Debt Mountain 'Ireland Inc' II

For those who missed yesterday's Irish Times article by Brian Lucey and myself - here is the link. Of course, the followers of this blog would know most of these facts already.

Another article - my quick analysis of the Exchequer figures for January - is in today's Irish Independent (here).

And I actually do mean we are in a soap-opera land when it comes to policy. In fact, in July, I wrote for an investment newsletter a piece that provided a metaphor for our public finances condition as of June 2008 - a metaphor of a Wile E. Coyote frozen over an abyss nanoseconds before a disaster. Memorably, I was informed that the metaphor was taking things too far... Hmmm... was it? Judge for yourselves:If you are still not feeling the wind whistling into your ears as Coyote gains speed, take a look at this...Two facts are apparent:
1) we are witnessing the steepest assent in the unemployment in years, with the speed of unemployment rise shown in the table below; and2) DofF forecast in January 2009 was for the economy to reach 9.2% unemployment this year. Just a month into 2009, we are already there in standardized unemployment terms. DofF 2010 target for social welfare spending is based on the projection that unemployment will reach 10.5% or a notch over 372,000 in today's labour force terms. 2009 Live Register average was assumed to be at 290,000 in the Budget. In other words, at the rate of jobs losses in January, we are less than 2 months away from blowing through 2010 assumption, never mind the 2009 estimate!

Whiiiishshsh! Goes Coyote...

2009 budgeting in October assumed unemployment at 7.3% 2009 (I wrote before about the abysmal quality of our boffins' forecasts here). The €2bn spending cuts were also based on this figure as a part of budgetary estimates. It is now crystal clear that DofF has grossly missed the estimate on social welfare and unemployment benefits. By how much? I will leave budgetary eggheads to do all the math, my guess is ca €2bn.

.... Splat!

But it can be more. Why? Well, last year an unknown, but potentially significant number of foreign workers have left Ireland. This undoubtedly kept Live Register somewhat lower. But as the best and most employable workers leave first - because they have better prospects of gaining a job elsewhere - adverse selection will most certainly see marginal and poor foreign workers remaining. These workers face much lower prospects of gaining a job elsewhere, so on the margin, Irish unemployment benefits are much more lucrative an incentive for them to stay here. In other words, if emigration was keeping Live Register below what it might have been in 2008, the same is unlikely to happen in 2009 and 2010.

Good luck to all who bought rental apartments in the outlying areas of Dublin and across the country. With Poles and others heading either for the airport or to the dole office, the rents are going to follow land values - into agricultural pricing territory...

P.S. Given that our banks spent 2008 busy converting development loans into investment loans by forcing developers to turn completed properties into rentals, what does this mean for our banks' impairment charges? BofI at €0.30 and AIB at €0.50 after the recapitalization?.. The answer is unpalatable, but I will leave the numbers as an exercise for Ireland's best banking sector analysts...

Falling from disgrace

Ah, another day, another screw up in the Biffoland – the veritable emporium of economic policy oddities and quaint Boggerista collectibles. So much drama, RTE’s / ESRI’s tax-everyone-to-death crowd is getting all excited. In reality, if 2008 was the year Biffo & Co have fallen from grace, 2009 is shaping up to be the year when they will fall through the bottom of hell itself.

The 'savage cuts' were announced at last – ‘adding to just under €2.1bn’ in RTE’s official interpretation. In the mean time, the Exchequer results get sidelined by David Begg’s and Jack O’Connor’s pleading poverty for the public sector workers.

Let’s cut through the fog, shall we?

In the entire ‘package’ announced by Cowen the only hard budgetary measure was the pension levy. But even here, Mr Cowen fails the reality test. If the pensions levy is tax deductible – and all indications are that it is – the alleged €1.4bn in savings will shrink to ca €800mln.

The only announced economic rescue measure – some two-years old capital spending programme slightly neutered by the second-largest ‘cut’ of the day. But give it a second to take the perverse 'logic' of this Government's thinking in. If capital spending programme under the NDP is a stimulus package today - in the recession - what on earth was it enacted for some two years ago? To boost rabid inflation to Zimbabwean levels?

The rest of this 'new' package is pure hot air.

Cuts in professional fees and administrative savings?.. This beggars a question why these were not cut by Biffo when he was the Minister for Finance? So, either Biffo was an inept Minister for Finance (in which case he has some room to cut these lines of spending today) or he is an inept Taoiseach (in which case he has no room to cut these). Take your pick.

Child benefit restriction – aiming to save €75mln – is another hit at the same soft target. Remember Budget 2009 – children already got some whacking from our Biffo ‘The Gruffalo’. How much more can he milk out of them, should more ‘adjustments’ be needed in the near future (see below)? Lots! He can tax the un-born off-springs of the rich (income in excess, of oughh, say €150K pa) household.


