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June 30th, 2008
Time for the banks to cut ties with their builder mates
The longer the banks go on protecting their developer clients, the bigger their problems are eventually going to be.
The Irish banking system is facing meltdown. The choice for the banks is now simple: they allow one of the big developers to go under or they risk going under themselves.
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June 25th, 2008
Don’t panic! Smart tactics will get us back on our feet
Don’t panic! The worst thing we can do when faced with an economic slump is to lose the head. Yes, the economy is moving into recession — but this has been known for a while. Anyone who cared to listen to a taxi-driver, let alone look at the hard numbers, has been concerned for a few months now. We are where we are, and now it’s time to formulate a plan to get the economy moving again, so that a serious situation does not become a crisis.
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June 22nd, 2008
Bumpy ride on a bad debt cycle
The Central Bank must move, as the Fed did in the US, to prop up Irish banks before a major catastrophe.
Ireland is now going into the early stages of a classic bad debt cycle. While many are still talking about the credit crunch, the crunch is only a mild forerunner of the greater challenge.
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June 18th, 2008
Look what we have done for ordinary Europeans
What makes a good European country? According to many of our European neighbours — specifically the French and Germans — Ireland post-Lisbon, can’t be regarded as a good member of the EU club because we are ungrateful and unpredictable.
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June 16th, 2008
David on the Panel live
David will be appearing on The Panel Live at Ireland’s National Event Centre (INEC), Killarney on 24th June. Box office (064 71555) or email info@inec.ie. Book now. Price €25. The line up includes Colin Murphy, Neil Delamere, Andrew Maxwell, Ian Coppinger and Mairead Farrell.
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June 15th, 2008
Lisbon defeat highlights need for fresh thinking
The people who lost the referendum are the same people who have to steer Ireland through the economic downturn. Will they make a mess of that too?
The Lisbon Treaty campaign was characterised by a deep political void between the establishment and the people.
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June 11th, 2008
Why ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ voters are in a class of their own
Is the debate on the Lisbon Treaty coming down to class? Is the overwhelming bourgeois accent of the ‘Yes’ vote an election issue? In an era when many considered class politics to be more or less over, the social breakdown in the polls is fascinating.
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June 9th, 2008
New EU dawn rising in the east
There is something irrepressibly German about Bryan Adams’ power ballads. Every taxi in Berlin seems to be permanently tuned into either the Canadian’s particularly pedestrian back catalogue or, worse still, Dancin’ On The Ceiling by Lionel Richie – a track so awful that even Lite FM was ashamed to play it.
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June 4th, 2008
Vultures will be circling over our banking disaster
The idea that yesterday’s collapse in Irish banking shares comes as a shock to the markets is nonsense. Anyone with a basic knowledge of how economies work should understand that banks get hammered when housing markets go into reverse.
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June 2nd, 2008
Financial fear replaces greed
When financial booms are followed by busts, there are usually distinct developments.
The other day, a stockbroker told me that, in the last month, it is as if ‘‘someone has pushed the accelerator button on the downturn’’. He was trying to sum up the feeling in the financial community as the economic data – which the ‘‘economic fundamentalists’’ who cheerleaded the boom were telling us was robust – turned out to be marshmallow soft.
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