The threat from the East

By David Mc Williams

This week’s column comes to you from a very warm and sunny Istanbul, where I am working, for my sins. This is one of the world’s great cities and everywhere there is the evidence that this place has been at the centre of the world for close to 2,000 years, stretching down the ages from the Roman Eastern Empire to the centre of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans were eventually deposed and replaced by Ataturk and his extraordinary secular vision in the early 20th century, who fashioned the new Republic out of the twin ingredients of science and nationalism. Now this secular republic is under threat by the renewed religious fever of Islamists in the government of Tayyip Erdogan.

Over the years the city has been home to Jews, Greeks, Slavs, Armenians and Georgians, as well as the Muslim Turk population. It has been one of the three great Muslim Caliphates, the centre of the flourishing sophistication of the Christian Orthodox Church at a time when Rome was home to barbarians, and it was also the site of Judaism’s finest synagogues.

full article at source: http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2014/04/28/the-threat-from-the-east

Linking hospital boss benefits to sale of Mars Bars makes me sick

By David Mc Williams

A bonus is supposed to be an incentive for an employee to be more productive. In the case of a hospital chief executive, presumably a bonus should be related to running a better hospital.  You’d think that has to be linked to patient care – both in terms of its efficiency and the experience of the patient. It should also factor in other hospital workers, making sure they are not only efficient, but that there is high staff morale.

This is what a hospital does. It exists to look after the health of its patients and, where the staff is looked after, this will be easier to achieve. This is exactly what we patients expect when we present to hospitals and good management seeks to achieve this sweet-spot where respected workers administer excellent service.

It is, therefore, a shock to hear that the bonus of the Chief Executive of Crumlin Children’s Hospital is linked to the sales of Mars Bars, Crunchies and Twixes in the hospital shop……..

full article at source: http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/writing

related articles :

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/pay-deal-approved-so-hospital-chief-would-not-lose-top-up-1.1601844

Comment:

By Thomás Aengus O Cléirigh

You are only now feeling sick???

Stroke politics is alive and well with the twiddle dumb and twiddle dumber political system, the gombeens stay in charge!. I am not at all surprised, what  about the Bankers salaries they were supposed to be capped at 500,000 euro and yet we have Bankers getting over 750,000 ++ paid by the taxpayers of this BA-NAMA- Republic .Is is any wonder we are such an  un-healthy Bunch  and have the highest cancer  rates in Europe? We are a right bunch of Paddies allowing ourselves to be screwed by our own corrupt self-centred greedy elite in this country! As our health services are cut to shreds and we are told less A&E services and further away are better for us we just sit back until the day comes when we ourselves are looking for emergency care in the meantime our vastly overpaid top hospital managers live a lottery style lifestyle and no doubt they are all privately insured and won’t have to sleep in a hospital corridor ever but can you ordinary Joe be so sure???  So the good times roll for these Public servant leeches,parasites,insiders, as the ordinary people suffer!

Wake up and take back our country from these well placed Leeches in our society!    

  

A different perspective on global economics

By David Mc Williams

Bill Bonner shrugs as he recounts how he tried to buy a Palladian mansion in Waterford. The seller was Nama and an Irish bank that had lent to a boom-time developer who had since gone bust. Bonner publishes the world’s most successful financial newsletter. His company, based in Waterford, has a turnover of $400 million and is growing exponentially; and yet, in 2011, when he bid for a property which was in danger of severe dilapidation, the Irish bank that in effect owned the property didn’t return his call.

At that stage he wanted to save the building, which otherwise would suffer further deterioration over the winter, and he hoped to begin reconstruction in the spring; however, it seems that ”someone local didn’t want the deal to happen”.

Four months later, as he says himself, “the roof fell in”. Today the building lies idle, “thieves have ripped the remaining copper off the roof” and something that could have been the headquarters of a global publishing business is now “beyond saving”.

full article at source: http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2013/10/28/a-different-perspective-on-global-economics

Let’s talk about tax.

By David Mc Williams

On Friday, both the Financial Times and the New York Times carried banner pieces criticising how Ireland is being used and, more to the point, is allowing itself to be used as part of a large tax avoidance scheme. Opinion is shifting against Ireland’s corporate tax system. And we are talking about the Financial Times and the New York Times – hardly the Worker’s Hammer or Militant.

Added to this, we have reports that the Irish corporate tax system might be a sticking point in the on-going German coalition talks as the left-leaning Social Democrats is demanding tax harmonisation in return for access to future EU bank bailout funds. Right across the political spectrum – left to right – momentum is moving against the way in which Ireland taxes its foreign corporations.