But all of this pales in comparison with what should have been done by the Government in today’s announcement. As my earlier posts (here and here) estimate, in 2009 we are going to face “a shortfall of up to €7,080mln on 2008 revenue, not €3,898mln as DofF forecast in January. My previous post forecast €7,698mnl shortfall, so January figure appears to be generally supportive of this.”

The latest Exchequer results have just run over my correction – given the latest figures and the dynamic of different tax lines deterioration, we are now facing at the very least a ca €8bn shortfall on 2008 figures. Belatedly, some economists are coming to a realization that this indeed is the case (see here and scroll to Niall Says: February 3rd, 2009 at 7:50 pm comment). We are back to that original estimate of mine and things are likely to get even worse from here on, implying today's cuts should have been in the neigbourhood of €4-5bn!

In the end, Brian Cowen has loudly and publicly declared tonight that anyone expecting him to govern this economy out of the recession is a fool. He hasn’t got the balls, he hasn’t got the ideas and he hasn’t got the Cabinet to do the job. Full stop.

Someone, dial Trichet’s private secretary. We will need his money very soon!

P.S. Here is a problem no one noticed for now. If the basket cases Ireland, Greece and Italy are weighing heavily on the reputation of the Euro, then the lack of an immediate adverse reaction to today’s announcement by the bond markets might suggest that the Magnificent Three are now creating a drag on German bunds. In other words, Irish, Greek and Italian mess is now costing real money to German taxpayers through elevated spreads on the bund. I’d venture to say that Mrs Merkel might be a bit concerned about Brian’s economic flops.

S&P's visit: Pints!

S&P gang is in town (hat tip to P.O.) making rounds, sniffing out the need to slam the book on Irish bonds AAA rating. Better late than never, I'd say.

This blog has argued on numerous occasions (here and here) that Irish credit ratings should fall from their current AAA rating to at least AA-/A- levels. In fact, I called for S&P to climb down from its ivory tower of 'Ireland's low public debt...' myth and produce a more realistic assessment of the risks inherent in our borrowings (here).

This, of course, was predicated on:

• Irish Government's exposure to toxic banks debt (here);
• Irish Government's exposure to its own reckless spending (here);
• Irish Government's inability to carry out necessary economic policy adjustments to address the real crises in this economy: corporate and household debt (here), and public sector excessive cost to the rest of the economy (here and here);
• Irish Government's lack of realistic understanding of how economy works (here and here);
• Irish Government's wobbling on various aspects of economic policy (see all the Mushroom Cloud posts in January 2008 archive)...

...and so on. I can go on listing more reasons as to why this is no longer an economy warranting a gold-standard AAA rating, but let me put three facts in front of you:

Fact 1: Despite having (belatedly) recognized the need for some sort of crisis management solutions in July 2008, the Government has yet to produce any realistic plan for dealing with the above problems.

Fact 2: Courtesy of FT (hat tip to B.) there is a self-explanatory chart below (corrected per Anonymous update, the number for Irish bank liabilities should be at 396% of GDP). Of course, those of you who are regular readers would recognize this as something I have written about ages ago (here), but FT's authority helps.
Fact 3: Finally, another chart illustrates the fact that no one in the market actually believes that our bonds offer AAA protection from default.
Pretty conclusive, then? So what's the point of sending a team over to Dubs, S&P? To have a few pints with our BB&M Trio and listen to their assurances that our 'greenish knowledge innovation' errr... economy-thingy is steaming ahead?

To the icebergs, then, Captain Brian!

PS: I am currently working on preparing a comprehensive compendium of comparisons per our debts (across various sectors and maturities) to the rest of the Eurozone, so keep watching the blog...

DofF Forecast: Update I

According to today's reports, the y-o-y tax take in January is down 15% (hat tip to B.).

My personal projection, given the dynamics of 2008 tax intake (remember, Q1 2008 was still positive growth territory and lagged tax revenue was rolling in) is that we are going to finish 2009 with ca 15-17% down on 2008. 2007-2008 decline was 9.4%, implying we are going to collect €34,550-35,380mln in 2009 or a shortfall of up to €7,080mln on 2008 revenue, not €3,898mln as DofF forecast in January. My previous post forecast €7,698mnl shortfall, so January figure appears to be generally supportive of this.

As B. mentioned, this will bring our revenue to 2005 level - 'four years lost' as he puts it. This is about right - fundamentals (productivity, wages, costs inflation) all point to ireland having abandoned growth path around 2003-2004 which means a return - in nominal terms (using Eurozone average inflation rate) - to 2002-2003 levels by the end of 2011 will be mean reverting (with downward overshoot, of course) for underlying growth fundamentals.

