McWilliams to address Irish Skeptics - Tuesday 10th November

Brendan Burgess

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Our next lecture will take place on Tuesday November 10th at 8.00pm in the Aston Suite, Alexander Hotel, Merrion Square, Dublin 2 (around the corner from the Davenport). We are delighted to welcome David McWilliams who will address the above topic. Admission as usual is €3 for members and concessions; €6 for non-members.
David will be well known to many of you. He has worked in the Central Bank of Ireland, UBS Bank and Banque Nationale de Paris. He is a popular journalist, broadcaster and documentary maker and has published two books, “The pope’s children” and “The generation game”. His third book, “Follow the money” is published today (October 30th). His latest documentary “Addicted to money” has just finished its run on RTE and will be shown in Australia next month. More information is available on his website at www.davidmcwilliams.ie.
Given David’s popularity, we advise you arrive early on the night.
 
I would have liked to have gone but couldn't manage it.
How did it go?
 
Brendan said:
<snip>
Given David’s popularity, we advise you arrive early on the night.
Click to expand...

He's so popular with me that I didn't go.

I am tired of his caricatures and vignettes of Irish life.
I am tired of his solutions proposing impossible or irrelevant solutions to this crisis.
I cannot tell you how tired I am of seeing him parade around various airports waffling on ecomomics.

He seems to have been all cosy with the government until recently when he had a go at them in the last SBP.
Was this because of a lack of a big payday for him for organizing the Farmleigh bash, as reported in the papers, I wonder?
I wish to God he'd never written a book, never name-dropped anyone and instead gave the best advice to Cowan to help mitigate or avoid this mess.

But he did, did and didn't in that order and that's what we're left with -

  • Ireland tied to the Euro
  • NAMA overpaying for toxic assets
  • Banks bloated with taxpayers money
  • A generation of our children indentured
  • And books filled with floppy-haired economics.
FWIW

ONQ.
 
I went and I have raised his big idea for rational discussion in this thread.

Onq - I fully agree with your attitude to McWilliams. I was sitting at home last night at 7.30 hoping it would rain to give me an excuse not to go. But it was a beautiful evening. I wasn't wrecked after a day's work. I had absolutely no excuse not to go. I am a member of the Skeptics Society and go to all their meetings.

I would guess that there were 150 present, up from the usual 80 or so average attendance.

He started off by telling us that he was the most unpopular man in Ireland. OK, at least I was able to agree with him on something at last.

I am tired of his caricatures and vignettes of Irish life.
Click to expand...
Well, you are lucky you did not go
We had his history of writing speeches for the Governor of the Central Bank.
We had him washing dishes with Rastas as a student in the Dorchester Hotel.
We had him representing the Central Bank explaining why the Irish currency would not break the link with the mark at the same Dorchester Hotel two years later.
We had the Chairman of UBS telling him he was the best speaker and the best liar he had ever heard.
We had a pot belied Irish taxi driver telling him about his apartment purchases in Turkey.
We had his wife's friend wanting to show him her new island.
We had his granny's front room which was kept for the visits from the priest and the big farmer.

I was the first to speak. I told him that I had started to read the serialisation of his book in the Sunday Business Post but gave up when the lift door opened and the Gardai shouted "Get redser". I told him I could not read any more of that.

I told him that he had a valid point to make, but that he was turning me and others off by all the rubbish. If I wanted comedy and story telling, I would go to the Laughter Lounge. As Skeptics, we wanted rational discussion, not ... ( it's very difficult to capture the tone of my speech without breaking the posting guidelines banning bad language)

Maybe the rubbish about Miriam O'Callaghan seducing him and Brian Lenihan eating garlic might sell books, but they turned serious people off. (He acknowledged that this was a big mistake but claimed it was not done to sell books)

He replied by saying that when economists want to obfuscate,they talk numbers. Economics is very simple. He likes acting as a child, questioning everything and being open to ideas. People like his stories, he said.

But his storyteling is seriously ingrained. In response to other questions, he would say "I know that some of you, sorry one of you, doesn't like my stories but..." and then he would proceed to tell about the time he singlehandedly refloated the Titanic with a large balloon filled with hot air.
( Sorry this last bit is my exagerration, not his)

Having challenged the rubbish, I felt a lot better and I would be able now to engage in a discussion of his ideas, which may or may not be valid.

He was much more informative afterwards with the questions and answers.

I would like to sit him and Bacon and Honohan and Alan Ahern and Karl Whelan in a room. Tell them not to debate. Tell them to come with an open mind. Tease out the issues and agree to change their views in the light of the arguments. And produce an agreed position paper setting out the pros and cons of each option. If the discussion could be depersonalised, it would be much more informative.
 
