Goodbody Stockbrokers is predicting a decline in GDP this year of 6% unsettling public finances. Irish Nationwide has been downgraded by Moody’s to one notch above junk. Ireland is bankrupt. More specifically, its financial institutions are bankrupt, its government is bankrupt and, unfortunately, many of its businesses and citizens are bankrupt. But this is not [...]

Cathal O’Loghlin has done the readers of my Notes on the Front blog a favour by putting up his Irish Independent article in the comment section yesterday (I’m assuming the poster ‘Honest Cathal‘ is the author). Whichever Cathal it is, he is certainly in feisty form. He manages to call ICTU and CORI liars - [...]

Can you feel it?  Brian has dinner with Sean and Co.  Was one of the Anglo-Irish 10 there breaking bread with the Taoiseach-elect?  And Senator Dan Boyle signals a wobble on the part of the junior coalition partner.  Low-paid civil servants are demonstrating; as are the Guards; Dublin Bus is facing into an all-out strike.  The National [...]

There will be a variety of slogans on placards on the National Demonstration this Saturday:
There is a Better Way • Bail Out People, Not Banks • Punish the Corrupt, Not the Victims  • Workers Unite
All catchy in their own way.  But here’s the text for a placard that should be carried by thousands and memorised [...]

‘You do not get it. You are stupid. Do not demonstrate. Do not remonstrate. You are interfering in things you do not understand and you are making matters worse. Go back home. Sit down. Shut up. And let your betters sort things out.’

End communication from your Econo-Overlords VMT (Von Mises Tendency)
I am getting increasingly [...]

One in four people you pass by on the street today have stated they would vote for Labour if an election were held today (well, not exactly - 17 percent opted for Labour, the 24 percent is a calculation based on excluding the undecided; and it was last Monday and Tuesday when the poll was [...]

I don’t say this very often but here goes.  Fine Gael has put forward a very positive proposal regarding the banking crisis; and once teased out (and implemented) could see us jump free of this particular crisis and back on the road to economic activity (one crisis down, 99 to go).  Fine Gael?  Well, a good idea [...]

I was intending to a piece on the grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented’ proposal to flush €7 billion down the recapitalisation toilet but David McWilliams has already outlined why its a gross waste of money while John McManus has a very insightful deconstruction on why the whole thing is potentially counter-productive (if you believe that [...]

Oh, that speech. One might think the Taoiseach had a Damascus Road conversion - and in front of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce in the Four Seasons Hotel of all places. That somehow he looked deep into his soul while he was looking ‘everyone in the eye’ - and came forth with new economic tablets [...]

You know they don’t have a clue; you know they are thrashing about the place grabbing on to any old piece of driftwood in the raging tide; you know we are in more trouble than we can imagine if the Government is seriously cutting employers’ PRSI as a means to save jobs. It’s the type [...]