P.S. Meanwhile - our Vacuum-Head in Politics Watch has spotted the following idea from Gay Mitchell (FG MEP). Surely, the nation falling off the cliff into an abyss of a severe recession and fiscal insolvency has nothing better to do than engage its MEPs in advocating Gaelic subtitles in cinemas. Too bad Gay's brain power never stretched to imagine watching a French or a German film with Irish and English subtitles littering the same screen. Oh, dear...

European v American Model: Labour and Leisure

Recently, I was invited to adjudicate TCD's Hist annual debate with Yale. It was, as such nights always are, a really great exchange of good-spirited fun and youthful energy. The topic of the debate was the clash of two values systems: the so-called American Model of economic development against the caring social-economy model this side of the Atlantic.

Great fun aside, neither Yale, nor TCD team produced much of earth shattering factual evidence to defend their arguments. Instead, several commonly held cliches, became the focal points fo the entire discourse.

One of these was the argument advanced by the TCD side that Americans enjoy lower quality of life than Europeans because the former work longer hours than the latter. It was frustrating watching the Yale team inventing epicycles to by-pass the thorny issue. In reality they did not have to do this, since the claim is simply not true.

Some years ago I worte about the matter in several articles (see an example here). But all comparisons between the quality of hours spent outside paid work enjoyed by Americans and Europeans are somewhat qualitative. 'Sure, maybe Americans do less own work at home, but what if Europeans actually enjoy house work?' goes an argument from the Eurofans side.

Ok, so Americans do indeed work longer hours than Europeans do. The question then becomes as to why these differences arise? Economics distinguishes two sources of greater aggregate hours worked in any economy:

• the extensive margin - differences in hours worked due to differences in employment and labour force participation rates; and
• the intensive margin - the number of hours worked per person employed.

A paper, published in November 2008 by the German Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA Discussion Paper No 3846, Langot, F. and C. Quintero-Rojas "European vs. American Hours Worked: Assessing the Role of the Extensive and Intensive Margins") shows very interesting results:

• Concerning the impact of the extensive margin, the authors show that "the two dimensions of the extensive margin, the employment rate and the participation rate, explain the most of the total-hours-gap between regions. Moreover, both ratios have similar weight." In other words, Americans work longer hours than Europeans primarily because more Americans than Europeans are in employment and in the labour force. To say that Europeans 'enjoy' less work and more leisure is, according to this finding, equivalent to say that Europeans enjoy being unemployed and having no prospect of ever gaining a job in the future.
  
• "Conversely," say the authors, "the intensive margin, measured by the number of hours worked per employee, has the smallest role."

The paper looks at data for Belgium, Spain, France, Italy, UK and US over 1960-2003. Here are few more details from their findings:

"We observe that in most countries the role of the intensive margin seems to be important before the mid 1970s" [which implies that American workers, on average, tended to work longer hours per person than their European counterparts not in the years of heartless Reganomics, but in the years of liberal Democrats - Kennedy, LBJ and Jimmy 'The Peanut' Carter].

"Thereafter, the contribution of the average hours per employee is very poor... In general, the two dimensions of the extensive margin have a minor impact before the 1970s. Thereafter, in all countries the relevance of the three variables is quite similar." [This shows that consigned to long term unemployment, Europeans are working less since the onset of the 1980s - precisely when Europe decided to depart from the 'American' model of flexible labour markets in favour of the socialist/welfare state model of employment].

And so, "about 2/3 of the observed fall in the total hours of market work in European countries, relative to the US, is mostly explained by the dynamics of the extensive margin (that is, by the employment and the participation), and roughly 1/3 by the dynamics of the intensive margin (the hours worked per employee), particularly after the 1980s."

I rest my case...

DofF Forecast: does it hold any water?

I have a serious question to ask of our Government: Do budgetary projections by the DofF in (e.g those contained in their January 2009 Addendum covered here) hold any water?

In particular, no one has yet taken the DofF forecasters to a task of explaining how on earth, with projected:

• shrinking GDP (-€7.6bn in 2009 in nominal terms relative to 2008) and GNP,
• negative inflation (-1%),
  
• rising unemployment (+2.9 percentage points on 2008) and falling employment (-4%), and
• rising, not falling, Net Current Expenditure (+4.3bn in 2009),
  

does DofF come up with a revenue fall-off of just €3.9bn for 2009 relative to 2008 and total revenue as a percentage of GDP actually rising from 33.6% in 2008 to 33.7% in 2009? (Those of you who are impatient enough, see one potential answer at the end of this post)...

These numbers - the backbone of Irish Government plans for the year - are suspiciously incongruous. Not only because they do not seem to add up. But also because we have no reason to trust DofF forecasts on the basis of their historical accuracy.

