Notes on the Front

Commentary on Irish Political Economy by Michael Taft, researcher for SIPTU

Month: February 2008

  • Feasting on Innards

    Policy makers really have a problem. They know that Ireland is a high-cost country but they seem to be unable or unwilling to figure out why. Forfas surveys all manner…

  • Sean Dunne, Prince Hans, the Gestapo and Hot Property Deals in Poznan

    A number of European leaders have been going through a difficult patch: President Sarkozy, Taoiseach Bertie, Prime Minister Brown and caretaker Prime Minister Prodi. But spare a thought for His…

  • Earth to NIB, Do You Copy?

    Somewhere on a distant planet a group of people employed by the National Irish Bank labour away on a publication which you may have come across, ‘The Emerald Isle: The…

  • Class War Is Alive and Well

    If someone were to stand up at a trade union meeting and start on about the ‘class war’ most people would just turn away and stare at their fingernails. We…

  • Solidarity is the Word

    Solidarity: it’s one of those old words, out of contemporary fashion, too redolent of a collectivist politics which has been superseded by more post-modernist relationships. If some of us hang…

  • Let’s Get Crazy

    If someone proposed doubling payroll taxes on businesses, a ton of rhetorical bricks would fall upon them (increasing costs, undermining competitiveness, blah, blah, blah). If that someone were to say…

  • Crossing the Line

    Senator Mary White has announced her intention to seek a nomination for the Presidency. Though some may question the timing (the election won’t be until 2011) and her ability to…

  • What Condoms Can Tell Us About How the Real Economy Works

    ‘The Church’s teaching is clear: within the sacrament of marriage, the use of condoms as contraceptives as wrong, though there may be mitigating circumstances. Outside of marriage, the use of…

  • Go For It, Eamon, You’re On To a Good Thing 1: The Extent of Low Pay

    Last week the Labour Party leader, Eamon Gilmore, TD, made the first tentative steps towards putting the party on the economic policy ‘map’ in his speech before the SIPTU National…

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Commentary on Irish Political Economy by Michael Taft, researcher for SIPTU