Thursday, May 24th 2012
Now that the referendum has been called I am starting up the Fiscal Treaty Files, a regular commentary on the claims, arguments and assertions that will be made over the coming weeks leading up to the vote. Let the debate commence.
Hat tip to Brian Lucey, mega-contributor to the twitter-sphere, for designing the first poster of the [...]
Campaign Against the Austerity Treaty asking for a Referendum and a NO vote!
The first Public Meeting of the Campaign will take place on Monday, March 5th, at 19.30 hours in Liberty Hall.
Speakers will include Soren Sondergaard a Danish MEP from the Danish Peoples Movement, our MEP Paul Murphy, Richard Boyd Barrett TD and Jimmy Kelly, National [...]
Yanis Varoufakis has an interesting post in which he wonders why those who espouse a faith in the ideas of Frederick von Hayek do not follow them through when it comes to the liquidation of public debt, that is the bank debt which has been socialised.
“On the one hand they are keen to spread Hayek’s message [...]
Bank Strategist says that cutting corporation tax is laughably stupid
Albert Edwards, the Global Strategist for the French bank, Société Général calls on the Tories to increase rather than cut corporation tax. He refers to the latter idea as ‘laughably stupid’.
However, Edwards (contrary to the MP Liam Fox call for company tax cuts in next [...]
The publicity accompanying the latest ESRI Quarterly Commentary was a triumph of spin over substance. Despite claims of ‘growth’ and ‘austerity is working’ the ESRI describes a domestic economy mired in recession and growing debt until at least 2014. Let’s go through some numbers before we try to explain why the spin gets hyped while the [...]
Terry Eagleton and Kieran Allen discuss ‘The Return of Marx’ from Paula Geraghty on Vimeo.
Terry Eagleton, author of Why Marx was Right and Kieran Allen, author of Marx and the Alternative to Capitalism discuss
THE RETURN OF MARX
On Thursday 23 February 7pm Room 2041 (Ui Chadhain, lecture theatre, Arts block) Trinity College Dublin
Karl Marx is [...]
There’s a stimulating essay by David Graeber that passed me by in the spring/summer 2005 issue of The Commoner. You can download the pdf file here. If you can ignore all the typos, you’ll find some original thoughts and arguments about the theory of value. Much of the work here echoes that found in Graeber’sTowards an Anthropological [...]
The EU’s Micromanaging of the Greek economy to pay off private banks
According to the Financial Times this morning:
Greece must carry out no fewer than 38 measures by the end of this month whose combined effect would effectively lead to its finances being micromanaged from the outside, according to official memoranda seen by the FT. Immediate policies [...]
President Michael D Higgins | Of Public Intellectuals, Universities, and a Democratic Crisis
At the London School of Economics, 21 February 2012
[...]
Standing in support of unregulated markets, of unaccountable capital flows, of virtual financial products, are scholars who frequently claim the legitimation provided by a university. The university is at times put [...]
The following is from an address at EngAge Ideas Forum on the 21 February 2012 at Royal Irish Academy. organised by Age & Opportunity where I was asked to speak on the topic ‘an aisling for our age’.
What is my aisling for our age? In the classical manner, shall I lament of the current [...]
