http://www.gavinsblog.com/2009/10/01/sean-fitzpatricks-loans/

Just a minor correction:
>>Dermot Desmon …now apparently sees a future in sandwiches (via the takeover of O’Brien’s, no relation)

Wrong Desmond. That’s Denis Desmond.

At first, I was thinking how is Dennis making money from Nama.
Then I thought he could just be protecting the interests of his boys club i.e. protecting Bond holders/internaional investors like Garreth Fitzgerald has been doing. I still think it could be the latter but their is another possibility.

This site and others like it, are a form of independent media.
It is a form of media that is not under the control of media Mogels.

If people start getting their information from independent sources then things happen that Denis doesnt like.
1. His print radio and TV media loose market share to online media.
2. He looses the power of being able to influence a growing area where people get their information.
3. It promotes the idea that getting your news doesnt have to be accompanied by advertising.

I think Denis is meerly trying to discredit people wh give opinions away for free so that people will go back to only uses opinions that they are prepared to pay for and can be filtered by himself and other media heavyweights when the nessesity arises.

It is a bit like People getting their news from democracynow.org, because it is not paid for by advertising from the bussiness world, it doesnt have to see the world through big business tinted windows.

He is trying to discredit your opinions because he doesnt like that you give them away for free and that he cant get you sensored when you say things that dont match his agenda.

this whole “DOB is a tax exile and so has no right to say anything” line is bizarre. You can question some of his alleged ethics or what he actually said, but not his right to say it. Tackling the man and not the ball, as some people here are fond of saying.

(a) Dermot Desmond is a tax exile. When he came up with some good ideas for a NAMA alternative im pretty a lot of people sat up and listened to them. Joe Stiglitz has probably never paid a dime in Irish taxes in his life, but plenty of people thought he had something interesting to say on Irish public policy.

(b) DOB is a tax exile in a personal capacity, but has plenty of investment here, creates and maintains plenty of employent in this country, and pays millions in business-related taxes. I’d also note he gives an awful lot to charitable or philanthropic activities here.

(c) your personal attack on Sarah Carey is foolish, misconceived and utteraly ignorant of what she actually said. Tackling the woman this time and not the ball.

“Then, the INTERNATIONAL financial crisis broke loose. This turned what may have been a soft landing into a very hard one indeed.”

I have to agree with Zhou on this one. The problem in sub-prime were plain for everyone to see from August 2007 onwards and to a lot of smart economists at least a year before that. granted the ESRI could not predict that Lehman would be let go in such a disorganized fashion causing a massive crunch but it is not an adequate response for economists to say that the “INTERNATIONAL financial crisis broke loose”.

The ESRI is still living in denial if what the irish Times reports is accurate. The latest quarterly report says that house prices were over-valued by one-third in 2007 based on economic fundamentals. Just one-third? They’ve got to be smoking something strong to say that now after all that has happened.

It was a TCD economist who thought up the FF 1977 manifesto.

@Brian Lucey

Good questions. I don’t know the answers. Maybe one of our economists could conduct some research into the quality of economic forecasting in Ireland. And, for good measure, add a section on how much the bad forecasts have cost the economy.

Anyone who is a tax exile loses their right to preach economic policy and public expenditure.

And, as for Sarah Carey defending the tax exile (in a round-about ‘I am not really’ kind of way). Well, given that she thinks there is no wealth to be taxed in Ireland, and that Ireland has high levels of social protection expenditure, who can be surprised.

“The ESRI did not foresee that the correction to the home-made problems would coincide with a major international recession.”

“Then, the INTERNATIONAL financial crisis broke loose. This turned what may have been a soft landing into a very hard one indeed.”

As a matter of interest, can you give any kind of indication as to how the ESRI investigates international economic factors and possible disruptions? Does the ESRI second guess the conclusions reached by US government bodies, the IMF and so forth? If we are a small open economy by design then our ability to foretell and anticipate global disruptions and global opportunities must be as important as our ability to analyse our domestic economy. One would hope that we have developed significant expertise in that regard.

