Friday, Jan 27th 2012
Many thanks to Robert for sending on Toni Solo’s piece which argues that Ireland should join ALBA (the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas). Read on…
Why Ireland should join ALBA by toni solo, January 24th 2011
Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen is under pressure from the country’s political opposition to bring forward a general election scheduled for [...]
….or if Cowen is secretly working for the opposition are Shortall and Rabbitte secretly working for the ULA?
The shenanigans over the past twenty four hours in relation to the Finance Bill, as noted by Harry McGee yesterday on the Irish Times website and quoted here… was indeed as he put it when…
“…both [Labour and Fine [...]
The intervention by the EU Commission, in the person of the chief spokesperson for Ollie Rehn, calling for the passing of the Finance Bill is another clear example (if one were needed) of who is calling the shots.
His intervention was timed to influence the outcome of the talks being held in relation to the Finance [...]
Economic Incentives: The Benefits of Exports
Seamus Coffee has an interesing post on the direct expenditure in the Irish economy that comes from FDI.
Since 2000 exports from risen by over 50% yet the direct expenditure from the companies that generate these exports has FALLEN, albeit by just over 1% (and this is nominal data). Exports [...]
In mid-January the Department of Finance issued a press release which stated that in “a private submission to taxation commissioner Algirdas Semeta” it argued that plans to implement “a common consolidated corporate tax base (CCCTB)” would “dim the lustre of Ireland’s generous business tax regime”.
The CCCTB plan, due to be implemented in March, is designed [...]
(This article was first published in Crisisjam on politico.ie on 21/1/11. This is an updated version 24/1/11)
Is there anything left to say about the spectacle of the last week? How do you sketch out that place beyond absurdity, the ‘are’ in ‘we are where we are’? Unluckily, others have been here before.
In The Emperor, Ryszard [...]
The final photo is one of only two photos known to exist from inside the GPO during the rising.
Palestinian Papers Reveals Palestinian Authority’s Concessions For Absolutely Nothing
Al Jazeera are doing a wikileaks with a mega-leak of documents that came from negotiations during the Israeli-Palestinian peace process from 1999 ti 2010. As The Guardian’s Katharine Viner puts it on twitter:
“In summary: PA desperate; Israel unyielding; US contemptuous. Detail pretty shocking”
The Al Jazeera Palestinian Papers [...]
Earlier yesterday, RTE reported that Sinn Féin would facilitate the passage of the Finance Bill in order to speed up the dissolution of the Dáil.
This is a statement released last night by Pearse Doherty, finance spokesperson for Sinn Féin, which brings clarification to RTE’s news report.
Sinn Féin opposes Finance Bill and calls for election now
Sinn [...]
Birkbeck Podcast: Mark Fisher in conversation with Amber Jacobs
Last year Mark Fisher published Capitalist Realism: Is There no Alternative? (Zero Books 2009) in which he addressed the condition of ideological malaise produced by neo-liberal capitalism -or as he puts it- the “widespread sense that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system, [...]
