Although Simon Johnson is mainly writing about very large banks, this article is also of domestic interest.
New blog commenter, Richard Fedigan, has initiated some interesting discussions on recent threads on topics ranging from Ireland’s reputation and influence in Europe to the need for a new industrial strategy. Richard gathers his views in this guest post in the form of a briefing to the new Taoiseach.
In an attempt to simplify and cut through all past and present recriminations and political posturing surrounding what will culminate in the election of a new Irish leader in a matter of weeks, the following is a three-point briefing note for a “Taoiseach from Mars”.
The note is intended to brief a reasonably intelligent alien, familiar only with the concept and reality of being what is known on earth as a CEO, but free from all awareness of cronyism, parish pump politics or the emotional hangovers of Irish history, particularly anything to do with the Civil War or the tragedy of Irish emigration. He/she/it would have a “translator” to explain terms like unemployment, democracy, growth, exports, ECB, IMF MNCs, FDI BRIC, etc. but not in great detail because the Taoiseach, it is understood, would have a team of accountable people to propose and formulate strategy, get it approved appropriately and then communicate and execute it.It is most likely that, in carrying out the above programme, it will be necessary to completely re-organise the existing semi-state landscape, audit your entity’s real capabilities and capacities and that this may imply radically different governance and accountabilty structures for the overall entity.
The long-awaited Vanity Fair article is now published (but is not freely available online, as far as I know). Relative to the Greek and Icelandic articles, this piece is more of a straightforward account of the Irish crisis (but maybe that impression is just because Irish readers would be quite familiar with many of the anecdotes in the article). But lots of interesting material, with a very good profile of Morgan Kelly and a striking quote from Colm McCarthy among the highlights.
A Q&A with Michael Lewis is here.
Update: Article available in PDF here.
A revised version of Gary O’Callaghan’s paper is now available here as Irish Economy Note No. 13.
“Iceland proves Ireland did ‘wrong things’ sacrificing taxpayers”, just carried on Bloomberg.