Europe

Shipwrecking the Economy and Capsizing the Lifeboats

Editorial from the Observer today. Ireland has been betrayed by its leaders. The need for a bailout is the consequence of the government’s incompetence. It should pay for its failure It never seemed to matter in the boom years, but strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a Celtic Tiger. The image was coined […]

A 3-yr Breather On Mortgages?

As mentioned on this site previously, the “elephant in the room” from an Irish economic perspective may well be the spectre of the ECB increasing interest rates to cool the Germany economy (currently forecast to grow at over 3% this year). Angela will call the tune, and Jean-Claude the piper will jump.

Christmas Spending…

Interesting report issued by Deloitte recently regarding projected consumer spending in the run-up to Christmas – see commentary below: http://www.businessworld.ie/livenews.htm?a=2679139;s=rollingnews.htm 2 items catch the eye: The average spend per household in Ireland will be €1,020, the average European spend is predicted at €590 – seems high In Ireland, on average €120 will spent on socialising […]

Peter ‘n the “old boys”…

say we are heading for bailout; we’ll need some growth to cover bond yields of 8.95% if thats where it goes. From www.businessworld.ie: Goldman: Ireland will need bailout Wednesday, November 10 16:58:42 There is a “big possibility” that Ireland and Portugal will need to seek aid from the European Union, Erik Nielsen, chief European economist […]

The European “Elephant In The Room”

Our current state of financial “chaos” is often credited loosely by commentators to an “asset bubble” fueled by “cheap credit”. An asset bubble is highly likely to follow an extensive period of cheap credit. So was there cheap credit? There certainly was – in all shapes and sizes. How does a government control the availability […]

Germany, France and a Lisbon “Make-over”

Arthur Beesley has a good piece in the Irish Times today where he starts to piece together the situation regarding the combined German/French push to bring in new rules on the management of financial affairs by EU member states.

Who says 3% by 2014?

My interest in this debate at the moment is to find out WHO is demanding 3% by 2014 i.e. why not 0%, 2% or 4%? Brendan Keenan seems to be closer than anybody else to finding the answer…: http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/brendan-keenan/brendan-keenan-eus-2014-borrowing-target-makes-absolutely-no-sense-2388758.html So are the German political elite forcing us down the road of severe austerity (come what […]

Democracy Vs Consensus

There has been a perceptible draining of the centre of power out of Ireland in the last 4 weeks on account of our national budgetary position.  Just look at the stream of commentary – Ollie Rehn & Corporation Tax; the IMF; others in the European Commission; Trichet of the ECB; Fitch Ratings – the list goes […]

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