Not that long ago, at the G20 in Enniskillen, the world’s head honchos said that they would act together to level the playing field for corporation tax to prevent companies abusing tax shelters…………………

full article at source: http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2013/10/14/lets-talk-about-tax

Comment:

By Thomás Aengus O Cléirigh

The  Irish government’s attempt to re-invent the toxic banks as “Pillar community friendly banks” is just a farce. The Banks latest advertisement that floods our TV screens is insulting and an attempt to dumb down the citizens of Ireland. These toxic corrupt dens should be closed down and the directors should be doing jail time. But there is a more sinister problem here on our door step and it is in the IFSC in Dublin.

Did you know that there is approximately 1.4 trillion Euros on deposit and under Management in the various Fund management companies in the IFSC? Now I myself have two bank accounts one in Bank of Ireland and one at Allied Irish Bank and I estimate I am paying about 2.5% in costs every year (taxes) for the privilege of having these two bank accounts. I suspect that everybody else in Ireland is paying the same through the dirt tax and penal bank charges, but what taxes are the super rich paying to hide the billions in the ISFC off shore tax haven? “Nothing”. Not a single penny, No Taxes!

Remember every euro the government gives away to these billionaires they squeeze out of our health service, our educational system and our community services. Want to know why your taxes are going up in the next budget? Easy the puppet government is giving tax concessions to the likes of all these multinational corporations. Remember that when you get your water charges, your property tax etc you are paying Google’s and Apple’s taxes for them!and dont get me started on the corrupt tax avoidance scams down at Europe’s largest hot money centre the IFSC

What a great bunch of suckers we really are!  Time to get these leaches to pay their proper taxes!

Related articles

• SDP places Irish corporate tax rate at centre of coalition talks (irishtimes.com)

We’re being sold out for cheap economic flattery

David Mc Williams latest posting says it all

By David Mc Williams

When you walk up one of Ireland’s deserted main streets, it is difficult to reconcile the talk of Ireland doing well and being the model for other European countries to follow with the reality of living here. The reality here is that retail sales have collapsed and are not recovering. Anyone dependent on the domestic economy is just about surviving. No credit is being made available to anyone and unemployment is devastatingly high, while emigration continues apace.

That is what is going on in the “Real Ireland”.

Contrast this with the “Invented Ireland”. In the Invented Ireland, we are, supposedly, showing the rest of Europe the way out. We are the poster boys for austerity and the one indicator that the supporters of Invented Ireland obsess about is the bond yield on Irish government debt, which has fallen from 14pc to 8pc in recent months. This is significant but as we are not active in the market because we have been locked out of it, there is not that much value in this figure. However, in the world of Invented Ireland, the economy has “turned the corner”, where the skies are blue and Ireland is the star pupil of the EU. This is despite having the second highest level of unemployment in Europe — but in Invented Ireland unemployment doesn’t matter as long as the figure for GDP is increasing.

full article at source: http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2011/10/27/were-being-sold-out-for-cheap-economic-flattery

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• McWilliams: We’re being sold out for cheap economic flattery (politics.ie)
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• Irish Spy Reward Opportunity in Greece’s Debt Hole: Euro Credit (businessweek.com)

When will the penny drop?

By David mc Williams

The economies of the eurozone desperately need to start growing again, but the very currency that binds them is also acting as a straitjacket to growth
Do you want to know what bank recapitalisation looks like? I am sitting opposite it right now. It looks like two well-heeled French bank executives, in matching rimless Armani glasses, scanning spreadsheets nervously in the foyer of the swanky Bonnington Hotel in Dubai.

They are here looking for money. They have been sent here from Paris to get cash from the Arabs. This is the human face of the mad grab for cash that is going on all over the Gulf as Europe’s bankers turn to one of the few places in the world with enough money to bail them out. Obviously, the French will hope to have bagged the swag by midweek so that their clubbable chairman can clear his throat and announce solemnly on RTL that the bank is ‘‘well capitalised’’

full article at source: http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2011/10/17/when-will-the-penny-drop

Comment:

 

 

 

 

 

I don’t have to go to the foyer of the swanky Bonnington Hotel in Dubai. Unlike David here I simply cannot afford to go to the local pub, for God sakes. David’s description of the
current crises is also nothing new as I too have been calling for a reality check on the euro .Three years ago I said we in Ireland needed to reintroduce the Irish Punt because of the disastrous decision our then incompetent finance minster made with regards the bailing out of the corrupt banks.

