Spitfire List Web site and blog of anti-fascist researcher and radio personality Dave Emory.
The tag 'Ireland' is associated with 5 posts.

The New World Ordoliberalism, Part 7: To QE, or Not to QE, That is the Ominous Question

As the Euro­pean Cen­tral Bank (ECB) con­tin­ues to wres­tle with the deci­sion of when and how quick­ly to wind down its quan­ti­ta­tive eas­ing (QE) pro­gram while infla­tion remains stub­born­ly below the 2 per­cent tar­get and like­ly to stay well below 2 per­cent for the fore­see­able future, it’s worth not­ing that there’s a new night­mare to add to the equa­tion: The euro has surged in val­ue this year, a move that not only depress­es exports in recov­ery economies like Spain and Por­tu­gal but also depress­es infla­tion. And one of the things hold­ing down the val­ue of the euro is the ECB’s QE pro­gram. So if the ECB tapers off the QE too ear­ly and quick­ly it’s going to make an over­ly-strong euro even stronger while drag­ging infla­tion even low­er, poten­tial­ly derail­ing frag­ile recov­er­ies in the aus­ter­i­ty-inflict­ed mem­ber states. And that means not send­ing the wrong sig­nals is a key goal of the ECB is things are going to go smooth­ly. Guess which sig­nals are being sent.


Surprise! It’s Not the EUrozone Crisis Anymore. Welcome to the EU, LLC. It’s Still a Crisis.

Well, it’s offi­cial. The ‘sec­ond pil­lar’ of the EU’s bank­ing union — a 55 bil­lion euro bail-out fund and a bunch of new rules — appears to be in place fol­low­ing recent nego­ti­a­tions. It was an all night com­pro­mise ben­der! Yes, lots of com­pro­mis­es were made, but the core prin­ci­ples that have emerged dur­ing the EU’s mul­ti-year-long quest for a bank­ing union are still intact. Uh oh.


Surprise! It’s not the Cyprus crisis anymore. Welcome to the EUrozone crisis: This is what a shakedown looks like

The more things change, the more they stay the same. The EU’s lead­ers want to wel­come you to the new “New Nor­mal”.


The Troika Knows That Confidence Fairies Don’t Want To Know. It Makes Them Uncomfortable

The euro­zone troi­ka recent­ly eased mar­ket wor­ries a bit by rene­go­ti­at­ing part of Ire­land’s mas­sive bailout. But the pub­lic still wants answers on why the 2010 bailout hap­pened in the first place and those answers could reignite the cri­sis. It isn’t easy being the ECB. Or the EU. Or the IMF.


Official opposition to the eurozone austerity fetish becomes a bad joke

Sup­port­ers of Berlin’s aus­ter­i­ty dri­ve across the euro­zone were relieved by Ire­land’s approval of the ‘Fis­cal Com­pact’ on Thurs­day. But this ‘good news’ coin­cides with a grow­ing back­lash by key lead­ers an offi­cials against the end­less calls for aus­ter­i­ty with­out a ‘pro-growth’ com­po­nent. Except, as usu­al, not real­ly.