Independent.ie - David McWilliams RSS Feed

David McWilliams: Artists and entrepreneurs are the key to our recovery

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

On St Patrick's Day two years ago, while nudging my way up a crammed Fifth Avenue, the idea of the Farmleigh Global Irish Forum came to me. I'd thought about it before and I had seen how other countries cultivated relationships with their global tribes -- particularly the Jewish tribe and Israel -- but it was only after seeing the unique outpouring of Irish America on March 17 that I knew we should do this. We should tap into the power of the tribe and see where it takes us.

David McWilliams: Office politics snuffed out Fine Gael's brightest star

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 05:00:00 +0000

LIKE you, I've been listening to many opinions on the George Lee episode. The one thing that has stood out in all the conversations is just how out of touch the political insiders seem to be with the rest of the population. The political insiders -- the politicians themselves, party members and canvassers as well as the political pundits and correspondents who live inside the world of the Dail -- speak of George's betrayal, his petulance and something called procedure. Of his many crimes, the idea of not knowing your place appears to be a significant offence.

David McWilliams: We're all fools if we think recovery plan is patriotic

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 05:00:00 +0000

It's been nearly 18 months since the Government announced its bank guarantee. Anglo Irish Bank was nationalised over a year ago and it is coming up to a year since the Government first mooted the NAMA plan. Yet nothing has actually been done since then. Not a single loan has been transferred to NAMA. There has been lots of talk, lots of bluster and point scoring, but still credit in the economy contracts, house prices continue their slow strangling decline and, most significantly, the rest of the world has moved on.

David McWilliams: Our cupboard is bare, so we must sell family silver

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 05:00:00 +0000

Like all nursery rhymes, the origins of 'Old Mother Hubbard' are more complicated that they seem at first. When I was young, the rhyme was repeated to reinforce the value of savings.

David McWilliams: How FF put middle class deep into 'debtor's prison'

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 05:00:00 +0000

Has Fianna Fail destroyed the Irish middle class? If the answer is yes, then this recession will have considerably more dramatic lasting effects than even some of the most realistic observers suggest.

David McWilliams: We're being robbed by our supposed protectors

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 05:00:00 +0000

Our politicians are putting bondholders before the Irish people they are meant to represent

David McWilliams: Life's a beach for Ireland's latest 'Generation Exodus'

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 05:00:00 +0000

Earlier this year I was working in Australia and spent some time at the famous Bondi Beach where it became obvious to me that there were two types of people there.

David McWilliams: Planet's polluters are moral equivalent of slave traders

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 05:00:00 +0000

IN 1784, Matthew Carey, a young man who flirted with the United Irishmen, decided like many republicans at the time to emigrate to the USA and, more importantly, to the hub of American intellectualism, Philadelphia.

David McWilliams: Forget the past -- we must take control of our future

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0000

Sometimes we can be an extremely vindictive society. In times of trouble, there's often a dreadful clamour for vengeance. As a general rule, it seems sensible to avoid those who seek recrimination and punishment for those who made mistakes; although righteous indignation may satisfy a visceral yearning, vengeance and outrage don't move things on one bit.

David McWilliams: Rich get richer as rest of us pay for their mistakes

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 05:00:00 +0000

McDonald's pulled out of Iceland yesterday. This is an enormous moment because it is the first time the McDonald's machine has admitted defeat in a modern, sophisticated country. A few years ago, this would have been unthinkable.

David McWilliams: Fresh thinking needed to cut growing dole queues

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

One of the saddest and most revealing books I have ever read was written about the Great Depression. 'The Unemployed Man and His Family' was written by an American academic called Mirra Komarovsky.

David McWilliams: Money-sucking Anglo is our financial Stalingrad

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

ON November 24, 1942, General Von Paulus of the German 6th Army, bunkered down in Stalingrad, received the order he was dreading. Instead of the retreat that he was planning, the orders from Berlin stated simply that "Fortress Stalingrad" was to be held "whatever the circumstances".

David McWilliams: It's time to shout 'stop' -- NAMA is grand larceny

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 05:00:00 +0000

The land has reverted to the price you'd get from a farmer for putting a donkey out to graze on it

David McWilliams: A legacy of debt is not the best start for our children

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 05:00:00 +0000

Driving past Holles Street Hospital yesterday reminded me that, despite all the economic and political travails, life goes on.

David McWilliams: Iceland shows importance of putting people before banks

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 05:00:00 +0000

Yesterday the, largely ceremonial, president of Iceland stood up for what is right. He decided that it was not democratic for the Icelandic government to insist that the Icelandic people pay foreign depositors who deposited money in Icelandic banks that subsequently went bust.

David McWilliams: Banking chief will face deep opposition to reform

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 05:00:00 +0000

The easy-credit drug was pushed from the top, right down to the poor debt junkies at the bottom

David McWilliams: Country on doomed course with 'insiders' at the helm

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 05:00:00 +0000

In recent weeks I've been travelling around the country, talking to people and listening to ideas about how best to get out of this mess. What is coming up in all conversation is the sense that the insiders in Ireland are getting away with it and the outsiders are being asked to take most of the pain.

David McWilliams: Minister and his mandarins forecast neither boom nor bust...so why trust them now?

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 05:00:00 +0000

THIS Budget is unfortunately without any real merit, apart from the national recovery bond idea which is interesting and shows an ability to think logically about where we are at this stage.

David McWilliams: We need to tap talent like John Gray in floods crisis

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 05:00:00 +0000

Have you ever bothered to look at the statues on O'Connell Street? There are the obvious ones of Larkin, O'Connell and, of course, Parnell, but there is also one statue of a character called John Gray. Leopold Bloom in 'Ulysses' walked past the statue of John Gray and was equally flummoxed, asking who was yer man? It is interesting that Bloom -- a man obsessed throughout 'Ulysses' by water -- could have been so ignorant about the man who made Dublin's taps gush with fresh pressurised water.

David McWilliams: We need creative ideas to pay for ageing population

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0000

On Monday afternoon, I came across an old lady sobbing as she scribbled a few loving notes onto a small wooden cross. Seeing that I noticed her, she wiped the tears and tried to pull herself together in true Scottish fashion, quite prim, but stern.