David will be touring around Ireland over the next month giving talks followed by a Q&A session for his new book, Follow The Money. All are welcome.
Dublin, 17th November
Waterstone’s, Dawson Street, Dublin (google map)
Time: 6.30pm
Limerick, 19th November
[broken link removed], 120 O’Connell St, Limerick
Time: 8pm
Cork, 24th November
Easons, 113/115 Patrick St, Cork (google map)
Time: 6.30pm
Navan, 1st December
[broken link removed], Metges Lane, Kennedy Road, Navan
Time: 7pm
Cavan, 1oth December
Crannog Bookshop, Unit 1, New Court Shopping Centre, Church St, Cavan
Time: 8pm
 
Boss, you did well. McWilliams's mega ego will mean I will never, ever attend one of his showpieces.

Willie O'Moustache had it dead right - the relationship between DMcW and DMcW will be one of the lasting love affairs of all time.

The garlic episode and how Miriam tried to seduce him just reveal this guy as a self serving, "buy my book" egotist.

But, thankfully, he has completely destroyed any credibility as an economist by this let's leave the euro thing.
 

Thats a good idea Brendan. It's all very well for these economists who each consider themselves to be experts enjoying the limelight at the moment with their various theories on how to get out of this mess. The Government doesn't have the option of testing them all out to see who is right. Let all these so called experts fight amoung themselves and come to an agreed position if their ego's allow it.
 
Hi Canice

The problem with this is that I have not got the theoretical economic training and I don't have the knowledge of economic history to evaluate his arguments.

I might be able to chair a discussion of the various economists and summarise the pros and cons of the various proposals.

The room on Tuesday seemed fairly persuaded by his arguments, but I pointed out that we did not have the counter view.

No one knows the right answers. Most people think that they do. I would be worried that a dominant and persuasive speaker could influence the minister. I would hope that his economic advisors are not selling solutions. Instead, they should be showing the pros and cons and risks of the all options - including devaluation and declaring bankruptcy.

Brendan
 
Brendan said:
I went and I have raised his big idea for rational discussion in this thread.

<snip of funniest post by Brendan - ever- suggesting McWilliams may have a rival on the bookstands sometime soon>
Click to expand...

<wipes tears from eyes>

Ah me, Brendan - I needed that on this wet and miserable morning.
I swear to God, I re-read my original post after I made it and thought
"Geez, Brendan or some other Mod/Admin will eat me for criticising the Golden Wonder".
So it was that I logged in this morning and wrote other responses before reading this thread, in some trepidation.

The tone and content of your reply took me totally be surprise [you are normally so reserved].
I spent a good five minutes reading and re-reading it and Laughing out loud, both at McWilliam's reported anecdotes and your reaction to them.
Anway I just wanted to say well done that man and I am delighted [for once] that we share views in common on this issue.
<still chuckling>

In relation to McWilliams, I am wary.
There's no question that he is bright and can be witty.
However a smug, arrogant, witty, bright economist who spends his time telling funny anecdotes as opposed to dealing with the problems of the day is of limited use to anyone.

At the risk of engaging in a spot of begrudgery I think that his Miriam comment was akin to the Tabloid practice of getting attention by being a bad boy.
Although I missed The Panel the other night, goign out of his way to get such attention and then mis-handling the limelight shows David still has a lot to learn about his place and role in Irish Society.
I mean, come on, a permanet compere spot on The Panel for a guy who claims credibility dealing with the National Economy?

The governments spend is projected to drop next year and again in 2011 before returning to an even keel again in 2013 and 2014.
Investing billions in the banks and cutting back on investment in the economy seems to be leading us into a deflationary spiral.
Maybe this is a good thing in terms of reducing the overall cost of goods and services in Ireland.

However I watched a piece last night on how smaller scale, well-run hotels were naturally going under while large scale 5 star jobs were being artificially supported by the Banks.
This seemed to be a variation of the "too big to be let fail" rule applied to Banks themselves and it shows we're not getting things right.
Goods and services will not reduce their prices or costs by puff-piece marketing announcements about the Irish Tourism Industry needing to do more to win the British Tourist back.

I realise that my somewhat simplistic view expressed originally to let the banks fail had wider implications for the great and the good of Irish society that I at first understood - i.e. the Bondholders.
However Lloyds Names all took a huge hit after 9-11 and Ireland Inc didn't implode.

I still feel that merely lorrying billions into a Banking system is not the right way to go.
Going into debt for no return in the short to medium term will bankrupt us, particularly since we're not even seeing significant pain in the Banking Industry - we need to do something else to sustaing Ireland Inc in the short to medium term.

The problem seems to be that all lending constitutes taking a risk and the existing Banks are refusing to take risks by lending to previously viable Irish businesses.
We need therefore a new source of capital for businesses in Ireland.
We also need to seriously reconsider our position on cut-backs where capital investmant may be judiciously made.
After WW1 Germany used state investment to fund capital infrastructure projects to keep the building industry going with the multiplier effect working well for the German economy.
In the present day, we also need to consider Investment in Education, even if we might ring-fence this some way, perhaps with a clause suggesting that the first few years must be worked in Ireland, to avoid seeing our educational products being seduced over to America and end up with no local payback on their investment.

An Either/Or scenario is a means to a failure in itself - the banks may fail anyway due to their exposure to billions of Euro in other markets unrelated to contruction - the Derivatives Market.
We need a Both/And solution.

