Empire Avenue

Friday, December 30, 2011

OCCUPY LANGUAGE
I heard Theo Dorgan on Matt Cooper’s show on Today FM. There were four very noisy ten year olds in the car – all speaking at the same time as Theo. I still knew I was listening to something really important – and I want to share it – and I hope you will share it. ” We don’t know what we want, but we don’t want this shit” – this was a tweet from some fan of the occupy movement. The inchoate frustration is interesting – but it won’t change anything. Dorgan says ” When you change language you change reality” He talks about the disconnect between the state and the citizen. He talks here too about how we in Ireland imported the nature of state from Britain wholesale and without any discourse about what kind of Republic we wanted back at the foundation of the state…and that now as it all collapses around us, once again we are shirking responsibility as citizens to re-imagine the Republic. Of course, the issues addressed are much broader than Irish. Once again there is a breakdown of consensus on the nature of political society. Each time this has happened in history poets and writers have played a key role in focusing the inchoate into language, into ideas, into a reality that we ordinary folk can sign up to. The emergence of nationalism in 19th century Europe including our own relentless journey from a nation to a state was driven more by poetry and writing than by guns and warriors. I include the radio interview and his earlier speech in UCC. I feel optimistic. I was afraid Ireland was moving back towards stasis and mediocrity. It can’t as long as people like Theo have a voice and an audience.
Matt Cooper Today FM - UCC speech 2000UCC speech 2010 “Now is the season to know that everything you do is sacred” — Hafiz Today is an important day in the life of the Republic. A huge human investment has gone into the processes that have brought you here: all those who have fed and nurtured you, all those who have taught you, studied with you, befriended you, loved you, share today in what is by any standards a considerable achievement. You are citizens of a Republic, and this Republic has underwritten, made possible, your achievements. You are already, and have been for some time, privileged human beings: the wealth which others have generated has been placed at your disposal so that you may make the best of the talents you were born with. And you yourselves have made, perhaps, the greatest investment: you have put your lives so far into the work of educating yourselves, each of you has taken the one and only life you have and invested it in a dream of the future. You feel a sense, perhaps, of accomplishment. A sense of vindication. A sense of relief. And, if you are to be accurate, a sense of loss, too, because a whole phase of your life is over. Each of you must feel, in some crucial sense, very much on your own today. From now on, what happens will be as a result of your choices. From now on, you are responsible for what becomes of you. But I would like you also to consider this: more than has been the case before today, what happens to all of us now will be shaped by what you do, the choices you make, the ways you conduct yourselves as citizens. And because you are privileged, because your education confers on you a certain access to power in this society, what you say and do, what you become, will have an added force. Today, your responsibilities deepen. Education is a curious thing. We derive it from the Latin, e-ducere, to lead out. We need to ask some questions about this, I think: who is being led, who is doing the leading, from where are we being led out, and into what? In some sense one is being led out of childhood, the extended childhood that is a mark of the western democracies in our time. One is also being led out of a presumed ignorance, into the light of learning. The model this etymology suggests is essentially authoritarian, it presumes a settled society, a certain naivety on the part of the student, a certain possession of learning on the part of the teacher, a chain of transmission, and therefore transformation, linking both. I am not so sure that this model holds in the present day. It suggests a continuity that is essentially human, it suggests a process where the wise and accomplished devote their lives to nurturing the humanity of the young, the end in view being the deepening of our human understanding of ourselves and others. We live, however, in a problematic reality now, the variousness of what lives and dies only fitfully seen behind the lightning clouds of a consumer economy, the music