Archive for December, 2007

Ireland has to recognise that immigration is eventually going to clash with a slowing economy.

Next year will give us the opportunity to ask ourselves, after 10 years of an economic boom, who are we? Our minds will be focussed on this existential question by yet another EU referendum. Where do we want Ireland to go? What sort of EU commitment suits us now? Whether we vote yes or no, it is a positive thing that a country should have discussions with itself from time to time. My hunch (and its only a hunch) is that we might vote no as we did to the Maastricht Treaty before the government told us that the no vote didn’t count and we would have to vote again. The reasons for this are both historic and contemporary.

Worrying events in the US, added to an already paranoid financial sector following the sub-prime crisis, have left market traders in a state of anxiety.

The traffic is brutal as always on the Western Road. The squeaky sound of the wipers is getting on her nerves as Miss Pencil Skirt tries, faithful Tweezerman in hand, to pluck her eyebrows — which is difficult when you are in first gear, foot permanently on the clutch, avoiding the account director in his Five Series who is trying to cut her up.

The growing appetite of young Chinese workers for all things western, including dairy products, is having a profound effect on global agriculture.

IN 989 AD, Ethelred the Unready, the Anglo-Saxon King of England, introduced a deeply unpopular tax called Dangeld (Danish gold). These were coins that Ethelred minted from the tax.

David was recently on the RTE Radio 1 show, “Conversations With Eamon Dunphy”.
Full interview is available from the RTE website here.

You would be mad to buy a house now. In recent days the Irish housing lobby – which has hijacked the economic debate in this country and made an absolute fortune in the process – has started to spin the line that ‘‘now is a good time to buy’’.