Kilkenomists: Put white-collar criminals behind bars and exit the failing euro

In its third year, the Kilkenny economics and comedy festival has attracted a host of dissident number-crunchers and academics to tackle the ongoing economic crisis.

White-collar criminologist, Bill Black, who has helped put about 800 high- level white criminals behind bars, was in the Set Theatre in Kilkenny yesterday to witness people cheering the announcement that Sean Quinn had been given a nine-week jail sentence for contempt of court.

“It got a cheer from the crowd. It makes me very sad that there was a cheer and it was only for nine weeks. Nine weeks is not going to deter anyone from doing anything,” he said.

Mr Black said to move on, Ireland has to learn how to recognise and investigate white-collar crime.

He described the Nyberg report on the banking sector as “hilarious” as its remit banned it from investigating anything criminal.

Sadly, Mr Black said, Ireland still has a lot to learn about white collar crime: “Ireland is not even at the most basic stage of understanding elite white collar crime.”

While Mr Black believes that Ireland is failing in prosecuting white-collar criminals, Peter Antonioni is co-author of Economics For Dummies, believes the whole of the European project is failing.

“I used to think that the euro was this awfully nice thing that the continent was doing, I now think it is a road to penury,” he said.

A particular problem that Mr Antonioni sees is the increasing transfer of sovereignty from periphery nations to the centre of the EU as a result of losing faith in their own politicians.

“I’m sure there is a panel in Norway that thinks the EU is great, but the crisis has revealed that the EU is not capable of dealing with a crisis, as it is a paralysed bureaucratic system that drives people mad,” he said.

Mr Antonioni thinks that Ireland should leave the euro, his position is moderate compared to Dmitry Orlov, author of Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Example and American Prospects, who believes we should tell Germany to stuff its debts.

“The people of Ireland should wake up and revolt, repudiate the country’s debts and tell Germany where to stick it,” he said.

Kilkenomics is running until Sunday night and the economists will be joined by comedians, Colin Murphy, Colm O’Regan, Des Bishop and Karl Spain.