Interesting comments from Noonan about economists

[Brendan Burgess]

From the Irish Times

“There was lots of very serious input telling us the bailout was the wrong idea. ‘Default, don’t pay the bondholders, do what Iceland is doing, what Argentina did and you’ll be fine, write off your debts’. Quick fix, easy solutions.


“It was promulgated by very popular broadcasters, but also by economists, particularly those out of the business schools. But we won the argument. As we became successful the adverse comments fell away.


“They find it hard now to get economists to go on radio in case they are asked why their prophecies were so incorrect,” said Mr Noonan, with a chuckle and a smile, even if both the laugh and the smile were as cold as ice.

It's an interesting observation about the difficulty in getting economists to appear on the radio. To me, they seem to be on the radio and TV as often as they were before.

Calling for a default was a judgement call. Not necessarily wrong back then. Still not necessarily wrong. We might be out of the bail out, but we still have €200billion of national debt. I think we were right not to default, but there is no correct answer to this this.

 

[mercman]

We'll see in a few years time what direction is taken then. The present Government continue to work on the same road map of the last Government. As for a new plan they haven't got one and they are not capable of drafting one.

Just an opinion and point of fact !!!