of what happens drowned out by the roaring and screeching of an economy that has lost the run of itself. This Republic has invested time and money and human care in your formation, but somehow has lost itself along the way. Most of your exact contemporaries in the world today are born into poverty, in many cases extreme poverty. A huge number of them live under the rule of oppressive regimes, many of them face lives of powerlessness, of vain struggle, of hardship and the slow death of hope. We, on the other hand, live in comparative liberty, we are privileged politically, socially and materially as no nation on the face of the earth has ever been. On the face of it. We have gross inequalities here in Ireland, and I see them becoming grosser, and each of you must ask herself and himself what it is you wish to do about that. But, in essence, we are free. We share fully in the conditional freedoms of the Western democracies. The challenge you face now, as citizens of a Republic, is what to do with these freedoms. The period of your life whose passing we are marking today has been a period of initiation. If you have been fortunate, as I was fortunate here, you will have met real teachers, women and men who will have encouraged in you what Hegel refers to as the particular courage of taking thought, of reflecting on your situation, your capacities and your desires. Some of you live in an unexamined way, and will be like this until you die, or until life shocks you into being awake; some of you were born with questions on your lips, and will die asking questions. Most of you, like most of us, will make sporadic attempts to understand this life, but will end up making those tiny accomodations that eat the soul, agreeing with one another that we can’t be always worrying about things, we have to be getting on with the practical realities. What I wish for you today, on the threshold of this new phase of your lives, is courage. The courage to push yourselves beyond the incidental drives of the ego, the courage to dare yourselves, every day of your lives, to become more fully human. The courage to live in the light of Auden’s famous dictum, “we must love one another or die”. The courage to pursue wisdom and justice in all that you are and in all that you do. The courage to become, in the proudest possible sense, citizens of a Republic. The great Russian poet, Boris Pasternak, tells us “to live your life is not so simple as to cross a field”. He’s right, of course. Life happens to us, and we struggle to make the best of it. Most of the time we get on with it, making it up as we go along. I don’t mean for a moment to suggest that this is a bad thing, far from it. I have no idea where we came from, not the least idea where we’re going. Like you, I want more than anything else to enjoy this life, to enjoy this strange world in which we find ourselves, “the richness of things being various”. My only use to you today is to say this: once I sat where you sit now, conscious of great kindnesses that were done to me here, conscious of privilege, impatient to be gone from here. I wanted more of everything -wine, dope, sex, work, company, love; I wanted poems above all, not to be a poet but to have the in eradicable joy of making poems. I knew what I wanted, or thought I did, and I couldn’t wait to get on with it. And buried deep inside that passionate appetite for life was a barely-acknowledged truth: I wanted to know, I wanted, though I wouldn’t have used the words then, to be wise. I have spent my life since then in a stumbling pursuit of wisdom. I live here, in Ireland, in these complex and turbulent times. I have lived elsewhere, and will again, but this is my nation and this is where I must teach myself to be human. For all its glaring faults, its petty failings, its dull and mostly illiterate ruling class, this Republic, this place we share in space and time and history, is the stage on which we must shape and act our parts. I hope, of course, that some generous impulse in your minds and hearts will lead you to play a conscious part in shaping the world we live in. I hope that you will not be beaten down, that the shocks of life will not wear away your courage and passion. There will be bitterness and there will be joy and there will be, inevitably, a great deal of confusion. But let us agree to say at the end of things “I have lived as best I could have, I have done what good was in my power. I lived as a free and generous human being”. I leave you with these words of the 14th century Persian poet, Hafiz: “Now is the season to know that everything you do is sacred” — Hafiz

