The Irish Economy needs to be decoded

Before the Irish Times published it’s list of 20 must-read Irish Blogs, I was aware of Irish Economy.ie . I have it in in my feedreader and have given it a go. I say “given it a go” because I’m an economic dunce and don’t fully understand a lot of what is being written there. I’m struggling to get a grip on what’s going on in the economy, other than the effects I see and hear about every day of the week.

So I went out to the local bookshop and bought a book yesterday to enlighten myself.

I’m reading it slowly and beginning to understand things more now. I’m almost through the first section of the book which answers the question “What happened”. It paints the broad picture of the global economy without too much jargon – so far so good. The sections coming up are very much geared toward UK readers, the intended market for the book.

The Irish Economy won a blog award last night for best specialist blog and one of last year’s winners, Robin Blandford had a great post on his last day as the 2008 Irish Technology Blogger.

The blog awards are a platform to do something. Do something while the spotlight is on you. Leave your job, start a business, publish a book, do something with it.

Please – for me…. if you win a category this year…. do something with it, then pass the baton on. And on. And on. Promote the awards, support the awards, and pass it on.

I’d love to see The Irish Economy people do a book similar to the one I’m reading at the moment, but with an Irish focus. I’d love to see some more advice on possible solutions or at least some suggestions on ways forward/through the situation we find ourselves in. I’d love to see it all laid out in plain English so we can all take part in informed debate.

If David Jones can get a book done and on a website in a week with the help of some generous  and talented people, I’m sure Irish Economy can too and I’d only be too willing to help make it happen in what ever way I can.

It might take a bit longer than a week (given the scope of the topic) but there’s a lot of confusion out there and a book like this would be well received.