Tag Archives: Economy

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Unemployment.

It’s going to stabilise.

The ESRI’s figures show that 316,000 people – 14.7 per cent of the labour force – were out of work in 2012.

The institute expects this to fall to 305,000 this year and to 298,000 in 2014, bringing the jobless rate down to just under 14 per cent from its current level of 14.7 per cent.

Finally.

Austerity is work…

The report’s authors, David Duffy and Kevin Timoney…predict 32,000 people will emigrate this year and a further 22,000 will leave in 2014.

 

Never mind.

Think of The Gathering we’ll have in 2023.

Economy To Perform Better Than Forecasts (Barry O’Halloran, Irish Times)

(Photocall Ireland)

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The outlook for economic recovery remains “highly uncertain” over the medium term, a new International Monetary Fund report has warned.

The staff report concludes that the Government has achieved strong policy implementation of the bailout programme so far, and it refers to the fact that market access has markedly improved.

But in a relatively downbeat assessment, the report also flags as as significant hurdles declines in domestic demand, high public and private debt, ongoing problems with profitability and lending in the banking sector.

[…]

Referring to inadequate progress by banks, the IMF staff appraisal is that a sharp improvement is needed in dealing with non-performing loans. This is “critical to strengthen prospects for recovery”, it has stated.

 

Seems Chomsky was being optimistic.

Economic recovery in medium term ‘highly uncertain’ – IMF (HarryMcGee, Irish Times)

Yesterday: Specialist Eviction Judges, You Say?

(Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland)


Above: Alan Mahon, Assistant Principal, Budget and Economic Division, Department of Finance and Michael McGrath, Assitant Secretary, Budget and Economic Division, Department of Finance.

 

As the great British economist John Maynard Keynes once said: ‘If you owe your bank a hundred pounds, you have a problem. But if you owe a million, it has.’

How true. Ha ha.

Seriously, we’re boned.

THE UNIVERSAL social charge and the pension levy boosted the State’s tax take by €2.3 billion to €34 billion in 2011, but the Department of Finance conceded yesterday that revenues fell slightly short of their target.

The State ended the year almost €25 billion in the red, compared with €18.7 billion last year. The figure included a €9.5 billion bill for recapitalising the banks.

The final tax take of almost €34.3 billion was €873 million short of the €34.9 billion target set in Budget 2011, according to the December exchequer returns, which the Department of Finance published yesterday. Michael McGrath, assistant secretary at the department, said the additional €2.3 billion raised during the year included revenue from two extra taxes.

Final tax take sees State end year €25bn in red (Irish Times)

(Photocall Ireland)

“This brings me to one of the huge or mega-trends which will affect us all this year. This mega-trend is that things are getting more expensive for poor people, while things are getting cheaper for richer people. Or, more accurately, the things that poor people spend relatively more of their income on are getting expensive, while things that rich people spend relatively more of their income on are getting cheaper. There is deflation for the rich and inflation for the poor and this is an extremely worrying development.

…I think about very rich people in Ireland who are already wealthy and have preserved this wealth in the downturn. For them the deflation, in very expensive houses for example, is an opportunity. It means that they can buy these assets right now, if they want to, for a song.They can also buy all sorts of upmarket, leisure gadgets much more cheaply relative to what they were years ago because Chinese competition is keeping the price of these things low and pushing them lower. So the ‘leisured’ class — the already wealthy — are seeing a fall in the price of goods which they spend relatively a lot of their cash on, while the poor are seeing a rise in the price of the goods that they spend relatively more on.”

Marie Antoinette’s Notion Wasn’t All That Half-Baked (David McWilliams, Irish Independent)

(Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland)