Friday, December 18, 2020

Key indicators and Ireland's non-Covid economic challenges into 2021

Ruchir Sharma, the chief global strategist at Morgan Stanley Investment Management and the author of “The Ten Rules of Successful Nations,” wrote in The New York Times this December, "After World War II, only two major emerging economies managed to grow faster than 5% for five decades in a row and to rise from poverty into the ranks of developed economies. One was Taiwan, the other South Korea. They kept advancing up the industrial ladder by investing more heavily in research and development than did any of their rivals among emerging economies. Now they are among the research leaders of the developed economic world as well."

Tuesday, December 01, 2020

Ireland is most profitable foreign country for US multinationals

Ireland with a population of 5m was the most profitable foreign country for US multinationals in 2018 as measured by net income of majority-owned affiliates (MOFAs), followed by the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

The US Bureau of Economic Analysis' (BEA) final net income data for 2018 issued this year, show top rankings for countries that engage in tax haven activities and pure tax-havens. The top 7 — which are called the Big Seven Corporate Tax Havens— are Ireland $217bn; The Netherlands $211bn; Luxembourg $147bn; Singapore $96bn; Bermuda $85bn; Switzerland $83bn and The Cayman Islands about $65bn ( it's in a BEA category 'United Kingdom Islands, Caribbean' comprising the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Montserrat, and the Turks and Caicos Islands).

Tuesday, November 24, 2020

Ireland's Éamon de Valera and the taboo of illegitimacy

De Valera with his mother in USA 1919/20

Éamon de Valera (1882-1975) was Ireland's leading politician of the 20th century and he was in office as head of government and president for 35 years in the period 1932-1973. The politician who was instrumental in triggering a shameful civil war in 1922 had a miserable childhood and according to some experts exhibited Asperger Syndrome traits, where genius is coupled with poor social skills.

De Valera had many people helping him over the decades to find documentation to prove that his mother had been married when he was born in New York City in October 1882. None were found.

It was ironic that in the year of his retirement in 1973 de Valera's political party Fianna Fáil which he had founded in 1926, was replaced by a Fine Gael-Labour coalition and Richie Ryan, the minister of finance, gave the first official recognition to "illegitimate" children and their mothers by introducing an Unmarried Mothers' Allowance.

In 1972/1973 Mary McGee, a brave women from Cork, challenged the ban on the importation of contraceptives at the High Court and she won in the Supreme Court in 1973. It would take about 20 years of political tomfoolery to finally get to a sane system for access to contraception.

Thursday, November 12, 2020

44% of US workers in low-paid jobs with median hourly pay of $10

Pre-Covid, 44% of private-sector US workers (122m excluding government, agriculture and self-employed) were in low-paid jobs with a median hourly pay of just over $10. Meanwhile, this September a measure of the quality of life showed that the United States, Brazil and Hungary were the only countries in the Social Progress Index where people are worse off than when the index began in 2011.

“The data paint an alarming picture of the state of our nation, and we hope it will be a call to action,” Michael Porter, a Harvard Business School professor and the chair of the advisory panel for the Social Progress Index, told The New York Times. “It’s like we’re a developing country.”

The United States has a ranking of 28 of 163 countries and it follows Cyprus and Greece. The top 4 countries based on 50 dimensions have female leaders and Ireland has the 12th ranking.

Tuesday, November 03, 2020

Irish Conflict: An American tourist's view of the "so-called" Civil War

Ireland's Via Dolorosa in the Freeman's Journal: It depicts a woman [Hibernia, a representation of Ireland], prostrate with grief following the death of Michael Collins, the leader of the Provisional Government, in August 1922. She is hugging a broken column (a traditional symbol for a life cut short) with the name "Michael Collins" on it; in the background, other broken columns are featured with the names of Arthur Griffith, Robert Emmett, [Thomas] Davis, [Charles Stewart] Parnell, Daniel O'Connell and Owen Roe O'Neill on them. Courtesy National Library of Ireland.

The December 13, 1922 issue of The New York Times has a story titled "The Irish Conflict: An American Tourist's View of the So-called Civil War." It was exactly one week since the formal start of Saorstát Éireann / The Irish Free State.