Do Government numbers hold up to scrutiny?
This week, it came to media attention that the entire Department of Finance employs only one PhD-level economist. As far as I am aware, we do not know:

1. Where and when did this person obtain her/his degree?
2. Was her/his degree in the field of macroeconomic modeling?
3. Has he/she ever published peer-reviewed research in the areas of taxation and/or macroeconomic forecasting?

In other words, we have no idea how qualified this economist is to carry out macroeconomic forecasting, policy evaluations and risk analysis.

Furthermore, per my knowledge, no one knows who exactly is responsible for supervision and execution of forecasting in DofF and what model is being used. Searching DofF website for Chief Economist reveals no such person. We do not know whether forecasting function is, indeed, an established and managerially resourced function of the Department. Ditto on the Risk Analysis side, which requires both an expert in microeconomic risk modeling and macroeconomic risk specialist.

It is simply not sufficient to say that accountancy or previous budgetary experience, potentially possessed by some DofF employees (how many?) qualifies the Department to deliver any sort of economic analysis or projections. Certainly not the ones which can used by the Government to argue about the need for one reform or another.

In fact, to see the absolute poverty of economic policy research output produced by DofF one should go straight to the source: here. They might as well publish these reports in Gaelic only, for no serious economist would recognize this as proper economics.

One example: in the sole document relating to economic reviews and outlook for 2008, titled Irealnd's Contribution to the Public Consultation Process on the Review of the EU Budget (I am not kidding - they couldn't even spell Ireland correctly). Here, DofF's 'Research' team devotes only 4 pages to the entire analysis of a vital fiscal policy process. The issue of EU-wide tax - something that was a hot topic of debate in Ireland throughout 2007-2008 is given 148 words! Of course, DofF gives five times this much to the discussion of CAP - suggesting, perhaps, our Finance boffins are more comfortable in the cow sheds than in the world of macro-finance and macroeconomics.

Getting basic research wrong - something that is being done by virtually all Irish Government departments on a routine basis - is a serious issue. Brandishing as a major reform a promise to get policies onto an 'evidence-driven' platform, as our Government did last week (see here: 3rd bullet point under Taxation heading), while having no capability to prepare proper economic analysis is hardly a responsible way of governing.

When even the mighty fail by poor research
Few months back, I was sent a research note from PIMCO's cult giant, Bill Gross. Gross is an archetypal salesman, in my view, who has fantastic intuitive understanding of the market (which is way more than our public sector mandarins and politicians have). This is, in most instances, sufficient to earn high rates of return and to contain downside risks.

But, it is not enough to do two things -
(a) provide rigorous analysis of your position in the market at any point in time - past, present, or future; and
(b) explain to others why your intuitive searchlight is capable of picking the right opportunities out of the mass of potential investment strategies.

Published in June 2008 (see here: those of you who attended my class last Fall in TCD's MSc in Finance would recognize it) the note contained a rant about US inflation indices. Specifically, Gross expended some 4 pages of small print arguing that

1. US inflation has been historically higher than measured by the CPI;
2. True US inflation should be much closer to the 'global' average (including such economically stable and developed countries like Venezuela, Indonesia, Brazil, Philippines, Thailand, Columbia, Turkey, Ecuador and Vietnam - out of a sample of 24 countries chosen, seemingly, to deliver Gross' point).
   

All of this led to the following conclusion:
"What are the investment ramifications [of the 'fact' that U.S. inflation is closer to worldwide levels than previously thought]? With global headline inflation now at 7% there is a need for new global investment solutions, a role that PIMCO is more than willing (and able) to provide. In this role we would suggest: 1) Treasury bonds are obviously not to be favored because of their negative (unreal) real yields. 2) U.S. TIPS, while affording headline CPI protection, risk the delusion of an artificially low inflation number as well. 3) On the other hand, commodity-based assets as well as foreign equities whose P/Es are better grounded with local CPI and nominal bond yield comparisons should be excellent candidates. 4) These assets should in turn be denominated in currencies that demonstrate authentic real growth and inflation rates, that while high, at least are credible. 5) Developing, BRIC-like economies are obvious choices for investment dollars."

Lacking:

• serious analysis - Gross tweaked the evidence to support his own premise;
• proper investigation of academic and practitioner research - Gross ignored the fact that several Congressional and academic investigations since the early 1990s have concluded that CPI actually overestimates the true extent of inflation in the US by between 0.5% and 1% pa,

he produced a call to arms for investors that cost PIMCO and those who follow its strategy an arm and a leg. How? Gross' advice - issued in June 2008 -

• has missed a significant H2 2008 rally in Treasuries, Munis and TIPS;
• calling for heavier weighting for commodities-linked economies came at the time of extreme valuations of these economies (e.g Russia and Brazil both have peaked in June-August 2008), before they fell off the cliff in H2 2008;
• led to an unprecedented cancellation of dividends by several PIMCO munis funds - the first time in known history any fund suspended payouts for what is, in effect, a monthly yield-generating securities class.

