Some people ask me – why is everything collapsing? Okay – so there aren’t a whole lot of houses being built. Can that possibly explain this sudden drop? The last thing they want is a history of this and an extended elaboration of all those other thats. They understandably want a brief, all-encompassing answer that can point the way to some kind of solution. Life is too short to be subjected to an economic history lesson. So this is what I say:
Between 1995 and 2001 our exports grew by over €72 billion. That was the core of the Celtic Tiger economy. And that’s when our Euros weren’t being picked clean by inflation. Between 2001 and 2007 our exports grew by only €39 billion. That’s less than half. And our Euros don’t go as far as they did. And there are a lot more people to support with that money.
Now, if their eyes don’t glaze over I can then go into how we squandered all that wealth from the 1990s (not in the way Fine Gael talks of squandering – they never opposed tax cut or property subsidies, they never argued for land price controls), and how we frittered it away in tax cuts, in property speculation, in buying up overseas property.
That, in essence, is the core: We either export or die. We either make and sell goods and services to sell abroad to pay for our living standards and our services - or we return to the fields. Or watch the dole queues expand. Or schedule more flights so people can get the hell out (the usual way we dealt with economic decline in the past).
So through these times we must hold fast to the goal of increasing export growth. Others will divert us with issues like cutting public expenditure, cutting taxes, cutting regulations, cutting wages, etc. etc. These issues must be faced head-on, but it must be in the context of arguing for greater export wealth. That is how the Left can turn this debate around – a debate we are already losing.
And the recession is only just starting.
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