eurocrisis

Failure of anti austerity narrative and the political fallout of the ‘Greek Diktat’ in Ireland?

Mick Fealty on July 14, 2015, 11:38 am

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“There is nothing so practical as a good theory…” – Kurt Lewin (1890-1947) So here’s the pattern. You protest that the lot who are in power are corrupt and are letting the people down, and have not asked for what they would inevitably be given, if only they had asked for it. In the case of Greece, despite a long hard haul out from under an impossible burden, the Greek economy eventually clocked up a 2% rate. Not bad for a country …

#SluggerReport: Greece votes No (but does anyone here know what that means?)

Mick Fealty on July 6, 2015, 3:10 pm

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listen to ‘Greece Votes No, but what does that mean?’ on audioBoom Today, there was only one topic worth tackling. The result of yesterday’s Greek Referendum. Key reference today is Pete’s post from early 2011: “When it becomes serious, you have to lie.”? The #SluggerReport goes out on Periscope live 10am with a edited podcast appearing on Slugger’s audioBoo page later. Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics …

“In both camps the eurozone crisis is met with a hint of relish…”

Mick Fealty on July 1, 2015, 4:24 pm

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Rafael Behr in the Guardian is worth reading on so many levels… There is blame enough for everyone. Alexis Tsipras’s promise to the Greek people of euro membership without austerity was dishonest. Other European leaders were constrained by their own democratic obligations. There are citizens from Ireland to Latvia who have already swallowed bitter reforming medicine and paid taxes that fund bailouts. They resent Athens threatening to destabilise their economies with demands for special treatment. This is not to say …

Iceland: “but people ask why can’t I pay my mortgage? Why is my salary not going up?”

Mick Fealty on April 2, 2015, 10:29 am

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Whilst everyone else is focused on the tribulations of Greece, I would heartily recommend that if you don’t read anything else today, read this Reykjavik Letter (€) from Peter Geoghegan in today’s Irish Times: visions of Iceland as a Nordic Nirvana – burnt bondholders, jailed bankers, a crowd-sourced constitution – often clash with reality here. The Icelandic economy has recovered since the kreppa, the 2008 banking meltdown. But the cost of living remains painfully high, even if the country is far more …

#EUref: Great editorials are built on great journalism: Ireland’s desperate choice…

Mick Fealty on May 31, 2012, 12:28 pm

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I don’t always see eye to eye with the Guardian newspaper. For one thing, their line between comment and news is often a little too blurred for my tastes [But you run a bloody blog! – Ed] Yes, but, well I’ve come to praise the Grauniad, not to bury it. Those of you who’ve been following Pete’s tight commentary on the Euro crisis, will have noted frequent references to their Eurozone crisis live blog. That blog has done almost exactly …

The politics of leaving the Euro not as simple as Govt’s critics make out…

Mick Fealty on January 5, 2012, 10:40 am

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Nice piece from Brian Feeney in the Irish News yesterday… It’s worth quoting at some length, not least for those who imagine that default is likely to be a pain free option… Not least because of the political cost… Here’s the position. Over the next three months or so, the nuts and bolts of the Merkel/Sarkozy pact to stablise the Euro will be screwed together and what in effect will be a new treaty will emerge. The Republic will have …

Lib Dems firmly locked into an executive they have no control of…

Mick Fealty on December 14, 2011, 12:09 pm

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I see Mike Smithson’s taking advantage of the Tories’ two per cent poll lead over Labour to call into question the future of Ed Milliband. However, that question has always been there. He’s simply not rated as a political operator, even by own his party’s footsoldiers at Westminster. If anything the mystery has been his substantive lead over the government. Even now, it’s not that he’s dropped points, more that Cameron’s disaffected Eurosceptics are coming back to after his ‘veto’ …

Would Ireland really need a Referendum on Treaty change?

Mick Fealty on December 8, 2011, 11:43 am

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Paul doesn’t like themdoesn’t like them, but there is some limited evidence (according to the Spectator this week) that populations which are regularly consulted and feel part of the political process are happier than those who are not. In Ireland the population is so rarely consulted (and her politicians so rarely called upon to publicly justify policy), that it always feels like a game of political Russian roulette, with four of six chambers loaded. Yet the Irish Times’ leader today …

Ireland’s long nightmare of generational private debt…

Mick Fealty on June 28, 2011, 11:26 am

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If you missed RTE’s Frontline last night it is well worth doubling back on. Anchored in some robust market research from Amarach, the conversation seemed to reveal a generational split between those concerned about the moral hazard implied in mass debt forgiveness and those pointing out the that those who have bought houses in the last ten/twelve years find themselves under an unprecedented collective burden that is simply unsustainable. Forgiving The Debt – An Amárach/Frontline Report June 2011 View more …