It is rarely mentioned and quickly forgotten in mainstream current affairs/politics that as an island, Ireland has the largest stocks of fish in the EU bar none. Not to mention the longest coastline in Europe etc.etc.

These fish stocks are being actively plundered by France, Spain, Netherlands et al, whilst Irish Fisherman have to stand by and watch, their boats tied up with miniscule quotas.
There are many sub-issues here – such as overfishing and illegally small mesh sizes used by foreign boats to target juvenile fish – delicacies in French, Spanish diets.
Right now – there are approximately 2000 foreign fishing vessels – with factory ships in attendance, fishing between 50-100 miles off the west coast of Ireland from Mizen to Malin. Imagine if that amount of fish could be landed every week in Ireland, most for export. The jobs & revenue it would create, the shipbuilding it would generate and the expertise that would be developed into further managing and developing our marine resources.

The real issue here is that this fish resource is so enormous and the established market so voracious – the wealth, proposperity and industry being lost is staggering. Ireland has no real benefits from its own fish stocks and the fishing industry here struggles to be heard at a political level

Compare Norway – similar population, coastline and fish stocks. Managed its fish stocks, ran out the foreign boats. Became wealthy from fish, developed sustainable shipbuilding industry with technology transfer into Oil & Gas industry which made Norway even wealthier.

The long term answer to making Ireland sustainably prosperous – lies in the holds of those foreign fishing vessels and the giant factory ships that are hoovering up Irish fish.

Time for Ireland to wake up and take control of its resources – we dont have to like fish but I am sure we would like the money !!

yours etc.

JG

Technology or wonder breakthroughs may stay the enivatable fundamental lack of resources but will reassert itself.

As for fuel efficency (round 2) see the “end of oil” http://the-end-of-oil.com/ any savings due to efficency in cars in the past seem to have been wasted by adding more power. Car engines are getting more and more efficient but also bigger and bigger so we piss away any gains. The car industry reaction to fule efficency directives is particularly disgusting.

The developed world cannot afford to have efficient power generation so their headlong rush to raise living standards is based on cheap & dirty (coal) power stations and old (dirty/innefficient) 10 year old car models..

Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance. In my view, most people I meet are firmly entrenched in denial.

http://www.businessballs.com/elisabeth_kubler_ross_five_stages_of_grief.htm

Within the ‘Axis of Credit Junkie Nations’ I doubt the general reaction will be quite as sanguine as you suggest David. Despite the best efforts of economists to understand human behaviour: Distressed gentlefolk rarely act in rational ways.

I spent last week in London Town, mainly in the bar of ‘The Boston Arms’ in Tufnell Park, an old stomping ground. I had plenty of time to chew the fat with some ‘seniors’ who, like my parents, left Ireland for a better life in England in the 1950’s. Their comments on the ‘Tir-Na-Nog’ generations they begat were illuminating and sobering. Accusing their offspring of a get-rich-quick mentality, of having partied like it’s 1999, since, er…1999, of harbouring a disdain for honest slog and, above all else: An inflated view of their own invincibility.

This was the lament I heard about the Lost Sons and Daughters of the London Irish, now so intoxicated by consumer baubles, that many have ‘somehow’ forgotten to have families along the way. Is Ireland the next demographic disaster formerly known as Italy? And yet: That’s progress. That’s ’wealth’. Or it was, until this week’s ‘interruptions’.

When I mentioned ‘Bertie and the Boyz‘, the responses ranged from a shrug and a sneer of ‘Politicians!’ to apoplectic fury. Still, when it’s 1:00am and everyone’s had a skinful, getting a reasoned debate is less likely than getting a dodgy kebab on the Archway Road.

In my view, it will take months for these events to actually become comprehensible to most people. Probably only when they get their pink slip/P45’s will they realise it’s not just ‘a financial thing‘. Or ‘a construction thing‘. It’s both and more. Above all: It’s a political thing.

A massive, catastrophic failure of the political will of The Nation State (UK/USA/motley EU crew) to challenge, control and supervise the Corporation, the Hedge Fund, the Big Swinging Dicks who now are revealed as childishly impotent and emasculated. Hoist by their own appendages in Davos. It will be interesting to see how much Faith is left in the ability of the State to come up with a ‘big Plan B‘.

If the State is responsible for the failure of Plan A (the current mess) why would anyone give them the benefit of the doubt again? I won’t.

I’m not a Malthusian. Metaphysically: I’m a Dystopian Cornucopian sceptical Catholic, if such a concoction is possible. I do not believe any shortage or lack or want is possible in this manifested Universe. Only Human Ignorance makes it appears otherwise. And from Ignorance comes Dislocation, Death, Disease and any other number of Apocalyptic Scenarios. But it’s (in)Humanity that cause all our problems. Us alone.

Anyone out there want to step into the ring? Argue the toss? OK: Refute the following three ‘resource issues’ identified by David in his article and hereby comprehensively debunked by me:

“Resources are the real issue, not the tittle tattle in the financial markets. History reveals that wars over resources are a recurring fact, so, whether that resource is water, oil or food, the battle is on.”

Round 1. Water. There is no shortage of water. Certainly not in Ireland! Or anywhere in the Brit-Irish Isles. Some pertinent facts on this page Googled at random relating to London.

http://www.southernrailway.com/main.php?page_id=327

No shortage. Just Waste. Extravagance. Ignorance. Hubris. Nothing else. Ditto The Jordan River. The Aswan Dam. The Yangtze Dam. And on and on.

