Slugger O'Toole

On the other hand I can think of large publicly traded corporations that singularly fail to innovate. The American automakers are good examples of this.

True, the Japanese and German auto-makers did. I absolutely agree with your point about central planning, top-down design and decision making has some role to play in society, but is completely unworkable as the primary economic process.

I guess not all socialists are central planners though (although it’s by far the most common form)- I don’t get the impression that is what Noam Chomsky envisions when he speaks or writes, for example. And I guess there is no rule that says that socialist ideas must be implemented primarily by the left. Bismarck thought pensions were socialist but an idea worthy of introduction all the same..

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Just noticing the similarity with a central tenet of Socialism.

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IT is booming in Dublin, to the extent that most new hires are immigrants to Ireland.

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There is streaming by ability in many schools in the south (not sure if it is universal), beyond ordinary and honours level testing.

If streaming is conducted on a per subject basis it has the advantages highlighted by antamadan above. The same person could be in the top stream in English, but a lower one more appropriate to their abilities in Maths or French.

I’ve noticed some attempts to attack or rollback streaming, on the basis that it is elitist lately (and the argument goes not effective).

I think refining streaming and ensuring fluid mobility between streams (e.g. potential movements every term if an improvement is shown) would be much better.

That’s much less final, and less universal across all subjects than the 11+ exam (which doesn’t even test aptitude in many subjects – or at least didn’t -e.g. languages).

It might be better aggregating schools by age. Rather than a locale having two or more competing schools, have two or more schools that focus on different age groups. That would give economy of scale at each age group. (I.e. more 12/13/14 and 15/16/17/18 year olds per school would mean more classes per subject, more sports teams, more extra curricular activities etc).

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That’s all true – most of the better kids in that situation will find other ways and activities (while the inverse isn’t true for the weakest kids). The American family being a case in point (looking outside the state school system so their daughter could continue where she was). Ideally it would be good if those needs could be met within the state education system.

Some bright kids might suffer though. E.g. Get bored in class and begin to become disruptive.

If someone was doing an objective analysis of education systems it could still be a potential con (in contrast to very many pros) in the Scandivian model.

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As a potential drawback / something not to import – Janten laki?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jante_Law

To be honest I don’t know much about the Finnish system, working on the presumption that there is some level of similarity to the Swedish education system then the cutting down of ‘tall poppys’ may be an issue.

I know an American family that relocated to Sweden and found their daughter learning maths a couple of years behind where she was in the US. They found support within the public education system for kids with high potential to be poor (i.e. nowhere near what was available in the US).

The Swedes have probably eliminated relative poverty as a drag on educational attainment and in the process pushed the averages way up, but at the expense of (at least anecdotally) providing suitable outlets for more gifted children.

Removing private wealth as a driver of educational attainment (by providing top class facilities for all) is a fine goal. Focusing on the gap between top and lowest achievers as something to be narrowed is barmy. It can be narrowed from both ends. Education systems should provide appropriate support for smart kids (as well as the less gifted) regardless of parental wealth..

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I agree with that FF had a good day. 2 potential future TD’s blooded and performed well.

Prior to envelope-gate most people knew Gallagher was FF background. After it, he was solidly welded to the FF brand, warts and all. Garnering 28.5% of the vote in those circumstances must be seen as a good result for them.

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That is sad news.

That’s more than a little harsh Alias. He was dealing with an absolutely massive crisis. The scale of which was so overwhelming, no matter what policy options were pursued we were in for a f**king awful time.

He took some brave decisions, hard decisions that will ultimately stand us well, he made some bad ones too but no matter what things could have been (and maybe still could be) much worse.

RIP.

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Some lenders are more equal than others.

In particular the creditors to Irish banks (and the new bailout lenders) would appear to be more ‘equal’ than the purchasers of sovereign debt. Via Jeremy Warner in the Telegraph, quoting EU statement -

“If, on the basis of a sustainability analysis, it is concluded that a macro-economic programme cannot realistically restore the public debt to a sustainable path, the beneficiary Member State will be required to engage in active negotiations in good faith with its creditors to secure their direct involvement in restoring debt sustainability.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/jeremy-warner/8419844/Is-the-cost-of-saving-the-euro-beyond-reach.html

Standard & Poors downgrading Ireland

The downgrade reflects our view of the concluding statement of the European Council (EC) meeting of March 24-25, 2011, that confirms our previously published expectations that (i) sovereign debt restructuring is a possible pre-condition to borrowing from the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), and (ii) senior unsecured government debt will be subordinated to ESM loans. Both features are, in our view, detrimental to the commercial creditors of EU sovereign ESM borrowers.

Translation, it is EU policy to force sovereign debt defaults on bail out nations, EU funds are untouchable, therefore market participants considering lending to any nation already participating in, or likely to participate in and EU bailout, are deranged.

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Ireland faces tough choices and has a very serious problem.

We can either try to solve this with Europe’s help, and let’s be realistic – that doesn’t appear to be forthcoming, at least at the moment. Or by ourselves.

There is a fair bit of misinformation here. Germany and Finland aren’t being asked to pay for Ireland – in fact Ireland would like to borrow from both at a reasonable rate – but on still profitable for both (and will if suitable help is forthcoming pay it back in full). In addition we would like to impose losses on private creditors to private insituitions (listening to Richard Bruton today it sounds like that will happen in the cases of Anglo and INBS).

Given hammering dished out to Ms. Merkel and these comments from Finland, I would hope that Mr. Honohan in the Irish Central Bank is instructing his staff to surreptitiously prepare for the reintroduction of the punt…

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