Tag Archives: Economy

False Imprisonment!

A specific number of 21,633 direct jobs have been created in the accommodation and food services sector since the VAT reduction in July 2011 apparently.

But some people still aren’t happy.

John King of SIPTU writes:

SIPTU has called on the Government to commit to removing the preferential VAT rate currently enjoyed by the profitable hotel and restaurant sector that includes many businesses that are exploiting low paid workers.

According to new figures released this week the hospitality sector is booming. A new independent survey by accountancy firm Crowe Horwath indicates that the average profit on each hotel room in Ireland grew from €7,347 in 2013 to €9,201 in 2014. The Government introduced a 9% VAT rate for this sector in 2011. This has enabled increased profits.

This situation needs to be tackled now, otherwise the Government’s entire strategy on protecting low paid workers is in real danger of being undermined

Fight!
SIPTU calls on Government to end VAT benefit for hospitality sector (SIPTU)

Fáilte Ireland welcomes retention of ‘Job-Friendly’ VAT rate

Hotel rates and occupancy rose in 2014 (RTÉ News)

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This year’s January sale at Brown Thomas, Grafton Street, Dublin

 

We’re back, baby.

Apparently.

A surge in spending on houses, cars and household goods coupled with growing employment has seen consumer sentiment hit levels not seen since the height of the boom, a survey has found.

Retail  sales volume rose by 3.7 per cent in 2014 while the value of the sales increased by 1.6 per cent indicating a significant upturn in activity. This upward trend has continued into 2015, with sales volume up by 6.6 per cent in the second quarter of this year compared with the same period last year..

Using data from multiple official sources, the report highlights the 40,000 houses sold in 2014 and 21,300 in the first half of 2015…..

Hmm.

Surge in consumer spending reported as recovery takes hold (Conor Pope, Irish Times)

Earlier: Repo Nation

fitz[John Fitzgerald of the ESRI]

The ESRI predicted gross national product (GNP), which strips out the effects of multinational profit flows, would grow by 3.5 per cent this year, and by 3.7 per cent in 2015, rates of growth not seen since 2006.“After a long period of attrition, we are approaching the end of the very painful period of fiscal adjustment,” it said.

Yay.
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[Sunday Tribune, March 15, 2009]

Oh.

Ireland is now back on a growth path, says ESRI (irish Times)

Thanks Conor McCabe

 

130308103738-christine-lagarde-mario-draghi-620xa(IMF’s Christine Legarde and The European Central Bank’s Mario Draghi)

It’s a thing.

The IMF continued: “There are…political economy lessons to be learned. Greece’s recent experience demonstrates the importance of spreading the burden of adjustment across different strata of society in order to build support for a program.

A spokesman for the EU commission said: “We fundamentally disagree… With hindsight we can go back and say in an ideal world what should have been done differently. The circumstances were what they were. I think the commission did its best in an unprecedented situation.”

ECB President Mario Draghi has entered the debate too, saying: “We tend to judge things that happened yesterday with today’s eyes. We tend to forget that when the discussions were taking place the situation was much, much worse.”

 

The IMF owns up to mistakes, but EU accuses it of hindsight bias (Investment and Business News)

Meanwhile…

220px-Barry_Eichengreen-_World_Economic_Forum_Annual_Meeting_2012

The failure to use monetary policy more aggressively has been a problem; the failure to address credit market problems has been a serious problem as well. Now, in 2013 five years into the crisis the ECB is beginning to talk about some kind of securities’ market and credit market intervention and about addressing the financing problems of small and medium enterprises. Too little too late, one more time.

Growth cannot come only from exports. The Eurozone as a whole is too big to be able to export its way out of the crisis. Every Eurozone economy is trying to export more to the other Eurozone economies; and that does not add up. Some of the impetus for growth is going to have to come from internal demand and that in turn means there has to be more fiscal policy support.

 

Economist Barry Eichengreen (above), via Crisis Observatory.

Meanwhile…

vacancyEconomist (Publicjobs.ie)

(Reuters)