So, what strategic R&D/industries could Ireland develop around Water? How could that expertise become a profitable and sustainable niche knowledge industry to export to emerging economies? In all the new housing development in Ireland water conservation and sustainability has been scrupulously mandated by Bertie and The State. Hasn‘t it? As part of Plan A? Oh, I see, that needs to be part of Plan B…… Never mind. Plenty of time to sort things out.

What can the modern Irish nation do that’s equivalent to what The Huarpe did in the Andes?

http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2008/01/06/creativity-is-the-way-forward

Round 2. Oil. Again – there is no shortage whatsoever. There is just waste. Greed and hubristic extravagance. Your S.U.V doesn’t impress me, you little corporate prison bitch. Hybrid fuel cars. Insulated roofspaces. It’s not rocket science. Double the efficiency of the boiler/car engine you immediately double the reserves available. We can put people on the Moon, I assure you human ingenuity can stretch fossil fuels for another 100 years. Those Canadian tar shales will become ‘economic’ when the waste is too profligate. Nuclear will be a no-go no-no once Osama manages to buy one of those Suitcase Nukes. And he will. He will.

Round 3. Food. Only Kings and Popes used to live on flesh meats every day of the week. The ‘peasants’ ate potatoes, pasta or polenta. Now you can pay £15 for such heritage retro-prole cuisine in fashionable London, Dublin and Brum restaurants, if you’re rich and gullible.

Ireland, surely, could become a Niche-to-Mass Purveyor of top quality food to European gourmands? But agricultural work is ‘unfashionable’ and planning a yield of scallions isn’t half as much fun as wearing Sunglasses in Sofia, getting a b/j whilst yakking on the mobile to sell Paddy Last some dump on ‘Sunny Beach‘.

http://www.sunny-beach.com/

If every Indian and Chinese family insists on a Big Mac or a supermarket Chicken Korma every night of the week, like their ‘wealthier’ Western counterparts, we are storing up all manner of catastrophes. It doesn’t take a huge brain to make the connection between Bird-Flu and 7 billion battery chickens in China and Thailand. Or does it?

In a week where the British Government is resorting to bribing it’s citizens into dieting (!) I find it hard to see shortages anywhere where there is a Functioning State and the Rule of Law.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article3238697.ece

Implicit in most of our thinking on these topics is the assumption that ‘We Are The Future’ in the same way that, as ’victors’: ‘We Were The Past’. There is no real reason to believe that Chinese and Indian culture and capitalism will remain in hock to The West. The answers may not come from The West. As one of the few Non-Imperialist nations of the historic West, I’d have thought Ireland was uniquely placed to build bridges between the old West and the new East. Maybe?

Let’s see what else I can demolish before teatime….How about Landfill as a ‘problem’? No: It’s not. It’s an opportunity on a unique scale. Within a few years, all the ‘wasted resources’ buried in toxic dumps will be re-harvested by technological marvels we would regard as science-fiction today. Just as the Ipod would have appeared to me when I was a child. Will Irish post-industrial ad-Venture Capital get there first? Or will it be Finland. Again. How much money is the Irish State allocating to Nanotechnology as part of ‘a big Plan B‘?

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

David says: “technologies which affect human health are bound to boom as people who are alive want to stay alive”? A really good name for a company starting up in this field might be ‘Tir-Na-Nog Inc’! The land of Eternal Youth? Will it be a pill, injection, or a face-pack? Answers on a post-card to the usual address.

“So brain power, research and development opportunities will also become more valuable.
Notwithstanding turbulence from the fallout of the paper economy, these are the areas that Ireland should focus on.”

In a few weeks I’ll get the opportunity to study The Irish ‘Movers and Shakers’ at Cheltenham. I’ll see if I can discern evidence of this sobriety and renaissance amidst the usual lake of piss, vomit and betting slips. I have a feeling the ‘craic’ will be even more deranged this year, as some continue to ‘party like it will always be 1999‘.

Sorry folks, the party is over. Someone just blew out the candles. Remember that Pledge Pin you used to wear inside your lapel on a Saturday night, only to show it off on Sunday morning? Well, Monsignor Mooney hasn’t been taken in one bit by your shenanigans.

Finally, it you don’t like this, do you think I give a rat’s ass? Just get David to ban my IP Address like everyone else does. I’ll easily find somewhere else to let off steam, vent my spleen. It’s my job. Didn’t you all get the memo?

Every sibilant syllable: Copyrighted. And so is the steam off my piss. AndrewGMooney. 11.09.1960. Brum. Eng-Eire-Land

Due to the crashing of humongous equity bubbles that were generated by the Fed’s abusive expansion of credit and the unprecedented spread of non-transparent structured-debt instruments we could see it triggering a round of hyperinflation which is already evident in soaring food, energy and health care costs. These prices are bound to increase substantially as the Fed continues to cut rates and further undermine the dollar.
But on the other side is the loss of market capitalization, the growing insolvency of maxed-out consumers, and the inability of the banks to freely extend credit to responsible loan applicants. These three things are likely to drag down all asset-classes, slow business activity to a crawl, and compel consumers to hoard rather than spend. i.e. deflation.

Sad to see most european politicians beliving our ecomonies are somehow decoupled from the US, as if this is only a US problem…….