Strong Language
Odds and Ends
Nama: not fit for purpose
Last night’s Leviathan debate was an interesting one – despite the egg-throwing – and it showed even more clearly that Nama is not fit for its purpose and that the politicans have no idea what they are doing. They are truly making it up as they go along. Nama, according to its website, is an independent commerical [...]
Break banks in two (commercial and investment) to protect the public purse – Volker
American banks should be forced to operate as commercial or investment entities, not both argues Paul A. Volker, former Federal Reserve chairman who is also one of the architects of Obama’s economic strategies. A New York Times article today says: “Mr. Volcker argues that splitting commercial and investment banking would put a damper on both pay [...]
Nobel Prize-winning economist says NO to Nama
Nama is a bad idea said Professor Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, on Wednesday night while addressing Trinity College’s historical society. Nama is likely to “burden this generation for 25 to 50 years or more. I am very uncomfortable with a government with such a minority support making such a decision.” The view that there is no alternative is “just [...]
Help me, Obi-Wan Gormley; you’re my only hope.
Yes, I said it to Minister Eamon Ryan during Leviathan at the Electric Picnic but I will say it again. Green Party, you must get some balls. For all our sakes, be brave – leave this government while you still have a soul. If you do not understand that then let me take on the persona of [...]
Lehman Brothers: has the sector learned anything?
September 15th marks one year since Lehman Brothers – an investment bank that I worked for in the 1990s – was allowed to crash and burn. What, if anything, has the financial sector learned since then? Well, if President Obama’s opinions are anything to go by it’s not much. Today he told an audience in downtown [...]
Happy 1st anniversary to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac govt bailout
Can you believe it? Sept 7th marks the one year anniversary of the American government’s decision to takeover Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. At that point they owed, or guaranteed almost HALF of the United States’ $12 trillion mortgage market. The bailout nationalised them. Some commentators said this nationalisation marked the end of American as a capitalist country. But, as I’ve said [...]
Is capitalism dead?
This was the subject of yesterday’s Leviathan at Electric Picnic. www.leviathan.ie As usual, David McWilliam’s was the charming, entertaining MC and he put some tough questions to the panel: brave-for-showing-his-face-instead-of-Fianna-Fail Green Party TD Eamon Ryan; socialist, journalist and activist Eamon (get out the pikestaffs for the revolution) McCann; journalist and author Dan O’Brien of The Economist Intelligence [...]
A SIM game for Nama?
Remember the computer simulation game SimCity in the early 1990s? The objective of SimCity was to build and design a city either without specific goals or towards certain scenarios. The game allowed you to see what would happen in the future based on your specific choices and performance when playing. You also controlled the speed at which time passed. For example, if as [...]
© 2012 Strong Language. All Rights Reserved.
Powered by WordPress. Designed by 
Recent Comments