contraction is as much part of the solution as it is part of the problem. And they want the government to invest there, of all places?

Shivers run down the spine.

Can these guys at SJI be serious? Are they the full economic shilling? Or is cluelessness a necessary qualification for employment there?

I wonder if Fr Sean should take Prof McCarthy out for a good lunch and discuss the efficacy of a fiscal stimulus when we appear to have excess and unused capital stock from the boom. Perhaps we need another motorway to a marginal constituency or a rail road linking nowhere to somewhere else or a few empty airport terminals etc etc.

Or we could drill for gas off Dalkey…cant have that, might find something. Or build a pharma plant in Dun Laoghaire. Can’t have that either, according to Depitty Boyd Barrett.

@CG-what in your opinion is the % of GDP that the irish const. industry should look to attain?

@CG here i make it easy…………looking forward to reading the report….
“The preliminary assessment for 2013 is for a further decline in the volume of output of 6.6% as all sectors are expected to be weaker in 2013, apart from some very modest improvement in the output related to private non-residential construction, albeit from a very low base. In particular there is some evidence from a SCSI Survey of Quantity Surveying practices that office and industrial building activity is beginning to pick up this year. However, the improvement is not sufficient to avoid overall output in the sector falling again in 2013, to a forecast €7.1 billion or just 5.6% of GNP”
“Based on a comparison with the size of the construction industry in other countries, it is considered that an economy the size of Ireland should be capable of sustaining a construction industry equivalent to around 12% of GNP (10% of GDP) over the medium-term, without the negative repercussions associated with periods of overbuilding”
http://www.scsi.ie/constr2012

Two links of relevance to the discussion.

http://blogs.ft.com/the-a-list/2013/04/03/europe-needs-to-focus-more-on-reform-not-just-austerity/#axzz2PPzWeQc6

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2013/cr1393.pdf

The SJI paper is of interest in illustrating how two quite contradictory debates can take place at the same time, that of the pie in the sky variety and the reality. Lip service may be paid to the first but there appears increasingly to be an unspoken acceptance of the second.

It is also rather obvious that some matters are outside the control of Ireland. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, Draghi and the ECB come up with tomorrow in the wake of the events in Cyprus.

“A large-scale capital investment programme is attractive because it would create new economic activity and jobs, particularly in the depressed construction sector.”

There is still a fair dose of shoddy infrastructure, Carolus.
Do you think DOCM style economic nihilism is a better bet to get the animal spirits going again?

@John Gallaher
…it is considered that an economy the size of Ireland should be capable of sustaining a construction industry equivalent to around 12% of GNP (10% of GDP) over the medium-term …

Well, that’s certainly good news — now all that’s needed is to convince the potential investors to put their money where the SCSI’s mouth is. But thanks for the informative link.

@seafoid
…a fair dose of shoddy infrastructure

‘shoddy’ is to some degree in the eye of the beholder. By MacMansion standards, a home without a swimming pool is a hovel. Ditto for public buildings.
If you’ve been ‘spoilt rotten’ by the Celtic Tiger, what ISN’T shoddy?

Do you think DOCM style economic nihilism is a better bet to get the animal spirits going again?

My hunch is that the only way to get those ‘spirits’ going may be to reduce Irish (and European) labour costs to those of our competitors. We are all scrambling for a shrinking pie (shrinking at least in per capita terms) in a world of finite resources…. etc.

If I continue on this vein, I’ll begin to sound like Father Healy.

@CG…”Or is cluelessness a necessary qualification ”
No just to post on here….the Irish const. sector is a bit like the banking sector in Cypress,needs be cut down to size huh?
The question was after your rant against a report that most have not read what % are you proposing,0 ?

@John Gallaher at 5:18 pm

….the Irish const. sector is a bit like the banking sector in Cyprus,needs be cut down to size huh?

The Irish construction sector HAS been cut down to size. And no, I’m not proposing a zero percent construction sector, just a percentage that reflects market demand.

Market … oops, dirty word that.

Off to read the report,they always good,not sure the religious persuasion of the author is relevant….nor utilizing terms like pontificating and pious,to rubbish it.
Will read it before further comment…..

@CG
Shrinking pie doesn’t mean lie down and die . There will still be markets for quality. Irland ist verbesserungsfaehig, gell?

@John Gallaher
…not sure the religious persuasion of the author is relevant …

An interesting point, and in fact I hesitated a little before inserting the word ‘Father’ before ‘Sean Healy’.

Let’s say religious persuasion is at least marginally relevant. The credibility and objectivity of an advocate of a particular policy does depend to some extent on his CV.

We don’t expect a tobacco manufacturer to be quite truthful about the adverse effects of passive smoking. We don’t expect the Pope to be awfully well informed about complex economic issues. In other words, we tend to take their statements with a grain of salt.

On the other hand, inserting the title ‘Dr’ before ‘Sean Healy’ probably raises his status (and thus his credibility).

Hence I suggest in all fairness:

Father Sean Healy (PhD).

@CG…clearly is was a slight ..as you quickly followed up with ‘pontification’ and ‘pious’ ….if he was say a rabbi wold you have used parsimonious or frugal 🙂
later enjoyed the exchange reading the report…yep some people do !

