I rather like this comment at the end of Matthew Engels’s article on Ireland in Friday’s FT:
Has Ireland been more corrupt than anywhere else? “I think we’re a bit more obvious and less practised.”
Indeed.
h/t Crooked Timber.
I’m pretty perplexed by Eamon Ryan saying that Anglo debtors will be compelled to pay back their loans and “failing this any assets provided in security for the loans would come under State control.” Isn’t the whole point about the Anglo 10 that they were given win-only bets on their loans? If the share price had staged a miraculous recovery, they would sell the shares they bought, pay the loans back and pay the profits; if the share price fell they could default and – since the shares are the only security – they would default and leave the bank, as Anne Robinson might say, with nothing.
I don’t have my trusty Ronan Keane with me so I can’t verify, but I can’t for the life of me imagine that effectively doing an Enron is legal. So the only reason these people shouldn’t be named, or details shouldn’t emerge, is if it would queer either a criminal prosecution or a suit by the nationalised bank.
There’s an interesting passage at the bottom of this article in the FT (you may have to register to access) on IL&P alleging that (UK) analysts are using inaccurate figures on Irish government exposure to banking liabilities:
Rossa White, economist with Davy stockbrokers, believed the markets were overstating the exposure of the state to the Irish banks.
He said UK analysts were using a “bogus” claim that Irish bank liabilities are close to 900 per cent of gross domestic product. “If we’re looking at this from a sovereign risk point of view, two-thirds of the figure people are using is irrelevant.”
Mr White pointed out total bank liabilities included €849bn on the balance sheets of foreign banks operating in Dublin and that, even if the undated bonds and other debt of Irish lenders were added in, total liabilities stood at €575bn, or 309 per cent of GDP, lower than the Netherlands’ 380 per cent and Belgium’s 365 per cent.
He added that Ireland’s debt interest payments would consume about 17 per cent of tax revenues in 2010. “That’s about half the amount of debt service burden experienced in the 1980s, and we never came close to defaulting then,” he said.
…what? We all have to fear for our economies, but when it comes to the end of Russia’s boom the economy ought to be the least of our fears.
It is unfortunate that reaction to the proposed car ban in College Green in Dublin has been so negative. Is it really possible that the traffic passing down through Dame Street and onto O’Connell Street is adding much to business in the area in general? Such is the congestion and dearth of parking spaces in the area it seems likely that the vast majority of people passing through the area don’t stop.
When known as Hoggen Green, the Green was probably chaotic with animals and people, but today it has become a morass of dangerous driving and jay-walking.
Aside from reducing the traffic in the College Green area, surely pedestrianising the whole area from the bottom of Dame Street as far as Westmoreland Street is worth a try? It would re-instate a sense of a city centre that Dublin so badly lacks. The tourism potential of two of the most important building complexes in Dublin, Trinity College and the former Irish House of Lords could be further developed.
Would it be a total pipe-dream to consider doing away with most traffic on the quays altogether too? If anything, businesses in the area might thrive in a new situation more favourable to the pedestrian.
I finished a great book recently by Washington Post journalist, Helene Cooper, The House at Sugar Beach. Set in war-torn Liberia before and after the revolution, it describes how her childhood and young adulthood are transformed completely by the political uncertainty in the country. Although it is an autobiography, the book has many parallels with two recent books of fiction based on experiences of war, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half a Yellow Sun.
Liberia’s past may be chaotic and rooted in slavery but Cooper is at pains to emphasise the rich legacy she has inherited from her forefathers; these were true pioneers who returned from base lives as slaves in the US to create a land they could hope to be proud of. However, native people also lived in Liberia and were none too happy with the sudden influx of non-natives. The tensions of history are shown to resurface through the bloody revolution.
As in The Kite Runner, early life is uncomplicated, almost idyllic through the child’s eyes. There are deep family bonds and family members live nearby. All types of family relationships are supported including siblings born as a result of a parent having a second relationship and pseudo siblings where the family effectively adopts an unrelated child as their own. It is this last case which informs much of The House at Sugar Beach, Helene’s relationship with Eunice, an older girl adopted as a companion. Although Helene, Eunice and younger sister Marlene form a close trio in times of peace, it is unthinkable that Eunice should join them when they ultimately leave the country, ironically to establish a new life in the United States. The uncomfortable nature of this reality haunts Helene as she grows up in the US and grows to haunt the reader.
It is the narrator’s lightness of touch which ultimately makes this book such a great read. On a number of occasions, the reader is drawn into unspeakable acts of cruelty of war. The description is always humane , often humorous, in a manner that acually jolts the reader more rather than less.
Similarly deft is Cooper’s historical narration. By the end of the book the reader has been thoroughly educated in the history of Liberia.
The House on Sugar Beach catches the reader unawares on a number of levels. It deserves to get a wide readership.
Recent Comments