Economy
Greece: “Country in Limbo”
Gerry’s analysis notwithstanding, in Greece they’re trying to come to terms with those election results. As the BBC reports Greece’s centre-right leader, Antonis Samaras, has said he cannot form a coalition government, hours after he was given a mandate by the president. His New Democracy, which backed the last EU bailout, emerged as the biggest [...] more »
A drafting error in the Fiscal Compact?
Eagle-eyed, Cormac Lucey: Article 4 states that countries with government debt levels above 60% of GDP must reduce that “at an average rate of one twentieth per year”. But those who signed the Treaty appear to have intended that countries with government debt levels above 60% of GDP must reduce that at an average rate [...] more »
Hollande wins in France…
According to reported early estimates Socialist Francois Hollande has been elected as France’s new president, early estimates say. He got about 52% of votes in Sunday’s run-off, according to projections based on partial results, against 48% for centre-right incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy. The Guardian’s live-blog will have further updates. As for what it means for the fiscal [...] more »
Northern Ireland – China relations and human rights
China’s persecution of ’barefoot lawyer’ activist Chen Gaungcheng continues to cast a long, dark shadow across the two-day visit of US Scretary of State Hillary Clinton. The BBC reports a senior US diplomat: The United States believes that no state can legitimately deny the universal rights that belong to every human being – or punish those [...] more »
Schumacher Summer School: Rethinking Ireland’s economic future?
This morning I dropped in to see John Woods, who’s organising Schumacher Ireland’s first ever Summer School under the title “From crisis to resilience: rethinking Ireland’s economic future”… It’s the first time such an gathering has taken place in Ireland, though Schumacher College in Devon has been running such courses for the last twenty years… [...] more »
Euro crisis: April is the cruellest month…
Apart from all the others… And it doesn’t matter how big your umbrella is. BBC Europe editor, Gavin Hewitt, on springtime in Europe What is being exposed is a major flaw with Mrs Merkel’s fiscal pact. It is undemocratic. It ties the hands of future governments – and that, of course, was its intention but [...] more »
Yes, Ireland can apply to the IMF for money, but…
If you want proof that SF dropped the ball on the anti case last week by putting partial quotes from Karl Whelan and two other eminent economists, it’s the fact that they have lent their own authority to an economist who is way off base from their own anti Fiscal Compact position. On Morning Ireland [...] more »
The omni shambles and Labour’s difficulty capatilising
The omni shambles which is the current government seems to continue. I mentioned the disaster which was the budget and the spin surrounding it recently. Jeremy Hunt and his special advisor have yet again shone a spotlight on the relationship between Rupert Murdock’s media empire and politicians (though of course the Tories were far from [...] more »
Is the Governor of the Central Bank “representative” or “independent”?
The ‘controversy’ arising over the Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland Patrick Honohan’s endorsement of a Yes vote, is possibly the least important aspect of his speech to the IEA. Padraig Mac Lochlainn believes Honohan should not have publicly said Yes because: “…public servants, which Governor Honahan is, are paid by the taxpayer and [...] more »
Referendum and the Euro crisis: “Its unravelling, if it comes to that, will look very different.”
Even though David Begg could not get the numbers in the ICTU to call for a Yes vote for the Fiscal Compact Treaty, he has clearly has some of concerns of his own about where a No vote would take Ireland. RTE reports this afternoon that ”he voiced fears that rejection would mean exclusion from the [...] more »
Could Rangers make a virtue of their moral and financial crisis?
Yep, £170 million. That’s a shocking figure to rack up. It hardly helps the club’s case for decent handling that the last owner of the club takes such a cavalier attitude to the club’s predicament. His remarks came in response to the latest directive from the SFA that they cannot sign any new players for [...] more »
Euro crisis: “It is nice to have a big umbrella…”
The Guardian’s Economics blog starts with an interesting observation Those who watched Dominique Strauss-Kahn at the spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund a year ago say he played a blinder. Although he was to leave Washington under a cloud shortly afterwards, DSK impressed with his no-nonsense approach to his fellow Europeans. The IMF‘s managing [...] more »
“At present persons granted an Irish visa are not permitted to use that visa to travel to the UK.”