Perhaps Lehmans was unlikely, and perhaps a general financial crisis was unlikely (although I was told in 2004 by a guy who was buying silver bars that derivatives were false and would collapse the system). Nevertheless, we know that these events have had devastating effects for Ireland when combined with domestic problems. This makes clear that domestic policy should take account of possible disruptions in international trade and economy to ensure that domestic policies do not amplify any external shock waves.

Second I regard the criticisms as evidence that economists have done their jobs…. told some uncomfortable truths..in reasonably plain language..the truth as they see it…

which thanks to the internet will be online and immediately available for comparison no matter how it turns out… Wouldnt it be interesting to see the thoughts of economists et al in the run up to FF’s 1977 manifesto?

In reponse to my criticism that the forecasting record of Irish economists is very poor, your defence is not that I’m wrong and that its actually very good, but rather that all economists should not be tarred with that brush because the vast majority of them have far better things to do with their time than to make economic forecasts. Very well, I accept that, and I humbly apologise to the economics profession. It doesn’t alter the fact that the forecasting record of those Irish economists who do make economic forecasts is very poor (as illustrated by the examples I gave above). What’s more, in many cases our taxes pay for those very poor forecasts.

@Michael Hennigan, Sarah Carey, and others too numerous to mention

Do you think that constantly implying that the Irish people are mentally deficient because they have repeatedly elected Fianna Fail Governments in recent decades (a theme repeated ad nauseum by the Dublin 4 media set) might be one of the reasons why the Irish people have repeatedly elected Fianna Fail Governments in recent decades?

In fact, Fianna Fail’s electoral success in recent decades is wholly rational. Since 1986, economic growth in Ireland has averaged 6 per cent per annum. If any other country had achieved that, they’d have been repeatedly electing the same government to power. Of course, it can be argued, and I’d probably agree, that Fianna Fail were just lucky in coming to power in 1987, and that the growth since then would have still have happened, even if there had been a Fine Gael/Labour government since then. But, electorates in most democratic countries generally aren’t concerned with luck and tend to re-elect governments who are in power when economic growth is strong.

Its more than likely that the next election will see a Fine Gael/Labour government coming to power (by a landslide if its held in 2010, by a much smaller majority if its held in 2012). I’m sure that Fianna Fail, and their one or two supporters in the media, will not then spend the subsequent few years implying that the Irish people are mentally deficient for doing so.

How can there be any serious accountability when
1) the Government completely dominates the legislature eg. the Taoiseach, Tánaiste and Minister for Finance must be members of the Dáil (Constitution Art 28.7.1);
2) Government Departments are “corporations sole” ie. the civil servants are extensions of the Minister?

As one observer put it, “when you talk to Ministers they blame the civil servants and when you talk to civil servants, they blame the Ministers”

Or as Montesquieu, a pre-revolutinary French thinker, put it
“When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, there can be no liberty”

If Irish banks had issued more securitisations they be in a much better position. Instead they relied on interbank loans which left the risk on their balance sheets.

I do agree more generally with your point on private sector credit growth.

“I agree 100% with DoB on the Moriarty tribunal, barristers on 000s per day for 10 years, the climax of the investigation being enquiring how many times a day Bertie ventured into the bedroom in that house in Drumcondra! Well I suppose it has some entertainment value but it could only happen in Ireland!”

Methinks you mix up tribunals here

De Bert was up before the Mahon (Flood) Tribunal of Inquiry into Certain Planning Matters and Payments.

Infacta

DOB was up before Moriarty Tribunal Into Payments to Politicians and Related Matters.

nuff tribunal stuff !!

The political system does allow for accountability - the problem is that through the democratic system the people don’t enforce that accountability - i.e. they could choose not to re-elect governments whose policies have inevitably brought us to the point we’re now at. Why would FnFers resign over failures when they are guaranteed re-election despite them? So your argument is not with the system, but with the people within that system (both in the Dail and at the ballot box). Arguing that the people make bad choices is quite a different matter from arguing about the system itself and the fact is that systemically, there is no accountability for the public servants.

