Martin Meenagh blog

The Demolition Derby The Republican campaign for president has become a farce. It was always likely that it would do so; serious candidates like Daniels, Petraeus, Bush, Ryan, Pence, and I suppose Powell and Rice stayed well clear, and the field was dominated by people who couldn't possibly run again in 2016, so there was never going to be much restraint. I was also surprised that the GOP establishment, judging by endorsements, thought such a deeply flawed, Wall Street candidate as Mitt Romney--one eyebrow away from a snitty explosion at any given time--could be elevated over their base. I guess I presumed that they had Perry in as insurance, and I wish I knew what had kept Sarah Palin out. However--and some may think this appropriate given the forest of delusion into which the republicans have wandered for some time--things have now reached some form of psychic impasse. We have, in no particular order, a thrice-married (and twice badly divorced) 'Catholic', playing on raci...

Cheaper to Eat Out.... It used to be a sign of American plenty that people went out for breakfast. I remember my shock the first time I did so with a family with whom I am very friendly in Baltimore, years ago, at how cheap it was to order ham and eggs, and, moreover, that you could just hold out a cup and get a coffee refill. Late last year, Forbes magazine in the United States took notice of a curious social phenomenon. As the Great Recession rolls on--and it is such for the twenty six million or so who are either without a job, trapped in part time work, or 'discouraged' as much as for those drowning in debt--restaurants and bars are doing great business. Eating out is becoming a way to save money. This was attributed to the 6% rise per year in supermarket prices, a consequence of oil and food booms which are manifesting in odd ways around the world . Households can't practice economies of scale, lowering spending to an average, in the way that restaurants can. Time is...

Wrong and Right I've been in a sort of reflective New Year mood, when I have had the time to be so, and have been dwelling on three things this week. In Britain, Ed Balls has declared that Labour will have to live with coalition spending cuts, and has risked a fight with his own party over the realisation that states which are in large part foreign money users, rather than money issuers, can't live way beyond their means constantly. The effect of the banking and sovereign debt collapse, and the causes for it, have been well documented on this and other blogs--in my case, before it happened--but I wanted to record a degree of sadness that Labour not only didn't see this coming, but didn't prepare. Three years ago, I suggested that several government departments could be scrapped, the tax regime for businesses could be flattened and made fairer, individual tax allowances should be raised, universities should go it alone, with failed ones merged into a University of Britai...

Christmas in Istanbul Well over a week has passed since I returned from Istanbul, and I have to say that my head is still trying to absorb the message of the beauty I saw there. You might perhaps expect me to be muttering about starlit or moonlit domes disdaining my views and all that they are, given my Yeats obsession which had so much to do with the place of Byzantium in my mind. Don’t look for it any more though. Yeats, I realised in my hotel as I spoke his lines from Byzantium and Sailing to Byzantium to myself, looking out the window one stunned night, never actually went to Constantinople. He got his images from Ravenna and Milan, rather like getting an idea of Europe from some Diego Rivera frieze on an American subway. Denis Devlin, another favourite of mine did go, but was more taken by the light and the waters than the domes. He was a diplomat in the turmoil of Ottoman collapse, after all, and winging it as a Scotsman for Ireland anyway. What words could properly describe Hagi...