Saturday, November 12, 2011

At your wake, your life will not be measured by your bank balance

20 minutes chat about creating value, Mongolian Vodka, Lean Startup and more.. Recording courtesy of Bernie Goldbach - @topgold http://huffduffer.com/topgold/55663 Picture courtesy of Philip O'Rourke @piperhawk

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

A kick up the Aras

Value politics and the Presidency I have a very simple belief system when it comes to business or life in general. The rules of the game are: You create value You distribute value You capture some of that value for yourself If you live a good life, you create more value than you capture For my children, I want a state that provides the infrastructure physical and cultural that allows them to create plenty of value for their community. I know that if they do, they will capture enough value to make the choices they need, and to offer their children all the choices they need. Let’s leave the physical infrastructure to one side – that job is for government. Let’s focus instead on the cultural infrastructure. This is anchored by beliefs that are shared by the vast majority of a nation. The beliefs we sign up to in Ireland include: Equal rights regardless of birth, gender, race, creed or indeed access to dominant political organisations Practical ethics in business and in private life A commitment by citizens that balances personal liberty with the needs of the Nation and State Its not a long list. There may be more but let’s consider the role of the President in regard to this list. I have had a number of discussions on twitter and offline about Sean Gallagher. I don’t know him from a bar of soap, and I have nothing against the man. One business guy suggested to me that every businessman in Ireland would do exactly what it is being suggested SG did in relation to tax. “Ripping the arse out of the tax code is a key skill in Irish business” is exactly how it was put to me. That is not a sustainable model of business ethics, and that will become clear when the cute hoors not paying their fair share of tax go looking for college places for their kids, or visit their mum as she lies in a corridor on a trolley. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0624/1224299525409.html I don’t want to live in that country. If a President does not sign up to the cultural infrastructure we want for Ireland, how can you expect others to do so. We elect a President to reflect what’s great about our country. Sean Gallagher’s campaign stood for “Hope” and “Positivity”. Its what Ireland is crying out for, and its no surprise that he won a lot of support. It is why Charles Haughey was elected, it is why Bertie Ahern was elected. “Questions are like the knocks of beggarmen, and should not be minded.” ― Flann O'Brien I don’t want to live in that country. I was struck also by the €5k paid by GAA clubs to SG in order to copper fasten grant aid. "He was inside with Fianna Fail and the ministers and (he had) the inside track, he had been (Dr Rory) O'Hanlon's secretary. Once you got him to do it, you were going to get the grant.” According to sources in this article. http://www.independent.ie/national-news/presidential-election/gallagher-charged-gaa-clubs-up-to-euro5000-for-grants-advice-2915300.html That’s the Ireland my Dad grew up in. Access to a small elite – not your ability or your application decided your fate and the fate of your enterprise. I have worked in developing countries where that logic reaches its inevitable end point, where corruption crushes initiative and turns good people into ex-pats. It has a habit of breaking the people who stay and have the capacity to change countries like Ireland – I think of Noel Browne especially when I write this. The human waste of our generations, the ‘40’s, the ‘50’s, the ‘60’s the ‘70’s, my own generation who left in the ‘80’s – is incalculable. In this period, Europe rebuilt itself, America reimagined itself and our best and our brightest built rich lives invested in Nations far from home. Ireland stagnated. I don’t want to live in that country. In business I have found myself in the company of what Flann O’Brien would call sleeveens. I have seen close up the self delusion with regards to their ability; the cuteness built on a presumption that the rest of us are too thick to catch them out; the expectation that even though its wrong, they will get away with it, and there will be a great story to tell about that close brush with moral consequences. Taking these guys down requires a lot of effort and personal sacrifice. On Thursday, all you have to do is vote. A vote for Sean Gallagher is a vote for the Ireland our parents grew up in. I don’t want to live in that country.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Steve Jobs and adoption

Being adopted is a challenge.

Half of those who seek out their birth parents, really wished they had not.

Building a successful relationship with any parent takes decades of trial and error, love and mutual respect.

Its hardly surprising that without that platform, relationships with newly discovered birth parents don't always work out.

I am adopted - my real parents are Betty & Tadhg Hannigan.

My birthparents are very real too - but I have not sought them out.

I respect them and thank them for giving me the life I have.

I don't feel any urge to have a relationship with them beyond that.

It does not feel right.

It seems unlikely we would have the ingredients for a valuable relationship.

I think that's probably how Steve Jobs felt.

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052970203499704576620911395191694-lMyQjAxMTAxMDAwOTEwNDkyWj.html?fb_ref=wsj_share_FB&fb_source=home_multiline

Saturday, August 27, 2011

A different Perspective on the Celtic Tiger


Anyone with friends in emerging economies will have a very interesting perspective on Ireland today.

We are very lucky and we should remember that when our media over egg our situation.

Ireland is effectively bankrupt. The balance sheet is shot.

This is due to an extreme bubble in property prices and a criminal lack of control of our banking sector.

Ireland is a democracy. We have voted those in government who were responsible out of office.

We are not an open society when it comes to wealth and powerful self serving groups. No one in business responsible for the destruction of our economy has spent a day in prison or faced any other punitive action.

Trade Unions have not faced up to their responsibilities. They are insisting that those in the public sector get theirs - regardless of our country's ability to maintain these conditions.

Our asset classes have not been allowed to clear as they might in a liberal economy like the US.

Just as our country is bankrupt so too are many of our families. There is no chance that many can ever pay down their debt.