Monday, October 26, 2020

Covid-19 Deaths in Rich Countries: Belgium, US and UK lead in per capita rankings

An analysis published on October 22 shows that among 12 rich country members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Belgium by far has the highest Covid-19 death rate, followed by the United States and the United Kingdom. The US has a higher mortality rate than many of its peer countries, the coronavirus being the third-leading cause of death in 2020, behind only heart disease and cancer. Among other OECD countries, only Belgium has a Covid ranking as the third-highest cause of death. Covid ranks fourth in France, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, but much lower in Germany and Austria, where it ranks 17th and 18th respectively.

Thursday, October 15, 2020

Cognitive dissonance and the flawed American democracy

Why does Donald Trump's electoral base continue the cult-like devotion to a corrupt, cruel, narcissistic and racist individual who failed in responding to the pandemic and even recommended bleach as a remedy; is a pathological liar; a failed businessman who had a history of not paying agreed prices to contractors; who views personal taxes as for the little people, and massive tax fraud as a reflection of his high intelligence; who calls citizens who join the military suckers and losers, while being an apologist for Russian dictator Vladamir Putin?

Sixty years before Trump won the presidency on a minority vote, the cultish phenomenon was explained — Trump's racism has won the support of the Religious Right but his advocacy of legalised discrimination against gay, lesbian and bisexual workers, was rejected by the Supreme Court last June. However, the followers not only bond around racism and homophobia, but a significant number also reject democratic norms.

Trump pardons criminal friends; like a tinpot dictator he calls for the jailing of his political opponents, and as the image on top shows, his devotees ape the Romans in the Colosseum in ancient times baying for blood with their yelling "lock her up," about Hillary Clinton.

Saturday, October 03, 2020

Retooling Ireland's economic engine - look to Denmark & Netherlands

Ireland's indigenous exporting sector is small while about 67% of Danish goods exports are from domestic firms, as are 80% of services exports, led by Maersk which has been the biggest global container ship operator since 1996.

The National Economic Plan to be published in November 2020 will follow the Budget 2021 announcement on October 13, 2020, and is unlikely to signal a retooling of Ireland's current economic engine — typically the long term is for aspirations and while the year 2020 was the endpoint for many past reports with rosy prognostications, it inevitably became their graveyard.

Tuesday, September 08, 2020

Irish economy grew by a mere 1.5% in 2019


The Irish economy grew a mere 1.5% in 2019 according to data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) based on Modified GNI* (Gross National Income) at constant prices, rising by €3bn to €202bn in the year.

Tuesday, September 01, 2020

Donald J Trump: Racist president of White America

Satire from The Daily Show with Trevor Noah

Donald J Trump's first appearance in The New York Times was on the front page on October 16, 1973. The 27-year-old and his father Fred C. Trump were accused of being racists by the United States government. The younger Trump categorically denied the charge. It was a typical Trump lie and as president, he has racked up more than 20,000 false statements or claims according to The Washington Post.

Wednesday, August 26, 2020

Irish Politics — Tittle-tattle and soap opera

June 27, 2020: Micheál Martin, following his election as taoiseach (prime minister), meets President Michael D Higgins (r) at Áras an Uachtaráin, Dublin.

Kathy Sheridan, the Irish Times columnist, puts the so-called Golfgate firestorm in perspective stating facts that counter those who falsely blame the current Irish government or tar all the parliamentary representatives of the two biggest coalition parties for breaking national Covid-19 rules by attending a dinner following a golfing event in County Galway on August 19, 2020.

Thursday, August 13, 2020

Economic consequences of the Pandemic Depression

Compare the performance of selected global stock indexes, bond ETFs, currencies and commodities from The Wall Street Journal for 2020, updated on Aug 12, 2020 at 5:50 pm ET. A chart of the losers is at the bottom of the page.

Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, American economists, in their 2009 book, 'This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly,' said that the good news from their historical study of eight centuries of international financial crises was that they all ended. They noted that each time, the experts have chimed, “this time is different” — claiming that the old rules of valuation no longer apply and that the new situation bears little similarity to past disasters.

