
And just to put that 25% decline in perspective: the one and only time the Dow Jones experienced a first half decline of that magnitude or greater was in 1932 - they called it the Great Depression. They really ought to ban this sort of stuff ...
An Irishman’s perspective on Ireland, the future, and other things from time-to-time …
"In what way do speculators drive up the price of oil?" For each speculator who is betting on an increase in the price of oil, there is another speculator betting on a decrease in the price of oil. There is still the same quantity of oil available for consumers to buy.He's right of course. If you disagree then tell me: what will be the price of a barrel of oil this time next year? Are you willing to bet on that? According to The Sunday Times, analysts at Société Générale are forecasting $60 by the end of next year: those at Fortis are forecasting $172. It's currently at $142 (up 42% since the start of this year). Call it right and there's a fortune to be made (of the Paddy Power variety of investment), call it wrong and you'll lose your shirt. The oil will still be there, of course.
It's not public sector workers who'll be forced back into emigration, if the ESRI predictions turn out to be correct, after all; or public sector workers who'll be rejoining the dole queues. The security that comes from having the State pick up the tab is what allows public sector workers to get bolshie at the talk of tightening belts when workers in the private sector are just trying to keep their heads down and weather the storm.Rule 2 doesn't say that each of us faces the consequences of our own actions - sometimes someone else suffers them instead. It would be wrong, nevertheless, to blame public sector workers for rising unemployment and emigration. Public sector pay, and the terms and conditions of public sector workers, are simply the consequence of decisions made - or not made - by those charged with running the public sector in recent years. We call them the Government.
Despite being too young to know what stagflation is, they have perfectly positioned themselves to take advantage of it. The rising cost of fuel, food and services does not bother them: they do not pay for domestic heating or school fees, and they always borrow the car and leave the tank empty.Looking around, there are other examples of how different groups might benefit from the consequences of an economic downturn, e.g.: charities. One of the biggest issue facing charities in recent years has been getting volunteers, not getting money. Consider this: a lot of businesses and organisations are going to be negotiating early retirement for their most experienced but also most expensive staff in the months ahead. These will be talented, well connected people with the right levels of energy and financial comfort to consider a 'second career' - perhaps as social entrepreneurs.On the other hand, clothes, trainers, computer games, iPods, DVDs and even illegal drugs are all falling in price. Living at home is the perfect way to ensure a negative inflation rate, and by the time the little blighters leave, people will be giving houses away. It’s an ill wind, as they say.
Studies have shown that whereas righties favor the left hemisphere of their brain, which controls language, left-handers are more likely to have bilateral brain function, which could allow them to visualize problems more broadly and with more complexity. A higher percentage of mathematicians and scientists are left-handed, and the same is true for artists.Being left-handed not only makes you a better scientist or artist, research also suggests it helps you be more successful at sport, and obviously at politics. I find the research strangely convincing ... ;-)
We would expect that policies to reduce paid work by men and increase their involvement in care should increase equality in the domestic sphere. Such policies would include paid paternity and parental leave and more flexible work options in male-dominated occupations. State support for childcare may not directly redress inequality in unpaid labour, but in allowing women to engage in paid work, where they choose to do so, will reduce the burden of care which falls on women.That's right - they want us to re-engineer the labour market and the economy in order to solve a temporary problem whereby married women with pre-school age children have an hour and 27 minutes more committed time a day. Plainly the authors must have realised by this point that they were on a hiding to nothing because they were finally reduced to inventing a nonsensical PR factoid for the press release. They 'estimate' that because of the 39 minutes per day of extra committed time experienced by women then they are contributing an extra month of committed time a year compared to men. Only one problem with the factoid (that I care to point out): according to table 4.3 the difference is 27 minutes. But why let the 'facts' spoil a good story, eh?