This is being ignored, the can is being kicked down the road.

Unlike in liberal economies, bankruptcy is a major stigma in Ireland. A bankrupt in Ireland will remain so for 12 years - compared to 1 year in the UK.

We do not have banking. What is worse is that the banking sector produce statistics to suggest that debt is available to business and families. Its not.

The celtic tiger reinforced the truth that our people are as good as any other.

Irish companies and individuals raised their game - aimed to be outstanding, to be world class.

Our people remain outstanding productive members of society.

Our exports continue to grow at a very aggressive rate.

Our companies and Foreign Direct Investment companies are growing fast, competing effectively with their competitors on a global scale.

On the P&L - Ireland is on a positive trend. Construction and Banking are destroyed as sectors. Most other sectors not dependent on domestic demand are doing well.

So there is a lot to fight for.

What do we do next?

Well - I am not sure to be honest.

I know what outcomes we need to bounce back:

- We need to reduce our public costs.

- We need banking to re-start.

- We need education and health systems that will retain the best and most productive people in this country.

- We need to get unemployed people back into work.

- We need to write down the value of assets, property, bonds and mortgages. We need to do this fast to re-start the economy and investment activity. Failure to do so will recreate the stagnation that Japan created by not being aggressive post their asset bubble.

With no currency revaluation possible, we need to drive down all costs - including salaries. There has been some work done in this respect - but Ireland is still an expensive place to live and work - Iceland has been lucky in this regard. Revaluing their currency made this re-pricing automatic. We need to replicate this outcome.


There is a lot outside of our own control.

How the EU views itself and its responsibility to its citizens is perhaps the most important input into our countries future.

What is obvious to me having visited ex-communist countries like Romania is that humans have an exceptional ability to survive and to prosper.

Talking to people who lived through the '90's in the Balkans reminds me as an Irish person just how much we have going for us.

I am optimistic. This too will pass.

Steve Heighway

At 6 my parents guided me towards supporting Liverpool and specifically this amazing new Irish player: Steve Heighway

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Heighway.
http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/history/past-players/steve-heighwa
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSD_ABo4Qws

He was a fantastic role model and I hope my kids find role models as powerful.

In Messi, I believe they have found just that model - and its about a lot more than soccer.

Messi's personality and lifestyle are in marked contrast to so many of the flashy trashy people in sport today.

I have no doubt that at 63, like Heighway, Messi will be a valuable part of his industry and a good man.

That's all I hope for my two sons.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Tim O'Reilly - Create more value than you capture

Tim O'Reilly should be a lot better known in Ireland.

For those of you who think they know him - take a moment to read a little more about him here - there may be a few surprises.

For Irish people not directly involved in technology - you may never have heard of him.

This is a collection of links for anyone who wants to find out more.

Why am I putting this blog together?



In a perfect world what I would love to see happen is....

- A member of the cabinet preferably Enda Kenny reaching out to ask this global leader for his help and support.

- An Irish media organisation persuading Tim to invest time and energy to lead an event called - why not - Ireland 2.0

- An ongoing role for Tim where he could evangelize, promote and give back to the country of his birth.

I have been lucky enough to see Tim speak.

We have people in common and they confirm that this guy is all he seems to be and more.

He was born in Cork, he is proudly from Kerry.

Gay Byrne for the Aras?

Don't make me laugh.

When you discover the impact this guy has had in his short life, few other Irish leaders stand a shoulder above him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_O'Reilly

tim.oreilly.com -- Various Thing I've Written: Tim O'Reilly's Archive

http://www.inc.com/magazine/20100501/the-oracle-of-silicon-valley.html

http://oreilly.com/about/

Some Videos worth viewing

http://thestartupfoundry.com/2011/03/09/how-tim-oreilly-bootstrapped-oreilly-media-with-happy-accidents/

Create more value that your capture - Web 2.0 2010 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAau6W--iMo

Velocity 2011 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Kn-RrAg9FI

BBC interview 2007 - http://blip.tv/cubicgardencom-videos/tim-o-reilly-interview-for-bbc-pods-and-blogs-198960



Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Revisiting O'Donovan Rossa's Grave after the Cloyne Report

Splendid and holy causes are served by men who are themselves splendid and holy.

