March 2012 issue
Cover Story
Irish voters traditionally use the ballot box to register discontent. If that’s what happens with the fiscal treaty compact, our relationship with the EU would materially change and put in doubt our continued membership of the euro zone.
Profile
Despite the reformist rhetoric of his 2007 election campaign, Nicolas Sarkozy has failed to stem the French people’s sense of their country’s decline. After the killings in Toulouse and Montauban, his popularity jumped a little, but will it be enough to give him another chance?
A legal precedent
The preference for income-generating assets is a notable one and it is a theme that is likely to continue to run for some time – given the downward pressures on incomes due to government austerity measures in Western economies.
Inside Track
At the margins of a conference at the NYSE, New York-based banker Wilbur Ross tells John Walsh that the Irish property market is close to bottoming out and discusses why he believes that following Troika targets will lead Ireland back to the markets in 2013.
Karl Whelan
Despite Government insistence that talk of a second bailout is ‘ludicrous’, it would be negligent not consider how such deal could be implemented and how it would ease the country’s debt burden writes Karl Whelan.
UK Budget
The UK is locked into a period of deleveraging and austerity so the budget was always going to be as much about politics as economics. Chancellor George Osborne has received harsh criticism that he has looked after the better off, writes Christopher Goodfellow