This time is different while early confidence of V-shaped recoveries is waning.

Saturday, August 01, 2020

Top global 2500 R&D firms- 4 Irish include 2 banks

The 2019 edition of the EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard rankings of the top 2,500 business research and development spenders in the world range from the top-ranked Alphabet — the parent company of Google — at €18.3bn to both Japanese and Chinese companies at ranks 2,499 and 2,500 with spending of €30.7m each. Ireland has 4 entries including 2 banks and another 22 mainly American firms that are technically "Irish" as they have headquarters in Ireland for tax avoidance purposes — this process is called a tax inversion. The total on the chart above should be 26 for Ireland (22 redomiciled companies and 4 Irish firms) as Dublin-based Pentair changed its headquarters to London when in 2017 it spun-out a new firm in Dublin, named nVent.

Amazon would have been in the first place had its annual report given a figure for R&D alone. Recode, the tech news service has reported that FactSet — a data service — estimated in 2018 that Amazon’s “technology and content” were its R&D expenditure, which in 2017 was at $22.6bn, 41% more than in 2016; $28.8bn in 2018, up 27.6% on 2017, and $37.3bn in 2019, up 24.6% on 2018.

Saturday, July 25, 2020

Entrepreneurship falls as reliance on high growth firms rises

European startups survival rate

Jan Hoekman, a Data Scientist, estimated the survival rates of European startup firms: After the first year 58% of startups are left, second 41%, 5th 22%, 10th 12.5%.
In Britain, fewer than 4% of startups have 10 or more employees after their first decade.

Reliable data from the United States show a secular decline in employer business startups in the last 40 years. However, the ratio of the small number of mainly young, High Growth Firms (HGF), including high tech, that account for significant job creation, began to fall after 2000 in both the US and other advanced countries.

Friday, July 17, 2020

The economic rise of the Western World

BC/AD (Before Christ/Anno Domini or 'Year of Our Lord') was adopted 500 years after the beginning of the millennium. The use of BCE/CE (Before the Common or Current Era/Common or Current Era) was first used in German in the 17th century and in English in the 18th. The latter designations have become more common in recent decades, not because of political correctness but in a global context, religious neutrality is appropriate.

The economic rise of the Western World dates from the 11th century CE. It was a slow, but persistent, process of advancement in science, education, printing and shipping technology. It also had its negatives including slavery and genocide of indigenous populations. However, it's striking that despite colonial plunder some of the European countries with a Mediterranean coastline, in particular Spain, had poor economic outcomes for much of the last millennium.

Friday, June 26, 2020

Ireland still struggling with Leprechaun economics

In 2016 when Ireland reported that gross domestic product (GDP) had grown by 26% in 2015 Paul Krugman, the New York Times economics columnist, called the claim Leprechaun economics.

Wednesday, June 24, 2020

Slavery and myth of American exceptionalism

In 1501-1867 an estimated 12.5m Africans were forced to travel to the Americas

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy witness
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the heart:
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616), 'Merchant of Venice'

The term American exceptionalism dates from an article in the Communist Party USA's 'Daily Worker' newspaper in January 1929. The newspaper reported that Communist International was acutely aware of "American exceptionalism" and this affected "the whole tactical line of the CI as applied to America." In May 1929, Jay Lovestone (1897-1990) [born Jacob Liebstein in modern-day Belarus], the US communist chief, visited Moscow to explain to Stalin why the American proletariat was not yet ready for revolution. The "man of steel" had no time for Marxist exceptionalism and Lovestone was ousted from his position.

Friday, June 19, 2020

Irish material standard of living per capita below EU-27 average in 2019

Ireland Actual consumption per capita

A proxy for per capita Irish material standard of living based on household consumption of public and private goods and services, released by Eurostat on Thursday, shows that in 2019 Ireland again trailed Italy and was 3% below the EU-27 average.

Thursday, June 11, 2020

China, US and EU top global economies and share similar size

Global GDP

China, the US and the EU are the top global economies and despite the exit of the UK from the European Union, the bloc is similar in economic size to the other two giants.

