Carswell in 60 seconds

Simon will probably be able to digest this in a minute "flat", but no-one else should be upset if it takes them longer than that ! The title originally referred to how long my first draft took to sketch, but to finish it consumed much longer than 60 seconds.

Here is my reaction - it's not really a review - to Simon Carswell's Anglo Republic.

• The crux: Anglo directors were agreed in 2004 that the exposure to development property needed to be reduced sharply, but because the bank lending staff were "deal junkies", they ...just...couldn't
• Another explanation: Chairman Gerry Murphy said in 1995 that the aim was 30% p.a. growth. New C.E.O. David Drumm repeated this target in 2004! Large property deals were the most, um, effective route to this goal...and took the bank over the precipice
• Something that might surprise you #1: Seán FitzPatrick did not like 100% (LTV ratio) loans
• Quotation from FitzPatrick: "We never employed people to tell us why we shouldn't lend" - a bit of an exaggeration, but only a bit
• More crimes were committed during the final slide over the precipice than have previously been revealed
• As the growth "snow-balled", anything, including prudential procedures, that slowed loan approvals was characterised as "inefficient" and was dismantled, wholly or partially. Not a thought seems to have been given to macro issues of sensible lending - all "turnover vanity", little "profit sanity", so to speak. In time, no-one was left who was likely to shout "stop !" or even to hesitate to lend more
• Something that might surprise you #2: Anglo's expense ratio was only one-third of the industry average
• It is tempting to see Seán Quinn as the "real villain", but Anglo was "going down" even without his astonishing shenanigans
• Anglo - other Irish banks too - was full of people with business degrees who had trained as accountants (as opposed to bankers or economists) and who saw banking as "just selling money"
• In early 1990s, 90% of Anglo lending staff were ex-AIB
• Something that might surprise you #3: there was really no "special relationship" with Brian Cowen, or even with Fianna Fáil in general
• At least after the departure in 2005 of Tiarnan O'Mahoney, the funding discipline, such as it had been, disappeared
• The biggest omission from the book: there is no detail on how the loans to Mr FitzPatrick were actually approved e.g. who did the due diligence (if any) ?
• I was surprised at the description of personal guarantees as an "Anglo trademark". During my banking days, which ended in the mid-1980s, they were more associated with my employer, Industrial Credit Company (as it then was named). There was constant pressure on us to abandon the requirement, not just in individual cases but in principle, and by 1985 seeking them was much less prevalent as a practice. How did Anglo get away with it so easily ?
• Something that might surprise you #4: The Financial Regulator was not completely useless: at several points, he obliged Anglo to modify its behaviour

The reasons for Anglo's specific route to disaster viz.

1. the lenders' addiction to deals
2. the ludicrous growth ambitions
3. the weakness of the funding function
4. and (my own gloss) the overall shallowness of the corporate culture

prompt the (for me) obvious question to those directing the other banks, and especially AIB Group

What's your excuse ?

Why They Should Not Be Arrested - Pt. 5

In this post, I will discuss the meaning of criminal guilt, why it is often difficult to find, and why it is not the same as responsibility/ culpability/ fault/blame.

The context, in case you've forgotten, is my current view that crimes did not cause the collapse of the Irish banks, notwithstanding the fact that Seán FitzPatrick and a number of others have - at least - a case to answer in respect of criminal charges. (The crimes in question were not a factor in the bank's collapse). However, it is beyond argument that Mr FitzPatrick is to blame, even if not solely, for the collapse of his bank. There is a handful of others, in that bank and in others, of whom exactly the same can be said.

On the other hand, a much larger number - dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of individuals can be said to have performed their duties with such incompetence that they also share the blame, and have to take responsibility. The nature of that responsibility is almost certainly not criminal in nature, and in some cases may not even have any legal significance at all.

What is a crime ?

In a democracy, "crime" (often, the expression "criminal offence" is used) describes conduct which the population, through its elected legislature, has decided shall merit punishment by the State, such punishment often including deprivation of liberty i.e. imprisonment. (There is no longer a significant number of "common-law crimes", but I will deal with that topic, which Fintan O'Toole raised in this article, in a later post.)