O'Donovan Rossa was splendid in the proud manhood of him--splendid in the heroic grace of him, splendid in the Gaelic strength and clarity and truth of him.

And all that splendour, and pride, and strength was compatible with a humility and a simplicity of devotion to Ireland, to all that was olden and beautiful and Gaelic in Ireland; the holiness and simplicity of patriotism of a Michael O'Clery or of an Eoghan O'Growney.

The clear true eyes of this man almost alone in his day visioned Ireland as we to-day would surely have her--not free merely but Gaelic as well; not Gaelic merely, but free as well.

We pledge to Ireland our love, and we pledge to Rome rule in Ireland our hate

I hold it a Christian thing, as O'Donovan Rossa held it, to hate evil, to hate untruth, to hate oppression, and hating them, to strive to overthrow them.

Our foes are strong, and wise, and wary; but strong and wise and wary as they are, they cannot undo the miracles of God, Who ripens in the hearts of young men the seeds sown by the young men of a former generation.

Rulers and Defenders of Realms had need to be wary it they would guard against such processes.

Life springs from death, and from the graves of patriot men and women spring live nations.

The defenders of this church have worked well in secret and in the open.

They think that they have pacified Ireland.

They think that they have purchased half of us, and intimidated the other half.

They think that they have foreseen everything.

They think that they have provided against everything; but the fools, the fools, the fools! they have left us our broken and our

dead, and while Ireland holds these graves, Ireland unfree shall never be at peace

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Distribution of equity among founders at start-up

A friend called me about this issue.

I don't have the solution for every given situation but I thought I would share my thoughts with you.

Feel free to comment or improve on my points!

I recommend starting with an equal share for each Founder, not each employee, I stress.

If you can't tell the difference - you are an employee!

Say you have two founders....

Your shareholder agreement should allow for those shares to be bought back by the company at a nominal sum in circumstances where the 50:50 split is no longer fair.

This would be by consensus or failing that with arbitration provided by a trusted third party - chairperson, lawyer etc.

The shares should become whole on three dates

1/3 whole on first anniversary, 1/3 on the following two anniversaries.

After a year you should know if the 50:50 is fair, but if not - you have two further board meetings to set things right.

If you are still not sure about the correct split after 3 years....it does not matter!!

If you don't raise funds, you can give a 3d party a casting vote - a chairperson or a professional advisor like your legal advisor.

This deals with the unlikely event of a complete empasse on key decisions.

If you do raise funds, a 50:50 split will no longer be an issue. You will have a third voting block and hopefully they will be valuable and active in helping you make the right decisions.

The only reason for moving from a 50:50 is if one person is demonstrably creating more shareholder value than the other.

Even this extreme case can dealt with this elsewhere:

Salary
Annual bonus
Share Options

That's my tuppence worth.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Mladic and The Balkans - a reading list

I have put together a reading list that allows you to get to grips with the major issues around "The Balkan question"

These books tell of horrendous evil and paint loss on a scale that most of us can hardly get our heads around.

When you meet people in Belgrade, Tirana, Sarajevo or Dubrovnik, you find that every family has been visited by loss.

The "Bridge on the Drina" novel gives you a sense that this loss goes back generations and has as many layers as a Baklava cake.

So let's start at the start.....

The split of the Roman empire - Rome vs Constantinople - created long term division in the Balkans.

Primarily the division is Croats/ Catholics from their brother Southern Slavs - the Serbs/Orthodox.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East%E2%80%93West_Schism


The Bosnian Christian Church had a history of heresy and were harassed by both Catholics and Orthodox churches.

That made them open to conversion. Large numbers over centuries converted to Islam, brought to Bosnia by the Ottomans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamization_of_Bosnia_and_Herzegovina

Mirkovic is a family name in all three traditions - all Slavs - all impossible to tell apart.

We know from our own Irish history how corrosive the enemy within concept can be.

That is a starting point to understanding the millennium of Balkan fear and loathing, a millennium of butchery and treachery - with all sides responsible.

A history where there is little by way of a reckoning and even less in terms of a shared history.

There has been no Truth and Reconciliation Commission like South Africa's.

