Irish Left Review · We Need a Plan B 16 Flares Twitter 8 Facebook 8 16 Flares × Here’s the letter published today in the Irish Times calling for an alternative to present economic policy. The letter is signed by 60 community activists, academics, leaders of advocacy groups & NGOs and writers & commentators. Conor McCabe and I have signed it too. Sir, – It is now clear that austerity policies are not working. The domestic economy will remain recession this year. We need a Plan B. Such a Plan B must include a substantial investment programme directed at infrastructure, education and labour skills. We need to redistribute income from high incomes and large wealth-holdings to low- and average income-earners, whether they are in work or reliant upon social protection, or both. This should be done through new taxation measures on capital, property and high incomes. We need to face up to the burden private banking debt is placing on the economy. Repeating past failures is no longer an option.
The Cedar Lounge Revolution Is economics a real science? « forensicstatistician If economics would like to consider itself a “science”, then it should be willing to be subjected to genuine scientific scrutiny. The next 10-20 years will offer us perhaps the most damning expose of the fallacy of modern economics. The true test of a scientific theory is its ability to make testable predictions. Therefore we should compare the expectations laid out by mainstream economics with those from less orthodox origins. Relentless (linear) growth is assumed to be possible, as long as mankind adopts the bureaucratic / technocratic prescriptions of the economic preisthood. By contrast in 1972 predictions of global economic growth, population and resources were made by the Club of Rome team’s “Limits to Growth”. (Chart Courtesy of Charles Hall’s Revisiting the Limits to Growth) The Club of Rome’s model offers a considerably more plausible representation of the world economy than that postulated by traditional economics. Portentous times, indeed. Thermodynamics of civilization growth
Johnny Fallon Stephen Kinsella | classes/papers/rants Articles I write two economics columns every week. They keep me sane and hopefully, on my toes – but you can be the judge of that! One appears in the Irish Independent on Wednesdays and the other in the Sunday Business Post every Sunday. The world - and Ireland - is changing so rapidly that it’s impossible to run out of things to write about. One of the great joys in the week is reading the responses to my articles in the comments on this site.
Economics and Politics by Paul Krugman - The Conscience of a Liberal NAMA Wine Lake