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Article Archives
David has been running this website for over 18 years and there are plenty of articles covering some of the most turbulent times in the world economy.
Below is a year by year list of Davids’s articles.
ARCHIVES 2016
Italy is gradually going out of business
A few weeks ago, I stayed in the Grand Hotel in Rimini. This place has real significance for Italian movie lovers because this was the base camp for the brilliant Italian director Federico Fellini. Not only did Fellini use the Grand Hotel in Rimini as his set, but he...
read moreIt is almost certain that there will be another euro crisis in 2017
It is almost certain that there will be another euro crisis in 2017. The last time we had a euro crisis, the focus of attention was Greece; today the vortex is Italy. Italy is not Greece. Italy is the third-largest economy in the Eurozone. Italy is the second-largest...
read moreAnother battle between insiders and outsiders
Today, Italy votes on a referendum that will change the course of not just Italy but the entire EU. While we gripe about water charges, bogged down by our own incompetence, the world around us is changing dramatically. These changes will have enormous ramifications...
read more‘Ireland may quit EU,’ says Farage — and only a fool would dismiss him
I love the word 'bedlam', meaning insane or totally out of control. It comes from the Royal St Mary Bethlehem Hospital in Bishopsgate, London. The Royal Bethlehem was an asylum dating back to the 15th century where poor creatures suffering from seizures and other...
read moreMortgage rule change is a Pyrrhic victory for first-time buyers
Let’s be clear, when housing supply is stuck, any increase to housing demand will produce higher prices. The Central Bank understands this logic and this is why it relaxed deposit rules last week. The deposit rules were relaxed in order for prices to rise, in order to...
read moreARCHIVES 2015
Ireland may yet warm to climate change
“If the Dutch lived in Ireland, they’d feed the world; if the Irish lived in Holland, they’d drown.” Have you heard this one? How true is it? What is wrong with this country? Every time there is a short, sharp spell of rain, the place fills up to the brim and then...
read moreWhy the European establishment is cannibalising the European establishment
In Europe over the past few days, two seismic events have happened which are related but at first glance appear not to be. First, Mario Draghi, the Italian man who, as president of the ECB, controls your money, said that he would keep printing cash for as long at it...
read morePersuasion is the name of the game
The Other Voices festival in Dingle is a simple but brilliant microcosm of our unique selling points as a nation This Krzysztof exuded a calm, efficient sense of authority. He radiated with the type of firm confidence given off by those who know what they are doing...
read moreHow the Iron Lady drew up the original blueprint for a Brexit
As a 21-year-old student, I stood in the Great Hall, Bruges, in September of 1988. I was at university there. Along with 10 other Irish students, I was a postgraduate at the College of Europe. The College of Europe is the West Point or Sandhurst of the EU. It is...
read moreSwap tax take for real skin in the game
There is something giant stirring in the corporate world. The company that makes Viagra has just got into bed with the company that makes fake boobs and Botox, coming together in one of the biggest corporate deals ever. Dublin will be its headquarters. Not only does...
read moreARCHIVES 2014
Everything is much bigger in rugby nowadays – and that includes the money available
My darkest memory of schoolboy rugby is being isolated, petrified, deep in my own 22', waiting for a massive "up and under" to come down in the first minute of the schools' cup final in Lansdowne Road. I sensed the Terenure pack coming up at me like a thundering herd,...
read moreOpportunity knocks, but will we take it?
Forty years ago this weekend, at the Geneva peace conference between the Arabs and the Israelis, the Israeli foreign minister and one-time Belfast resident, Abba Eban, declared of the Palestinian negotiators that “they never miss an opportunity to miss an...
read moreHomeless problem could be alleviated by action from wealthy people of vision
When my Granny, a Cork publican, was trying to clear the bar at closing time, she'd roar at the lonely, half-cut farmers who were slow to drink up: "Have you no homes to go to?" Of course, they did have homes, they just didn't want to go home. They were bachelors,...
read moreJoyeux Noël – from Russia with love
Under the watchful eye of Maurice de Sully, bishop of Paris, the first stones of Notre Dame cathedral were laid in 1136. In the medieval ages, no city could proclaim itself a truly great urban centre without a cathedral. Paris had none. How could a city with...
read moreWhen it comes to cars most of us are in the business of preening like peacocks
The other morning in a suburban car park my son and his cousin saw a Lotus. They squealed and ogled at the thing. As someone who has no real interest in cars, this behaviour came as a bit of a surprise but it got me thinking about why we buy certain things. What might...
read moreARCHIVES 2013
Bureaucratic Ireland versus Business Ireland – two very different stories
This week we are going to talk about two Irelands, business Ireland and bureaucratic Ireland. They were both evident this week and both view the world from very different angles. I'm sitting in the wonderful Urban Picnic cafe in Georges Street Arcade in central...
read moreBailout Exit. If goody goody Ireland is the model student, how come bad boy Greece is the star performer?
