Pirooz Daneshmandi interviews Tom McDonnell, economic policy analyst with TASC on the state of the economy, how we got here and what alternatives are available to the Government.
In the interview Tom talks about the TASC discussion paper ‘The Debt and Banking Crisis: Progressive Approaches for Europe and Ireland’, which he wrote and about possible solutions [...]

Whatever you wish to call it -euro-pact, Pact for the Euro, Euro Plus Pact- and from here on it will be known simply as the Euro Pact, public knowledge of its scope and function, in Ireland at least, has been extremely limited.
Whilst both the parties presently in government, and those that preceded them, campaigned [...]

If 1929 has taught us anything, it is that a major (capital ‘c’) Crisis poses a lethal threat to (a) currency unions (e.g. the Gold Standard then, the euro today) and (b) political liberalism. The latter threat has, so far, featured only as a projection (see here for a relevant argument), [...]

Dear George,
A few days after the 2009 election that brought you to power, you told your cabinet in a televised meeting: “We are anti-authoritarians in authority”. Most of your cabinet, men and women who had been craving authority for years, looked at you incredulously, while your detractors mocked you. You seemed [...]

The main direction of lobbying for the IMF’s new managing director is unfortunately showing the weak side of that organization, not its strong one.
Serious economic commentary already knows the greatest challenges of the next period. It is only necessary to open a business paper to review them. In the next decade, the world economy will [...]

This post appeared on Yanis’ blog today. Republishing it here with the kind permission of the author.
In his pivotal article in yesterday’s Financial Times, Martin Wolf put the matter starkly: “The eurozone, as designed, has failed.” Paul Krugman quickly added this chilling allegory to Wolf’s detailed argument: “If you ask me, the [...]

Friday saw continuation of protests across Spain against the current political system in the country despite the ridiculous attempt by the Spanish government to place a ban on all protests coming up to the elections. It also brought with it one of the first clashes with police since the movement began. Barcelona was the site [...]

A couple of cheers for Minister Leo, putting both his feet in the mouth of the Government. In a refreshing dose of realism he stated what everyone knows - we’re not going back to the markets anytime soon.
Unfortunately, this realism landed the Minister in a bit of warmish water. Not because of [...]

This post appeared on Yanis’ blog today. Republished with the kind permission of the author.
A Damocles’ Sword is, supposedly, hanging over Greece. We are told (even by the Greek EU commissioner) that Greeks must either accept that their country will be run, and micromanaged, by a committee of foreign creditors or [...]

Hugh Green continues his great service of translating articles that are responding intelligently to the Democracia Real Ya and Wikiacampadas demos in Spain. Most recently he’s put up one by communications maestro Manuel Castells (see  John Green’s book reviews of his The Information Age Trilogy and Conversations with Manuel Castells)
Hugh says he translated it as [...]