There may be all sorts of reasons to cut public services, but reducing the fiscal deficit is not one of them. I repeat: we can cut the number of public sector employees - but it will have only a trivial effect on the fiscal deficit. It will, however, do [...]

The front page story on the Sunday Independent really says it all. Apparently, the Labour Court has awarded a pay increase to Bord na Mona workers. The Sindo no like. How dare workers get a pay increase? And in this dislike they make some claims which show how dumb [...]

It’s open season on public sector workers again. The Sunday Independent has a front-page shock-horror headline - €1bn pay rise bonanza for public sector. Other commentators and employers’ spokespersons have been having their go’s as well.  But then there’s Stephen Collins. Stephen has a statistic. You’ve been warned:
‘Average earnings in the British [...]

William Slattery of the financial services company State Street, and a member of the McCarthy Committee, has offered some advice to the nation in its time of need. With unemployment climbing ever higher, with 250,000 jobs already shed since the start of the recession, he proposes that the largest employer in the [...]

The Majority of Trade Union National Executives have now urged a “No”Vote

ZOMBIE BANKS, ZOMBIE GOVERNMENT
ICTU UNION LEADERS MARCHED YOU AROUND THE STREETS TWICE LAST YEAR AND BROUGHT YOU OUT ON STRIKE, CLAIMING “THERE IS A BETTER, FAIRER WAY: REVERSE THE CUTS AND MAKE THE 5% WHO OWN 40% OF NATIONAL WEALTH PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE”

APPARENTLY [...]

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 [...]