On May 1, 2003, President George Bush stood on the bridge of the USS Abraham Lincoln. Behind him a massive banner was unfurled, which read "Mission Accomplished". The president declared success in Iraq and assured the American people that the victory was his, Saddam...
read moreHis pragmatism was the key to building a new South Africa
In 2001, I was lucky enough to work briefly in Johannesburg for a large South African advertising agency. The project was a government-sponsored initiative on how to re-brand the new South Africa and how to position the economy. For the first few years post-apartheid,...
read moreCNN Interview. Ireland: Beyond the bailout
Here I am on CNN this morning comparing George Bush's infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech with the week's backslapping about exiting the bailout in Ireland.
read moreHow We Spend “The Christmas”
This weekend, publicans braced themselves for the beginning of what is idiosyncratically known in Ireland as “the Christmas’’. “The Christmas’’ is not just a celebratory event which falls on one day, as it is in most of the rest of the world. That would be far too...
read moreARCHIVES 2012
Bureaucratic Ireland versus Business Ireland – two very different stories
This week we are going to talk about two Irelands, business Ireland and bureaucratic Ireland. They were both evident this week and both view the world from very different angles. I'm sitting in the wonderful Urban Picnic cafe in Georges Street Arcade in central...
read moreBailout Exit. If goody goody Ireland is the model student, how come bad boy Greece is the star performer?
On May 1, 2003, President George Bush stood on the bridge of the USS Abraham Lincoln. Behind him a massive banner was unfurled, which read "Mission Accomplished". The president declared success in Iraq and assured the American people that the victory was his, Saddam...
read moreHis pragmatism was the key to building a new South Africa
In 2001, I was lucky enough to work briefly in Johannesburg for a large South African advertising agency. The project was a government-sponsored initiative on how to re-brand the new South Africa and how to position the economy. For the first few years post-apartheid,...
read moreCNN Interview. Ireland: Beyond the bailout
Here I am on CNN this morning comparing George Bush's infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech with the week's backslapping about exiting the bailout in Ireland.
read moreHow We Spend “The Christmas”
This weekend, publicans braced themselves for the beginning of what is idiosyncratically known in Ireland as “the Christmas’’. “The Christmas’’ is not just a celebratory event which falls on one day, as it is in most of the rest of the world. That would be far too...
read moreARCHIVES 2011
Phantom FM Top 5 Albums
On a lighter note, John Caddell of Phantom FM was foolish enough to invite an economist in to DJ the other day - we had a great chat and lots of fun. Listen here.
read moreBringing it all back home
Have you heard of the newest trend sweeping through corporate America? After nearly three decades of worshipping at the altar of “outsourcing” - moving production out of the United States attracted by lower wages and lower taxes in the foreign companies - American...
read moreCorporation tax sleight of hand will turn us into world pariahs
Can a reasonably well-behaved country with few, if any, enemies, become an international pariah? Can a country that has pursued neutrality, contributed much to the UN and taken diplomatic political correctness to asphyxiating heights, come crashing down and become...
read moreEU Presidency provides a great opportunity for us
Driving past the RDS last week, as the city played host to bigwig foreign ministers, gave me a feel of what Dublin is going to look like for the next six months. The place was, to use the new terminology, 'locked down', as is now necessary when someone as important as...
read moreBudget is yet another botched job from our impotent Government
JK Galbraith, the great American economist, said that the key job of a leader was to "understand the anxieties of the people, and do something to ease these anxieties". The Budget is an opportunity to set out the stall of any leadership, to articulate a coherent...
read moreARCHIVES 2010
Time to play the Brady hunch
Last week, we had the tale of two countries. One country, Iceland, apparently did ‘everything wrong’ by defaulting on its bank debt and increasing government spending as the people of Iceland saved. Iceland told the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to back off until...