I do enjoy the fact that, being criticised at the time for arguing against Gross' June note, I did turn out to be right about both his call on inflation (he was concerned with hyper-inflation as the world was teetering on the verge of deflation) and on emerging markets.

Back to DofF numbers
But I am not telling this story with some malice towards Gross or PIMCO in mind. At the very least, the man can spell Ireland better than our DofF boffins can. Instead, I am using it as an illustration as to the importance of proper research in backing any strategy - investment and/or policy-related. PIMCO's operations are much more superior to what is going on in our DofF and the rest of civil service when it comes to the quality of research and analysis. This implies that if people like Gross can get things spectacularly wrong, people that occupy our DofF - quipped with one token PhD level economist - simply have no chance at getting anything right.

Remember their latest numbers:

• shrinking GDP (-€7.6bn relative to 2008),
• negative inflation (-1%),
  
• rising unemployment (+2.9 percentage points on 2008) and falling employment (-4%),
• a revenue fall-off for the Exchequer of just €3.9bn for 2009 relative to 2008, and
  
• a total revenue as a percentage of GDP actually rising from 33.6% in 2008 to 33.7% in 2009

Well, of course to get these things to add up, one has to assume that tax increases passed in the Budget 2009 will not reduce tax revenue. In other words, that the Laffer Curve does not work. We shall see, of course, but empirical studies provide little comfort that such an assumption is a reasonable one. Ditto the numbers on retail spending in the NI and South of the border, SuperQuinn's plan to shut down supermarket located near Newry and loads of anecdotal evidence showing that Irish shoppers are fleeing the Republic for that VAT heaven of NI.

This spells serious trouble for the Government. Suppose that due to increases in the income tax, VAT and other taxes, the revenue were to decline by, say, 2.1% of GDP - as it did in less recessionary 2008. This would imply that tax increases will still be contributing positive revenue growth for the Exchequer, although on a much smaller scale. In such a scenario,

• the net Exchequer borrowing will jump from 6.3% of GDP to 8.4% of GDP,
• the General Government Deficit will rise by €3.8bn in 2009 - from 9.1% of GDP projected by DofF assuming €2bn in savings goes through, to over 12%.

Now, suppose tax increases wipe out any revenue gains by 2010 - the deficit will then rise to above 13% of GDP in 2009 and 15% in 2010.

Add to this the fact that while DofF was basing its numbers on -4% growth rate in GDP for 2009, the economy quite probably will contract by at least 5% - balooning potential deficit to 15-16% this year.

A scary thought, indeed, because even the IMF will not lend Mr Cowen a penny with such financial performance on the plans. So much for Brian, Brian&Mary's 'evidence-based' policies...

Debt Mountain 'Ireland Inc'

For those of you who missed my yesterday's article in the Indo on this topic, see here. The article was filed before we had latest figures on the stupendous amount of negative net worth on Irish corporate balance sheets (here).

JohnM was right in his comment that the State has been 'dumping' risk on taxpayers. The irony is - the state has been 'dumping' risk also onto the shoulders of debt-loaded companies, households and even the stock markets. About the only segment of the population that escaped this 'benevolence' of our Leaders is the public sector. Although one must recognise that some workers in the public sector are being paid too little, given that a few of them are actually productive in their jobs, just as one must recognise the fact that not everyone in Fianna Fail is happy to support what the Government has been doing to us.

The above caveats aside, it is, thus, the difference between ZanuPF and ZanuFF that the former cronies are wearing military uniforms, while the latter favours grey suits of the civil service and bearded folks from the unions.

Mushroom Cloud Redux II

Per excellent comment (see here and scroll to comment) to an earlier post on this matter, here are comparatives for Irish Banks index vis-a-vis European Banks. The first chart plots, as before, time series of indices.
In many ways, the series do indeed co-move much closer together until about October 2008, when things are starting to go per-shape for Ireland. This trend of significant deviations in Irish Banks from their peers in Europe accelerated through today, although to see this more clearly, consider the second chart below.
If you look at the correlations between Irish bank shares and both indices, it should be pretty clear that a relatively close link between Irish and European financials broke down around September 29th and was never repaired since. (Note that these are weekly moving correlations, so that a date of 13/10/2008 corresponds to data from 7/10/2008 through 13/10/2008.)

In fact things have spun completely out of sync starting in mid November - precisely when Irish Government got busy 'repairing' our Banking sector. In fact, things got much more dramatic in terms of Irish v EU Banks than in terms of Irish Banks v EU markets since the end of December.

