Think Big, Think Radical, Think Different

Incremental thinking is a problem at a time like this. A bit more of this, a bit more of that. I think a radical change of thinking is sometimes needed. That’s why I disagree with Daragh O’Brien’s assessment of Your Country Your Call. There are many problems with YCYC and you would have to wonder what evaluation of the plan was done before the government decided to throw 300,000 euros into the pot. It is just not easy to get that sort of support from government, even during a boom. But as a small, open economy, we cannot county-enterprise-board our way out of our situation. We need to come up with radical plans, and pretty big plans to boot.

(This incidentally, also applies to the Irish Government. It cannot hope to win back support through a series of small local campaigns, supported by politically driven local projects, or by intensive local campaigning and handing out Cabinet posts or Seanad seats. This worked before, but it will not work now. The govnernment has to put forward coherent, radical, large scale, national level change to make a difference to people’s situations and people’s perceptions. (And it has to start with the cabinet reshuffle.)

The Green Party is a Consumerist Party

The Irish Green Party has melted down at the polls, at both local level (where they won almost nothing) and at national level (where they won nothing and were even beaten by an independent who left the party a few months ago. But what’s at the core of the party’s problems?
The two views  I have heard about the Party’s medium-term prospects (from very different sources) are:

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The Irish Bank Calamity is a multi-disciplinary problem

The Irish banks have run into some serious problems. The core of these problems are quite simple. But eight months forward from the official emergence of the crisis, there is no sign of an answer. There is serious criticism of the possible solutions that are coming up.Everyone is afraid that we will end up with a bunch of zombie banks, and that the people who caused the problem, property developers and bank officials, will end up being rescued from their sorry situation by the taxpayer.
Most of the objections are still tactical, rather than strategic. Zombie banks or a few rescues aren’t the biggest problem. The real problem is that we are going to end up with a zombie banking system, and that the government will end up as its political guardian.

So the problem is simple: the banks’ net assets are less than zero. The loans they have given out, for which they borrowed money from depositors and other lenders, are no longer considered likely to be repaid in full, or anything near it.
Solving the problem is far from simple. The following issues arise.

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In the land of the euros, the one eyed man is king.

Simon McGarr writes about adventures in the world of the European Movement. I do not think it is quite factual to say that Margot Wallstrom, the VP of the Commission (whom everyone in Ireland insisted in calling ‘Margo’ in honour of the Queen of Country) spent the evening speaking to bloggers, although a considerable amount of time was spent.

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Shinsei Bank – a model for Irish banking reform?

J.C Flowers is one of the companies apparently interested in investing in and restructuring Irish banks, in particular, Bank of Ireland. The same company took over Long Term Credit Bank of Japan and restructured it into Shinsei (‘rebirth’) Bank which according to Joichi Ito describes as ‘an example of how legacy companies in Japan can be turned around with good management and smart methods’.

A lot of people are concerned that foreign investors will do something radical with the Irish banks. But the reality is that this is what is required. Our banking is not anything like as efficient as it could be and our bankers are nowhere near as smart as they thought they were. If the sector does not restructure itself now, it will have restructuring forced upon it by competition from across the eurozone within a few years. It is worth reading what former Bank of Ireland CEO Michael Soden has said. Leaving things the way they are is just not an option.

bailing out Irish banks

The government has already bailed out Irish banks. Now it has to do so again. The reason for this is that it wasn’t done properly the first time. The guarantee was simply no help. Although it provided liquidity (i.e., so that the banks could get a few euros on tick to carry on trading) it did nothing to deal with the losses that have resulted from the fall in the value of property and the resulting fall in value of the loans secured on property. The banks need capital invested in order to cover this.

Until they get the money, they won’t be able to lend money to businesses, and that will result in unnecessary bankruptcies and undermine whatever growth there is in the economy..  I am just after hearing about a business that can’t raise a ten thousand euro overdraft – the lack of facilities will stop this business from growing. (Bill Cullen agrees with me, so obviously it must be true.)

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Reviewing the signage on Ireland’s motorway system

This article on the UK Design Museum site tells the story of the British motorway and general road signage system, designed by Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert. It begins:

Determined to illustrate the haphazard state of British road signage at the turn of the 1960s, the graphic designer Herbert Spencer drove from central London to the recently opened Heathrow London Airport and photographed each of the road signs that he came across along the way.

Perhaps it is time for someone to do something similar for the drive from Naas via the M50 ring-road to the Airport. It would certainly be an interesting project to do over a few Sunday mornings.

Microsoft welcomes Ireland’s vote on OOXML

According to this press release, Microsoft welcomes Ireland’s ‘no with comments/conditional approval’ vote and NSAI’s consultative committee unanimously agreed to the conditional acceptance of the Office OpenXML standard.

I am glad that Microsoft welcomes the decision. However, the account above was not what happened at the meeting of ICTSCC last week as I recall it. In my recollection, Microsoft voiced a sustained objection to voting in this way. Microsoft was supported in a call for voting ‘yes’ by representatives from ICTIreland, Intel and CP3. There was nothing unanimous about it.

Also, to clarify, the committee involved, the ‘Information and Computing Technology Standards Consultative Committee’ does not have the final say in voting on standards. Its role is purely consultative, to provide advice to the NSAI in accordance with Section 10 of the National Standards Authority of Ireland Act 1996. The making of a final decision lies with NSAI itself.

Ireland votes Conditional Approval/No with Comments on OOXML standard

Ireland has voted ‘no with comments’ on the OOXML/DIS 29500 proposal to make the new XML-based Microsoft file formats an international standard.
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Minister to delay postcode system

Government Minister to delay Irish postcode system. Not such a big surprise. The plan had been to launch a scheme by January 2008, but the project appears to have become mired.
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