read moreFF’s parting gift of corporate welfare will sink the country
A farmer told me he had just taken €53,000 out of the local bank and put it under his bed YESTERDAY was the feast of the Immaculate Conception. In many other Catholic countries, particularly in Belgium and southern Holland, this is also the week that Santa comes and...
read moreFarmers could have saved us
The men bidding at the Ennis mart would have negotiated a better deal with the IMF and ECB than our inept bureaucrats did Last Thursday morning in the freezing cold, the temperature in Ennis mart was rising. The age-old ritual of buying and selling cattle was in full...
read moreBailout will sink Ireland before we can even swim
Foreign banks and creditors should lose everything they gambled on the likes of Anglo, but instead, they have been saved by the taxpayer Make no mistake about it, this 'bailout' will sink Ireland. We are witnessing a monumental struggle between the innocent average...
read moreTime to play the ECB card
Our government, with its New best friends the EU and IMF, has considered finally crossing the Rubicon and announcing burden-sharing for senior bondholders of the banks. The fact that this should come as news to anyone amazes me. We don’t have the money to pay them so...
read moreARCHIVES 2009
Let’s grab this golden chance
If I had the ear of finance minister Brian Lenihan, I’d be telling him not to look a gift horse in the mouth. The British government has this week handed Ireland a gilt-edged opportunity to kick-start the battered IFSC and, with it, the fortunes of thousands of young Irish graduates and workers.
read moreMinister and his mandarins forecast neither boom nor bust…so why trust them now?
This Budget is unfortunately without any real merit, apart from the national recovery bond idea which is interesting and shows an ability to think logically about where we are at this stage.
read morePlanet’s polluters are moral equivalent of slave traders
IN 1784, Matthew Carey, a young man who flirted with the United Irishmen, decided like many republicans at the time to emigrate to the USA and, more importantly, to the hub of American intellectualism, Philadelphia. Fuelled by ideas of solidarity, equality and human rights, Carey hung around taverns and meeting houses, giving talks and listening to others espousing the fundamental rights of man. Like many others he became a pamphleteer, writing short essays on the rights and wrongs of the world as he saw it.
read moreStuck in an economic cul-de-sac
Will 2010 be worse than 2009 for Ireland? Most mainstream economists believe that the economy will stabilise next year, and I hope they are right. But there are many reasons to be worried.
read moreWe need to tap talent like John Gray in floods crisis
Have you ever bothered to look at the statues on O’Connell Street? There are the obvious ones of Larkin, O’Connell and, of course, Parnell, but there is also one statue of a character called John Gray. Leopold Bloom in ‘Ulysses’ walked past the statue of John Gray and was equally flummoxed, asking who was yer man? It is interesting that Bloom — a man obsessed throughout ‘Ulysses’ by water — could have been so ignorant about the man who made Dublin’s taps gush with fresh pressurised water.
read moreARCHIVES 2008
Brace yourself now for the Deckland Depression
It was a mirage fabricated by other people’s money. There was no miracle; it was an overdraft
read moreHarsh lessons of economic history
Admittedly, looking out towards the horizon of the Indian Ocean from the volcanic heights of the French island of La Reunion is not the worst place to be writing about any economic crisis
read moreWhy O’Leary would be a fine catch for Aer Lingus
She must have got it from her mother, who in turn got it from her mother, otherwise, she’d never have delivered the immortal lines with such certainty. When my mother pronounced, as she did on numerous occasions, the favourite put-down of the Irish Mammy, “she’s far too good for him, you know”, it seemed she was saying something so self-evidently obvious that it couldn’t be challenged.
read moreBanking on future growth
The sight of Ireland’s top bankers traipsing in to meet finance minister Brian Lenihan last Friday with their lawyers in tow indicates just how far we have come since the chest-thumping of a few weeks back, when the bankers said that they could go it alone.
read moreNationalise the banks but don’t feed them to vultures
Although I never thought I would say so, it would be preferable for us to nationalise our banking system than to allow a private equity consortium to own and control our major banks.
read moreARCHIVES 2007
So what did Cowen do as the storms grew and we looked to him for courage? He bottled it
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.
read moreGlobal forces take command
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’’.
read moreState’s lack of respect for services affects us all
It is funny how odd bits of relatively useless information that you learned in school sneak up on you. Somewhere in the back of our brains is a skip for stuff we crammed in at some stage. Every now and then some of it re-emerges. For example, last Friday night, Archimedes’ principle elbowed its way through the crowd to take an unwanted cameo role in my consciousness.
read moreBack to basics for Ireland Inc
After the property gold rush, it’s now time for us to focus on small businesses in areas that make sense for the country’s economy.