Overall, my strategy still stands, but it is even more pronounced in terms of Irish Banks v European Financials: "Lenihan/Cowen are about to speak? Short Ireland, long Europe"... The only thing worth examining at this junction is whether 'long Europe' might be inferior to, say, 'long US' or UK. But that has nothing to do with our Government's ability or with the topic of this post.

Update: Irish bank shares correlations with both EU Financials and EU total price index are now moving down - ca 96% last night's close (in weekly moving correlations terms) to 86% today... Watch these!

Mushroom Cloud Redux

Per my earlier posts, here are the latest comparisons between our Financials and the broader European markets.

A new dip is courtesy of our Government's 'Best 5 Ways to Ruin a Country' Framework that I released yesterday (beating the Irish Times in bringing it to public attention by some 12 hours - here).

But enough bragging - back to charts.

The first one is self-explanatory:Mass of volatility (risk) being dumped onto Irish shares by our Government wobbling on economic crisis and banks is self evident. If the Government was really accountable for its actions, maybe investors could have taken it to courts for value destruction.

Alas, this is not how the real world works. Here, on Planet reality, Brian-Brian-Mary prevaricate (in taking hard decisions), we pay. And so it looks like we've had a bear rally and now we are back on a downward track. The only hope - it might bottom out at somewhere above 550 for ISEQ FIN this time around, fingers crossed.

It is the second chart that opens up a more detailed picture of the latest outbreak of the Irish markets disease.
As shown above, weekly correlation between Irish Financials (ISEQ FIN) shares index and the broader Eurozone markets had a series of rollercoaster rides ever since the current Government took up a task of 'fixing' our economy. In particular, Irish markets forays outside the 'No Hedge' territory - into low positive (below 0.25 or negative) correlation values implies that at virtually every point of change in the Government policy, an investor would have done better by betting against the Irish market and in favour of the broader European indices. As powerful of an indication as one can get that markets do not trust this Government in resolving Ireland's economic crisis.

I mean, how bad can the things get for a Government if selling into Brian-Brian-Mary's statements can become a winning strategy for investors?..

Government's Plan for Ireland: Exclusive... Part 5

Per earlier posts, italics are my


5. Work together to implement a reform agenda

(i) to implement an agenda for enterprise and competitiveness based on the Framework for Sustainable Economic Renewal: Building Ireland’s Smart Economy including:

• building on strengths in the Agriculture, Fisheries and Food sectors (back to De Valera's Dream, then?)
  
• developing the ideas economy with intensified R&D activity and greater commercialisation of the output of that research (more MIT Media Labs and E-voting machines?)
• supporting the manufacturing sector (How?)
• encouraging entrepreneurship and business start-ups (by raising taxes and taking more money out of families' pockets?)
• pursuing opportunities to expand the services sector, in particular international services (by doing what?)
• realising the long-term potential of the tourism sector (How? By setting a minimum wage that makes our labour uncompetitive? By hiking VAT rates and adding new taxes on tourism?)
• improving trade, investment and tourism links with new and fast-developing markets (more junkets to exotic destinations for the Cabinet?)
• pursuing opportunities in the Green Enterprise sector, including in the area of energy efficiency (aka we take your money and your light bulbs?)
  

(I have commented on this plan before. It is a road map to nowhere for a number of reasons outlined here and here. But what is truly egregious in all of this is that the ‘plan’ above comes after the promise of carrying out only evidence-based expenditure programmes, despite most of it being based on no evidence at all and parts of it having the preponderance of evidence against them.)

(ii) to develop a new approach to upskilling and reskilling those in employment and those outside the labour market; we will convene a Jobs and Skills Summit in March 2009 to devise innovative approaches to maintenance of employment, creation of new employment and early and active engagement with those losing their jobs; we will also seek to maximise eligible support from the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund for initiatives to support those who are made redundant

(Read: we'll get FAS to fly back to see NASA and beg the EU to give us some handouts to pay for their trips)

(iii) to ensure that sheltered sectors of the economy, including professional services, bear their full share of the burden of adjustment

(This Government cannot even force its own employees to take a cut, imagine them going after protected professions? But what they will do is tax. Tax anyone with a degree - for people who invested in their education tend to earn more. Tax anyone with skills - for people with skills tend to earn more. Tax anyone with experience - for... well - you get the wind.)

(iv) to implement the employment rights provisions in the Towards 2016 Transitional Agreement

(And raise wages and perks for the least productive in our economy?)

(v) to deliver measurable public service reform to improve the efficiency and quality of public services, based on the Government’s Statement on Transforming the Public Service published in 2008

(Since 2008, the Government sat on its hands, doing absolutely nothing about this. Will they change their mind? Not. The entire programme proposed by Mr Cowen today is a give-away to the public sector trade unions and politically-connected lobbies. Mark my words - there will be no change!)