In general, legislators have criminalised actions which are agreed to be "morally wrong", which have serious adverse consequences on a society-wide basis, which were intentional and for which there was no reasonable excuse.

Not all behaviour which we regard as "morally wrong" has been deemed criminal. For example, simple failure to pay a debt is not a crime. Nor is greed or adultery.

Conversely, some crimes are not "morally wrong" in an immediately obvious way e.g. marginally exceeding the speed limit. In the case of yet others, a lot of people will deny that the conduct is wrong at all e.g. smoking cannabis.

Usually, to be a crime, there must be both an instance of prohibited conduct - an actus reus (guilty act) - and a guilty mind (mens rea). In other words, an unintended act will not count as a crime. As is well-known, ignorance of the law does not mean that the perpetrator has no mens rea.If you buy something from a thief, it is only a crime if you know that the thing purchased was stolen. You have still committed a crime even if you incorrectly think that, because you did not steal it yourself,it having been stolen does not matter.

Guilt Can be Complicated

Take the case of a fatal road traffic accident. Two vehicles collide, and one driver is pronounced dead at the scene, while the other is uninjured. Is it always the case that the survivor is guilty of the crime of dangerous driving causing death (maximum sentence 10 years) ? No. Is it always the case that the survivor is guilty of criminally careless driving (maximum sentence 2 years) ? No. Is it always the case that the survivor is guilty of any crime at all ? No.

For readers having difficulty in accepting these negative answers: please consider these possibilities:

• the dead driver was drunk
• the dead driver had a heart attack
• the dead man's vehicle was defective
• the surviving driver's vehicle had been sabotaged

And what if the surviving driver lets slip that he did notice something not quite right about his vehicle ? Does that mean he had mens rea?

For completeness, I should add that some crimes are crimes of strict liability. In such cases, a crime is committed even though the criminal was unaware of doing anything wrong at all. An example is possession of an unlicensed firearm: it does not matter that you did not know it was under your bed, or thought that it was a harmless replica.

I am aware of no "strict liability" crimes which could be said to have been committed in the genesis of the Irish banking collapse. It might be useful for the legislature to create some, though.

In Part 6, I will briefly look at the other forms of legal "blame".

Why They Should Not Be Arrested - Pt.4

"We all know who are responsible for the ruination of our country. If I was compiling the report I would name the bankers, the regulators, and the government ministers responsible. I would then recommend that their pensions and lump sums be withdrawn, have them arrested and have them tried for treason."

This tirade, from a letter in The Irish Times last year, echoing many before, and re-echoed often since, fairly well encapsulates the themes which this series of posts seeks to address.

I list my problems with it a little further down, but I should digress first to stress that I too am an outraged citizen of Ireland, that is to say, a victim of The Madness that gripped this country (and others) until the blow-out of 2008. I do resist resort to the "lynch-mob"; that does not mean that I want no assignment of blame at all. Regrettably, many seem to think that "real justice" went out with the Star Chamber, and the lynch-mob, and that there has been no replacement.

The problems with the tirade are :

1. "We all know who" - Actually I am not at all sure that we do. The names usually "trotted-out" are essentially scapegoats rather than evil miscreants
2. "responsible" - this is a key word, to be discussed in detail as we proceed
3. "withdraw pensions" - in other words, punish by confiscation and probable impoverishment. Without trial or other due process ?
4. "have them arrested" - code for John Gormley's beloved but disgraceful "perp-walk", or as we lawyers call it, "public humiliation, usually at the suspect's workplace, followed by detention without trial, all in the hope of intimidating a suspect into confession, false or otherwise"
5. "tried for treason" - what ? Nothing else ? What's "treason" anyway ? (Note also that "charge" carries with it a necessary implication of possible acquittal)

Like everyone else I know, when a major calamity hits, I look for a culprit behind it. There isn't always one (accidents happen;trust me), but it's natural to check.

When it is possible to identify someone whom we think that we can blame, nowadays we do not simply hang him immediately from the nearest tree. This, I suggest, is not merely because we have now forsaken capital punishment, nor that too many innocent people were victims of that in the past.

