Seán Quinn is an able, personable fellow - and an exasperating interviewee. By Vincent Browne.

There is a charm about Seán Quinn, and a quiet sense of humour. He is very much in control of himself, but there is an anger there too, which seems to be distorting his judgment, giving rise to a strong sense of victimhood and an impulse to strike back.

Even in a private conversation, I found it impossible to get him to focus on how he and his family breached court orders not to put assets out of reach of IBRC (now incorporating the former Anglo Irish Bank) - for his focus is entirely on what he sees was done to him by Matthew Elderfield, the Financial Regulator, and by the management of Anglo Irish Bank that took over from Seán FitzPatrick and David Drumm.

The 2012 London Olympics have been heralded as the best Olympics yet for women, although gender inequalities remain, from sexist media commentary and gender-based bullying to less sponsorship and media coverage for female athletes than male athletes. Here, a gender score-card of the winners and losers so far. By Heather McRobie.

The 2012 London Olympics have been heralded as the best Olympics yet for women, the first time the games have had female athletes representing all the participating countries. As remarkable female athletes continue to set new world records, these games are a golden period for celebrating the successes of female athletes worldwide, many of whom have had to overcome significant challenges to take their place at the Olympics.

It’s the silly season. During July and August, the standard of tripe churned out in TV-land becomes unbearable. You would imagine our friends in Channel 4, as an alternative to the Olympics, would be using this opportunity to develop a new audience. Is this their intent with “Thelma’s Gypsy Girls”? By Rosaleen McDonagh. 

Is reality TV the mirror that we see our reflection in? Distorted; tacky; unbalanced and poorly edited in a salacious fashion. Is reality TV a version of ourselves satellited back to its viewer via settled media and editorial diktat. My understanding of documentaries is that they should educate, inform, be interesting and tell a narrative where the vulnerable become strong and empowered during the course of the storyline – “empowered” being the key word.

Sebastian Coe's response to an appeal from the Vietnam Women's Union that he and his colleagues in the IOC reconsider their decision to accept sponsorship from Dow Chemical exemplifies the London Olympics’ razor-wired, public relations and money-fuelled totalitarian state within a state. By John Pilger.

This is a story of two letters and two Britains. The first letter was written by Sebastion Coe, the former athlete who chairs the London Olympics Organising Committee. He is now called Lord Coe. In the New Statesman of 21 June, I reported an urgent appeal to Coe by the Vietnam Women’s Union that he and his IOC colleagues reconsider their decision to accept sponsorship from Dow Chemical, one of the companies that manufactured dioxin, a poison used against the population of Vietnam. Code-named Agent Orange, this weapon of mass destruction was “dumped” on Vietnam, according to a U.S. Senate report in 1970, in what was called Operation Hades. One estimate is that today there are 4.8 million victims of Agent Orange, many of them shockingly deformed children.

Raising the income floor for low-income households is not just about equity, or sharing the pain, or ‘too poor to pay more’. It’s also about a growth strategy. By Michael Taft.

In a previous post we looked at how our rich are richer than the rich of other European countries. Our rich grab a higher proportion of disposable income. That’s one side of the coin. Let’s look at the other side: that our ‘poor’ take a lower proportion of disposable income than the poor of other countries. This issue, finally, is gaining some currency. Social Justice Ireland has pointed out that inequality in Ireland is rising under current Government policy, while Vincent Browne wrote on the same theme yesterday. {jathumbnailoff}

If the Government fashioned a set of tax measures – rates, reduction of tax expenditures, new taxes, etc. – to bring the disposable income of the top 10% to EU averages, it would take in between €3 billion and €3.5 billion, enough to reach their Budget 2013 deficit target. By Michael Taft.

Okay, so you’re not one of those who believe in soaking the rich. But what about bathing? A good bath is healthy for the body and the mind. And the economy. There are a number of arguments for increasing taxation on high incomes: low-average income earners can’t afford to pay more; there’ s a lot money to be gained; it is less damaging to domestic demand; and it is part of a general egalitarian and solidarity strategy. All these work – though there is always a debate over degrees.

What is not debatable is that inequality is accelerating in Ireland. In the run-up to Budget 2013 there are political choices to make. Let’s be clear: our rich are richer than the rich in other European countries. And we’re in recession. And we’re in bailout.

A highly disturbing report released today may go to the core of the financial mess we find ourselves in. According to Reuters, “a quarter of Wall Street (and UK) executives see wrongdoing as a key to success, according to a survey by whistleblower law firm Labaton Sucharow.”

The “survey of 500 senior executives” also found that:

• “24 percent believed financial services professionals may need to engage in unethical or illegal conduct to be successful”;
• “sixteen percent. . .would commit insider trading if they could get away with it”;
• “30 percent said their compensation plans created pressure to compromise ethical standards or violate the law.”

And these are just the people who actually were brazen enough to admit to such beliefs.

Generalising is the first step toward racism. Every sentence beginning with “The Germans believe this” or “The Greeks do that” is an initial slide on a slippery slope leading, eventually, to bigotry. As I have argued before, there is no such thing as the Germans, or the Brits, or the Greeks for that matter. Our various nations sport as much variety within them as the divergence that we observe between them. Moreover, there is no such thing as the ‘representative’ German, Greek or American. The fact that groups, and naturally nations, are subject to social norms that generate patterned behaviour and mindsets does not annul this point. As long as some gallant Germans fought the Nazis and died in Auschwitz, the claim that ‘the Germans’ are prone to, or responsible for, Nazism is absurd. Similarly, the fact that tax evasion and corruption is prevalent in Greece is no excuse for loose talk about ‘the tax-evading and corrupt Greeks’. Does this, however, mean that one cannot articulate a legitimate critique of Germany, of Greece, of nations in general? In recent months, following the rampant Euro Crisis, much criticism has been piled on Germany. A lot of it (just like its equivalent directed against Greece, Italy etc.) is misplaced and downright offensive, even if founded on many discrete truths (all big lies are so founded). Then again, it is impossible to come to terms with the Euro Crisis’s persistence and evolution unless Germany’s position is critically assessed. So, what are the limits of rational and fair criticism? This is the question I wish to tackle below by offering three principles of fair and useful criticism.