That wild and whacky outrider of neo-liberalism, Constantin Gurdgiev, has taken a scalpel to the Government’s budget numbers and I find myself . . . agreeing with him. No surprise there. People from wildly varying perspectives can still agree the sky is blue. Even if the great Fianna Fail sky-gods are doing everything possible to [...]

This article was originally written for Indymedia
I don’t intend to list the outrages that Fianna Fail has perpetrated in yesterday’s budget. We all have scars to show each other. And let’s leave the bank bailout for the moment (but everything about it is one more argument for immediate nationalisation).
Let’s get to the heart of the [...]

Yes, it does look rather one-sided. IBEC, representing some of the most powerful financial and corporate interests, have called for payments to the weakest interests in society to be cut, i.e. cuts in social welfare. It’s like a bunch of ruffians getting tanked up in a pub on Saturday night and then going out to [...]

Warning! If you are lucky enough to be invited on to a national radio programme - for example, the Pat Kenny show - to discuss the economic crisis, whatever you say don’t suggest that those on higher incomes with substantial wealth should pay a little bit more tax. If you do, you will be attacked, [...]

My oh my. Standard and Poor’s (S&P) has downgraded the Irish Government’s credit rating - from AAA to AA+. The fiscal reactionaries are in party-mode.
‘We told you so, we told you so, we’ve kept borrowing and now our credit rating has fallen, we gotta cut, gotta cut fast, gotta cut deep or we’ll lose that [...]

Labour is quickly approaching a crossroads. It is seemingly torn in two directions: a new stimulus strategy that prioritises rising unemployment and declining economic activity; or an accommodation with the orthodoxy, compromising within parameters laid down by the deflationists (or just as worse, paralysed at the crossroads unable to choose). The Labour Party conference provided [...]

A good friend made a bet with me in January. He wagered the economy would contract by 10 percent or more by the end of the year. I gladly took the bet. But he rang me yesterday wanting to know if I wanted to pay up now. For the news that the economy contracted by [...]

Sinn Fein has produced a substantial and positive contribution to the debate on creating and saving jobs in our recessionary economy. ‘Getting Ireland Back to Work’ contains more than 80 proposals covering a range of employment-related subjects: job retention, investing in our indigenous base, education and training, consumer spending, etc. If there’s a bit of [...]

Dear Sarah
I read with interest your recent Irish Times column - ‘Nemesis for decades of cosy consensus on tax‘. I was particularly struck by the following:
‘When asked who should pay tax so that there’s enough money to fund the most generous social welfare payments in the EU, we are back to - you’ve guessed it [...]

There is a sense that, if we could just overcome these temporary setbacks (recession, credit crunch, low export demand) then we might find our way back to a more benign economic climate. There’s very little sense that this is a ‘game-changer’, as Liam, a reader of this blog, put it. For instance, the Sunday Tribune [...]