Economy in crisis - It’s time for answers not accusations

IT would be a lot more cheering, and far less stressful, to be able to focus on the great issues of the day — can Kerry beat the Dubs with the elan of old or might Brian O’Driscoll and his teammates confound time and critics to shock Australia tomorrow — but the relentless flow of dismal news simply cannot be ignored.

One of the reasons the data is so dispiriting is that for far too long we turned away hoping ah ‘shure ‘twill be all right. What a terrible price we are paying for that disconnect, that lack of vigilance and misplaced trust.

Nearly every metric is so overpoweringly negative that it seems to be leading to a place none of us want to go, a place most of us don’t even want to imagine.