The TASC open letter published in the Irish Times on Monday is still providing plenty of food for thought. Focusing on the section of the letter that discusses the prospect of ‘restructuring taxation and expenditure in a progressive and expansionary manner’ Michael Taft expands on what this might entail in terms of taxation.
The phrase ‘fiscal [...]

“All euro area members must conduct sound national policies in line with the agreed rules”.
This was the opening line in a statement from EU heads of government made in Brussels on 11 February. The statement was about Greece and it welcomed the austerity measures being introduced by the errant EU member in an attempt to [...]

Davy Stockbrokers has produced the must-read report (so far) of the year. Entitled, ‘Years of High Income Largely Wasted’, it is one of the most damning indictments of the squandered boom years. Okay, on the surface it appears a pretty dry affair - analysing the growth in our net capital stock since 2000. But I [...]

This is the paper that the economist Michael Burke gave at the Irish Unity Conference in London last Saturday. Some of the points made by Michael were discussed in Seumas Milne’s post in The Guardian’s Comment is Free site today. As readers may know, Michael, a former senior international economist with CityBank, is a regular [...]

Even before EU Finance ministers were due to meet today to discuss whether Greece needs to do more to reduce its deficit this year from 12.7 to 8.7 percent GDP, Jean-Claude Trichet was on TV demanding that Greece needs to take “extra measures” to ensure the credibility of their “turnaround plan”. These extra measures, a [...]

In this time when businesses are failing and people are losing their jobs and in some cases their homes, it may seem crazy to criticise economic growth. But sufficiency, sustainability and security are key needs of people and living systems all over the world, as we move into the rest of this century. We also [...]

The Government has a plan. And, yes, you should be worried. The Government’s approach to fiscal stabilisation - namely, a deflationary approach - is often portrayed as ‘the only option’. Of course, it isn’t. There are other approaches, in particular those based on boosting investment and output in order to grow employment and, so, the [...]

There are a few subjects that are guaranteed to start rows. Public sector pay is always a dead cert. Stimulus is another one. And, of course, relative poverty; as in ‘Ireland suffers from a high level of relative poverty’. There are any number of views on this matter, usually quite heated. The ESRI report, ‘Poverty [...]

In the midst of one of history’s most severe crises of capitalism, there is no more apt time than the present to briefly survey the basics of Marxist economics. It would be beyond the scope of this short article to trace the development of the theory from the works of Marx up until the present [...]