Do you remember why the Government introduced the emergency April budget? Rising unemployment? Collapse in economic growth? Mass depression over the weather? Let’s refresh our memories:
‘Without this supplementary Budget the general government deficit would have been 12¾% of GDP reflecting the large gap needed to fund the difference between spending and revenue. In the prevailing [...]

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. [...]

That wild and whacky outrider of neo-liberalism, Constantin Gurdgiev, has taken a scalpel to the Government’s budget numbers and I find myself . . . agreeing with him. No surprise there. People from wildly varying perspectives can still agree the sky is blue. Even if the great Fianna Fail sky-gods are doing everything possible to [...]

This article was originally written for Indymedia
I don’t intend to list the outrages that Fianna Fail has perpetrated in yesterday’s budget. We all have scars to show each other. And let’s leave the bank bailout for the moment (but everything about it is one more argument for immediate nationalisation).
Let’s get to the heart of the [...]

The progressive economy@tasc blog now have a number of posts up on the April Supplementary (or Emergency) budget, which might provide ILR readers with some useful analysis of its potential impact, strategy and what it might mean for the wider economy in the years to come.
First to post was Terrence McDonough, who has written a [...]

The three opposition parties, Sinn Fein, Fine Gael and now Labour have each published their proposals for economic recovery. In each case the emphasis has been on job creation, some form of stimulus and an attempt to restructure the economy to replace the previous over reliance on construction and property development.
Over on the progressive economy@tasc [...]

Warning! If you are lucky enough to be invited on to a national radio programme - for example, the Pat Kenny show - to discuss the economic crisis, whatever you say don’t suggest that those on higher incomes with substantial wealth should pay a little bit more tax. If you do, you will be attacked, [...]

My oh my. Standard and Poor’s (S&P) has downgraded the Irish Government’s credit rating - from AAA to AA+. The fiscal reactionaries are in party-mode.
‘We told you so, we told you so, we’ve kept borrowing and now our credit rating has fallen, we gotta cut, gotta cut fast, gotta cut deep or we’ll lose that [...]

Over on the progressive-economy@tasc blog Sean O’Riain, Professor of Sociology in NUI, Maynooth has published perhaps one of the most significant pieces of commentary on the Irish economy in the run up to the April budget: Stimulus for Development. In it he updates the argument he put forward in his Exchequer Returns Emphasis the Need [...]

Labour is quickly approaching a crossroads. It is seemingly torn in two directions: a new stimulus strategy that prioritises rising unemployment and declining economic activity; or an accommodation with the orthodoxy, compromising within parameters laid down by the deflationists (or just as worse, paralysed at the crossroads unable to choose). The Labour Party conference provided [...]