Ireland’s Austerity ….A Role Model for Others? December 31, 2012
Posted by irishelectionliterature in Economy.trackback
Having read Eilis Lawlors guest post here on GDP… I Could hardly believe my eyes when I saw the headline “Comeback for the Celtic tiger” on the site of German Broadcaster DW.
Comeback for the Celtic tiger
Which begins with the introduction….
Two years ago, Ireland almost had to declare bankruptcy. Having implemented strict austerity measures and reforms, it now looks set to rebound – as a role model for others?
Its interesting to see how the story of our Austerity and Financial crisis is being pedaled abroad, especially in Germany. The article is full of stuff to make your blood boil….
I’ll just give the one example from Holger Erdmann of the German-Irish chamber of commerce in Dublin.
Erdmann agrees that there has been neither impoverishment of large segments of the population nor a large number of protests. “On weekends, actually starting from Thursday, it’s hard to even set a foot into bars or restaurants here in Dublin. Sometimes one really wonders: where is this economic crisis,” he said in an interview with DW. But “of course there are groups in society that are marked by unemployment. Some households had purchased property at the peak of the housing boom and later lost 50 percent of its value. They are now unable to pay their mortgages.”
As for who are DW?
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
Austerity has been such a success and Ireland is doing so well that there is now no need for any debt relief.
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We’re all going to heaven lads wahey!!!
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Er, “peddled”.
But isn’t this a reguilar occurrence? Hasn’t Ireland been “about to” come back every so often since the crisis began? It’s like how QE is always about to cause hyperinflation, or Krugman’s invisible bond vigilantes.
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DW [Deutsche Welle] is the German equivalent of Voice of America or the BBC World Service. It’s a useful station to follow if you want to know how the world appears to the denizens of the government district in Berlin.
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Spot on DA.
Expect Ireland to play a part as a model citizien with spectacularly rising GDP in the idiocy of the coming Bundeselections.
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It’s easy for the media to peddle this line as there has been no mass of population on the streets resisting like in other countries..
The toothless celtic tiger just sucks the life out ye now..waiting for it’s new teeth to grow so it can take another bite out yer ass when the time is right.. meanwhile elsewhere in the news…
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This is why Lucinda Creighton in the SBP suggested or insisted tha NO protests occurred during the presidency . In case images of “chaos” did damage to our image. Words fail me. What about images of “distress?” . But no, scaring the horses of FDI, By the four horses of the apocalypse. Of course if I were to say anything of the sort this morning while flags are raised I would be accused of treason. The economic kind.
There is isn’t any other these days.
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So apart from the unemployed and the people who’ve been forced to emigrate and the people whose houses have nosedived in value and the people who are in mortgage arrears, everyone is doing OK. What a good news story to set us up for 2013. I’d have to say your man’s picture of Dublin pubs packed to the rafters from Thursday to Sunday doesn’t fit with what I’ve seen on recent visits. Maybe he’s a big fat guy who drinks in the Dawson Lounge.
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It certainly does not match the perception of the publicans:
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/4800-jobs-at-risk-as-pub-sales-plummet-3339476.html
Trade among publicans was down by one-third in the past five years, the VFI said. “Without doubt, the announcements made in Budget 2013 will put further pressure on a consumer that is already struggling and has no confidence in their purchasing power.
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Barbers and hairdressers would be another useful group to hear from, perhaps. People maybe having longer between haircuts, or getting it done themselves, that sort of thing. These are good indicators.
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I live in Dun Laoghaire and without East European hairdressers a lot of premises would be closed. Seems to be a growth industry. My partner tells me that prices and times of opening have changed.I would guess that the New ones have cheaper rents etc.
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This is why Lucinda Creighton in the SBP suggested or insisted tha NO protests occurred during the presidency . In case images of “chaos” did damage to our image.
Because that’s her job.
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The whole thing does allow me to mention again something I’ve said a lot of time here (and elsewhere) in one form or another which is that it used to be considered economic success to raise the standard of living of the citizenry: now it is considered economic success to have them fall without society collapsing. I don’t even mean this ironically, you can see this theme in mainstream commentary everywhere you look.
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You’re dead right ejh. I see that 87,000 people emigrated between April 2011 and April 2012, a record number in modern times. And I’d suspect the total for the next 12 months will be even higher. Couple this with an unemployment rate of almost 15% and it renders boosterish talk about the fundamentals completely meaningless.
If you look back at newspapers from the mid eighties, there was much talk about an increase in productivity and encouraging signs as regards GDP. Meanwhile emigration and unemployment continued to rise. Unemployment didn’t dip back into single figures until 1997.
This tendency among those in power to regard the economy as some kind of abstract quantity which can be judged isolation from the fate of the citizens of the country remains strong. It’s almost a kind of religious fundamentalism.
Of course cretins of the Creighton ilk will tell us that emigration is actually a good thing for people and that it will do our youngsters good to go out and see a bit of the world. This is a reasonable argument if people aren’t being forced to do their seeing the world out of economic necessity. There are, after all, plenty of people who like living in this country and resent the idea that they should take one for the team by upping sticks. It also sticks in the national craw to see emigration being portrayed positively by people who got a handy job in the Dail, pace Willie O’Dea, when in their twenties and hung on there. Emigration is part of the national experience but very few TDs know anything about it, unless they once did a few months abroad on a J1.
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Eamonn, 87,000 did emigrate in that period but 52,000 migrated to Ireland in the same period. Net emigration was higher in mid to late 1980’s than now but the trend is edging up towards 1980’s levels of net migration.
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There is “normal” migration and forced migration. We and the rest of the victims have the forced variety
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In my post “them fall” should of course be “it fall”. I can feel the age of fifty approaching. Like a wolf on the fold, in fact.
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What does it mean when we say the Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold?
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Heh. I should rdead more Ogden Nash, he always amuses me.
I’d like to point out that I got the reference off Molesworth rather than Byron.
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Here here ejh!!!
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When it comes to reporting financial issues DW is about as independent as North Korean state run TV. Their reporting of the situation in Greece is equally biased.
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