Friday, Nov 21st 2008
Maybe I’m getting paranoid but I can’t help feeling that we’re being primed to blame the incoming Obama administration if our inflow of foreign investment starts drying up, resulting in massive dislocations in our economy. Robert Shapiro, an influential advisor to the new President, has suggested that Ireland wean itself off foreign direct investment (FDI). [...]
How long is this puppy going to bark? How long is this recession going to last? Can we look into a crystal ball? Can we call upon history? Estimating the depth and the length of a recession is always a tentative exercise, except in hindsight. But it can be a helpful exercise in developing the [...]
Mission accomplished! Unfortunately, the euphoria is short-lived as we return to the dismal news coming out of our own economy: unemployment rising to over 260,000 with the increase in October nearly equaling the entire rise in 2007; service business activity contracting at an alarming rate; the EU Commission opening excessive debt procedure against the [...]
If I were a Fianna Fail Minister I would be embarrassed to go abroad to meet my peer group. I’d put a bag over my head. I’d put on an accent and pretend I was a county supervisor from Winnemucca, Nevada. I’d do anything to cover up the fact that I was [...]
Does anyone believe the Government know what it’s doing? I’m not talking about the budgetary U-turns or that sinking sensation one gets when viewing images of the troika of Lenihan, Coughlan and Cowen on our television screens. No, it’s the bank guarantee. First, the Government stated that the banks which sign up [...]
If there’s one country where ‘tax’ is an even dirtier word than in Ireland, its the good ‘ol USA. To argue for higher taxes in Omaha is no more popular than in Artane. And, yet, America is about to elect a politician whose platform calls for higher taxes on wealthy individuals and businesses [...]
It’s raining medical cards - in the nightmares of the Fianna Fail backbench TDs. What were they thinking? Is the €100 million savings worth the political disaster the Government has brought on to itself? €100 million? It’s peanuts in the grand scheme of things - not even representing a fifth of 1 percent of all [...]
You’d think that some people would show a bit of humility. But Sean Fitzpatrick over at Anglo Irish is not one of those people. Okay, so during his tenure as chairperson his bank ran such a reckless, irresponsible and idiotic policy that it (and he, by extension) almost brought the country, never mind his own bank, to [...]
Well, at least the business sector was happy. Not that there wasn’t the odd whinge - business spokespersons are forever whinging. ISME, especially, was in ‘bemoan’ mode.
‘The decision to increase excise duties, particularly on petrol is deplorable and will further add to business costs. Taken together with the increase in VAT, inflationary pressures [...]
You gottahand it to Fianna Fail. A tax package that costs those on low incomes more than those on higher incomes, cutbacks on the newly-made unemployed (that’ll teach them to price themselves out of the market), bigger class sizes, more costs the sicker you get; over the next few days as people peer [...]