Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Three, actually four, observations on Lisbon
2. It is the capital city of one of the darker horses of Euro 2008, who are looking very dark at the moment, if darkness equates to looking incredibly impressive indeed after tonight's performance. Less can be said about Football365's sub-editor for the opening paragraph of their report on the game.
3. The Lisbon Treaty campaign, if you were to believe some of the more hysterical analyses of it, has been a mixture of either misinformation from the No campaigners, or bullying/guilt-tripping from the Yes campaigners, and plenty of patronising from all concerned - so which ever offends you less, being bullied or lied to, vote with them. See, for instance, some of the comments responding to David McWilliams' rather excellent commentary on the makeup of the Yes and No camps in today's Irish Independent.
4. On the Lisbon Treaty Referendum Count Centre in Limerick: this will be the University of Limerick Sports Arena. In other words the arena where I was due to play indoor soccer this evening, which was to my first game back after a prolonged absence - I believe March was the last time I kicked a luminous yellow ball in anger. Why should hundreds of (possibly apolitical) sportspeople be put out because of a treaty that doesn't really worry all that many of them? Surely there are other disused buildings in Limerick that could have been chosen - how about the former Microtherm factory building in Bruff Co Limerick, whose ex-employees featured in a recent RTE documentary, Where's My Job Gone? Or would that be sending out the wrong signals?
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Do as we say, not as we do
Rewind to February 2003. I believe President Bush said one of the reasons for the invasion of Iraq in the first place was to foster democracy there.
"The US is adamantly against the new security agreement being put to a referendum in Iraq, suspecting that it would be voted down."
Image: US Marines in Iraq, Wikimedia Commons
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Economic Aches
The construction boom, upon which much of Ireland's recent economic growth was based on, according to some commentators, appears to be over. The country is dotted with housing estates that appear to be left unfinished as their builders go bust. Anecdotally, I know of one auctioneering firm whose staff size has fallen to a third of what it was last year while their monthly sales income has decreased by a factor of nine.
One point I took from May 24th's lead story in The Economist is that while inflation per se may not be all that high, employees' perceptions of inflation can become higher and this in turn leads to higher wage demands. As there is no sign of us seeing any decrease in the number of inflation related headline stories between now and the national pay talks, it is a near-certainty that public and semi-state sector employees will push for wage increases. They may even be granted the rises, with the help of collective industrial action. Joe Private Sector Employee will see what his public sector counterpart was doing and will naturally follow suit.
And how will the multinational employer of JPSE react when himself and his colleagues begin to strike? Will they negotiate? Maybe. Will they accede to the JPSEs' demands? Doubtful. You can bet your bottom devalued dollar that JPSE's job will be outsourced offshore to a land with lower wages and less collective bargaining power. Even though according to the European Restructuring Monitor only 8% of EU jobs lost to restructuring between 2003 and 2006 have involved offshoring, this figure is likely to rise, at least in Ireland's case.
'Inflation' photo by Joshua Davis