The decision to foist the private banking gambling debts on to the taxpayers of this country could only result in us having to carry enormous austerity measures that are now crippling the economy was a dead certainty. Having gone down that road we needed to balance the effect of these austerity measures by devaluing our currency in order to attract foreign investors .Because we are part of the euro we cannot devalue and whilst our economy is contracting the imposed austerity measures are choking off the lifeblood of the economy .Three and a half years later we are no further ahead in fact we are  worse off .Our national pension reserves have disappeared down a black hole in the toxic banks .We have double the debts of Greece and its only a matter of time when this fact will cause the inevitable DEFAULT of Ireland.

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• PressTV: Strikes persist by outraged Greeks (jhaines6.wordpress.com)
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• Wave of protests, strikes hammer Greece ahead of austerity vote (thestar.com)
• Wave of protests and strikes continues in Greece (ctv.ca)

Welcome to the economic stagnation, 21st-century style

David Mc.Williams has a new post I think is a very interesting article.

The other night, in Cork, I was chatting to a woman from Mayfield. Let’s call her May. She works in a clothes shop on Patrick Street, Cork’s main shopping street. Last Sunday, she worked all day on this prime retail thoroughfare, and guess how much she took in the till during the whole day? Well, a shop like this should be – andwas in the recent past – taking about €1,800-€2,000 on Sundays, around €6,000 on Saturdays and anywhere between €1,200 and €1,500 on weekdays. Last Sunday,May took in €60 for the entire day!

Although this example might be a tad extreme, the reality for retailers all over Ireland is one of collapsing demand. Strolling down Patrick Street last Friday morning, it was clear that everyone was struggling.Every shop I counted, from the top of Washington Street to the English market, had either ‘for sale’or ‘massive discounts’ signs on the window.This is what happens when the economy slumps.

read full article at source: http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2011/10/03/welcome-to-the-economic-stagnation-21st-century-style?utm_source=WebsiteSubscribers&utm_campaign=4f509ad54c-Weekly_Roundup_10_August_2011&utm_medium=email

Till French debt do us part

By David Mc Williams

Over the past few weeks, one of the most perplexing positions taken by many of Ireland’s so-called ‘sensible’ commentators is that the euro is not workable in its present form, but that breaking from it would be inconceivable.

But where does that conundrum leave us? It means we are in a currency union which is tearing itself apart from the inside, yet is apparently unfixable. But this is plain silly. If the thing is broken, fix it; if it is unfixable, break it up and start afresh. The problem is that no one wants to pay the price of fixing the euro. No one except the ‘serial integrationists’ in the elites of Europe wants closer political or fiscal integration. Integration’s popular rejectionwas evidenced by the past three failed referendums here, in Holland and in France. So Europe is stuck.

full article at source: http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2011/09/26/till-french-debt-do-us-part?utm_source=Website+Subscribers&utm_campaign=2978de89df-Weekly_Roundup_10_August_2011&utm_medium=email

 

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Related articles

• Punt Nua or Fiscal Union – Which is best for Ireland? (politics.ie)
• Euro Remains Short of Friends (online.wsj.com)
• What if Ireland pulls out of the euro and prints punts? (guardian.co.uk)
• Euro Crisis to Hurt Ireland’s Deficit-Cutting Efforts (online.wsj.com)

Germany profited in boom so must deal with the bust!

By David Mc Williams

It is now down to Germany. Does it want to save the euro or not? If it does, it will have to underwrite the Irish along with the Italians, Spaniards and a few others besides, not to mention the Greeks.

If it doesn’t want to save the euro, it will have to deal with a rapidly rising new deutschemark, which will soar in value against every currency — not just in Europe but against every currency in the world. In fact, the blueprint for Germany is Switzerland, and last week the Swiss National Bank responded to the rising Swiss franc by capping its rapid appreciation because it is hurting Swiss industry. A post-euro Germany with the new deutschemark would be like the Swiss Franc on steroids. It would be like a massive Switzerland in the heart of Europe with a hugely overvalued currency.

full article at source: http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2011/09/14/germany-profited-in-boom-so-must-deal-with-the-bust?utm_source=WebsiteSubscribers&utm_campaign=02a50fdec3-Weekly_Roundup_10_August_2011&utm_medium=email

 

Comment:

Germany :Should I stay or should I go???

“Bailout will sink Ireland before we”

Image by omaniblog via Flickr

David McWilliams

has posted a new article, ‘Bailout will sink Ireland before we
can even swim’

Foreign banks and creditors should lose everything they gambled on the likes of
Anglo, but instead, they have been saved by the taxpayer

Make no mistake about it, this ‘bailout‘ will sink Ireland. We are witnessing a
monumental struggle between the innocent average Irish person and the guilty
creditors of the bust Irish banks.

Interestingly, the financial […]

You may view the full article and add your own comments at
http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2010/12/01/bailout-will-sink-ireland-before-we-can-even-swim

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