Wednesday, Feb 22nd 2012
The Central Bank Governor, Patrick Honohan, is outraged. In particular, he is outraged that Irish bond spreads are so high, ridiculously high. Don’t the ‘international markets‘ realise the dynamism of our export sectors, the budgetary and tax reforms, the pain we have suffered to get our public finances under control? Why are they still doing [...]
Book Review: Injustice: Why Social Inequality Persists by Daniel Dorling, Policy Press (2010)
Over the last two decades or so, scholars concerned with social justice have offered a number of different frameworks for helping us to analyse the problem. These have included the extensively discussed two-dimensional approach that classifies issues under the headings of redistribution [...]
Michael Burke’s common on Michael Taft’s post on progressive-economy@tasc re Service exports
In the late boom year of 2005 the Gross Value Added (GVA) of the building and construction sector was €12.9bn and industry ex bulding was €33.6bn (2009 National incomes and Accounts, Table 4). By contrast the GVA of 'Other services', which includes financial services [...]
New Left Project | NLP Blog
Good post on the BBC's official response to criticism of their Panorama documentary on the Gaza flotilla
The BBC has, predictably, “dismiss[ed]” claims that a recent Panorama documentary on the Gaza flotilla was biased towards Israel. But its response itself illustrates the crux of the problem:
“Israel has [...]
The Bullingdon Club: Producing Your Cultured Elite for the Last 200 Years
This week is a big one for all those layabout teenagers getting their A-level results and Leaving Cert certificates so that they can become layabout students at the espense of those of us who work or who live on their well-earn pensions, such as [...]
Companies Dodge $60 Billion in Taxes Even Tea Party Condemns - BusinessWeek
The Double Irish’
On advice from Ernst & Young, Forest Laboratories Ireland reorganized that year, dropping the country from its name. The newly dubbed Forest Laboratories Holdings Ltd. established a registered office in Hamilton, Bermuda, declaring the island its tax residence. This unit took control [...]
Ireland: A recession of the banks, by the banks, and for the banks | afoe | A Fistful of Euros | European Opinion
And yet it’s not clear that the worst is over. The banks haven’t yet made a big move on distressed home mortgages and no one is clear what will happen when forebearance [...]
How Much Did Eurozone States Spend On Bailing Out Private Banks? | Irish Public Policy
As a percentage of GDP the Euro-area average is 25.4%, the EU 27 is 31.2%. This is about 1,870 billion for the entire Eurozone. Nothing compared to what has been allocated to the Greek government. But, get this, Ireland spent a [...]
Book Review:The Situationists and the City, edited by Tom McDonough, (2009) Verso.
It isn’t entirely clear why Verso thought now would be a good time to publish a book of extracts from the writings of the Situationists about the urban environment and experience. Editor Tom McDonough, whose excellent introductory essay renders much of the subsequent material [...]
It will soon be 26 years since the people of Bhopal were enveloped in a poisonous miasmic cloud of gas, which gushed forth from the Union Carbide chemical plant in Bhopal, India. On that night of the 3rd of December, 1984, an estimated 4,000 people lost their lives immediately with a further 300,000 of Bhopal´s [...]