Among the real reasons, in my opinion, are:

• our innate fairness
• the need of everyone to feel that guilty verdicts are the end of a rational process of achieving some understanding what really happened
• our appreciation of the fact that "guilt" is not a straightforward matter

The last point is what I had planned to address in this post, but considerations of space require me to defer it to the next, which will now follow more quickly than this one followed Part 3.

Boston vs. Berlin: "Blame-Game" Episode

Mary Harney, for good or ill one of the most influential figures in Ireland's political life over the last 30 years, said in a 2001 speech which is still debated

As Irish people our relationships with the United States and the European Union are complex. Geographically we are closer to Berlin than Boston. Spiritually we are probably a lot closer to Boston than Berlin.

Now, I offer you more grist to that particular mill.

"It's The Economy, Dummkopf"

In the latest entertaining (but, um, scatological) article by Michael Lewis for Vanity Fair entitled as above, our old friend gives us much interesting detail on cultural differences. Read the whole thing; there is more in it than I can possibly précis for you. However, partly but not entirely because of my current series of posts on a related theme, I found this observation especially interesting:

The American bond traders may have sunk their firms by turning a blind eye to the risks in the subprime-bond market, but they made a fortune for themselves in the bargain and have for the most part never been called to account. They were paid to put their firms in jeopardy, and so it is hard to know whether they did it intentionally or not. The German bond traders, on the other hand, had been paid roughly $100,000 a year, with, at most, another $50,000 bonus. In general, German bankers were paid peanuts to run the risk that sank their banks—which suggests they really didn’t know what they were doing.

Reference to $150k p.a. as "peanuts" may be offensive to some, but in this context, is not hyperbolic: some American traders were paid millions, to sell what turned out to be "toxic" products, and for which in Lewis' telling, the less well-paid German fund-managers were actually the "ultimate patsies". He goes on:

But—and here is the strange thing—unlike their American counterparts, they are being treated by the German public as crooks. The former C.E.O. of IKB, Stefan Ortseifen*, received a 10-month suspended sentence and has been asked by the bank to return his salary: eight hundred and five thousand euros.

The emphasis is the author's, who thereby reminds us of American financial entrepreneurs who have made more than $805 million from similar activities.

Ironic or .. ?

In summary, in "Boston" people made millions by selling toxic stuff to relatively underpaid, naive, people in "Berlin". The latter, arguably victims of a kind, are the ones threatened with jail. In Ireland, my impression is that those doing most of the similar threatening tend to be those on the "Boston" side of the debate.

*Mr Ortseifen was charged and convicted, not of "losing billions" (though his firm, Lewis says, did lose more than $15bn under his leadership), but for allegedly making a false statement to the market. The conviction looks rather unsafe to me (for whatever that is worth), and I understand that it is under appeal.

Why They Should Not Be Arrested - Pt 3

Before considering the crimes that might possibly have had a causative role in the collapse of the Irish banks, we need to briefly look at the details of that collapse.

(All of the figures which now follow are stated in very "round" figures for ease of understanding, and are roughly, but only roughly, correct).

The Irish banks (those covered by The Guarantee) have "failed" because they have lost €100bn of the €500bn gross assets which they had they thought that they had in June 2008. Out of that €500bn, they owed €360bn to depositors (including multi-billion deposits from foreign banks), and €120bn to the bondholders, leaving a net worth of about €23bn, being capital, reserves and profits retained (i.e. not paid out as dividends).

In theory, then, they could afford to lose €23bn without "going bust". This was, on the face of it, a substantial buffer - Jérôme Kerviel's enormous rogue trading (allegedly) losses were only (!) about €5bn, after all. The somewhat relaxed attitude on the part of some commentators to the notion of guaranteeing the banks should, for balance, be seen in that light.

However, we all now know otherwise, and the insolvency of the banking system, had the State not stepped in, is beyond dispute.

How So Much ?

How could losses at this level, beyond even Morgan Kelly's October 2008 prognostication, have happened ?

