Blog is Two

Today is the second birthday of this blog.

The visitor traffic fluctuates with the level of interest in the Irish economy – November was a record with 261,000 visitors (567,000 page views).  The cumulative total over the two years is 1.89 million visitors (4.67 million page views).  You can find out more about the visitor patterns at this site.

48 replies on “Blog is Two”

Well done Philip – this is and has been (despite occasional bumps and humps) an excellent resource.

Many thanks to those who set it up and to the learned contributors, both those named on the side and those, pseudonymous or otherwise, who comment. Between them they have been invaluable in educating those of us who take an interest but whose knowledge and understanding needed boosting.

bjg

Happy Birthday. It’s a pity you have had so much to write about, but living in the middle of a big story is never easy. It’s exceptionally useful to understanding what is going on.

Many thanks to all for the wealth & depth of intelligent (& occasional humerous) coverage/links/analysis

Congratulations to hosts, contributors and commentators. Insight and wisdom combined (almost always) with courteous dissent and debate.

I just wish the irisheconomy blog had been created to talk about overseas investment opportunities for Irish business, how to increase productivity in industry to make up for the lack of additional labour in the market, and where to invest the Irish Sovereign Wealth Fund.

@Al:
Well, Sarah has decided to leave us:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2010/1202/1224284569728.html

She’s off to www. irishlaw. ie

Mind you, I like her Chinese idea:

“Personally I have high hopes for the Chinese – they need a hub in Europe – why not us?”

China had Hong Kong, Macao and the Treaty of Nanking ports:

“The Treaty of Nanking (also spelt Nanjing in pinyin) was a treaty signed on 29 August 1842 to mark the end of the First Opium War (1839–42) between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the Qing Dynasty of China.” [Wikipedia]

So China could have its revenge on the UKoGBaI, taking over Ireland as an entrepot.

bjg

Is there somewhere I can send a fee note for time spent on this blog? My employer wants to know.

Is that considered a lot of hits? I think contributors should have a little picture of themselves beside each post like when they write in the paper. Those little pictures are pretty funny

Congratulations and many thanks to the founders/contributors.

@BJG,

I fear Sarah C is barking up the wrong tree – she seems to have joined the ‘default now’ brigade (with China replacing the Troika).

And as for China one should be careful what one wishes for. Perhaps Zhou might provide some insight – on a fee-paying basis, of course.

Alright, looked at the viewing stats – which one of you guys is based in the Brazilian rainforest???

But kudos to Philo, Karlos et al on a fantastic place to discuss and rant about the shambolic state of our national economy.

Thanks Philip. It may not always be apparent, but your site has contributed to my general education.

By the way, on today’s Order of Business in the Dail, the Labour Party insisted that they had advice to the effect that establishment of a fiscal council would require a constitutional referendum….oh dear god, what a country!

Thanks to the patrons of this wonderful blog. It has been a real education and a fascinating place from which to watch the unfolding disaster. It’s the Irish blog equivalent of the New York Review of Books.

I have also learnt a few things about the quirks of the academic economist community. P. Honohan is a modern day saint. Or was. Certain models appear to fit on the back of a fag packet. And a nice word from St. P. Krugman who probably spoofed all his material from this blog goes a long way.

@Veronica,

Re Labour and a fiscal council: do you honestly believe that a party which has been excluded from power for more than 13 years – and whose fingers are itching to grasp the levers of power that are almost within its grasp – will willingly entertain any curtailment of the executive dominance this power will confer?

Thank you for creating it. A great resource.

@christy – “I think contributors should have a little picture of themselves beside each post like when they write in the paper. Those little pictures are pretty funny”

I suspect pictures of the individuals commenting might be funnier.

@ All,

Well done to all for the informed and lively debate at times.

I wonder will we still be writing about this recession / depression / crisis or whatever you want to call it in 2018?

Perish the thought!!

Marvellous blog, I regret only that I didn’t find it until a couple of weeks ago (after recommendation by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the Daily Telegraph).

congratulations, it’s been an education. best wishes for the future, from your fans on the ditch. when do we break up for christmas?

Came here by way of EuroIntelligence blog. Appreciate the informed, if a bit recondite discussion. Wish you and your economy the best even though I fear
there is no way out of debt deflation. But, maybe someone here will find another path.

Happy Birthday!

I have been following your blog since a short time after you launched – before the Irish economy (sadly) became all the rage.

Please keep up the honest and important work.