The biggest lie doing the rounds here in the past few days – peddled by the same stockbrokers, estate agents, journalists and banks who told you that there would be a ‘‘soft landing’’ in the Irish property market – is that the collapse in Irish shares is merely a symptom of a greater global malaise. This is not true.
read moreCowen’s crocodile tears blurring economic vision
Anyone who doubted the severity of the property slump here only has to look at the shares of the Irish banks. Last night, they were all touching new lows.
read moreARCHIVES 2006
3rd Anniversary Show – Ireland in 2016: The Pope’s Revenge
Thursday December 14th @ 9pm
CrawDaddy, Harcourt Street, Dublin 2.
Special reduced anniversary ticket price €15 + booking fee
NY is our new Lourdes as we shop til we drop in Big Apple
Linda is a shopping planner. Yes, you heard right – a shopping planner. Not only does she organise tours of the great shopping Mecca that is New York City, she organises limos, special spa, nail and wax treatments and books restaurants after a hard day’s spending in the Big Apple.
read moreCaught between two powers
The dollar appears eventually to be going the way every economist has been predicting for the past ten years: downwards. How far it will go is anyone’s guess, but it will have ramifications. What does it mean for us, the most American-dependent country in Europe? And what does it mean for global economic relations?
read moreHere’s to a place where the classes really do mix
Where is the last place in Ireland where all the classes mix? With the increasing hierarchies in the education system, the health system and sports facilities, where can you see the full social mix?
read moreOur future is not in the EU alone
Are we coming to the end of an era? Will the world’s economic geography shift dramatically in the next 20 years? What if the action does, in fact, shift to Asia?
For the past 50 years, the North Atlantic has been the place to be. This was the epicentre of the known world. Ireland has been ideally placed between the United States and Europe – the world’s economic superpowers.
read moreARCHIVES 2005
The weddingometer guide to the Irish economy
Last week, Minister for Social and Family Affairs Seamus Brennan was in Britain advising some of the 30,000 Irish emigrants who are set to return this year to expect a different country.
read moreIreland can learn lessons from fires in France
Credit drives people out of the cities
Last week’s three big news events underscored again the rise and rise of suburban Ireland. The mooted sale of Eircom, the Transport 21 initiative and the government’s burgeoning budget surplus are all directly related to the way we live, commute and organise our days.
read moreBanks are drowning us in debt
This Tuesday, the Central Bank will publish what is probably its most important report this year. The bank will unveil its financial stability report on Irish banks. It will assess whether the banks have been prudent in their lending over the course of the past year and whether there is any evidence of risk to the system.
read moreProtestant schools are bursting at the seams
Our local Protestant national school has a demand problem. It is too popular. The same issue is facing many Protestant national schools in Dublin and, most likely, all over the country. Not only has the last few years seen an increase in the Protestant population, but there are many Catholic parents enrolling their children in Protestant schools.
read moreARCHIVES 2004
Gold in them there streets
The demise of Bewley’s illustrates the influence that land is having on business culture in Ireland.
read moreBush, friend of the poor
Did you know that George W Bush won the eleven poorest states in the 2000 election, while Al Gore took the five most affluent? Could it be that the Republicans are actually the party of the poor in the US, while the Democratic Party is the natural home of the upper middle classes? If that proves to be the case in 2004, why do we in Ireland always plump for the Democratic candidate on the basis that he represents the interest of the downtrodden? If the Republican bloke is actually the man of the people, will we see Irish people, particularly those on the left wing who have traditionally supported the Democrats, changing sides?
read moreRipping off the punter
Next week thousands of people will have to square up with the Revenue as the tax deadline for the self-employed looms.
read moreArab world seeks past glory
Among all the many splendours of Andalucia, the finest has to be the Alhambra in Granada. Sultan Muhammad V built the palace in 1350, when the Islamic state in southern Spain was at its height.
