On flight path to disaster but no-one knows how to land
Saturday February 14 2009
Eamon Gilmore, bizarrely, is trying to present himself as Ireland's answer to Barack Obama
OK, it's already been used as a metaphor, but it's so good I'm going to use it in any case. The Irish economy is like US Airways Flight 1549. Following a collision with a flock of wild bankers our economy's engines have been destroyed. The 'plane' and all its passengers are hurtling towards disaster. Our one hope rests with the pilot. Will he have the nerve and the skill to land us safely in the nearest river?
That, alas, is where the comparison ends. We don't have a Chesley Sullenberger in the cockpit. Instead we have a government that gives every appearance of making things up as it goes along.
Our tragedy is that it's extremely doubtful whether any of the alternative pilots on offer would do any better. Let's remember what equipped Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger to land that plane so skilfully on the Hudson River. First of all, he possessed the necessary character. We tend to overlook the importance of character these days, old-fashioned traits like prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance. I'm not saying Messrs Bruton, Kenny, Cowen, Lenihan, Gilmore or Madame Burton lack character. They're all fine people in their various ways.
But when the economy was flying high, they demonstrated very little prudence. The risks we were taking in flying so high, so fast were pointed out by a handful of economists like David McWilliams, George Lee and Morgan Kelly. But like Cassandra, their prophecies of doom were ignored.
Can anyone truthfully say that if Labour and Fine Gael had been in power the economy would be in better shape today than it is? It is extremely doubtful. They were all for flying high and fast as well.
But apart from character, what allowed Captain Sullenberger to save that plane was preparation.
Chesley Sullenberger was an expert in how to handle a jet-liner in emergency situations. He gave lectures on that very topic. He knew what to do with US Airways Flight 1549 when the two engines burst into flames and had no hope of making it back to a runway.
Our government, our entire political class, our public service, our banks and businesses, the vaunted social partners were not prepared for this emergency. They had no contingency plan to fall back on that could get us out of this situation, let alone the skill to carry it out.
But looking around the world, no-one seems to have a master plan. A few months ago we thought Gordon Brown might have one but the British economy is now suffering its worst slump since the end of World War II. The lines of credit are still frozen.
Now we all hope that Barack Obama will be our Chesley Sullenberger and land the world economy safely. But his emergency master plan, unveiled this week, is a Frankenstein's monster of a thing that might well throttle the very thing it's intended to serve.
Certainly the markets are singularly unimpressed by it. Wall Street instantly plunged by the biggest amount in months when it was unveiled. When the first version of it appeared a couple of weeks ago, the world was similarly unimpressed.
Let's remind ourselves that Barack Obama was welcomed by the world as the antidote to the brutish, unilateralist George W Bush. But it now transpires that President Obama is simply a smoother, more polished unilateralist. His original fiscal 'stimulus' package contained a Buy America clause. The European Union was furious and threatened a trade war.
ECONOMIC unilateralism would be vastly more damaging to our interests than Bush's unilateralism in foreign policy. We didn't bargain on this when we hailed the return to power of the Democrats. We should have known better.
But Obama's vast 'stimulus' package is in itself an act of unilateralism. It is so vast, so gargantuan, so colossal that it will suck money into America from every available lender in such quantities that there will potentially be little left for tiny countries like Ireland.
So is Barack Obama a political version of Chesley Sullenberger? Not so far, he isn't.
But then, only a fool would imagine that anyone on the left of the political spectrum would fit that bill. The left is far too fond of gigantically wasteful public spending projects, is too inclined towards protectionism, and is too much in the pocket of the trade unions to be our saviour. Massive borrowing drives up debt, protectionism is a policy of beggar my neighbour (and ultimately myself as well), while the third pits the interests of one section of society -- the unions -- against the common good.
The Irish Labour party is doing its utmost to present itself as our saviour. Eamon Gilmore, bizarrely, is trying to present himself as Ireland's answer to Barack Obama. But if Barack Obama isn't even America's answer to Chesley Sullenberger, can anyone honestly say that Eamon Gilmore and the Labour party is the answer to Ireland's woes? Not in a million years.
- David Quinn
