Archive for the ‘Income and poverty’ Category
Friday, August 31st, 2007
I'm TAing for Bob McChesney's political economy class this semester, and the first book we're reading is Dean Baker's recent text "The United States since 1980" - it's part of a series focusing on different countries over that period. It's a fascinating opportunity to refresh the finer points (in a ...
Posted in Income and poverty, Labour issues | No Comments »
Thursday, December 7th, 2006
The World Institute for Development Economics Research at United Nations University has a new report on wealth distribution around the world. An interesting undertaking, and some interesting conclusions for those, like me, who like to track such things:In this paper we show, first, that there are very large intra-country differences ...
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Tuesday, May 23rd, 2006
From InterWorldRadio:The oil company Shell has appealed against a Nigerian court order to pay one and half billion dollars to the Ijaw community in Nigeria. The fine is intended to compensate for environmental damage. Nigeria's oil output has been cut by about 25 per cent after a series of ...
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Wednesday, May 3rd, 2006
News today that tax receipts in Ireland are up. So much so good for government finances. However, as Joan Burton points out:Today's Exchequer Returns confirm yet again that Value Added Tax has become the largest element in the government's tax coffers, continuing to outpace Income Tax Receipts by ...
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Sunday, March 5th, 2006
Over at Tuppenceworth Fergal Crehan has a thoughtful piece that raises a point I've seen discussed, also, at Irish Indymedia regarding responses to the riot in Dublin last week - that is, the dismissive and Daily Mail-style hatred for the 'underclass.' I say Daily Mail because their
Middle-England blend of ...
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Wednesday, February 22nd, 2006
Regular readers will know that I often like to dip into official statistics as a means of monitoring changes in society and economy, something I picked up during my time working in telecoms. My most recent foray has been taking a look at new figures (PDF) for the trade balance ...
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Tuesday, August 30th, 2005
A useful article on the Business Week site gives the latest figures for poverty in the United States, with some intereesting additional information.
The numbers in poverty increased in 2004 to 37 million, bringing the rate up to 12.7%. The authors note that It marks the fourth straight increase in the ...
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Thursday, July 14th, 2005
Tomorrow's Irish Times has an intriguing front page article about a government plan to convert many private beds in public hospitals to public use. (For those not familiar with the Irish health system, it is as complex and convoluted as it sounds.) The plan is to sell land on the ...
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Wednesday, July 6th, 2005
Bernie Goldbach has a piece on his blog about poverty - or what he sees as the lack of it - in Ireland, citing my recent response to Friedman as one of his sources at the end.
There seem to be three main planks to his argument. First, commonly quoted statistics ...
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Friday, July 1st, 2005
Thomas Friedman's column in the New York Times today argues that France and Germany should follow the economic policies of Ireland, apparently basing this on a recent trip to Dublin. He makes the Irish system sound like an unmitigated success, based on our decreasing worker protections.
While there may be some ...
Posted in Income and poverty | 2 Comments »
