– a working paper by Richard Whelan
The continuing difficulties with the Banking Industry, particularly in Europe, are due to a very simple error-assuming that the Banking Industry is part of the private sector, and regulating and dealing with it on that basis. In fact it is a unique hybrid of the public and private sectors, combining the worst features of both. Until that realisation is fully integrated, the Banking Industry will continue to create huge difficulties for us. Continue reading
Endgame the End of the Debt Supercycle and How It Changes Everything, John Mauldin and Jonathan Tepper, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New Jersey, $27.95, 2011, 318 pages.
American Gridlock Why the Right and Left Are Both Wrong, H. Woody Brock, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New Jersey, $27.95, 2012, 273 pages.
In Charles Dickens’ novel David Copperfield, Mr. Micawber identifies an essential difference between happiness and misery.
“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”
Two recent books consider the muddle politicians, bankers and economists have made of the world’s finances, during which the Micawber doctrine sadly got forgotten. They focus on the debt burden we have strapped on to the backs of coming generations and tackle the inability of current political systems to confront the ensuing mess.
Richard Whelan takes issue with an inaccurate account of fiscal imbalances and of Ireland’s role in the economic crisis.
My article “Merkel’s Folly an exercise in Germany neo-colonialism” in Studies review, autumn 2011 edition, also deals with German behaviour in the current economic difficulties. Studies is a serious and challenging quarterly review, a recognised forum for serious discussion, published in Ireland by the Jesuit community,www.studiesirishreview.ie. Continue reading
While we were the agents of our own misfortune in Ireland, the continuing attack by the markets on Euro countries, which we are caught up in, has a very rational basis. As many have pointed out, including George Soros, Paul Krugman, and Erik Jones (Prof of European studies at the Bologna centre of Johns Hopkins University) there are significant flaws in the Euro, which may lead it to fail. The 10 most important reasons are as follows: Continue reading