In theory, one could imagine, for figures of this magnitude, the following scenarios:

1. Grand theft
2. overall collapse in the economy
3. disease, earthquake/tsunami or other natural disaster annihilating borrowers and their businesses
4. "rogue-trader" type behaviour similar to Nick Leeson or Kerviel (allegedly)
5. poorly-managed speculation in volatile assets e.g.derivatives a.k.a. "rogue trading" with the firm itself as the "rogue"
6. mis-pricing i.e. lending at an interest rate that does not allow the bank to make a profit
7. over-paying for deposits (a variation on 6 above)
8. incompetent lending on a large scale

Incompetence !

Only the last appears to have been significant in the collapse of the Irish banks, though mis-pricing (a type of incompetence in itself) of some loan products (most infamously the "tracker-mortgage") has not helped.

It could also be said that the incompetent lending was largely a factor of under-pricing the loans made, in the sense that lenders did not appreciate how risky the loans really were, and accordingly failed to impose terms of appropriate strictness. I believe that this understates the scale of the miscalculation: many billions were lent for projects so misconceived that no terms could have made the lending profitable.

Many people also suspect that "theft" would better describe many of those loans. Bankers, it is suggested, advanced the banks' money to their friends (actually, "cronies" is the term of preference) and the friends might as well have stolen it, given the improbability that it would be paid back. Notwithstanding undeniable cronyism, I have seen no evidence which comes close to justifying this suspicion, but I remain open to receiving it.

We are left with incompetence: the bankers advanced too much money which will never be repaid.

Incompetence Is Not A Crime

Provided that it is not dishonest, incompetence is not generally criminal. Otherwise, who would 'scape whipping ? as Shakespeare had Hamlet say. There are exceptions to this, though.

Before exploring whether the incompetence involved in this case is, or is not, caught by the proviso, or by other exceptions to the general principle, I am going to explain in Part 4 why there is an important issue at stake.

Why They Should Not Be Arrested - Pt. 2

In Part 1, I told you about my attempt to arouse interest in a private prosecution of the "criminal bankers", and that it has so far "gone nowhere". The title of this series of posts gives a hint of the conclusion that I have reached as to why that has been so. I will now state it explicitly:

The Irish banking disaster was not caused by criminal behaviour

Indeed, it is not clear to me that the thing that above all caused the banking disaster can even be said to be a matter of straightforward immorality on the part of those who took the decisions which caused the damage.

None of this means that there was no criminal behaviour:there was. Nor does it mean that "immoral" conduct did not form part of the causal mixture:it did. Still less does it mean that no-one needs to be held accountable and possibly to suffer adverse consequences: they do (and some have, adequately or otherwise).

(What primarily caused it, in my opinion, was a loss of risk appreciation by all economic agents involved. Investors in bank shares - and, to a degree, in bonds - came to incorrectly believe that banking was pretty well risk-free. Unfortunately, bank management "bought-in" to this delusion, and behaved in a manner that tested the belief literally to destruction. Bad practices, poor regulation, hubris and other minor factors, including the so-called "bankers' bonuses" problem aggravated the rush over the precipice).

It does not really "give me a warm feeling" to arrive, however provisionally, at this view, notwithstanding that it does mean that people who have been friends and colleagues may not, therefore, be at hazard of being jailed. Like everyone else, my reflex response was to believe that disaster on such a scale had to have A BAD GUY behind it. It is as difficult for me as for everyone else - including, not so incidentally, many of the supposed culprits - to comprehend how so much damage could occur without someone acting in a really evil, criminal, manner.

There is a distinction between responsibility, moral culpability and criminal guilt. I do not think that it is novel or controversial to say that only if there is the latter do questions of "arrests","trial" or "jail" arise.

I would again add that, usually in response to calls for "immediate arrests" or the like, I have regularly posed, in public (on a series of internet fora) and in private, the question "which crime is it that they have committed ?", and have received only one even-halfway-satisfactory answer. I will reveal that answer in a later post in this series. Many plausible as well as some insanely paranoid answers will also be discussed.

My conclusion is not necessarily final: I am open to persuasion that I have got it wrong. And I repeat my offer: find me a way to prosecute privately a banker for something that caused the crash, and I will do it, or help others to do so.

The offence has to have caused the crash: something like a bank official "looting" a customer's deposit account for his own gain, or a bank over-charging a class of borrowers, is of no interest to me for this purpose. Such crimes have always occurred, and, human nature being what it is, can no more be totally eliminated than other crime.

