I love the Pod. Could you discuss why Ireland is likely to go the populist route by voting SF in the next election? It appears that housing affordability is a major problem, along with investment funds buying up housing stock for long term rentals in a country where property ownership is deeply ingrained. I am no fan of SF and the economy may be going gangbusters. However young people want houses, their parents want them to have houses. Both sets of people vote.
When you have most mainstream media beating the SF leftist drum to spend, spend, spend, it must be very hard to stand firm and say we are locking away at least some of our windfall gains into a rainy day fund or to invest for future pension liabilities. But this is what the Government should do. Stand tall, state the case for even a small bit of prudence, and do the right thing instead of the leftist populist thing.
The risk now is that Government will be tempted to spend in anticipation of this pattern continuing. More likely the near future will see recession, increasing interest rates impacting the cost of borrowing and existing debt rollover, demographics and health care inflation driving higher costs, the investment challenge of climate change etc. Time for Government to be courageous and resist populist pressures.
I love the Pod. Could you discuss why Ireland is likely to go the populist route by voting SF in the next election? It appears that housing affordability is a major problem, along with investment funds buying up housing stock for long term rentals in a country where property ownership is deeply ingrained. I am no fan of SF and the economy may be going gangbusters. However young people want houses, their parents want them to have houses. Both sets of people vote.
When you have most mainstream media beating the SF leftist drum to spend, spend, spend, it must be very hard to stand firm and say we are locking away at least some of our windfall gains into a rainy day fund or to invest for future pension liabilities. But this is what the Government should do. Stand tall, state the case for even a small bit of prudence, and do the right thing instead of the leftist populist thing.
The risk now is that Government will be tempted to spend in anticipation of this pattern continuing. More likely the near future will see recession, increasing interest rates impacting the cost of borrowing and existing debt rollover, demographics and health care inflation driving higher costs, the investment challenge of climate change etc. Time for Government to be courageous and resist populist pressures.
A nice position to be in for Pascal - but he certainly can’t depend on it continuing 😂