Galway writer publishes book on Irish and Greek economic crisis

A new book on the Irish and Greek economic crisis, co-edited by Galwegian Liam Leonard, and featuring leading economic commentators such as Constantin Gurdgiev and Kieran Allen, has just been published.

Sustainable Politics and the Crisis of Peripheries: Ireland and Greece, edited by Liam Leonard and Iosif Botetzigas, brings together writers from both Ireland and Greece, and explores issues such as the economic background to the crisis; the social impacts of recession; environmental policies, within the context of accelerated growth and the subsequent economic downturn; and the quest for sustainable politics in Europe.

Fear of recession weighs on investor sentiment

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Eurostoxx 50: 2,378.64 (-33.65) Frankfurt DAX: 6,242.47 (-172.29) Paris CAC: 3,278.56 (-41.79): EUROPEAN STOCKS retreated, with the benchmark Stoxx Europe 600 Index posting its biggest weekly loss since November 2008, as a US jobs report failed to allay concern that the global economy is struggling.

“The markets want to see a solution that is sustainable in Europe,” said Markus Steinbeis, head of equity portfolio management at the Unterfoehring, Germany-based unit of Pioneer Investments KGmbH, which oversees about $221 billion globally. “The European Monetary Union is facing the risk of collapsing. The market is afraid of a recession. There’s a point where sentiment is collapsing and maybe this point is right now.”

Guilt By Contagion: Greece, Portugal, Ireland All Flashing Red

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It’s, well, a trifecta of European bailout worries, this morning, according to the Financial Times, which runs with news about Greece, Portugal and Ireland’s sovereign debt woes on its home page, with the news of the hour being Portuguese finance minister Fernando Teixeira dos Santos warning that the “risk is high” the country will have to turn to the international community for financial assistance.




Dos Santos said Portugal’s situation is not the same as that of Greece, but because of their membership in the EU, the countries are getting lumped together, as are their budget problems. “Markets look at these economies together because we are all in this together in the eurozone,” said Dos Santos, in a piece penned by David Oakley and Tony Barber.

How big is Europe's crisis?

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This morning has felt a bit like a surreal dream.

On the one hand a couple of fairly substantial economies, Ireland and Portugal, are teetering on the brink of collapse.

A vision of Vera Duckworth
On the other, a raft of results from British businesses - ITV, Easyjet, Burberry, British Land - show that for big companies at least, recovery is real and not as anaemic as statistics for the whole economy imply.

The growth in advertising revenues at ITV, up 16% to £1.25bn in the first nine months of the year, is particularly striking. And if ITV's former chairman, Michael Grade, doesn't point out - and very publicly - that he left ITV in better shape than many have claimed, then I know nothing about the soap opera of the television industry.

Cybercom aiming to be first sustainable communications agency in Ireland

Digital advertising and marketing agency Cybercom claims to have become the first Irish communications agency to put sustainability at the core of its operations.

The firm said that, having recognised the business case for sustainability, it worked with training and sustainability specialist RealEyes to understand sustainability and apply it to how the agency is run.