Month: October 2007
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Laughing Last and Laughing Long
One of the reasons put forward as to why we shouldn’t introduce a tax on the highest income earners is that it would be a disincentive to work and enterprise,…
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And We Expect These People to Lead Economic Growth?
Just when you think you should ease up on your criticism of our native entrepreneurs (after all, its not like we can hold an election and elect a new set…
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In Olden Days a Glimpse of . . . S . o . c . i . a . . .
Don’t scandalise the parish by using the ‘S’ word in public. It will lose you support, relevance and the esteem of broadsheet commentators. To use the ‘S’ word is to…
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Knowns, Unknowns and the Knowledge Economy
Say what you will about him – war criminal, corrupt, spawn of the demons sent by Satan himself to destroy humankind – Donald Rumsfeld’s brain crushing elucidation of ‘unknown knowns’…
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Farewell to Hard-Working Families
To the ‘low-wage, low-spend, low-tax, low-service economy’ we can now add another prefix – ‘low-leave’. That’s the conclusion of the European Industrial Relations Observatory report on working time. * The…
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How the Left Can Successfully Argue for Higher Taxation 2: Just What the Doctor Ordered
Attention all progressives: tired of listening to neo-liberal commentators prattle on about high taxes, that whenever something worthwhile is proposed its met with ‘oh, my, taxes, taxes’, sick to the…
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An Open Letter to Ciaran Cuffe, TD
Dear Ciaran I read your speech before the Ireland Institute with great interest. There is much common ground between the Left and the Greens. While various political parties may be…
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Baby-Eating Time
Lock up the children – its baby-eating time. The recent budgetary numbers were bad enough. But figures I have received from an informed source within a Government department suggests that…
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The Salmon School of Economics
Not many of us have the good fortune to found a school of thought. But David McWilliams is a fortunate man. In the final episode of RTE’s Generation Game he…
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How the Left Can Successfully Argue for Higher Taxation 1: Surveying the Ground
How can the Left argue the case for taxation to fund social and economic development and not get annihilated at the polls? That is the challenge posed by a recent…
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Commentary on Irish Political Economy by Michael Taft, researcher for SIPTU
Notes on the Front 