Joseph Stiglitz appeared on PrimeTime last night and RTE have also made the extended interview available. He made extremely strong statements arguing against the NAMA approach, as well as advocating mortgage mitigation, and better measurement of societal well-being.
Month: October 2009
The ECB recently issued this opinion on the proposal by Cyprus to issue ‘special’ government bonds that may be used as collateral to obtain liquidity from the ECB.
This FT article reports an interesting development in Latvian policy, where the interplay with foreign-owned banks and currency policy are important features.
Donogh O’Malley caused consternation in government when he announced his free education scheme in September 1966 without having brought the matter to Cabinet. The enthusiasm of the public response forced the government’s hand. Whether or not Lemass had prior knowledge has been the subject of heated debate among historians. Lemass denied it, but five members of the cabinet told Brian Farrell, while writing Chairman or Chief?, of their belief that not only had he seen the text in advance but he had actually amended it.
The journalist John Healy was a great friend of O’Malley’s. Later in life he told Michael O’Regan, who is now the Irish Times parliamentary correspondent, that the paper trail had been designed as a smokescreen and could not be relied upon. Healy published his recollections in Magill magazine in March 1988, on the 20th anniversary of O’Malley’s death. At the behest of Michael O’Regan, I’ve dug it out. The hidden history is here.
This article discusses lessons from the nationalisation of Swedish banks in the early 1990s.