Archive for the ‘Income and poverty’ Category
Saturday, January 28th, 2012
This to me is the key section from George Lakey's piece in the Indypendent's blog:
The Depression hit bottom in 1931. More people were jobless there than in any other Nordic country. Unlike in the U.S., the Norwegian union movement kept the people thrown out of work as members, even though ...
Posted in Income and poverty, International Affairs, Labour issues | Comments Off
Saturday, January 28th, 2012
Wondering how Mitt Romney manages to pay under 14% of his income in tax? Confused by all this talk of 'carried interest'? Eileen Appelbaum lays it all out very clearly in this piece, carried by US News, which also lays out the case for why this income should not qualify ...
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Thursday, June 16th, 2011
Two different suggestions today from Labour politicians about appropriate ways to mark Bloomsday. Joe Costello notes that Ireland has one of the lowest numbers of public holidays in Europe (9 per year, only exceeding the 8 of England and Wales) and suggests that making the day a holiday could provide ...
Posted in Education, Income and poverty, Labour issues, Society and culture | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, December 1st, 2010
I've been advocating, privately, the prosecution for treason of David Drumm and other Irish former bankers who are manipulating foreign and domestic bankruptcy proceedings to retain their ill-gotten gains. Having made their fortunes by fuelling a speculative bubble, they then engage in clearly deceptive tactics to avoid their personal responsibilities ...
Posted in Electoral politics, Income and poverty, International Affairs, International law and structures | Comments Off
Tuesday, November 30th, 2010
Compare and contrast:
There are fears of (more) deaths, particularly of pensioners and the homeless, as Ireland undergoes below-freezing conditions. (That's not a metaphor for the economy!) Local authorities are struggling to keep roads gritted, with limited budgets available for this purpose (and effect still being felt from repair costs after ...
Posted in Income and poverty, Society and culture | Comments Off
Friday, November 26th, 2010
The Irish educational system has some strange features. One is that while school staff have their wages and conditions set - and paid for - by the Department of Education - they are not viewed, in law, as employees of the Department. Historically this has been used as a fudge ...
Posted in Education, Income and poverty, Labour issues | Comments Off
Sunday, November 21st, 2010
When I talk with my students about PR I explain that the first rule of crisis communication is to 'fess up - get out in front of the rumours and claims, admitting the truth (in order that you can have a say in framing that truth).
This week the Irish ...
Posted in Citizenship, migration, race, and ethnicity, Electoral politics, Income and poverty, International Affairs, Labour issues, Political activism, Society and culture | Comments Off
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009
In a successful 2-day strike - the first by a union local at the University of Illinois in 10-years, and one of the largest in the history of graduate unions in the US - the GEO has secured a commitment to retain tuition waivers for graduate employees. The University had ...
Posted in Education, Income and poverty, Labour issues, Political activism | Comments Off
Wednesday, March 4th, 2009
There's something strange in the latest live register figures released today by the CSO. Not the increase of 87.1% in a single year - that, unfortunately, could be predicted. RTÉ's report mentioned that 71% of the increase was among men.
[I should note that I'm using two sets of data here ...
Posted in Income and poverty, Labour issues | 1 Comment »
Thursday, October 2nd, 2008
It's not wholly surprising, but it seems possible that the meteoric rise of the Celtic Tiger could very soon be eclipsed by the current free-fall of the Irish economy.
Following on from news that the economy fell into recession in the second quarter of 2008 (with two consecutive quarters of declining ...
Posted in Income and poverty, Labour issues | 1 Comment »
