Thursday, Feb 9th 2012
Maybe I’m getting paranoid but I can’t help feeling that we’re being primed to blame the incoming Obama administration if our inflow of foreign investment starts drying up, resulting in massive dislocations in our economy. Robert Shapiro, an influential advisor to the new President, has suggested that Ireland wean itself off foreign direct investment (FDI). [...]
Does anyone believe the Government know what it’s doing? I’m not talking about the budgetary U-turns or that sinking sensation one gets when viewing images of the troika of Lenihan, Coughlan and Cowen on our television screens. No, it’s the bank guarantee. First, the Government stated that the banks which sign up [...]
It’s raining medical cards - in the nightmares of the Fianna Fail backbench TDs. What were they thinking? Is the €100 million savings worth the political disaster the Government has brought on to itself? €100 million? It’s peanuts in the grand scheme of things - not even representing a fifth of 1 percent of all [...]
With the Dail debate playing in the background, some notes on what Brian Lenihan insists is not a bail-out.Professor Morgan Kelly relates an incident at a conference he attended:
‘Bankers are well known for getting carried away during bubbles which is why governments appoint central banks to keep an eye on them. You probably think that [...]
Sometimes something happens that takes one breath away. It makes it hard to speak, never mind coherently. The Government’s bank guarantee proposal is one such. It constitutes a fundamental capitulation, not to the logic of the ‘free market’ nor to the necessity of state ownership, but to a uniquely Fianna Fail policy of propping up some [...]
Did anyone catch the curious symmetry? On the day that unemployment, once again, shot up, AIB announced their half-yearly profits. Two different worlds on this small island.
Not that there weren’t attempts to show that these different worlds are experiencing the same thing. The Irish Times headlines: AIB Profits Fall. And [...]
What better way to spend a lazy afternoon than reading National Competitiveness Council reports, in particular its submission to the Commission on Taxation? The NCC is full of information but they do have a particular agenda and damn the facts. For instance, Ireland’s low tax rate has driven
‘ . . . . entrepreneurship, [...]
Ah, the haute bourgeoisie - I know the old Scotsman warned us against letting them talk to each other. This is wise counsel but I have found that they can be amazingly open, almost innocent in their discussions. Take the Merrill Lynch Survey of Fund Managers July: never mind the amusing language - [...]