Why They Should Not Be Arrested Pt.1

Matthew Tannin of Bear Stearns being arrested. A jury later acquitted him. (Copyright: San Francisco Sentinel)

This is the first in a series of notes concerning a topic on which I suspect that many readers will, at least initially, disagree with me.

I will be writing in an Irish context, and specifically in relation to the Irish banking sector, but the points that I plan to make can be applied not only to other sectors but also outside Ireland.

It may be useful to begin by noting this: for approximately the last four years (since solicitor Michael Lynn fled the jurisdiction), I have regularly - in public (on a series of internet fora) and in private - sought assistance, and/or offered to assist others, to privately prosecute any one of a series of notorious alleged miscreants, starting with Mr Lynn himself. All of these objects of public obloquy have in common that their (alleged) misdeeds are associated with Ireland's drastic change of economic circumstances since circa 2007.

No Takers

Although I have not given up, and the offer is still open, I have had no "takers". Not one. Zero.

This is surely very odd, considering that nearly everyone with whom I have ever discussed the matter - and that includes dozens of lawyers - is convinced that our current economic Armageddon is the result of criminal mis-behaviour (their emphasis) by a large collection of people belonging to one or more of the following groups:

bankers, regulators, politicians, auditors, economists, lawyers, auctioneers, accountants, civil servants, builders and property developers.

Yet, these discussions have failed to generate a single candidate who could be prosecuted for an identifiable crime !

It seems to me that this failure should be at least as difficult to understand as the absence of public prosecutions to date. This series of posts is my attempt to elucidate the issue.

My Travel Insurance Claim - Day 800

Dies irae - dies illa !

Forgive me, please: I am nearly two months late in passing on this news.

Finally, there is closure of a kind.

It is the wrong kind, sadly: the Ombudsman has rejected my complaint.

I am not too upset, for several reasons. Firstly, the FOS is so busy that it was apparent to me that a complaint such as mine was not going to have a good chance of attracting adequate attention: it's always easy for an adjudicator to say "no".

Secondly, time had inevitably dampened my outrage.

I may post at a later date summarising why, in my view, the complaint in fact raised serious issues, but "don't wait up".

MOPE: "Most Oppressed Profession Ever" ?

In Ireland, the grievances of Northern nationalists have occasionally been exaggerated, leading to the derisive label of MOPE ("most oppressed people ever") being applied by some of the more cynical among us.

I am often reminded of this when reading the complaints of some independent financial advisers ("IFAs") in the United Kingdom. A current example is this article by Alan Lakey of Highclere Financial in Hemel Hempstead. Mr Lakey has been a vociferous critic of financial regulation for quite a while (at least 5 years, if I recall correctly), and there is much to criticise. As with the Northern Irish nationalists, the "hype" about the precarious position of IFAs reflects real grievances, not imaginary or invented ones.

However, in the recent article, Mr Lakey parades two "hoary old chestnuts" beloved of the "IFA community".

Expanding the Complaint

A big bone of contention is that

Unlike a court, the FOS is able to depart from the specific allegation being levelled and pick through the advice process looking for some aspect it does not like. This inquisitorial process often results in the original allegation being rejected but another, often disassociated matter, being used to uphold the complaint...Some of these are clearly vexatious or devoid of logic yet the FOS invariably accepts jurisdiction causing the adviser hours of unnecessary work, interaction with his PI insurer and, potentially, payment of a £500 case fee.

(Emphasis added by me)

This is based on a misconception of how judges - at least the better ones - deal with cases. Particularly with litigants-in-person, a judge will seek to be sure that s/he understands the real source of what has given rise to the proceedings. If that means permitting the claim to be amended, that will be done.

I would doubt that Mr Lakey could sustain his charge that vexatious, illogical claims are invariably added to original complaints, but I accept that when it does happen, as it probably does, it is not a nice experience, for the reasons mentioned by him, and others.

Limitation Rules -A Human Right

Another area causing outrage is ...[that the] FOS totally ignores the 15-year long stop.The lack of a long stop is the most emotive as it singles out our industry for a removal of human rights. No rationale is used for this confiscation of rights apart from some mumbling about the long-term nature of financial advice.

