Notes On The Front

A Simple Proposal

Sometimes a proposal comes along that is so simple you say to yourself, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ That’s what I said when reading ICTU’s ‘Economic Outlook: Narrowing the Pay Gap’. The highlight of this comprehensive review of the economy is its discussion of the growing pay gap between the upper echelons of corporate Ireland and the rest of us – and a series of specific but far-reaching proposals. This issue of economic inequality should be treated as ‘gateway’ issue – that is, an issue which can lead the Left out of its policy isolation, into territory it can call its own.

And it’s all based on a terribly simple idea – ending taxpayer subsidies to millionaire salaries.

An Appalling Vista

ISME’s recent Business Trends Survey makes for grim reading: employment is down; sales, investment, orders, exports: all down. Owners and managers of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are extremely nervous. As well they should be: a hard rain is starting to fall. Of course, ISME knows who to blame: the public sector, trade unions, wages, home-grown inflation, a strong Euro. Some of these are legitimate; some are so far off-the-mark that it raises questions about ISME’s ability to represent their members’ interests.

But there is one issue they don’t address, won’t address; one issue that should make all of us afraid, very afraid. And that is: what if, despite the economic climate, we have a class of managers in the SME and indigenous sector who are just not up to it? What if one of the core issues in Irish competitiveness is widespread managerial incompetence? If this is the case then, regardless of the economic weather, we have a problem that is chronic, endemic and highly, highly resistant to correction.

Feasting on Innards

Policy makers really have a problem. They know that Ireland is a high-cost country but they seem to be unable or unwilling to figure out why. Forfas surveys all manner of cost inputs – energy, property, labour, insurance, etc. – but while they uncover some valuable information, they still can’t seem to connect all the high-cost dots into a coherent picture. I have a small answer. It is not the whole answer but it can help complete the picture and, just as importantly, it can help us see what is not the problem. And that answer is this: entrepreneurial cannibals – a species of businessmen and women who make a lot of money by cannibalizing other businesses, driving up enterprise costs and making our economy uncompetitive.

These entrepreneurial cannibals – they’re literally eating us alive.

Class War Is Alive and Well

If someone were to stand up at a trade union meeting and start on about the ‘class war’ most people would just turn away and stare at their fingernails. We don’t do that kind of rhetoric anymore. It has gone the way of ‘class consciousness’ and ‘historical inevitability’ and the ‘wheels of capitalism are greased by the blood of the workers’. It’s not only the vocabulary; we don’t construct our worldviews on the ideas inherent in those words. No, the days of ‘class war’ are truly over.

Shame someone didn’t tell the employers.

Let's Get Crazy

If someone proposed doubling payroll taxes on businesses, a ton of rhetorical bricks would fall upon them (increasing costs, undermining competitiveness, blah, blah, blah). If that someone were to say that a doubling of payroll taxes would actually benefit Irish business, they’d be deemed just plain crazy. Well, let’s get crazy, then. Let’s get ‘run-though-the-streets-naked-shouting-at-the-top-of-our voices’ crazy.

For employers’ payroll taxes should be doubled. It would be good for living standards, good for employees. And most of all, it would be good for business.

Where are the Law-and-Order Parties When You Need Them?

I was taken aback when the recent ‘crime’ figures were produced and not a peep was heard from the ultimate ‘law and order’ party, Fine Gael. They do pride themselves as the nation’s alpha crime fighters: prisoners paying for their B&B, boot camps, the open-season-on-Travellers’ Homeowners Bill, ending prison remission, electronically tagging innocent people, drunk tanks in hospitals and most recently, Charles Flanagan’s ‘pay for English in the courts’ proposal. If you’re a criminal, don’t mess with this party. So, when a new agency produced a report showing large scale breaches of the law, I immediately went on to the party’s website to read their get-tough response. What did they say? More enforcers? Harsher prison sentences? Confiscation of assets? They said nothing, nada, not a word, not a whisper (particularly odd given that the relevant spokesperson - Leo Varadkar TD - is not publicity shy).But maybe that’s understandable. For the crime figures related to violations by employers and the victims were mere workers.

Fine Gael don’t do economic crimes.

The Whinging Class

In other countries, there is a business class. In Ireland, we have, instead, a whinging class – or at least whinging spokespersons for the Irish business class. And they have so much to whinge over – taxes, regulations, energy costs, water and waste charges and, of course, the dreaded omnipresent labour costs. Listening to their spokespersons, you’d wonder how Irish business ever manages to export a single ready-meal or turn a penny profit. But in a recent survey published by the National Competitiveness Council (a body not known for undermining the claims of employers' organisations), we are presented with data which suggests, contrary to received wisdom, that Irish business costs are not so great and, in particular, that labour costs are certainly not the issue.