(vi) to continue implementation of the Health Service Reform Programme, including utilising the Health Forum under Towards 2016

(After a gratuitous increase in pay for consultants in exchange for no new responsibilities or any work load increases, there hardly anyone in the country who believes in this drivel)

(vii) to finalise a comprehensive framework for future pension policy which responds to the challenges facing the Irish pensions system in the years ahead

(Read: mandatory pensions, claw back of tax benefits for pensions savings and vast transfers of pensions-linked wealth from the private sector. In other words - another tax!)

(viii) to ensure our approach to regulation, accountability and corporate governance delivers a sustainable society and economy

(Mr Cowen's speak for more red tape on ordinary businesses!)


6. Conclusion

The Government and Social Partners commit to work intensively over the immediate period ahead to develop specific measures to finalise and then implement a Pact based on this framework.

Ends

This 'plan' is a classic example of “How to Destroy a Country in Five Easy Steps” guide:
1) Raise taxes in a recession;
2) Yield on everything to the narrow interest groups;
3) Spend precious taxpayers cash on feel-good Government waste;
4) Pile on more regulation and delegate democracy to an unelected group of public sector lobbyists;
5) Keep rolling back your previous promises and commitments (i.e Mr Lenihan’s repeated promises that he will not raise taxes)

If this is Mr Cowen’s way, his philosophy, would the last person leaving this country turn of the lights, please!

Government's Plan for Ireland: Exclusive... Part 4

Continued, as earlier italics are my:

Part 3:


An Equitable Approach

The Government and Social Partners believe that support for these adjustments will be strengthened by measures which demonstrate that the burden is being shared equitably across society. This includes:

• the need to ensure that moderation in respect of executive remuneration is seen to contribute meaningfully to the adjustment required
• that those who benefited most from the economic boom should make a particular contribution to the adjustment required
  

(This is it? Given that wages in the public sector earn 40%+ premium on pay in comparable private sector occupations, who, Mr Cowen, has benefited most from the boom?)


Delivering the Fiscal Stabilisation Framework

The Government and Social Partners agree that a credible response to the fiscal situation requires a further adjustment at this stage of the order of €2 billion in 2009.

(But this is the same response Mr Lenihan announced in July. This means that either the Government finds no need to change its response to the crisis as it evolved since July, or that Brian-Brian-Mary are simply dumping more than 90% of the budget deficit for 2009 onto the shoulders of the private sector alone, with the unionized public sector carrying less than 10% of the burden. Is this their version of evidence-based equitable policy?)

In addition to this immediate adjustment required in 2009, the Government and Social Partners commit to working together under the Pact to support the further adjustments required to reduce the General Government Deficit below 3% over the remainder of the five year period.

(Can the authors of this document explain how on earth can this Partnership deliver on cuts of €4bn in 2010, €2bn in 2011, €1.75bn in 2012 and €1.25bn in 2013 – as envisioned by the DofF January 2009 forecast (see here http://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2009/01/doff-instability-report.html) if the same Partnership is having such a hard time delivering a €2bn cut this year? Furthermore, observe that there is not a word about cutting excessively high public sector pay, freezing public sector wages or reforming public sector pensions and perks. None! This leaves the cuts to come solely from the service side.)

4. Short-term Stabilisation of the Economy

In order to maximise economic activity and employment in the short-term, the Government will:

• provide a fiscal stimulus in 2009 and 2010 by maintaining capital investment at a high level by both international and historical standards

(In other words, their emergency response is to continue with NDP investment planned well before the crisis hit. This is equivalent to doing nothing, Brians)

• re-prioritise this capital expenditure in 2009 and 2010 in order to support labour-intensive activities where possible
• bring forward further proposals to support enterprises during this extremely difficult period, recognising in particular the pressures arising from currency movements, and thereby support those in vulnerable employments
  

(What does this mean? There are no details on any of these measures and it is impossible to determine what exactly can the Government do to achieve these objectives)

• act quickly to improve competitiveness including increasing competition across the economy and reforming price regulation in areas such as energy

(ditto)

It is recognised that stabilising the financial and banking sector is essential to secure a banking system which is fit for purpose. Accordingly, Government action will seek to:

• assist those who get into difficulties with their mortgages; in early 2009 a new statutory Code of Practice in relation to mortgage arrears and home repossessions will be brought forward, and the mortgage interest scheme will be reviewed

(Again, no details on a crucially important promise.)

• maximise the flow of credit to the enterprise sector and ensure early introduction of a code of practice on business lending

(This is pure financial and economic nonsense. The Government cannot ‘maximize’ credit flows and short of requiring the banks to issue sub-prime equivalent high risk business loans at knock down rates, no ‘code of practice’ will help restaring credit flows to failing businesses. Subsequently, this section simply proves economic and financial illiteracy of our leaders.)

