Tag: ireland
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Taxes – You are Here (and its not where you think)
So the general elauction is in full swing. And the theme of GE2016 is “Irish taxpayers are uniquely, punitively, outrageously taxed, and thats causing all our trouble:. Pretty much every party, bar the courageous (in a Sir Humphrey Appleby way) Social Democrats are pledging to cut, slash, reduce…. Meanwhile, away from the fevered fantasies of…
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Refugees, rural decay and reinvigoration.
Sometimes things seen cannot be unseen. The tragedy in Syria, and that’s where the main impetus of refugees is from now, has been a horror. But numbers numb. 250,000 dead including 20,000 children is for most of us incomprehensibly large. But one death, that of a poor wee toddler washed ashore in Turkey, a small…
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Schrodinger’s Member
So, another day and another rebuff for David Cameron in his desire to make the United Kingdom into Schrodingers Member – neither in nor out of the EU. The stark reality is that the key changes he feels he must seek or else be eaten alive by the right are unlikely to be deliverable. So…
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Ireland…not spending enough..
An excellent data driven deep dive into Irish government spending here.. “Ireland is a low-spending economy. Historically, this has always been the case. In 2000, Ireland was well below the EU average. Even in the boom years we never got near the spending levels of other EU countries. The crash made it look like we…
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Greek and Irish Competitiveness since 2008 – oops
Inspired by Kevin O’Rourke on Greek-Irish structural deficit reductions (they win) , here is my modest effort. Remember, the Greeks, shiftless lazy lot as they are, must work hard to restore competitiveness. We manly Irish have squeezed costs to a fare thee well, and now are ready to bestride the stage of ordoliberal export led…
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Should we benchmark taxes to lure back immigrants?
The government seems to think so. Apparently its the income tax that is holding us back. Reform of the income tax system to encourage emigrants to return home is being considered by the Government in the run-up to publication of the spring economic statement. Under the plans, the tax system would be benchmarked against countries…
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“theft by safety net” : Ed Kane on Irish Banks
If there is someone in the word who knows more about Zombie Bank(ing system)s than Ed Kane of Boston College they have been very quiet. In fact, Ed coined the term, and the analogy. Tomorrow he testifies at the Banking Inquiry and it should be entertaining, informative and provocative.