  • NAMA
  • A New Commercial Lending Bank
  • State Investment in Infrastructure.
  • State Investment in Education with a Payback Clause.
Because merely dealing with the debt is never enough.

We need to improve

  • our competitiveness
  • our resourcefulness
  • our inventiveness [cannot stress this one enough]
  • our ability to invest in existing and new businesses

Simply doling out Billions to the banks cannot do these things.

At a minimum, we need a new Bank to service Ireland Inc.

Any takers?

FWIW

ONQ.
 
Last edited:
Brendan said:
The problem with this is that I have not got the theoretical economic training and I don't have the knowledge of economic history to evaluate his arguments.
Click to expand...

I was more interested in a debate around the entire notion that, in the old phrase, "no one could have seen it coming" since anyone skeptical of the property bubble, such as McWilliams, Kelly, etc, were all using hysterical arguments.
 
Canice

That is why I had to force myself to go along on Tuesday night.

I had to listen to lots of rubbish to hear the key argument.

I wanted to hear the argument, if not the man.

That is why I am slagging him off in this thread but trying to put his case forward in the other thread.

He did say that there are three stages in the development of ideas in Ireland
1) Ridicule - we are now all ridiculing his idea.
2) Attacking the proposer - we are all doing this as well.
3) The idea becomes conventional wisdom - this is not looking likely, today on a wet Thursday 12th November.

Maybe we will strugge through another 5 years of depression and then devalue. McWilliams can then point back to this thread and say I told you so.

I have overcome my distaste of listening to McWilliams.
Let me know of Morgan Kelly's next public outing and I will see if I can put my prejudices behind me and try to listen to the argument.

Brendan
 
Does anyone here know any multi-millionaire economists?

Builders, I know more than a few.

Economists - none.

So who said these people know anything about making money or economies?



ONQ.
 
onq said:
Does anyone here know any multi-millionaire economists?

Builders, I know more than a few.

Economists - none.

So who said these people know anything about making money or economies?
Click to expand...

Perhaps the average economist has discovered that there is more to life than making money. McWilliams is probably making big bucks now, but has pretty well abandoned economics.

Certainly I know that the respect I have for people is not linked to how much money they have.
 
Brendan said:
1) Ridicule - we are now all ridiculing his idea.
2) Attacking the proposer - we are all doing this as well.
3) The idea becomes conventional wisdom - this is not looking likely, today on a wet Thursday 12th November.
Click to expand...

To be fair to him, he's quite right when it comes to the property bubble. The same people who said there would never be a crash now say a "correction" had to happen.

I guess I'm less interested in who is right and who is wrong, as to why some people listened to the likes of McWilliams, Kelly, etc, and some didn't. I'm no economist, but work in computers; when I looked at graphs showing that in the Western world, house prices - and most particularly in Ireland - soared upwards away from their real price only in the last 10-15 years - I couldn't understand how someone could completely ignore that data merely because the people writing about the data were choosing emotional words.

Is it because in the field of economics and finance, it doesn't do to be a maverick, whereas in, say, computing, it's often seen a positive? (You don't get many banking firms where the head gurus walk around the office, barefoot, have 20 piercings, or come in at 5pm and leave at 3am, just to recall 3 characters I've known.)

(It's hard to imagine, for example, a character like Steve Jobs - who after doing a calligraphy course in college went off to obtain enlightenment in India in parallel with heroic doses of LSD - running a bank or large financial firm. Even the seemingly staid Bill Gates was arrested for driving charges and expelled from school for hacking.)

Musings.
 
Canice,

Property is best viewed through graphs spanning increments of 20 years or so.

Ireland's market in particular was artificially depressed for many years by poor economic performance meaning children stayed with their parents for longer and the twenty-something home buyer market didn't really develop.

Another factor was emigration - the entrepreneur class and the professional class new generations often left the country, depriving us of a renewal in the thirty something millionaire class of houses.

At least part of the upsurge in property prices in Ireland was entirely justified, but once the ball got rolling, there should arguably have been development based on proper land zoning and development of indigenous employment opportunities to creat demand for housing, as opposed to designated tax incentive-led development.

This distorted the market and created an entirely new demand - marginal sites being seen as viable investments purely because of the tax breaks - succesful developers willing to invest in anything to put their roll-over porfits into the next development rather than pay the full tax whack on them.

This in turn led to planning improprieties on a grand and so far unaccountable scale as maverick rezonings occurred in unsustainable locations based purely on lobbying the votes of councillors and no real resistance to it imposed by the Minister in the interests of compliance with his own plan, the National Spatial Strategy.

I say "improprieties" and not "corruption" because I have no doubt that if you trawl their accounts I'm sure you'll find no bungs to the Councillors, just a desire that their friends the local landowners got a slice of the development pie, that looked like it was running away with the bowl in 2006.

It wasn't just the Banks that operated without adequate oversight in the last decade.

FWIW

ONQ.
 
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