There is nothing new in this, but the number of shady episodes that Lanchester reminds us of, and the quality of his writing, makes it well worth a read.
Author: Kevin O’Rourke
If we were to choose one reform to improve Irish governance, what would it be? I would probably start with our libel laws, which directly allow mediocre bullies to shut down legitimate discussion and dissent, and indirectly help promote a culture of groupthink. We need more information and more discussion in this country, not less. And the Independent has done us a huge favour by releasing the Anglo tapes.
The law can stifle the dissemination of information and debate in other ways as well. I’ve no idea why the DPP has asked the Indo to stop releasing more tapes, assuming that this Irish Times story is true. All the Irish Times tells us is that “it expressed concern about the potential consequences of the emergence of certain other information into the public domain.” No doubt the DPP has its reasons. But the cost to the general public both in Ireland and abroad is high, since we all need more information, not less, about how bankers behave in practice.
My thanks to commenter Eamonn Moran who pointed me to this paper recently published by the Central Bank, and which deserves a wide readership, especially among advocates of “internal devaluation” strategies across the Eurozone periphery. The Irish figures are very striking, not just in terms of how few firms have cut wages here, but of the reasons why.
There are costs and benefits to everything, even emigration at a time of economic crisis. We Irish have probably gotten so used to (silently) thanking our lucky stars that our young are not hanging around at home being unemployed (or at least, not to the same extent as the young in the Mediterranean), that we may have forgotten this. Indeed, I had forgotten that I wrote this back in 2010. But now Paul Krugman points us to this post (and see also this one) which brings up the issue, and it is worth thinking about it seriously.
Long run GDP and tax revenue may not suffer that much if people return home eventually, especially if they bring home new skills and contacts, but what if funding crises happen before then? And are we perhaps too optimistic about the prospects for return migration? My generation came home in droves because of the 1990s boom, but that sort of growth is obviously never going to be replicated: you can only catch up on the technological frontier once. And as I pointed out in that earlier post, there is scope for negative feedback loops here, related to the overhang of government debt.
All in all, another reason to think that debt restructuring is going to eventually have to take place around the Eurozone periphery.
(H/T Alan Taylor who suggested the title of the post. That is a clue as to what it refers to by the way.)
I dare say that readers of this blog do not all subscribe to “Le Petit Écho des Entremonts“, so here is an article I wrote for a forthcoming issue dedicated to the economy.