Ah, the Sabbath and one is put in mind of Iris Robinson’s insistence that Governments must pursue God’s law.Now I don’t pretend to know more than the next congregant but…

I have a friend with a strange sense of humour.  His email says only ‘Enjoy the weekend’.  But attached is a news statement from the Irish Small and Medium Enterprises…

It is a well-known fact that public sector workers are (a) greedy, (b) not productive (in fact they’re anti-productive), (c) over-paid and under-worked with big fat pensions, and (d) the…

If it wasn’ t great over the last few years, how much worse can it get?  Recently, we have had to endure a mish-mash of confused debates over the ‘middle…

You know its recession time – the unemployed are getting hammered. Mary Hanafin, straight from slashing the education system in her previous portfolio, is now getting her hooks into those…

Here’s a recession tip for you:  join a trade union.  Get your friends, workmates and family to join a trade union.  It will improve your living standards, help economic growth…

It gets worser and worser.  Davy has just issued their predictions for the economy.  One always has to treat Davy with a large grain of salt.  They tend to be…

If you were to correct every misconception, every mistake, every misrepresentation – every piece of sloppy journalism regarding the economic facts that spews our every day in the Irish media,…

What better way to spend a lazy afternoon than reading National Competitiveness Council reports, in particular its submission to the Commission on Taxation?  The NCC is full of information but they…

In these recession days we will be inundated with a carnival numbers and percentages.  They will come so thick and fast it will be almost impossible to deal with every…

Ah, the haute bourgeoisie – I know the old Scotsman warned us against letting them talk to each other.  This is wise counsel but I have found that they can…

Retraining is all the political rage.  To deal with rising unemployment and slowing job creation, the opposition parties are demanding a programme of retraining – in particular, those being laid off…

Here’s a thought courtesy of Cllr. Eric Byrne – a suggestion so common-sensical its’ frightening.  Immediately after Bernard McNamara did a runner on the PPPs in Dublin city, Cllr. Byrne…

Sometimes, it’s the little things that get up your wick.  The Sunday Business Post produced one of those little calculations to suggest how expensive it is, how draining on our…

Our man from Ongar, Leo Varadkar, TD, is in madness mode.   At a debate on the Future of Social Partnership at the Young Fine Gael Summer School he demanded: ‘…

What do you call this?  Eamon Gilmore, TD read out in the Dail a statement by Brian Cowen, TD from 2004 when the latter was Minister for Finance.  Mr. Cowen…

Friday morning and I’m looking forward to the weekend and hopefully catching a few rays.  A friend, however, sends me a copy of the Goodbody report – the most pessimistic…

ICTU is playing some hardball.  Recently, David Begg suggested that inflation could go as high as 6.5 per cent.  He’s probably not far off the mark.  Today’s CSO’s figures show…

God bless IBEC.  If it didn’t exist we’d have to invent it – if only to fully understand how you can manipulate an argument out of all recognition from the…

No matter what point in the economic cycle a country is in, the science of history gets a battering.  But in recession times, history is just simply invented.  Take Professor…