This is where Mr Lakey really "loses it" and loses me, too.

The idea that benefitting from the English (or any other) statutory rules on limitation could be regarded as a "human right" is - I cannot think of a more polite word - ridiculous. All limitation rules are inherently arbitrary and work a lot of injustice in themselves. (Sadly, that does not mean that we can do without them, but that's a story for another day). For that reason. presumably, they are restricted to "legal proceedings", and complaints to the FOS are not legal proceedings.

To put it another way, it is said that the limitation rules do not extinguish the right but merely remove the remedy of being able to sue (in court) to enforce the right.To my mind, it is entirely reasonable that the FOS, not least because of the very long-term nature of some financial-services contracts, should leave open the possibility of examining complaints about events older than the 15-year long-stop.

Naturally, to do that raises difficulties of evidence on all sides, and one would expect that the FOS would not neglect this. Nor should it fail to have regard to the normal legal approaches to protests by defendants that there has been unconscionable delay in making or pursuing a claim, and similar protests.

On the evidence point - which is normally the main difficulty - it is relevant to wonder, nearly a quarter-century after the 1988 Financial Services Act, whether it should not be severely embarrassing for the industry to be be still worried that its paperwork might not vindicate its position.

Emigration #4

The previous blogposts in this series have now been kindly re-published as a single article here by TheJournal.ie.

The article has generated a satisfying number of comments, some of quality, and there has also been vigorous reaction on Twitter.

The discussion will continue here and elsewhere.

Let Ireland Remember

Wise words from an old post by Seth Godin

Letting your customers set your standards is a dangerous game, because the race to the bottom is pretty easy to win. Setting your own standards - and living up to them - is a better way to profit. Not to mention a better way to make your day worth all the effort you put into it.

This, it seems to me, is good advice for groups as well as individuals.

One for the IMF ?

In Ireland, female employees who are pregnant are entitled to 42 weeks maternity leave (26 weeks of which are compulsory). The timing is at the employee's option, but at least two weeks must be before the birth, and four weeks after. This applies to all categories of employees, whether permanent or temporary, up to and including the chief executive officer.

Recently, leading Dublin solicitors William Fry tell me, an employer sought to engage someone on a temporary contract basis in order to do the work of an employee taking such leave. A candidate was selected, who, like all candidates, had been informed of the reason for the employment, and had explicitly confirmed that she envisaged no difficulty in working for the required period of 42 weeks.

On being offered the position, however, she disclosed that she was herself 18 weeks' pregnant. Note that she was already within the period that could form part of her maternity leave, so that after one day's work she could legally demand to be given leave.

The job offer was withdrawn. The offeree complained to The Equality Tribunal, following which an Equality Officer, determined that she had been the victim of illegal discrimination on the grounds of sex was entitled to compensation of €12,697, the equivalent of approximately 18 weeks' pay at the Average Industrial Wage.

A fuller account is here. A hat-tip for informing me via Twitter of this story goes to Rossa McMahon.

Update on Wednesday, May 11, 2011 at 07:40AM by Fergus O'Rourke

Amended to delete reference to The Equality Authority

Deep Thinkers (allegedly)

These deep thinkers were the only people he could not stand to be around for long, these people who'd never manufactured anything or seen anything manufactured, who did not know what things were made of or how a company worked, who, aside from a house or a car, had never sold anything and did not know how to sell anything, who'd never hired a worker, fired a worker, trained a worker, been fleeced by a worker - people who knew nothing of the intricacies or risks of building a business or running a company but who nonetheless imagined that they knew everything worth knowing

From American Pastoral by Philip Roth

Ah, but:

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself a fool.

(Anatole France)

On Emigration #3

Unemployment is, in absolute terms, at an all-time high just now in the Republic of Ireland. While we have experienced higher rates of unemployment in the 1980s, the current number of nearly half a million is a new record.

I am confident that it will come down again, but the descent will be slower than the upward surge was.

Does anyone think that even 300,000 jobs will be "created" within, say, 5 years ? There is no sign that even the most optimistic left-wing politician believes that this can be achieved.