Fortunately for the world’s poor and for all the rest of us, there are much more dynamic forces in the world than UN bureaucrats and their academic advocates. Private, political, and social entrepreneurs, creative scientists, technological innovators, and resourceful workers and farmers found a way to escape “poverty traps” - the world poverty rate has declined by half over the last 30 years - and to avoid the famines and growth crash predicted by Ehrlich and the Club of Rome in the 1960s and 1970s. It is never a sure thing to predict that future problems will be solved in a similar way, but this historical record gives one a lot more hope about these challenges than one can derive from yet more toothless international agreements.As I've noted before, free trade not fair trade is the key to the eradication of poverty among the billion or so fellow human beings living on $1 or less per day. But creating the conditions for free trade requires political will. I also like Bill Gates' thinking about creative capitalism - harnessing the power of market forces to deliver the innovations (social and technological) that will best solve the immediate health and survival needs of the world's poorest:
The genius of capitalism lies in its ability to make self-interest serve the wider interest. The potential of a big financial return for innovation unleashes a broad set of talented people in pursuit of many different discoveries. This system driven by self-interest is responsible for the great innovations that have improved the lives of billions.Put crudely, the poor have needs but no spending power. Increase their spending power and the market will deliver the goods: in the absence of the usual distortions of corruption etc that kill the incentive to run a business in too many parts of the world. But Gates is a self-described 'impatient optimist' and he gives some great examples of harnessing the regulatory power of government for good. For example, the US government has recently decreed that any drug company that comes up with an innovation related to major third world health problem such as malaria will have another of their drug innovations (for the affluent world) fast tracked through the approval process (subject to obvious constraints: like that it does what it claims to do).
We need a period of reflection. Concocting a text that was deliberately incomprehensible with the explicit purpose of befuddling citizens was the wrong approach. It was too high-handed by half. Instead, we must rekindle our idealism, draft a coherent text the man and woman in the street can understand, and politely ask them to rally round. Scaremongering, putting a gun to their heads doesn’t work. I know.It's good advice, I hope he takes it. And, eh, maybe we don't send Dustin next year ...?
CYNICISM only breeds cynicism. The majority of Irish voters did not believe there would be “dire consequences” arising from a no vote; nor did my senior ministers. Were the Danes isolated? Were the Swedes when they decided not to join the euro? On the contrary, Irish voters noticed that no votes in the recent past have delivered fundamental renegotiation.
So, there are questions, but there is not chaos. The damage done is not fatal. To listen to some colleagues’ rhetoric you would imagine another iron curtain had been drawn across our continent. Besides, enlargement has not gummed up our processes as some predicted. We need to listen more, not just go through the motions. We need a people’s Europe, not pretend it’s Europe v The People.
As minister for the environment I've got a duty to ensure that there's a good balance set between the need to develop our economy, to provide homes, factories, roads etc and at the same time to protect the environment.I think he's right - there, I said it ...
If the theme of last year was turmoil in financial services, then 2008 could be the year when financial stress goes on to harm the economy. And it is not too fanciful to imagine a vicious circle: as the economic downturn causes more financial pain, so confidence will crumble further.So what to do? The banks don't have any money to lend, and the Government is too cash strapped to stimulate things much. Indeed, if they raise taxes as Noel Whelan demanded in this weekend's Irish Times, then that Q4 2009 recovery might well recede like the end of a rainbow on a sunny day. The answer, as ever, is to let the private insights of individuals as to what is best for them translate into the public good that is economic growth and innovation. In other words: we need to encourage entrepreneurship like never before, even as the appetite for business start-ups is going into reverse.
One of the challenges we face today is to temper a rising tendency towards individualism within Irish society. We have rightly encouraged a culture of the individual taking personal responsibility for their own well being. We have reaped benefits from the more confident Ireland as presented by its most successful people forging new opportunities at home and abroad.
Overdone this carries risks. Not correctly harnessed this can sap the energy from our sense of community which is still strong and visible in so many ways. What we must prioritise is to turn the benefits of individual flair to the benefit of the community as a whole.
This is what government wants. This is what government needs. Our responsibility is to fuel the engine of community – to lead the charge away from the promotion of exclusive self interest towards a superior value of a wider community interest. The pre-eminence of community and participation over self promotes social harmony and a better quality of life for all. This is what will allow us develop a society of social inclusion.
So can we expect a period of tension and strife in the public sector? I'm not so sure. A fascinating new paper from the University of Bristol on pro-social behaviour has found that workers in non-profit organisations (in sectors like healthcare and education) are more willing to do unpaid work than their equivalents in for-profit organisations. So maybe that is where Brian Cowen needs to look first as he demands sacrifice? Whether he will get it or not is an entirely different matter, of course.