What a difference a day or two makes… September 30, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, Irish Politics.trackback
John McHale, writing in the Irish Times on Tuesday, 28th of September.
Spain provides a good example of what can be done when markets take the view that you are getting on top of your policy challenges. Relatively modest accomplishments on its budgetary and banking policies have allowed Spain to detach itself from the stigma of the other “peripherals” – Greece, Ireland and Portugal.
Reported in the Irish Times on Thursday, 30th of September.
The euro fell the most in a week against the yen, fuelled by the Central Bank’s announcement and Moody’s Investors Service downgrading of Spain’s debt ranking.
Moody’s lowered Spain’s rating by one step to Aa1 from Aaa, citing the nation’s “weak” economy.
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
Sorry, the text originally said ‘behind him’… Doesn’t have quite the same cachet… 🙂
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Oops, wrong thread.
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Well, Ireland is not doing bond auctions for a few months so the debt-farmers have to move on. Consistency is not profitable.
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What’s most depressing about yourvanalysis is that it’s true…
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Lenihan wants to “re-think” the notion of a public service…? Sounds like there’s a firesale of the public assets coming up. O’Leary may even get to buy his very own airport, as he’s wanted to do for so long (and here’s to betting it’d be Baldonnel).
Does anyone know if Seanie will be guest of honour again at this year’s Amnesty bash by Denis O’Brien?
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You should have heard the Seanad today, one FFer going on about Michael O’Leary… yeah, saviour of the country.
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Just heard Rabbitte on VB – we need (more) layoffs in the public sector, apparently. As someone over on IE described him the other day, a “true Labour man”.
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he also didn’t rule out cutting pay again and said he would also impose four hairshirt budgets cos otherwise the IMF would be called in…we have to please the markets you see or otherwise we will lose our freedom to impose the same policies on ourselves anyway..
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This is it, you should have heard the incoherence in the Seanad today about all this….
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I honestly don’t believe that this is even the end of it.
I think that there’s a deliberate policy of drip-drip-drip of the bad news and consequent ‘pain’ for PAYE workers over the next four years – clearly the PR lessons of the Eighties have been learned well, to not allow public outrage to manifest (and the unions are complicit in this, the bastards).
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Just got the latest ‘Liberty Online’ from SIPTU. However, Thunderbird warns me that ‘This message may be a scam’. After the march and the unions’ effective silence on the bailouts, I’d have to agree.
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@EWI has put his finger on it.
As their last gift to the Irish citizenry FF/Glasraí are aiming for something like the impeccably neoliberal firesale of natural assets and state companies recommended by assorted high priests of the market at the ESRI. These people are serious, have serious interests behind them, and , glory be the Invisible Hand, they think they have found a Yeltsin in Brian Cowen.
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You know, when you put it that way, they might not be entirely wrong…
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Personally, I find McHale’s proposals for a Fiscal Council to be more worrying. The very purpose of it it to ‘insulate’ fiscal matters from ‘day-to-day politics’. Equally, his call for all opposition parties to sign up and abide by the Government’s budget and 4 year plan so we won’t upset the bond market makes my stomach turn.
There are things that are more important than balancing the books and, surely, effective democracy is one of them.
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Entirely agree. The absolute and unequivocal identification of not just economic matters with all else societal, but a very very specific economic approach as being the only alternative and only ‘good’ is very depressing.
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