This means that an awful lot of people are facing a long period of unemployment if they restrict themselves to the opportunities afforded by the Irish labour market. It is a sobering thought. It is not less sobering to note that the opportunities in the traditional English-speaking destinations for Irish job-seekers are perhaps not going to be as good as in the past. And, as noted above, our current temporary labour surplus has never been higher.

On the brighter side, the richer countries are pretty short of the kind of people of whom we now have a surplus, and also, over the last quarter-century it has been noticeable that Irish people have found opportunities all over the world, and not just in the traditional comfort-zones.

The traditional cultural inclination, however, has been for Irish workers to wait and wait and .... Emigration was slow to resume in the 1980s and only really got going after 1986. This was bad for the individuals, and for society in general.It would be tragic if we let the same thing happen again.

I am not suggesting that everyone should, like our forbears, "take the boat" and join the Cricklewood navvy gangs, (even if there are any left), but we should, I suggest, shake off at least a little of our instinctive emigration-averse acculturation and treat the world Global Village as our oyster (which it is). It does not provide an easy option for any but a lucky few, but for many others opportunities will present themselves if they decide, starting right now, to be open to them.

The rest of us, I would urge, should stop bewailing "the return of the spectre of emigration".

And remember: VOIP is a great thing, and medium/long-distance travel has never been quicker, easier or cheaper.

Update on Monday, June 6, 2011 at 10:24AM by Fergus O'Rourke

This entry and the preceding two on Emigration have now been published as an article here, where there has been some interesting reaction.

Emigration #2

My view on emigration is, understandably, shaped by my experience.

I was born in Canada, as was my eldest brother (we have joint citizenship).Of the nine children produced by my four grandparents, not one spent their entire working life in the State, and three are permanently resident abroad.Of my seven siblings, only one has not lived and worked abroad, and two still do.

I have 34 first cousins living, of whom 25 were born in Ireland. Nineteen now live in Ireland, of whom three have returned after being located elsewhere.

I have three children. One lives in Dublin (at least three hours travelling time away). The other two live abroad.

I have nine nephews/nieces: four live abroad.

To sum all this up: Emigration has always been part of the story of my family as I have known it.

It's not exactly that "it's no big deal", as it were; it is more a case that this is Life - if your desires, plans, ambitions, relationships need you to live a long way away from where you grew up, you do it. You do not wring your hands, and wish that it could be otherwise, and neither do those whom you are leaving behind. There is some pain in separation, but it's not "the end of the world."

Of course, it is very important to this mind-set that separation, albeit it may be prolonged over years, is not seen as permanent. For many Irish families, though not mine, the experience of emigration meant the departure of family members who were never seen or heard from again.

Next, I hope to address the topic of emigration in the context of Ireland's current circumstances in 2011.

Update on Monday, June 6, 2011 at 10:22AM by Fergus O'Rourke

This entry and the other two on Emigration (i.e. "On Emigration #1" and "On Emigration #3" have now been published as an article here, where there has been some interesting reaction.

On Emigration #1

In Ireland, "emigration" is pretty universally regarded as A Bad Thing. (Attitudes to immigration are more ambivalent).

This attitude is generally explained in terms of the 19th century experience. Following the catastrophic "Great Famine" in the mid-1840s, during which a million died - the pre-Famine population was about 8 million - millions left the country. At its lowest point, the island's inhabitants numbered about 4 million, and the population remains below 6 million.

To put some context on this, the population of the neighbouring island of Great Britain increased from 19 million to nearly 60 million over the same period, despite wars and not insignificant emigration of its own to "the Colonies"(yes - net immigration played a part too). Europe, despite The Holocaust and similar horrors, also trebled in population.

For me, someone who has lived in Ireland for over half a century, and thought that he was historically aware, just recalling these bare facts has taken me considerably aback. It is probably fair to say that for anyone attempting to understand the Irish, ignoring the Famine is as crass as ignoring the Holocaust when considering the Israelis.

Behind the Irish statistics lie a multitude of family separations, destruction of communities, economic stagnation and, generally, a "world of hurt".

Insofar as there is a collectively shared narrative of what emigration means, it is still stuck in that historical recollection.

