It is quite difficult to comprehend the credibility granted to the economic establishment in terms of defining the options that we can adopt to address our economic problems. This is all the more extraordinary when considered against what can only be described as the worst reputational performance by any set of associated professions in history. [...]

This was originally posted on John Ross’s blog, Key Trends in the World Economy today. I’m reposting it here with permission.
The full scale of the economic declines in Ireland and Greece, under the impact of the debt agreements and consequent contractionary fiscal policies agreed by their governments, is shown in Figure 1 below. This [...]

This article was originally published on CrisisJam.
The Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has recently reviewed the Fund’s performance between 2004 and 2007 and concluded that, far from spotting the crisis coming, the IMF helped bring it on, especially through its advocacy of ‘light-touch regulation’. According to the IEO, as [...]

This weekend I read the Sunday Business Post with some eagerness. Here would be the answers I required, that many require, about the bailouts, both the banking one and the ECB/IMF one - which aren’t quite the same thing as is all too apparent, and what is and isn’t possible.
Let’s start with the analysis.
In a [...]

Now we know.
In early 2010 the Government was projecting nominal GDP growth to be 12.1 percent over the two years 2011 and 2012.

Now the ESRI is projecting growth to be 4.2 percent while the Central Bank is predicting an even more pessimistic 3.9 percent.

In early 2010 the Government was projecting nominal GNP growth (which more [...]

With more interest being expressed (finally, finally) in growth rates, what are the forecasters saying. Well, Ernst & Young forecasts have just been published and their numbers are bad. They are worse than bad. They are so bad you’d wonder how it could get any worse. And the problem is - they are not alone.
A [...]

So the 2011 budget is reasonably progressive? Indeed, budgets over the last two years have been reasonably progressive (makes one wonder how reactionary a budget has to be before it is no longer called progressive). And to prove all this, the ESRI researchers ran the numbers through their Switch tax/benefit model. The Irish Times in [...]

I’ll be chairing this talk, which is on this Thursday in The Pearse Centre, 27 Pearse Street, Dublin 2, @ 8pm.
All welcome!
LECTURE SERIES
Ireland in Crisis: Challenging the Consensus
8.00pm, Thursday, 18 November 2010
Speakers: Mary Murphy (Department of Sociology, NUI Maynooth)
[...]

This article was first published in The Irish Anarchist Review
The purpose of this text is to try and tell the story of our current economic situation, how we got here, and what we can expect from the near future, so as to better understand the tasks facing us.
This is neither an academic text on history, [...]

Okay, it’s time to get all scholarly. I know, I know, yawn? right? But sometimes it’s important to see the bigger picture - even when that picture is inflated to the point of conjecture - in order to get your bearings. So, let’s begin.
There’s two very broad trends that interest me more than any other [...]