EU has hit self-destruct button as world moves on
February 1, 2012
You can do worse than sit on a Tuesday afternoon in a little cafe about 20 yards from the Coliseum and watch five Chinese tourists getting their photos taken with three chain-smoking Italians dressed up as Roman gladiators. There is something poignant about looking at the Italians in the epicentre of the greatest empire Europe…
Private debt so enormous that default is only option
January 25, 2012
When all the people you read every week for information are talking about the same report, you know that you should read it. From Paul Krugman on the left to John Mauldin on the right, some of my favourite reads of the week are citing a McKinsey Consulting report on global debt. Reading through it,…
Expect house prices to hit the bottom next year
January 18, 2012
In July 2008, just as the falls in property prices were beginning to be really felt, this column threw up a chart of what had happened to the property market in Japan. It suggested that we would follow the Japanese path. Up to then, many people felt that the market would stabilise or lose maybe…
Tremors from Australia’s crash will reach our shores
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…
Marie Antoinette’s notion wasn’t all that half-baked
January 4, 2012
Happy New Year and I sincerely hope it is a good one — for all of us. Around this time it is customary for economists to write about what the new year might hold, as if a collective new year’s resolution can have an impact on the economic or business cycle. The economy doesn’t work…
Leaving the euro may be our least extreme option
December 28, 2011
In the year ahead, the exchange rate question will rarely be far from the headlines. If we are to have a referendum — which, according to the Finance Minister, will be a vote on whether we are in or out of the euro — we should get our heads around what the exchange rate does,…
Our children won’t be able to pay cost of our debt folly
December 21, 2011
If any country embodies the notion that demographics are destiny, it is Israel. So it seems appropriate to be writing about how demographics will shape the world in the next few years from a small terrace overlooking Deizengoff Street in central Tel Aviv. The street is teeming with life, the liberal, tolerant life that has…
If our future is in Europe, we have to talk the talk
December 14, 2011
On Monday at a breakfast meeting, I spoke to a group of students who were just finishing the masters in marketing from the Michael Smurfit School of Business at UCD. The meeting was sponsored by ESB or, as it is soon to be known, Electricity Ireland. The students were optimistic about the future, confident and…
Budget a mere sideshow to Merkozy’s grand plan
December 7, 2011
In the past 24 hours, three dramatic developments have taken place, each of which will have a profound effect on your life in the next few years. Although all three are related, it is not quite clear which one will be most significant. First, of course, is our own Budget. It has been well flagged,…
Small savers will pay price if euro goes into meltdown
November 30, 2011
This crisis is likely to culminate with capital controls re-imposed in Ireland, following a Europe-wide run on the banks. This bank run will be an accelerated and panicked version of what is already happening right now. Money is likely to leave all the major banks of the eurozone with the exception of German banks. This…
February 2, 2012
February 6, 2012
January 30, 2012
January 26, 2012
January 4, 2012
