No Confidence in Portuguese Politicians

Yesterday the opposition Socialist party's motion of no confidence in the right wing PSD/CDS government was predictably voted down by the majority coalition but not before causing a run on the stock market.

The only thing this fiasco proved was that, once again, the politicians are idiots who are more interested in posturing and pandering to the mass media than in trying to run the country. And the biggest idiot on the stage at the moment is José António Seguro (whose surname ironically translates as safe or insurance), the leader of the opposition. He is a caretaker leader for a period when the Socialist party had no hope of even influencing policy but now puts himself forward as candidate for Prime Minister! That's more frightening to me than the terms of the Troika loan.

He was steamrolled into the vote of no confidence by the media, while realising that he has to play to the creditors who are withholding stage payments on the international funding in view of the political turmoil and disastrous financial performance. And I won't even start on assessing their performance because I am not an expert in macroeconomics, though it seems to me obvious that their cuts could have been expected to cause the sharp recession and severe reduction in tax receipts that has been seen in the first two months of the year.

So here we are, suffering from the excesses of the past, stuck with a bunch of idiots as leaders whose long-term plan is to get away with a nice job or pension at the end of their second term but with nobody better to replace them that I can see. That's politics I suppose...

But one deficit reduction proposal could come out of this: Those parties or members of parliament who are found to be wasting time rather than producing something constructive should have their pay docked! Or would the process of proposing and voting that through also be considered a waste of time?