Bertie Ahern, in an interview with the Sunday Independent last weekend, condemned the "prophets of doom" for claiming the economic bubble is about to burst. In the Business section of today's Indo Jim Power, chief economist at Friends First, refers to the interview and says that it "would appear to suggest that it is national sabotage to question any aspect of the economy in a critical way". Power concludes his article with the following remarks:
We do not live in a command economy or a command society, and it should be in all of our better long-term interests to have the issues put on the table and discussed in a critical way, rather than shooting the messenger, which is something that there is a tendency to do. Critical analysis should be encouraged, as should the 'vision thing'. Too many of our policies are now being set by focus groups rather than strategic thinking.
Now, I don't know Jim Power but it's safe to assume he's no radical left wing firebrand. He makes some sound and sensible points about how the apparent strength of the economy conceals some underlying weaknesses and potential vulnerabilities and some caution should temper the irrational exuberance (my words, not his) that prevails almost everywhere.
Of the jobs created in the economy over the past year, 57pc were either in construction or the public sector. This is hardly a trend that is sustainable in the longer term, and we should be trying to ensure that more jobs are created in sustainable and high value-added areas of the economy.
I made a similar argument recently and suggested that "an economy that is run on the equivalent of taking in each other's laundry is not sustainable". A friend of mine asked me this morning where that laundry remark came from. I wasn't consciously quoting anyone and then later searched for the phrase in Google. Quite a lot of stuff came up and the phrase seems to have become popular sometime in the 1980s with the decline of industrial employment and the concomitant rise of the service sector. I'm no old fashioned mercantilist but I would insist that wealth and added value must be created and/or produced somewhere for a nation's economy to be prosperous and sustainable.
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