Let’s not start arguing about the Tribunal here. So off topic.

moriartytribunal.com

And I thought he didn’t like blogs and such.

He generously offers the advice,

“You’re paying for it- start judging for yourself!”

I’d be delighted to “judge for myself”

But on closer inspection the website does not allow for comment.

Nice of Denis to offer his incontrovertible view.

This man is obviously in love with his own opinion.

It’s not independent economists he dislikes.

It’s independent thought.

http://www.tcd.ie/iiis/documents/seminar%20papers/IIIS%20Globalisation%20and%20the%20Irish%20Economy.pdf

Philip Lane and Frances Ruane, Trinity College

The study, which explored the extent to which globalisation has impacted on the Irish economy, concluded that it was extremely vulnerable to a global slowdown in either the high-tech or financial services sectors, since such a large proportion of our trading activity is concentrated in these sectors.

Such a slowdown would also reduce tax revenues, both from the foreign-owned firms and from those directly employed in them and associated businesses.

“So Denis’s point and mine, is how do we get more qualified people or how do we improve the qualifications of the people in there”.

The fundamental problem is that there is limited accountability in a system from the era of the donkey and cart, where effectively, the buck stop nowhere.

Read the C&AG’s annual and special reports and they come back to the same issue time after time.

The Irish are a very conservative people and despite a crash that has ruined the lives of tens of thousands of people, where is the constituency for significant change?

If the alternative government parties are not ready to hit the ground running after the next election, it will be business as usual with more commissioning of reports and an opportunity for the vested interests to stall progress.

Change comes ever so slowly and if at all, only in response to a crisis.

This week, the head of a public body, an Bord Pleanála, felt compelled to call for public sector reform.

There are 88 planning authorities in Ireland and members with commercial property interests make decisions on planning.

Also this week, the Taoiseach announced that the Government would appoint a CIO who would report to him and have responsibility for all IT projects in the public sector.

Seems like a good idea but wonder why something so obvious would take so long and exactly 4 years after Cowen himself was involved in signing off on new rules on major public projects - - only after a public outcry on huge cost overruns on road and public IT projects.

There has been a litany of waste and while a US website for providing public information on federal contracts can cost $1m, $50m is spent in Ireland on a public services portal and it’s just junked.

Science Foundation Ireland, responsible for innovation, spends €400K on an IT system and it’s just junked.

In Oct 2005, I wrote: “The penny has at last dropped for the computer illiterate Government Ministers, senior bureaucrats and political advisers who have been paid well, to ask the questions that a business person would be expected to, when signing off on major expenditures….Instead of putting party flunkeys on the public payroll, has there been anyone in government with the savvy to propose a CIO - Chief Information Officer - with key experience in world class IT organisations and successful project implementation experience? A similar function with responsibility for major infrastructure projects would surely have also been merited.”

With the buck stopping nowhere and ministers living exemplars of the Peter Principle, what should be expected?

Jan 2007: Bertie Ahern requests the OECD to review the Irish public service.

Apr 2008: OECD reports, Ahern says of the 800 State agencies/quangos, there are “too many by half.”

Oct 2008: Justice minister cuts Equality Authority budget by 43%; Most other State quangos subject to single-digit cuts

Oct 2009: Taskforce still reviewing the report

Jan 2012: 5 years after the original commission, baby-steps in progress.

RTÉ is an illustration of what happens when the interests of the producers are paramount as is the National Consumer Agency (NCA) - - set-up in response to concerns about rip-offs but becoming a rip-off itself.

The NCA with its 14-strong board, a head earning more than the Fed chairman and a €200k PR budget for issuing press releases, cannot afford to get a start-up to produce a value for money online price comparison site!

“Someone once said that making accurate predictions is very difficult - especially when they are about the future.”

Correct.

It was a Danish cartoonist. His name was Robert Storm Petersen.