On the issue of reform versus austerity, it is worth noting that what Fr. Healy (and one, at least, of the teaching unions) is recommending is the formula attempted by Monti i.e. two parts tax increase to one part fiscal consolidation. This has not worked very well. (A committee of 10 “wise men” is attempting to put together a basis for a new government in Italy, which is, kind of, a minimum requirement).

As far as reform is concerned, Ireland is not even in the foothills cf.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/leaving-the-emerald-ills-behind-1.1345322

It was inevitable that the waters of the crisis would eventually start to lap around the feet of the class “in possession”, including those in academia. The really decisive element, however, is that the country is in examinership and the company accounts of Ireland Inc. have been opened up for public inspection. The electorate is drawing the appropriate conclusions.

Another interesting feature is the confirmation of the view expressed by Tip O’Neill that “all politics is local”. The mother of all scandals has broken in France with the admission by the recently resigned minister for the budget, a strong critics of tax havens, that he has been lying through his teeth for four months, including to the parliament, and does indeed have an Ansbach.., sorry!, Swiss bank account – for the past 20 years – containing at least €600,000! Nary a whisper in the Irish media!

A taste of France!

http://www.lefigaro.fr/

It is, before the point is raised, far from being off topic as the future of Ireland Inc. is, for better or for worse, intimately linked with how things play out on the Continent.

@Tull McAdoo/ Carolus G

If there is a surplus of housing, why have rents been rising, albeit slowly, for the past two years?

Is it more important to protect the incomes of landlords, through limited supply, than it is to radically reduce rents which would be a significant factor in the holy grail of competitiveness.

“My hunch is that the only way to get those ’spirits’ going may be to reduce Irish (and European) labour costs to those of our competitors. ”

The only way to be more competitive than a person who lives on two bowls of rice per day, is to start living on a bowl and half of rice.

Would the bowl and a half be just for construction workers, or are we prepared to be more egalitarian as we strive to compete.

Maybe we should just wait for the market to sort it all out. It is performing heroically so far!

@ Seafóid

Would Le Monde suit you better?

http://www.lemonde.fr/

Incidentally, throwing accusations around that arguments advanced by others constitutes spinning while your own, no doubt, epitomise total objectivity, simply removes any basis for worthwhile debate.

@Joseph Ryan
The only way to be more competitive than a person who lives on two bowls of rice per day, is to start living on a bowl and half of rice.

Sadly, in a world with a growing population and finite resources — think peak oil, peak everything — that is the way things are. Austerity is not so much a policy as a state of affairs, the forthcoming condition humaine.

A pity that the good days are probably over. But don’t shoot the messengers.

http://richardheinberg.com/bookshelf/peak-everything

@docm
You love the attention, you old tart. Le canard did a good job this week with le Figaro’s recent front page campaign against Hollande. I was reading le Figaro last Friday and it is the usual right wing Telegraph style mush. No answers. Did you see how the Daily Mail today linked all social welfare benefit recipients to a man in Derby who set fire to his own home and killed 6 of his children?

JG,
Save yourself the pain and effort and eschew the works of the good father. Go and have a good pray instead as Fr Ted advised.
JR,
Maybe rents are going up cos nobody is buying and all renting. It struck me how cheap rents in the SE are at 500 a month in Waterford for a semi
D.

IT site now leading with “economic recovery in medium term ‘highly uncertain’ -IMF” . Am on phone so no link. But thanks troika. Ar fheabhas. Reminds me of a nov 2010 post sequence between Kevin O Rourke and John McHale. Jmac said we might get some growth….

@tullmacadoo

I wonder if Fr Sean should take Prof McCarthy out for a good lunch and discuss the efficacy of a fiscal stimulus when we appear to have excess and unused capital stock from the boom. Perhaps we need another motorway to a marginal constituency or a rail road linking nowhere to somewhere else or a few empty airport terminals etc etc.

There’s plenty of atrocious educational buildings that desperately need work, and the rail system could do with some of the largesse that has gone to King Motorcar.

@DOCM

‘The really decisive element, however, is that the country is in examinership and the company accounts of Ireland Inc. have been opened up for public inspection’

I’m glad we had that thorough, gritty, fearless, searching, public examination of the banknig crisis and all the private business interests which fed off the bubble. All the perps duly named and shamed, by God.

And now we are really ready to trust the leadership…….:)

An April 1st joke in New Economic Perspectives by Dan Kervick on hyerprausterite or Ubersparpolitik.

Contains the quote:
“I fall on my knees each morning and offer a prayer of thanksgiving that that Troika has spared me,” sobbed Polish retiree Sasha Olsciewski. “Then I go to the plaza and watch a bancofixion. It strengthens my faith in Europe and keeps me on the straight path.”

Also:
“The European Union – now the ESC – is more than a political arrangement”, said to Dublin retiree Padraig O’Murphy. “It’s a faith; a sacred bond. Punishing ourselves with economic hardship and unemployment is the way we show our commitment to the cause of European unity. I call on Brussels to hurt me more.”

We have a lot in common with that other persecuted race, the Poles.

http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2013/04/euro-da-fe.html#more-5129

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