The cancellation of yesterday’s strike was a blow to the developing movement against the cuts on the scale of the cancellation of the March 30th strike at the start of the year. The so called compromise ICTU have been negotiating for is a further blow, it seems designed to drive a wedge between workers and [...]

Yesterday’s editorials of The Irish Times and The Irish Examiner are politically instructive, that is to say, they illustrate a situation in which politics cannot take place. The differences in tone tell us much about their minimal market/political differentiation. The crowing populism of the Examiner still imagines that it hears the Fine Gael Ard Fheis [...]

So, Professor John O’Hagan wants to cut economic growth, undermine business profits and throw more people out of work while saving only a fractional amount on the borrowing requirement; not to mention the risk of embedding debt into the economy going forward. Not a good day’s work.
Now, I’m positive Professor O’Hagan doesn’t want any of [...]

Some arguments I just don’t get. For instance, if I were an owner or manager of an enterprise that sold goods and services into the domestic economy (that’s most enterprises) I would be concerned at falling consumption. After all, if people cut their spending, my sales fall. If people are worried about holding on to [...]

David McWilliams has produced a table.  In fact, two tables (I’ve collapsed it into one).  Standing on these tables he spreads the gospel - in order to avoid bankruptcy and ‘decades’ of misery (decades, mind you) we must rip up the pay agreement and start slashing ‘wildly over-paid’ public sector salaries.  We are on the [...]