• introduce controls on the remuneration of senior executives, in accordance with the recommendations of the independent committee established by the Minister for Finance...
• maximise sustainable employment in the sector
  

(What sector? How about maximising sustainable employment of proof-readers for future Government programmes?)

Recognising that unemployment will rise significantly in the period ahead, the Government and Social Partners will work together to maximise employment and help those who lose their jobs by:

• designing a flexicurity approach appropriate to Irish conditions which keeps people working where feasible and equips people to return to employment as quickly as possible by maximising the availability and impact of education, upskilling and training supports

(Flexicurity is an unproven approach to labour market regulations that can be cost-prohibitive to the society at large and ineffective in delivering real employment gains. The Government, having committed itself earlier in the document to ‘evidence-based’ policies has just committed to a policy which was never debated and the evidence in support of which is thin and contradictory. What is far worse than that however, is that the entire labour market policy of Ireland has been at the will of the Government surrendered to an unelected, unaccountable to the taxpayers Partnership. This is an afront to democracy.)

• redeploying resources to ensure efficient and timely delivery of direct State supports to those who lose their jobs including social welfare payments, redundancy payments and payments to workers in cases of insolvent companies

The Government and Social Partners will address the serious and urgent difficulties facing private sector pension schemes.

(Again, after wobbling through a list of secondary measures, a major area where reforms in the public sector and private sector are truly needed is left unadressed!)


More to come, stay tuned...

Government's Plan for Ireland: Exclusive... Part 3

Continued as before, italics are my:

Part 2

Framework for a Pact for Stabilisation, Social Solidarity and Economic Renewal

3. Stabilising the Public Finances

The Government and Social Partners are agreed on the necessity to progressively reduce the level of Exchequer borrowing over the next five years in order to reduce the General Government Deficit to below 3% by 2013 through an appropriate combination of expenditure and taxation adjustments.

Public Expenditure

The adjustment to be achieved through reductions in expenditure will be based on the following criteria:

• ensuring a fair and equitable spread of the burden of adjustment
• maximising the level of sustainable employment
• solidarity with those now losing their jobs
• maintaining high-priority public investments
• careful forward priority planning
• increased efficiency, effectiveness and a focus on outcomes
  

(Recap the above bullet points: if the new Framework were to deliver careful forward planning, does the Government now admit that such was not used in the past? Can anyone explain to me how any of these bullet points constitute any sort of a forward-looking programme to deal with the crisis?)

The scale of the necessary adjustment requires scrutiny of all areas of public expenditure including agreeing measures on how to constrain growth in public sector pay and pension costs.
(Don't hold your breath - when we get to these in a second, you'll see that there is scarcely any change in Government's traditional modus operandi on public expenditure...)

Taxation

The adjustment to be achieved through further taxation measures will be informed by the following principles:

• Changes to be fair and equitable with a higher proportion falling on higher incomes while minimising distortionary effects between different forms of tax

(No details are given, but given that a further tax increase on those earning €100K pa are going to yield only a modest, if not negative, revenue increases to the Exchequer, expect ‘higher incomes’ to mean middle class – i.e. YOU! Of course, notice that the above means everyone’s taxes will go up.)

• Support the productive sector of the economy to keep Ireland competitive

(How can this be achieved? This Government, has been blabbering about this objective since the beginning of this century and has managed to do nothing to deliver on it. Do any of us believe they can do any better this time around? With Mary Coughlan at the helm of ETE?)

• Ensuring that tax expenditures are fully evidence-based

(This a pure case of political ‘gibberish’. What does ‘evidence-based’ mean in relation to tax expenditure? Evidence of the money being spent? Of efficiency? When no one, neither in the Government, nor in the civil service is made accountable – with their jobs, pensions, perks – for any failure in delivering on promises made, who cares if their spending decisions are ‘evidence-based’ or ‘we-just-feel-like-doing-it’-based? Does anyone care if Mr Cowen has evidence to support his lofty Building Ireland's Smart Economy ideas? It simply cannot work - evidence or none (see here)!)

• Broaden the tax base and make changes that are straight forward, easily understood and easy to administer

(Broadening tax base means finding new taxes to pin onto us. Oh, but the above is not enough, so…)

• Additional progressive tax measures consistent with the social solidarity approach

Additionally, given the urgency of the situation and the role that taxation will have to play in bringing stability back to the public finances, the Government is asking the Commission on Taxation to identify appropriate options to raise tax revenue and to complete its report by September 2009.

(So, recap – general taxes will go up, new taxes will be thought up and then there will be more progressive tax measures. And in return, the over-worked civil servicemen and underpaid ministers are going to give us ‘evidence’. And compassion.)

Stay tuned for more...