Archive for April, 2008

Building more roads in response to congestion is the economic equivalent of telling an obese man to buy bigger trousers

Who will be the last man to use the last drop of oil in his car?

The news this week that the Polish government has launched an international campaign to bring its talented people home should come as no surprise.

Those familiar with the IDA’s successful effort to bring Intel here will know that one of the swing factors was our ability to bring home skilled graduates who had left in the 1980s recession.

In the past few days, football and economics have dominated the front and back pages of our newspapers. On the economic front, the talk has been about just how bad things might become in terms of the housing market, credit crunch and outsourcing.

On a price-to-earnings basis, how much is your house really worth?

The other day – when farmers were marching on the Dáil – a friend asked where the bottom of the Irish housing market might be. He was one of the lucky ones who never got involved in the house mania, but he was interested because he couldn’t reconcile the farmers’ poor mouth with the fact that agricultural land prices had been rising for years.

‘Men don’t pay prostitutes for sex, they pay them to go away” However distasteful this joke, it captures an extreme version of the phenomenon that could be described as post-coital comedown. Men, who moments earlier were in a state of delirious arousal, where they would have done, said and promised anything can become, after sex, certainly sleepy, sometimes distant and even hostile.

We need world class talent if our economy is to lead the world.

I’ve always wondered what Alex Ferguson says to his players at half-time. How does he size up the opposition and not only tactically read the contest, but also generate the right balance between the passionate and the clinical in his players, so that they don’t just win, but they control the game.

Yesterday, housing starts fell by 70pc compared to the same month last year. This is the biggest annual decline on record. Other data provided by the website Daft.ie showed that house prices fell in South Dublin by 6pc in the first quarter. This suggests a possible 24pc annualised fall for Ireland’s most expensive area.

The major risk now for Brian Cowen is that, like the Tories after Thatcher, the Fianna Fáil party after Ahern might lose the image of being sound on the economy.

As An Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, prepares for his departure from office in May, we dug into the archives to find an interview with David and Bertie from May 2002, 2 days after the general election, as it became apparent that the outgoing government would be returned.

Click link to view

The other day, a friend called by and poured his heart out. He had just had a net worth statement assessed by the bank and was faced with the realisation that not only was he no longer rich, but he was flirting with bankruptcy.