Albanians - who make up most of the population in Kosovo, Albania and a good portion of Macedonia add more spice to this cauldron. The majority are notionally Muslim.

They have been persecuted by the Serbs throughout history.

There have also been massacres in reverse. Ethnic cleansing of Serbs over centuries in Kosovo explains why Kosovo, a most sacred place for Serbs has so few Serbs living there today.

This was the site of the Battle of Kosovo field. Serb and Albanian Princes fought and were defeated by the Ottoman Sultan - but at such a cost that the Ottoman advance into Europe was stalled for a generation.

It was enough time to prepare Europe for what became the successful defense of Vienna when the Turks next attacked.

Serbs believe that this battle saved Europe from becoming a Muslim backwater of the Ottoman Empire.

The fact that this totem of Serb nationalism - the battle ground, historic churches and monasteries are no longer part of Serbia is a raw wound to almost all Serbs - whether ultra-nationalist or liberal.

My work has allowed me spend time with people from all traditions in the Balkans.

I find Balkan people from all communities open, honest and great fun.

They have a lot in common with the Irish - and you find that the Irish percolate into all aspects of Balkan life.

We have a similar world view and very similar core values.

One thing you notice talking to people from the region are the huge gaps in their knowledge of Balkan history.

Into these gaps flow many myths that do not stand up to scrutiny.

Tito, (Joseph Broz) as leader of communist Yugoslavia, kept the lid on all the regions simmering hatreds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josip_Broz_Tito

When he passed on - two men fanned hate and hyper-nationalism - Milosovic and Tudjman.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slobodan_Milo%C5%A1evi%C4%87
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franjo_Tu%C4%91man

Media operated as unquestioning megaphones for their lies and hatred.

All the fears and all the resentments carried in so many Balkan breasts were brought to the surface.

Bosnia fractured, a quasi-state was created - Republic Serbski - led by Radavan Karadzic with its military leader Radko Mladic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radovan_karad%C5%BEi%C4%87
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mladic

The civil war that ensued killed over 100,000 people. The fighting was intense with military losses on all sides. The civilian casualties make up over 40% of all deaths. Of these a stark 83% were Bosniaks, Slav Muslim citizens.

8,000 Bosniak boys and men were killed in the Massacre at Srebrenica.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_War

The war in Kosovo that followed unleashed hell on millions and set bitter fault lines in place for future wars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_War


What happened in the Balkans in the 1990's is red raw.

It is unbelievable that it happened in our lifetime. It is unbelievable that it happened only a couple of hours away by plane.

It is critical that this time the facts becomes recognised as a common history shared and accepted by all.

What happened in the 1990's is history repeating itself.

SS officers wrote of their revulsion at the horrors of the concentration camps in the Croatian Fascist state during WW2.

In that war, total civilian casualties in Yugoslavia make up 85% of deaths in some estimates. The detail of how these citizens died is truly horrific.

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP9.HTM

These horrors are repeated regularly over centuries of Balkan history.

With Mladic facing trial for his crimes - is this all coming to an end?

No is the short answer....

Not unless Europe takes a long term leadership role in the Balkan future is the longer answer.

Lincoln with the Civil War created a new manifest destiny for his America. It was to move the United States from a loose federation to unity of purpose.

Indirectly that civil war and his vision changed the scale and nature of the global economy and global politics.

With so many challenges in Europe today, we need a vision as profound as Lincoln's; a sense of purpose that all Europeans can buy into; a vision that sets nationalism in perspective; a vision that precludes anything like the Balkan wars from staining our continent again.

The alternative, a return to 20th century nationalism seems hardly credible.

The Balkans future is dependent to a huge degree on how the EU develops.





If you want to find out more about the Balkans - here are some starting points.....

@timjudah1 - on twitter

http://www.amazon.com/Serbs-History-Destruction-Yugoslavia-Third/dp/0300158262/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1306837189&sr=1-1

This guy is well worth following on twitter - he has a number of books on the balkans - this book is a must read.....

@MishaGlenny - on twitter

http://www.amazon.com/Fall-Yugoslavia-Misha-Glenny/dp/014026101X/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_3
http://www.amazon.com/Balkans-1804-1999-Nationalism-Great-Powers/dp/1862070733/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_7

From Misha you get a sense of how frustrated journalists were with "fair reporting codes" and in general valuable personal insights.

