Third time’s a charm. Following on from two previous posts (here and here), tracking the stat-bending the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council was engaged in, we can now put that issue to rest.  The Fiscal Council has finally published a correction and with it has published a third version of their first report.  Now the crucial section reads:
‘Even though [...]

In my post on the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council’s first report, I pointed out a significant error.  In short, they claimed that the underlying deficit fell from 14.3 percent in 2009 to a projected 10 percent in 2011.  This, they claimed, proved that austerity was working.
Except that they got the numbers wrong.  The deficit only [...]

With the Government to publish its four-year plan in the next few weeks, we should try to nail down some basic numbers.  No doubt the plan will present an avalanche of numbers and percentages and projections; so much so that the Government may well try to hide some discomforting statistics.  Does this sound cynical?
Let me [...]

Michael will be talking at #occupydamestreet about financialisation and the real economy at 5pm today.
The EU-IMF deal does not require the Government to privatise state assets. I’ll repeat that. The EU-IMF deal does not require the Government to privatise state assets. Those who claim otherwise have either not read the EU-IMF Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) [...]

The Irish Fiscal Advisory Council’s first report is out.  It is a poor start.  There is much to chew over but here I want to take up one contention - the one that says austerity is working.  For if this argument is the best it can come up with, then it will have its work [...]

Colm McCarthy’s post on Irish Economy takes a sceptical look at ‘productive investment’, or more precisely, the Government’s claim that the New ERA proposals - can create up to 100,000 jobs.  This leads him to state that:
‘The spectre of politicians seeking to create 100,000 jobs through extra public spending is every economist’s nightmare.’
One could quip that [...]

Over the next 20 years Anglo-Irish (including Irish Nationwide) will cost the Irish taxpayers €90 billion.
Just reflect on that for a moment.
Now repeat:  over the next 20 years Anglo-Irish will cost us €90 billion.
It’s difficult to get one’s head around that amount but it is based on figures released last week by Michael Noonan in [...]

Remember that statement - how during the boom years we all ‘partied’ as a nation? Remember those prescriptions - how we had to cut back our living standards, probably back to 2003; in order to restore competitiveness? Remember how we were told that we were living beyond our means and now we had to purge [...]

It is difficult enough to wade through the mountain of data to assess what is really happening in the Irish economy. It doesn’t help when we have ministers selectively celebrating selective stats. Take Minister Richard Bruton, for example; his PR machine is working overtime.
Last month, following the CSO release which showed merchandise (goods) exports rising [...]

This was originally co-written for Progressive-Economy.ie with Michael Burke and Tom McDonnell.
The Anglo-Irish and Irish Nationwide debt must become a major political issue. The Anglo/INBS debt-burden is an unjust and unwarranted charge which the Irish people ought have no responsibility for, a charge which will continue to drain the productive economy for years to come. [...]