Cowen calls it: it's IMF

[mollox]

One of the biggest problems facing Irish business is that the relative strength of the Euro, particularly with sterling, has made it very difficult to maintain exports and/or profit margins.

If Ireland still had the Punt as our currency, we could devalue to make our exports more competitively priced. As members, and very small ones at that, of the Eurozone, we have little say in the value of the currency and there’s no possibility that the currency will be devalued to suit our particular needs. After all, even in our pomp we were still only 1% of the wider EU economy.

However, a couple of months back something accidentally triggered a fall in the value of the Euro – a claim by a union leader that the Taoiseach had raised, during Social Partnership talks, the spectre of the IMF having to be called in .

So how could we engineer a repeat of this “accident”, without incurring the wrath of our EU and Eurozone partners?

Barack Obama swept into power on the back of a simple but very powerful and populist slogan: “Yes we can”.
Labour’s Eamon Gilmore nicked this at his party’s annual conference with his “is féider linn” call in the leader’s closing speech.
Now, in the Dáil, Taoiseach Brian Cowen has defiantly told the opposition that he’ll “do it my way” or, in the first official language “im modh féin”.*

So Taoiseach Cowen should organise a series of open air rallies around the country to mobilise and motivate the populace, with local FF supporters primed to turn up with placards and rehearsed chants in supports of our leaders declared modus operandi.

To make it a bit snappier, any PR guru would advise that “im modh féin” be reduced to its appropriate TLA, that is, IMF.

Picture the sight beamed across the world by 24-hour TV channels - a belligerent Cowen roaring incoherently off a platform or the back of a truck, to a huge crowd chanting “IMF, IMF, IMF” and waving placards bearing those same initials.

That should be enough to send the Euro into freefall and take much of the pressure off our hard-pressed exporters.

*with apologies if this is gaeilge cráp.

[adamirer]

just swaps the problems from with £ to the € zone.
The problem is Sterling, not the Euro. The days of benchamarking against £ are thankfully history. If a curency movies, it'll be the piund, its being pummled against the $ too.

Of course, the Tory line against the € in the early days used to be that it was a weak currency.. they are surprisingly quiet on that line for the past few years.

[meriwether2]

Thats actually quite witty.

[Sucker Punch]

Picture the sight beamed across the world by 24-hour TV channels - a belligerent Cowen roaring incoherently off a platform or the back of a truck, to a huge crowd chanting “IMF, IMF, IMF” and waving placards bearing those same initials.

That should be enough to send the Euro into freefall and take much of the pressure off our hard-pressed exporters.

*with apologies if this is crap gaeilge.

I wouldn't tempt the IMF coming here, in my book even the most corrupt politican in Ireland would be better than IMF intervention, which usually turns countries to an even greater extent into economic basket cases than they originally were in the first place.
Take a look at Stiglitz, or Hoon Chang's analysis on the "well meaning" IMF.

[mollox]

Don't you mean SFA?

Ok, I give up, I haven't a clue what that post means.