Brace yourself now for the Deckland Depression

Ireland is about to experience its first middle-class recession. The big difference between this recession and previous ones is that this one will have a dramatically negative impact on the expectations of a generation whose world-view was almost unquestionably positive.

Commuter towns such as Naas, Arklow and Navan are likely to be hit hardest and the people who will lose their jobs and, eventually, their homes are the very ones who bought into the boom
most. They are the young working families, largely employed in white-collar jobs, who believed the hype and bought the new houses, complete with decking and barbeques, close to the top of the market. They are the Decklanders and Ireland is about to endure the great "Deckland Depression".

Read On...

Jeremy Clarkson Ireland - the last days of the Roman empire

I was in Dublin last weekend, and had a very real sense I’d been invited to the last days of the Roman empire. As far as I could work out, everyone had a Rolls-Royce Phantom and a coat made from something that’s now extinct. And then there were the women. Wow. Not that long ago every girl on the Emerald Isle had a face the colour of straw and orange hair. Now it’s the other way around.

Everyone appeared to be drunk on naked hedonism. I’ve never seen so much jus being drizzled onto so many improbable things, none of which was potted herring. It was like Barcelona but with beer. And as I careered from bar to bar all I could think was: “Jesus. Can’t they see what’s coming?”

Ireland is tiny. Its population is smaller than New Zealand’s, so how could the Irish ever have generated the cash for so many trips to the hairdressers, so many lobsters and so many Rollers? And how, now, as they become the first country in Europe to go officially into recession, can they not see the financial meteorite coming? Why are they not all at home, singing mournful songs?

Read On...

Britain - in no position to laugh at Iceland

Taxpayers are already facing a loss of almost £10 billion on their investment in Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB and HBOS even before the Government hands over a penny. That is what their languishing share prices are saying.

The recession has barely begun and the banks are on their knees. Scores of billions of pounds of bad debts are yet to come, as companies and individuals default on loans.

Read On...