I trust that it is clear that I have considerable sympathy for that on a sentimental level. However, although there is still some reality in it, I dissent from the national consensus which accepts it as a rational approach to the present. I will be elaborating here on this view of mine over the next while.

Update on Monday, June 6, 2011 at 10:19AM by Fergus O'Rourke

This entry and the succeeding two on Emigration have now been published as an article here, where there has been some interesting reaction.

Guess Who ? #2

A very well-respected commentator writing for a renowned national newspaper within the last year uttered these fateful words

Winston Churchill famously remarked that democracy was the worst possible system, with the exception of all others. Maybe it's time we heard about the others.

I invite you to name her - there's a broad hint for you - in the comments.

I am still awaiting guesses for the identity of the last, er, I mean the first, "Guess Who ?". I have just added a hint there (as a "follow-up") to encourage you.

American Exceptionalism

Irish readers may remember my provocative fellow-Canadian Mark Steyn. He had a regular column in "The Irish Times", the purpose of which I always thought was to remind us that there were journalists more outrageous than Kevin Myers. Then Kevin and Mark left, and (sigh) they gave us Charles Krauthammer.

Anyway, via "The Browser" (yes, again; yes, I do recommend it), I found Steyn again, writing on Tea Partiers:

The difference between America and Europe is that, when the global economy nosedived, everywhere from Iceland to Bulgaria mobs took to the streets and besieged Parliament, demanding to know why government didn't do more for them. This is the only country in the developed world where a mass movement took to the streets to say we can do just fine if you control-freak statists would just stay the hell out of our lives, and our pockets

Exaggerated, yes, but I suggest that it is thought-provoking.

Er, That "Nonsense" About 800 Years...

...may not be so nonsensical after all*.

Via "The Browser", I learn of an amazing historical study entitled "Persecution Perpetuated: Medieval Origins of Anti-Semitic Violence in Nazi Germany" by Nico Voigtländer and Hans-Joachim Voth (Economists are everywhere).

The abstract reads (paragraphing and emphasis added by me):

How persistent are cultural traits ?

This paper uses data on anti-Semitism in Germany and finds continuity at the local level over more than half a millennium. When the Black Death hit Europe in 1348-50, killing between one third and one half of the population, its cause was unknown. Many contemporaries blamed the Jews. Cities all over Germany witnessed mass killings of their Jewish population. At the same time, numerous Jewish communities were spared these horrors.

We use plague pogroms as an indicator for medieval anti-Semitism. Pogroms during the Black Death are a strong and robust predictor of violence against Jews in the 1920s, and of votes for the Nazi Party.

In addition, cities that saw medieval anti-Semitic violence also had higher deportation rates for Jews after 1933, were more likely to see synagogues damaged or destroyed in the Night of Broken Glass in 1938, and their inhabitants wrote more anti-Jewish letters to the editor of the Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer.

Wow !

*The reference will need no explanation for most Irish, but I have a few readers who are not so blessed. Next Sunday, it will in fact be 842 years since The Invasion led by Richard de Clare - better known as "Strongbow" - began our history as the Most Oppressed People Ever ("MOPE"). Allegedly.

The Cards We Were Dealt & How We Played Our Hand

Cormac Lucey, if I do not misunderstand this article of his, thinks that the EMU project is the ultimate culprit for our current economic mess. He is not alone in holding that view.

I do not agree: in my opinion, it is the lack of an appropriate Irish fiscal/regulatory policy response to the implications of our circumstances that is the proper culprit in that context. My recollection is that flaws in the Eurozone architecture were competently identified and policy prescriptions recommended by the "economist community".

Very unfortunately, those recommendations were not followed, and that is why "we are where we are". I don't claim to have been prescient about the extent of the financial "meltdown", but do claim that my opposition to the Lisbon Treaty was partially due to a revulsion from the failure - a failure of the EU elites, not just the Irish - to face the fact that the EU governance arrangements were neither one thing nor the other, and not fit for purpose, especially for a monetary union.

See these statements, for examples:

Having to play by the EMU rules is an acceptable long term price to pay for EMU’s economic benefits

I remain concerned by the robustness of the arrangements for the Euro. The Stability Pact is not the only one of its foundation pillars that is looking shaky

They are extracts from a 2008 post of mine.