Had my attention drawn to this, the very close similarities between Bobo in Paradise published several years before In Search of the Popes Children. For those of us who rated David Mcwilliams as an original thinker this comes as a shock but maybe he'll explain. EDO seems to know the author quite well. This is a review on Amazon;
"Remarkably similar to David Brooks's 2000 study, Bobos in Paradise -- The New Upper Class And How They Got There. In fact, a recent article in Ireland on Sunday went so far as to quesion whether McWilliams is the new copycat of the Celtic Tiger!
Whoah! - Sorry to disappoint you - I dont know the man at all - he's got a good 5 to 7 years on me at least - put it this way - he was working on the Central banks input to the Mass treaty at the same time I was doing my finals in Belfield. He proceeded to go work in the City in London for the rest of nineties and I swanned around Japan , the US and middle east building up my "portfolio career" in that same time. Nah - Im just an apolitical humble Logistics and operations manager for an Irish Capital equipment manufacturer and exporter - Dont move in the same circles at all at all - Perfect Deckland material as my bank manager keeps intimating everytime he tries get me to purchase a mortgage when I drop in for a far more simple transaction!
I would definitely agree that McWilliams" In search of the popes children" owes more than a little to Brooks" Bobos in Paradise" when comes to style - tho If you have read the book - which I have and would be definitely recommend as a very funny sarcastic look at the "liberal establishment" in Blue State America during their period of self doubt at the growing conservative ascendency in dotcom Bubble America - on substance and subject they are quite different - McWilliams delves far more into the economics behind the Tiger - Brooks goes far more into the culture wars and a certain view of america , guaranteed to raise the ire of his chief audience , the readers of the New York Times in which he has a regular column in the OP-ED Pages , an outsider / insider role in which he revels - a smart elequent satirist who should be one of us ,who knows us only too well and we can't dismiss thim as crackpot or loony like Limbaugh, Buchanan or Coulter. Something McWilliams shares with him , given the amount of invective and bitchy articles that poured forth from the media aristocracy in the broadsheets over the weekend - which to be perfectly honest is good old Irish Begrudgery at this bright chap who comes from nowhere , in the view of the closed world of the Media Broadsheet elite , makes the one good programme that TV3 has produced in its entire existence , has the balls to actually write a bestselling book on the Celtic Tiger, and makes a whimsical, provocative TV programme on same , drawing in Late Late Show size viewing audiences and becoming the topic of conversation for the last week or so. Something none of the naysayers has yet to do - if ever they will - much more fun and safer to stay with the herd and do the criticising than step up to the plate yourself.
As I have stated in my first post on this thread on this thread - its on a page one actually, I do have my disagreements with some of the stuff that he comes up with, and for me , George Lees more understated Boom was a far better study on the Tiger. But when you pull back and leave aside the decklanders and hi-cos and all the flashy photography the message is exactly the same as Lees and both of them have been saying it for the same length of time - We're losing the run of ourselves here and in the end we're going to pay for it. Economics isn't called the dismal imperfect science for nothing - but like gravity - nobody, country or civilization can remain impervious to pendulum of economic cycles and supply and demand - history is littered with Booms and Busts ,everyone of them had proclaimed that they had managed to defeat economic gravity - they were postponing the inevitiable - what goes around comes around.
I've lived thru 2 of them - as mentioned elsewhere on AAM - I began my productive working life in Japan in the early 90s - spent 2 and a bit years there working for a Japanese multinational. Once the Bubble burst a 2 bed Apt outside Yokohama which would have cost 500.000e in 1992 was selling for between 180 and 200.000e in 1994 and prices fell for a solid 10 years folks. This in a country that was still one of the most competitive economies, the world largest exporter during the same period - interest rates were close to zero for most of this period - they are still less than 2% as I write . Japan also has a shortage of building space and large population. And Still prices fell ,the services sector fell to pieces and the many banks failed or were put into cold storage and on life support by the Government which borrowed trillions to keep some liquidity in the system and prevent total collapse. All because of a mania for property which left the real world about 5-6 years before the crash.
Now take a look at dear old ireland. only 4% of our land is urbanised - the least in Europe . Our export industry has remained static or contracting with a few little upward blips here and there for the last years. 87% is owned by folks who have little concern for the price of a house in Kinnegad and the profits they make leave this country for even more tax friendly climes - if the US government ,now controlled in part by a more protectionist leaning Democratic party, feels that they would prefer that the jobs came home aswell as the profits I would start to feel distinctly queasy. We have no indigenous export industry worth talking about and Im in the Hi tech export industry. If the property market goes south , dont be depending on the old celtic tiger to come to the rescue - its dead - our competiveness being wiped out by cost of actually trying to live in the place. The whole show is running on vast amounts of borrowed money - its our biggest import. There is a dark clould on the horizon. unlike a lot of the now departed bears here - I have always felt that late 2007 /2008 will see big changes - it takes time to build traction - but all the elements are coming together for a bad one - an all but certain US recession , only question is how bad - Im worried - my immediate job prospects rely on Mr and Mrs Smith in Des Moines Iowa going out to buy computer and electrical durables next year ,in the largest quantities possible so I can dream about a payrise -( been on freeze for last 12 months and its a barrel of laughs in Manufacturing here), a steadily improving european economy which will bring interest rates back up something approaching normal 5-7% and a growing realization that we have just been paying way too much for a very modest "asset" - The elements are there , but because bubble growth is irrational - its impossible to call when it peaks and don't for a minute believe it will be any less irrational on the way down the other side
Im Done
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