Madam, - William A Attley (September 7th) and Mary Raftery (Opinion, September 1st), seem to miss the point in their arguments over RTÉ's position with regard to Rip-off Republic.
To say RTÉ ought to provide fair and balanced coverage implies that there are two sides to the story. But the simple fact of the matter is that no one can explain why the price or tax applicable to goods and services, whether supplied by the Government or retailers, far exceeds the cost of providing them. Where is the extra money going and, after taking inflation into account, why can't the level of these increases be quantified?
Mr Hobbs has provided factual information and left it to consumers to decide if they are getting value for money. Judging by correspondence to your paper long before Mr Hobbs's programme, it would appear consumers have felt they are not getting value for money for a considerable time.
Mr Hobbs was able to pitch his idea to RTÉ because he used the facts available to him. It is not unreasonable that retailers or the Fianna Fáil/PD lobby, if they genuinely feel that the facts have been unfairly portrayed, should also offer to make a programme to explain why price/tax increases bear no relation to the cost of providing them. - Yours, etc,
DESMOND FITZGERALD,
Canary Wharf,
London E14.
Madam, - It was refreshing to see the Rip-off Republic programmes on RTÉ. That the enunciation of facts known to the dogs in the streets can arouse such controversy says much about the state of political and economic affairs in our society. I can only hope that RTÉ and people like Eddie Hobbs will be emboldened by the public response rather than intimidated by the establishment.
He rightly characterises rip-off Ireland as a greedy and increasingly unequal society in which consumers are fleeced, workers are exploited and public funds are squandered. His evidence is plentiful, ranging from consumer costs for food and drink, insurance, financial, medical and legal services, to the exploitation of workers in cases such as Irish Ferries and Gama Construction, to wasteful public spending on roads and computerised voting systems.
The society he depicts is not unique, but is visible across the world. The neo-liberal, free-market ideologies unleashed by Reagan and Thatcher, which foster the values of competition and greed, have produced a dramatic increase in inequality of wealth and income both within and between countries. After the second World War the state-managed economies of the West moved towards greater equality for their citizens and reduced the gap between rich and poor. Unfortunately these trends have been reversed, to be replaced by arguably the most dramatic redistribution of wealth and income from poor to rich the world has ever seen.
Many economists and researchers and have commented on this phenomenon. Joseph Stiglitz, the economist and Nobel laureate has said: "Today, there is no respectable intellectual support for the proposition that markets, by themselves, lead to efficient, let alone equitable outcomes."
Free-market economies of competition and greed are the problem, not the solution. The terrible tragedy wrought by Hurricane Katrina has also revealed the inequality and poverty that exists in America, the bastion of free-market ideology.
Hobbs encourages us all to become activists and campaign for change, perhaps recognising that our political establishment has neither the will nor the ability to deliver what the majority of us clearly want. I agree wholeheartedly. However, campaigning for a Competition Authority with more teeth and resources is not the answer. The answer lies in replacing the economics of competition and greed with the economics of co-operation and equity. - Yours, etc,
BRIAN McLOUGHLIN,
Coolock,
Dublin 5.