Articles: International Economy %


January 11, 2012

This week, the column is going to focus on the one country that has been receiving thousands of young Irish people for the past three or four years, giving them a chance when there were none at home. The question I pose this week is: what will happen to Irish emigration to Australia when the Australian housing market goes bang? More

December 12, 2011

The deal signed last Friday is the beginning of the end of Europe as we know it. The shift is on from a family of nations, with checks and balances, to a German Europe where diktat triumphs over dialogue, and the interest of the strongest wipes the floor with the concerns of the weakest. Luckily for us, the deal looks unlikely to work because they haven’t been able to come up with enough money to prevent another bond crisis early next year, as more than €1 trillion of bonds in the eurozone come up for refinancing. More

August 8, 2011

You know the feeling when you get a text and have to look at it twice to make sure that what you are reading is what you just thought you read. More

August 1, 2011

One of the most fascinating pieces of news this week came from China. More

July 13, 2011

Irish Debt CrisisExactly three years ago this week, this column argued that this financial crisis might result in Ireland (and others) leaving the euro. The argument was not based on any ideological/political antipathy to the currency but on some basic economic analysis about how debt crises and associated recessions end. More

June 13, 2011

The other day, I watched a Few teenage kids knocking around my neck of the woods. More

June 6, 2011

If you are ever feeling a little rough and could do with banishing the lingering echoes of the night before, a shave by a barber is your only man. Last week, deep in the Caballito district of Buenos Aires, I put my life in the hands of an octogenarian barber in a fantastically antiquated snip-joint called La Epocha. More

June 1, 2011

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I remember it so distinctly. Mum allowed me to stay up to watch it even though it was a school night and it meant going to bed after midnight. More

May 30, 2011

Is the European Central Bank (ECB) Europe’s AIG?  More

May 23, 2011

Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s economic philosophy suited Ireland’s situation, so his departure is not good news for us More

Articles: International Economy

I write two economics columns every week. They keep me sane and hopefully, on my toes – but you can be the judge of that! One appears in the Irish Independent on Wednesdays and the other in the Sunday Business Post every Sunday. I’ve been writing the columns for over ten years now, covering economic, financial, demographic, social and geo-political issues – and all sorts of other things that come into my head, sparked by things I’ve read, people I have spoken to or ideas I have heard, over the course of any particular week.

The world - and Ireland - is changing so rapidly that it’s impossible to run out of things to write about. Since I rarely stop writing, the articles are composed and written in the oddest of places, in bars, on trains, in my office, on buses. You name it, I’ve written in, on or under it.

One of the great joys in the week is reading the responses to my articles in the comments on this site. Thanks so much to everyone who responds, challenges, argues and even blatantly insults! This is what freedom of expression and opinion is all about: two contrasting opinions – a buyer and a seller - make a market and makes for good discussion. Imagine a world where we all agreed?

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