He started his career working in his father’s butcher shop, but soon moved on to acting, painting and writing.

In 1913, he came up with his famous characters The Three Small Men, and with their ’sidekick’, The Numberman, whose job it was to put the numbers in the comic panels.

Sounds a bit like NAMAman putting numbers into a tragic comic picture of the “Orish”

“So Denis’s point and mine, is how do we get more qualified people or how do we improve the qualifications of the people in there”. Mr. O’Brien should know from his tribulations at the tribunals that qualifications are not the answer.

May, I respectfully suggest, with regard to qualifications that getting qualifications does not guarantee any degree of “expertise” of the people “in there”.

We need political reform to allow people with drive, ideas and a can do attitude to get into the political arena without having to prostrate themselves to the masses before they can legislate. At the moment, the TD system is like a filtering system to make sure that talent is the rare exception in the Dail. Our system of electing people is a disaster.

Bill Gates dropped out of college to start Microsoft and so did many others to start great companies. I know people who went around offices in their bare feet telling programmers working in C++ “they knew nothing about computers”, nor did they want to know anything about them, on the other hand, they knew exactly what had better be in that report they wanted on their desk monday morning.

Leadership has very little to do with qualifications or the qualifications industry I have attended two universities Limerick and Galway and in between wrote a whole load of essays, reports, theses etc for friends who had to get “qualified”.

First and last prerequisite of a leader is not to suffer fools gladly and better still not to suffer them at all.

It’s not about predicting. If it were we would consult astrologers.

It’s about protection.

It’s about protecting the Citizen.

That’s want government claims to be about.

How can Government ignore the voices.

To ridicule those who disagree with Government makes plain that Government is not about protecting the Citizen. It’s about something else.

It’s about protecting the banks.

Sad but true.

Now what was it Madonna said about that?

For the very first time?

Sorry. I think it’s too late. The banks have had us again and again and again.

A famous fund manager, Peter Lynch said that while he noticed that commentators may luck out or hit the nail on the head with an accurate forecast once, none of them got a major prediction right twice - and they were always predicting. So Morgan Kelly may have written a very insightful analysis on the problems the property bubble would cause the banks in 2008 but he flopped out when forecasting GDP for 2009.

But if only economists would not act as if they had some infallible knowledge or superior forecasting ability which is laughable. The opinion of the average small business person or farmer would be just as valuable and worth listening to in my view.

Maybe.. we need to find it again!!!

Point 2 for Mr O’Brien: last week I lectured Mon-Friday each day for 6 hours in TCD, Wed-Fri for additional 2 hours in UCD, and on Saturday - for 3 hours at TCD again. In between, apart from Twittering and blogging, I also wrote several press articles, worked on two research papers and had a number of business meetings. I also worked on a long-term private sector research project and advised my clients in the US.

Point 3 for Mr O’Brien: in 2004-2007 I warned repeatedly that Ireland is facing a crisis in public spending, housing markets and private sectors debt. I did so from various platforms, including his own Newstalk106 and TodayFM. In 2008 I was at the fore front of private sector economists who were pointing at the depth of developing crisis. I also made a point of always offering a potential solution to every problem I was able to identify. Not that I called everything right in my life, but Mr O’Brien’s statement is a bit rich.

Point 4 for Mr O’Brien: it is precisely

* because we are seeing real businesses being squeezed by the banks in anticipation of Nama,
* because we are seeing people sliding into perpetual dependency on the dole,
* because we are seeing the depth of the crisis,
* because we are seeing the taxpayers of this country being destroyed by wrong policies,
* because we are seeing people losing their entire retirement savings to the same ideas and policies that now back Nama,

that we are warning about the risks that Nama and other Government policies have.

Mr O’Brien might not see it this way - and it is his right to disagree - but throwing about silly statements in an attempt to ingratiate oneself with those in power is a strange position for a successful entrepreneur and businessman like Mr O’Brien.”

“Lost my own, longer than I care to admit!”

Damn, this is turning into a right confessional.