Now that we are at the end of the year, here are a few things that 2013 taught us about economics, how our economy is doing and what determines where it goes from here. HOUSES AND PROPERTY PRICES This was the year the property market started showing signs of life. Two...
The Government’s new economic strategy was unveiled yesterday. It is supposed to outline new thinking for the next decade. Yet it seems very much like everything else that we have ever seen before. It is long on things we “must” do, making it read...
On May 1, 2003, President George Bush stood on the bridge of the USS Abraham Lincoln. Behind him a massive banner was unfurled, which read “Mission Accomplished”. The president declared success in Iraq and assured the American people that the victory was...
‘Teenage Kicks’ wouldn’t have been recorded without the Credit Union. It’s hard to imagine Derry without the Undertones. Today Derry is a very different place to the Derry of the mid-1970s when the band formed but, for this visitor, Derry and...
Mario Draghi has ensured that the mini-boom in Dublin’s trophy houses will continue for a while. This is what happens when interest rates are cut to almost zero – the people with savings think there is little point saving any more, so they don’t...
Capitalism without bankruptcy is like Catholicism without hell. Although he didn’t say as much, this is what Mario Draghi meant when he announced this week that he was prepared to see banks go bust in order to clean up the balance sheet of Europe’s ailing...