Not that we didn’t already know that… However, the Northern Ireland Tourism Minister, the DUP’s Arlene Foster, fielded a number of NI Assembly questions back in Feb/March on the issue of the Irish Government’s “Visa Waiver Scheme for nationals of 16 countries who hold a valid visa for entry into the United Kingdom.” Here is [...] more »
Lough Neagh: “It’s not for sale.”
The Northern Ireland Assembly may have picked up the curio Mick noted, and agreed to set up a working group “to explore and pursue actively the potential for a cross-departmental approach to bring Lough Neagh back into public ownership.” But, as the Belfast Telegraph reports, they failed to inform the current owner, Lord Shaftesbury, of their intentions In [...] more »
OFMDFM: “We welcome our friendship with the Peoples Republic of China…”
In the Irish Times, David Adams takes issue with the Northern Ireland First and deputy First Ministers’ “kowtowing last week to a visiting delegation from China”. On Slugger, Patrick focused on some of the propaganda aspects of the visit, and the OFMDFM press releases during the visit should probably be noted at that point. From the Irish Times article [...] more »
Euro Crisis: “Germany is not pursuing these manoeuvres out of malice…”
As Pete noted yesterday, things are never quite as they seem with the Eurozone. Paul Krugman writing in today’s New York Times bemoans the shortsightedness of Europe’s politician, but in it he makes an important category error when he describes the ECB as the European equivalent of the Fed… But he does suggest what has [...] more »
Euro crisis: “Barroso absolutely confident that Spain can meet its economic challenges.”
With Spain probably in recession, again, and the cost of its government borrowing topping 6%, again, European Commission president José Manuel Barroso is being ridiculed for his optimistic futuring. As the Guardian’s Eurozone crisis live-blog notes European Commission president José Manuel Barroso has just been quizzed about the eurozone crisis, at a summit on sustainable [...] more »
“To preserve a distinctively open-handed Scottish social model”, the UK may be the safest choice…
As per, Northern Ireland not included in these details, but The Economist as something of a rarity amongst London based papers notes that Scotland is the third most prosperous region in the UK: Scotland’s accounts of revenue and expenditure, based on Treasury data, show that it is not a ward of the state, grossly subsidised [...] more »
University of Ulster: “part of China’s overseas propaganda set-up”
It’s a big day for the University of Ulster as it welcomes senior Chinese Communist Party Politburo member Liu Yandong to officially launch its Confucius Institute. While promoted as independent educational and cultural bodies, the Confucius Institutes have perhaps been more accurately described as “an important part of China’s overseas propaganda set-up.” Who said that? Some [...] more »
The Problems of Centralised Government: The Ill-considered Constraints on Economic Recovery in Northern Ireland
Nobody will argue that the United Kingdom is in choppy financial waters. On March 26, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development charted the cost of Britain’s recession at a cumulative output loss of £87 billion, or 6% of GDP. All very interesting, but what do cold percentages and unqualified numbers mean for the people [...] more »
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Books
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Do Words Matter?: Book Review of Political Discourse and Conflict Resolution – Debating Peace in Northern Ireland
I share many of the concerns of Andy Pollak, whose recent post ‘My Response to the Slugger Begrudgers’ zeroed in on the ‘relentless flow of negativity’ of some Slugger commentators. Pollak’s post was largely concerned with the medium of the blog. Indeed, I think the anonymity of the online world encourages extreme discourse and allows [...] read our review »
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Christopher Hitchens, 1949 – 2011
Writer Christopher Hitchens has died aged 62. He was as contrary as he was brilliant. Here is a brief In Memoriam from Vanity Fair (his outlet of choice since 1992) and, here, a longer tribute from his friend Christopher Buckley Stanley in The New Yorker. Better, perhaps, though to post one of Hitchens’ own writings in [...] read our review »
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The ANC, the IRA and the rise of influence of the left within Sinn Fein…
World by Storm has a nice piece up on the IRA’s role in helping MK, the armed wing of the ANC, in the 1980s. In particular he sees a strange alchemy at work there: …if one can think of a clearly legitimate contemporary struggle it was that against apartheid and it is to the credit [...] read our review »
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