Monday, Mar 15th 2010
Sixteen months after the Dublin government committed the state to underwriting the six main banks’ total deposits and loans, and half a year since the introduction of the NAMA initiative - the issue of home repossessions has come to the fore. Billions of euro have been invested in the banks, eleven to be exact. Not [...]
When the world financial system looked as if it might collapse in the autumn of 2008, many people assumed that there would have to be drastic changes in the wake of the crisis. Nothing would ever be the same again: the neoliberal philosophy which had spawned the financial meltdown was now irreparably damaged, and a [...]
Yesterday I talked to Michael Burke, an economist with 25 years experience working in the Financial Services sector in the UK, including a 5 years period as a senior economist in Citibank. Recently he entered the economic debate here by saying that the Government’s current strategy of cutting government spending could lead to an even [...]
Over on Progressive Economy Terry McDonough has written what I think is an important primer on the NAMA situation, one which goes through several options that are available to deal with our banks’ bad debts. They are ordered from best solution at the top - ‘a good back’ to the worst at the bottom ‘NAMA’, [...]
Karl Whelan on the Carroll Supreme Court Decision
Whelan makes the point that while its argued that Carroll may be the most over endebted (and therefore the rest of the developer loans taken over by NAMA might be better shape) the opposite is more likely the case. Most of Carroll’s half developed projects are based [...]
Yesterday evening, TASC presented their annual lecture in the Royal Irish Academy with two highly noteworthy speakers, economist James K. Galbraith, Professor in Government/Business Relations at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs in the University of Texas, Austin and Professor Maria Rodrigues of the Institute of European Studies, Brussels Free University - [...]
Following February’s Wallets Full of Blood: Houses on the Moon, there is now another installment in the tale of zombies stalking the dead Republic.
WALLETS FULL OF BLOOD: ZOMBIE BANKER BLUES
WALLETS FULL OF BLOOD: ZOMBIE BANKER BLUES from aaronrip on Vimeo.
In time, the acronym NAMA may enter into everyday language, much like Catch-22. But we don’t know,yet, with what inflection it will be used. It could end up something like this:
‘Go NAMA off, you low-down, double-dealing, good for nothing son of a NAMA!’
Only time, Peter Bacon and Brian Lenihan will tell. Early indications aren’t encouraging. [...]
In his third post on competitiveness at the progressive economy@tasc blog (previous two here and here), ICTU economists Paul Sweeney asks if a reduction in labour costs, even unit labour costs, will reduce prices for goods and services throughout the economy - the measure needed, the economists tell us, it improve Ireland’s competitiveness. Or will [...]
Mark Conroy, who kindly posted my essay ‘Towards a New Economic Narrative’ on Indymedia, noted my comment that it was growing quickly out-of-date and asked:
‘In what way is it “out of date”, and what would an updated version of it look like?’
Fair question. With new projections from Ulster Bank suggesting we are entering into a [...]