Great blog and unlikely to run out of material. One suggestion is that Quiggin’s blog opens up a thread every week to let people vent about anything or suggest things that should be posted. Can be helpful in stopping other posts getting clogged up and also helpful in flushing out issues that have slipped by the main contributors.

Happy 2nd – great site – bit too addictive – but really excellent contributers – occasonal spats in the schoolyard but theres always someone to break them up before someone gets hurt

congratulations on your birthday.
fascinating reading and I have the expectation for it to have a strong political impact on every one of your readers.

I too have a birthday coming up myself for 10 years of http://www.thehandstand.org a streetlevel free on-line mag that has had difficulties only during the last two years and now exists without most of the archive of over 18,000 carefully chosen documents, essays etc that I have regarded as essential: and has indeed , until this recession and a reflex ban that occurred this year, been a kind of historical encyclopaedia for the diaspora read by thousands internationally (sounds like boasting but as a 78yr old woman working alone I am perhaps permitted…?!)
My sincere regards to you.

@BJG
Don’t worry! I’ll stick around 🙂 I’m willing to accept default now has, ahem, complications (apparently we’ve to wait til 2013 for some reason?) but here’s where I do stand- I am not taking ANYTHING the government says on face value. I want EVERY excuse and alleged reason for action treble checked. That was the main point of today’s opus.

On constitutional grounds I acknowledge I am on thin ice. On pari passu I’ll take anyone on – BL should have been challenged on this from the start. Lots of material on how it doesn’t apply for payments.

But the main point is – Lawyer-up!! lots to play for yet..not preparing for all eventualities is criminal….

And thanks Philip and Karl and everyone else. Great fun.

@Kevin O’Rourke

“Can I infer that our US readers are predominantly saltwater?”

If Krugman is a reader you have their Dean! Myself, I think the Aussie Steve
Keen has the best understanding of our current situation. What is he? No water?

Happy birthday. Life wouldn’t be the same without irisheconomy.ie. It’s economics for the people (as opposed to populist economics)

Lawyering up requires very deep pockets, and the old pro bono is still a bit scarce, so don’t close this site just yet.

@Bock the Robber:
“That’s not a bad readership figure for two years in business.”

It might be an underestimate. I usually read the RSS feed rather than the blog; am I included in the figures?

bjg

PS Any nice pics of barges carrying porter?

Happy birthday. Great site – though technically I have to say it’s a shambles. No Meaningful search facility. No Archive. No way to see where comments are happening at any given time. Despite these drawbacks it is the most revolutionary bit of Irish citizen media since http://www.indymedia.ie imo.

I second the poster above who felt (s)he got an education here. Me too!

Congratulations one and all. No day is complete for me without several visits to this site. Now if you had only charged €1,000 per page view – you would have enough to pay a year’s interest on the ‘bailout’.

@paul
“the old pro bono is still a bit scarce”
And the edge is nowhere to be found either 🙂

A great site, the commenters as well as the contributors deserve kudos. Web 2.0 creates Economics 2.0 and hopefully makes for a better Ireland 2.0. Congratulations and a very happy birthday…!

I can’t see an equivalent irish law blog.

Firstly, lawyers are afraid somebody will rely on what they say and sue them.

Secondly, a lawyer’s knowledge is his competitive advantage over others so he won’t want to give away his knowledge for free.

Thirdly, a lawyer will not express an opinion on contract (such as a bank bond) without having access to the contractual documentation.

Fourthly, lawyers will be worried that people think their knowledge comes from confidential information (e.g. as to the contents of bank bonds) and will not comment on matters where they do have relevant information through materials furnished to them confidentially.

Imagine if we lived in a world where so called democratic governments could get their legions of paid for hackers to force this Irisheconomy.ie website off the internet/out of service if they didn’t like the things we were saying.

Perish the though eh?

Oh, I see wikileaks is down again. Must be a problem with their server in the land of free speech.

@zhou:
Recent experience with Anglo Irish Bank suggests that your confidence in lawyers’ caution may be misplaced.

Although I suppose it’s possible that Anglo walked on water without benefit of lawyers.

bjg

Congratulations on a great achievement..
Of course, the achievement is due to great content and continuous updating. That’s not easy for the blog manager. Well done !
But why don’t you use a blog theme (“design”) which is a little more sophisticated?
(Such as mine at http://www.brianodoherty.ie, although there are better than mine out there)
Show some images, have some background/discussion documents available for download, etc.
Yours is the classic basic theme of Word Press, but there are thousands of others you could freely use. (I can help if you need it)

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