This is an interesting (and scary) visual representation of how Irish unemployment has changed on a county by county basis since April 2005.
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Category Archives: Fiscal Policy
After Dubai – Ireland?
The New York Times seems to think Ireland is a candidate to default just like Dubai. The Irish government may want Irish commentators to ‘wear the green jersey’ and do the economic analysis equivalnent of smiling and nodding – but then those pesky Americans go and mention the unmentionable.
Also posted in Banking Crisis 2 Comments
Bertie has more advice for critics of government economic policy
Bertie Ahern wondered in 2007 why critics of government economic policy didn’t commit suicide. Now he thinks they should do something productive like ‘dig the garden or grow bluebells’. The comments were made to VIP magazine.
Also posted in Banking Crisis Leave a comment
A Smart Government for a Smart People?
Colleague Eoin O’Leary has a fine article in the Irish Times today, which presents a sobering analysis of the repeated mistakes of Irish governments due to blocks in thinking. The thinking behind policy-making presented is certainly what Thomas Sowell would refer to as a “vision of the anointed”. One is reminded of the sub-title of [...]
Also posted in Banking Crisis, Innovation 1 Comment
ESRI – Ireland in Recession
There is a new page on the ESRI website providing links to academic research of relevance for understanding the ongoing recession in Ireland.
Also posted in Competitiveness Leave a comment
How do you cut nominal rates when they’re already near zero?
N Gregory Mankiw has an interesting suggestion on how rates can be cut below zero. With a negative nominal rate the problem is that people will keep cash as a zero return (on cash) is better than a negative return. His suggestion (credited to a graduate student) is that the government announces that in one [...]
Also posted in Banking Crisis 1 Comment
If even Buffet is taken by surprise….
It may not be much comfort to those who have lost on bank shares recently, but in a recent (February 27) letter to shareholders in Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffet indicated that the investment company lost a significant amount of money on Irish banks. He says that in 2008 he invested approximately a quarter of a billion dollars [...]
Also posted in Banking Crisis Leave a comment
Consistency seems to be overrated
Last week campaigners carried placards saying ‘Bono, pay your taxes’ and ‘Bono, don’t be a banker’. The inference seems to be that Bono should not be preaching about our duty to other when U2 profits were moved to the Netherlands. This was only the latest in a long line of what appears on the surface [...]
Posted in Fiscal Policy Leave a comment
Time to tax child benefit
One of the government’s main arguments in relation to the medical card changes in the last budget was that there could no longer be automatic entitlements to medical cards for over-70s. Tanaiste Mary Coughlan asked the opposition how it could support maintaining the automatic entitlement of “well-off pensioners, senior civil servants, High Court judges, property [...]
Posted in Fiscal Policy Leave a comment
Keynes and Budgetary Imbalance
Beware of those offering a solution to our current woes while invoking the authority of John Maynard Keynes for their proposals. It is questionable if Keynes would have supported proposals involving the accumulation of large levels of public debt. Keynesian the proposals may be but the evidence suggests they would not be supported by Keynes. [...]
Posted in Fiscal Policy Leave a comment