Articles: Markets %

The top 1 per cent of Americans now own a staggering 40 per cent of the country’s $54 trillion of wealth. This is an extraordinary figure. When taken together with the fact that wages as a proportion of national income have been falling in the US since the 1980s, we see a vision of a society where the average person’s income is faltering, yet the wealth of the super-rich has never been more extreme. As a result of the fall in the share of output represented by wages, the share represented by profits has gone up sharply, and corporate America is now sitting on more cash than ever before. More

It is hay fever season again. I know it is because my eyes are streaming. I look at my son and see that I have passed on the nasty hay-fever gene to him too as he struggles with puffy eyes, itchy throat and constant sneezing and wheezing. For the next while, we’ll be watching the pollen count like hawks, but the hay-fever season will pass. It always does. More

When I was a boy, there was a very popular game played by all the kids on our road. It was called “clackers”. It involved two plastic balls on two strings tied together at the top. The balls hit off each other with force making a “clack” noise. Once one ball hit the other, the other would whip back and hit the other and so on, back and forth. This could go on indefinitely if you didn’t touch them.  More

Have you noticed how expensive petrol is these days? It now costs over €100 to fill up an average family car. In Ussher’s Quay the other day, there was a tailback of cars because a petrol station decided to offer a cut-price deal on petrol.
Why is the price of fuel going up? More

Years ago, when I worked for a Swiss bank, we would go to the Alps every month or so to examine all the trades we had made and make sure that the assets we held were sound and could be relied on. More

Last Friday, European bond markets wobbled again as investors – albeit in a thin market – got the fear. More

2+2=5
At the end of George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, the hero, Winston Smith, was prepared to believe this sum. More

If I had the ear of finance minister Brian Lenihan, I’d be telling him not to look a gift horse in the mouth. The British government has this week handed Ireland a gilt-edged opportunity to kick-start the battered IFSC and, with it, the fortunes of thousands of young Irish graduates and workers. More

The saga of Independent News &Media (INM) and the clash of the two Titans involved is the stuff of a Hollywood blockbuster. If you ever had the pleasure of reading a book like Barbarians at the Gate, you will notice the similarities in the characters, the battles and the likely outcome. More

The great and the good of the world are meeting in New York to discuss climate change today. This meeting is intended to clear the air before the Copenhagen Summit in December. Already the signs are that the Europeans and the Asians are annoyed with the Obama administration which, they argue, is foot dragging. More