disaster capitalism in ireland

In the past year, I've written so much about Ireland and its economy (here, here, here, here, and here) that I'm in the habit of keeping an eye out for news about Ireland, like a recent émigré looking for news of home. The thing is, I'm not Irish. (As far as I know, I have no Irish blood. Scottish, yes. Irish, not so far, but its a possibility.) I've never even been to Ireland (though I'd love to visit, someday.

I keep an eye on news about Ireland's economy, because it's regularly held up as an example we should follow here. At least in the headlines. Read a bit deeper, and it's a different story. Take, for example, a recent New York Times article about Ireland and austerity.

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In American politics, especially in post-9/11 politics, what most desperately needs saying is often banished to the realm of the unsayable. It's either too impolite or too impolitic to utter. This tends to apply more to the left than the right. Almost nothing's unsayable for right-wingers, and almost everything they say is justifiable. (Just ask them.) The problem is that being impolite or impolitic doesn't make what the unsayable untrue, or any less in need of someone to say it. But it ensures that no one on the left will say it.

Fortunately, Dean Baker didn't let that stop him from recently dubbing the GOP "a party of unemployment."

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It probably seems like I'm "a day late and a dollar short," with a post about Ireland's economic disaster days after the New York Times story about the high cost of austerity measures in Ireland echoed all over the progressive blogosphere. But I'm not. It just took me a few days to recover from the intense deja-vu.

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