Slavenka Drakulic

http://www.amazon.com/They-Would-Never-Hurt-Fly/dp/0143035428/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_5

This is harrowing - she sits in and report on the mighty and the not so mighty being processed through The Hague.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Survived-Communism-Even-Laughed/dp/0060975407/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_1

A great rollicking read - great insights into the reality of life in Tito's Yugoslavia

Ivor Andric

http://www.amazon.com/Bridge-Drina-Phoenix-Fiction/dp/0226020452/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1306837506&sr=1-1

Nobel prize winner from Bosnia - amazing tale of a bridge and its village from the time of the Ottoman empire up to the start of the WW1 - beautifully written.

Very simply introduces most of the political themes of the Balkans.

Rebecca West

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Lamb-Falcon-Penguin-Classics/dp/014310490X/ref=sr_1_12?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1306837559&sr=1-12

Anglo Irish partner of HG Wells - rambling account of several tours of the Balkans between the two World Wars.

Leon Trotsky

http://www.amazon.com/War-Correspondence-Leon-Trotsky-1912-13/dp/0873489071/ref=sr_1_45?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1306837688&sr=1-45

This is on my wish list so can't comment until I read it - but it comes highly recommended.


Beyond this there is a world of rich Balkan Art, Culture and literature to dig into. Go for it!

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

The damaged Celtic Tiger - one perspective


Anyone with friends in emerging economies will have a very interesting perspective on Ireland today.

We are very lucky and we should remember that when our media over egg our situation.

Ireland is effectively bankrupt. The balance sheet is shot.

This is due to an extreme bubble in property prices and a criminal lack of control of our banking sector.

Ireland is a democracy. We have voted those in government who were responsible out of office.

We are not an open society when it comes to wealth and powerful self serving groups. No one in business responsible for the destruction of our economy has spent a day in prison or faced any other punitive action.

Trade Unions have not faced up to their responsibilities. They are insisting that those in the public sector get theirs - regardless of our country's ability to maintain these conditions.

Our asset classes have not been allowed to clear as they might in a liberal economy like the US.

Just as our country is bankrupt so too are many of our families. There is no chance that many can ever pay down their debt.

This is being ignored, the can is being kicked down the road.

Unlike in liberal economies, bankruptcy is a major stigma in Ireland. A bankrupt in Ireland will remain so for 12 years - compared to 1 year in the UK.

We do not have banking. What is worse is that the banking sector produce statistics to suggest that debt is available to business and families. Its not.

The celtic tiger reinforced the truth that our people are as good as any other.

Irish companies and individuals raised their game - aimed to be outstanding, to be world class.

Our people remain outstanding productive members of society.

Our exports continue to grow at a very aggressive rate.

Our companies and Foreign Direct Investment companies are growing fast, competing effectively with their competitors on a global scale.

On the P&L - Ireland is on a positive trend. Construction and Banking are destroyed as sectors. Most other sectors not dependent on domestic demand are doing well.

So there is a lot to fight for.

What do we do next?

Well - I am not sure to be honest.

I know what outcomes we need to bounce back:

- We need to reduce our public costs.

- We need banking to re-start.

- We need education and health systems that will retain the best and most productive people in this country.

- We need to get unemployed people back into work.

- We need to write down the value of assets, property, bonds and mortgages. We need to do this fast to re-start the economy and investment activity. Failure to do so will recreate the stagnation that Japan created by not being aggressive post their asset bubble.

With no currency revaluation possible, we need to drive down all costs - including salaries. There has been some work done in this respect - but Ireland is still an expensive place to live and work - Iceland has been lucky in this regard. Revaluing their currency made this re-pricing automatic. We need to replicate this outcome.


There is a lot outside of our own control.

How the EU views itself and its responsibility to its citizens is perhaps the most important input into our countries future.

What is obvious to me having visited ex-communist countries like Romania is that humans have an exceptional ability to survive and to prosper.

Talking to people who lived through the '90's in the Balkans reminds me as an Irish person just how much we have going for us.

I am optimistic. This too will pass.