read moreRetiring to Florida may prove a stormy choice
Last night, 35,000 Irish fans invaded Paris. The last time 30,000 Paddies travelled en masse to watch the boys in green was to Florida for the final, disastrous Dutch game of USA ’94.
read moreARCHIVES 2003
Europe’s dearest country with the worst childcare provision
It is 6pm on Wednesday. It is lashing rain and dark
read moreA firm grip on all our lives
The Merchant of Venice stood nervously on the Rialto Bridge, hoping to catch a glimpse of his ships returning to Venice.
read moreThose other Irish-Americans
Pedro had a mop that his compatriot, Carlos Valderrama, would have been proud of
read moreDawn of the Spar generation brings a convenient way of life
My cousin Cathal runs the Spar with my Auntie Dettie in Ballyvourney in deepest west Cork
read moreResponse to Hanly Report
Dr Christine O’Malley, Chairman of the IMO Consultant Committee and Independent TD Dr. Liam Twomey argue against the proposed health reform. [audio:hanly.mp3]
read moreARCHIVES 2002
Getting the supply chain right is the safest way to survival
Apart from the past couple of days, the weather has been marvellous.
read moreIn the banks’ global recycling game the poor lose every time
What have Yasser Arafat, the Palestinians, Israel, oil-producing Arab states, Citibank, Bob Geldof and Bono got in common?
read moreMitteleuropa regains its place
Have you ever noticed how maps fascinate people? They captivate us
read moreUnderwhelming Yes is best hope
The main economic debate rests on four immediate issues: trade, tax, investment and immigration
read moreCredit reaches its expiry date
Further south in Argentina, state governance has ground to a halt, and people are organising into small local communes not unlike those workers’ co-operatives seen on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War
read moreARCHIVES 2001
Borrowing bubble about to burst
When I was a kid there were only three types of football fans where we lived: Leeds fans, Man U fans and Liverpool fans. Okay, so there were a couple of Chelsea and Gunners supporters, but they were only mid-table FA cup teams and really didn’t matter.
read moreWest should declare war on IMF
While cloaking itself in the language of economics, it is in fact anti-economic, anti-modern and regressive. Some would go so far as to suggest that economic fundamentalism seeks to reverse all the gains made by the profession since the great depression.
read moreArabs created own Dark Age
Among all the many splendours of Andalusia, the finest has to be the Alhambra in Granada. Sultan Muhammad V built the palace in 1350 when the Islamic state in Southern Spain was at its height.
read moreDon’t pay twice for Aer Lingus
Clifden, founded in 1812 by Hyacinth D’Arcy, was a relatively quiet place until 1919 when John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Browne completed the first successful crossing from North America to Europe by crash-landing their aircraft in Roundstone bog outside
read moreBad times bring profits too
In June 1940, the German army with no numerical advantage knocked out the entire French military and their British allies. France, which had been regarded as a major military power for three centuries, rolled over and capitulated in less than six weeks.
read moreARCHIVES 2000
Bidding for Eircom without looking under the bonnet
“Pristine condition, 12,000 miles, one elderly lady owner, garaged all winter, a must view for quick sale”. Yeah right, one owner, elderly lady, where have I heard that before?
read moreDepressing news about the Republicans
Modern history confirms that the United States suffers a recession within two years of voting in a new Republican President. Although the pedigree stretches back as far as Richard Nixon in 1969, this became more evident from Reagan onwards.
read moreIreland looks like Japan before the bubble burst
Can a highly competitive economy with record export growth and growing international market share go into a slump? It certainly can. Japan is now in its tenth year of economic stagnation, banks are still filing for bankruptcy and, throughout the economy, bad debts continue to rise.
read moreGlobal wealth disappears down the glughole
What a week! Shares in Motorola, the world’s second largest mobile phone manufacturer, down 15 per cent. Shares in Yahoo!, the world’s largest internet portal, fell 17.5 per cent. Lucent Technologies, the world’s largest telecommunications equipment producer, down 31 per cent.
read moreForeign sanctions are a gift to wily dictators
Over the coming days we will hear the very people who ordered the bombing of Serbia last year spin us yarns about why sanctions were instrumental in bringing down Slobodan Milosevic. When an event of this magnitude happens everyone wants to be a part of it and the EU will talk up the impact of sanctions until it’s all blue in the face.
read more