Thursday, June 04, 2020

Covid-19: Irish Times cites J P Morgan research rejected by senior executive

Covid_19 benefit of lockdowns

On June 2,
Reuters reported for a second week that Covid-19 infections had risen in the United States, "Several southern US states reported sharp increases in Covid-19 infections, with Alabama, South Carolina and Virginia all seeing new cases rise 35% or more in the week ended May 31 compared with the prior week, according to a Reuters analysis."

Nationally, US infections had fallen for a fifth straight week.

Monday, June 01, 2020

Albert Camus' La Peste / The Plague and enduring pandemics

Albert Camus (1913-1960), the French Algerian philosopher, writer, journalist and playwright, had his book La Peste / The Plague published in 1947 (French version). It is set in Oran, a Mediterranean port city in northwest Algeria.

Oran as a port city has a history of plague outbreaks with the last incidence of bubonic plague (see below) in 2003.

Friday, May 22, 2020

Dutch food innovation lessons for Ireland


On December 6, 2019, King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands (left) opened Unilever’s new global Foods Innovation Centre on the campus of Wageningen University, the leading global agri-food research hub. Unilever invested €85m in the new centre, named ‘Hive’ for its location amidst leading academic research centres, startups and external partners. From Hive, Unilever said it would lead its global foods innovation programs for brands like Knorr, Hellmann’s, The Vegetarian Butcher and Calvė. Areas of research include: plant-based ingredients and meat alternatives, efficient crops, sustainable food packaging and nutritious foods. The consumer goods giant said the energy-neutral Foods Innovation Centre, was rated “Outstanding” by the Dutch BREEAM assessment body for environmental performance, putting it among the most sustainable multifunctional buildings in the world.

Rising global population coupled with climate change, present enormous challenges. According to a 2019 United Nations report, since the pre-industrial period (1850-1900), the land surface air temperature has risen nearly twice as much as the global average temperature.

Thursday, May 07, 2020

Germany benefits from Euro but would also have thrived with D-Mark

Germany benefits from the euro in common with other member countries and it would pay a hefty price if the Euro System collapsed.

In 2012 the German finance ministry carried out a breakup analysis according to the Der Spiegel magazine and found that the breakup costs and the re-introduction of the D-Mark would lead to an up to 10% fall in GDP in the first year. Unemployment would rise again to its record high of over 5m in 2005.

Monday, May 04, 2020

Argentina's grim record of economic failures and debt defaults

In February 2020, Pope Francis, a native of Argentina, gave strong support to debt renegotiation at a Vatican seminar on debt owed by poor countries. Pope Francis greets Kristalina Georgieva, IMF managing director, as Martín Guzmán, the Argentinian economy minister, looks on. Ms Georgieva will likely be more forgiving by extending the payment time periods on IMF debt, than the Gnomes of Zürich and elsewhere!

"Argentina has suffered a long history of booms, busts and failed economic reform. The nation has defaulted on its debt eight times, suffered hyperinflation twice, and gone through multiple balance of payments crises as well as 20 IMF-supported economic programmes in 60 years."

Friday, May 01, 2020

Pandemics: Forgotten vaccine hero saved millions of lives

Dr Anthony Fauci (born 1940), the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, enters the Press Briefing Room of the White House on April 13, 2020, as a member of White House Coronavirus Task Force. In April 2005, Dr Fauci paid tribute to Dr Maurice Hilleman (1919-2005) after the latter's death.
"Maurice literally changed the world with his extraordinary contributions in numerous disciplines: virology, epidemiology, immunology, cancer research, and, especially, vaccine research and development.
Maurice was perhaps the single most influential public health figure of the 20th century, if one considers the millions of lives saved and the countless people who were spared suffering because of his work. Over the course of his career, Maurice and his colleagues developed more than 40 vaccines. Of the 14 vaccines currently recommended in the United States, Maurice developed eight."

On the morning of April 17, 1957, microbiologist Maurice Hilleman was in his office at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, in Maryland, north of Washington DC, when he saw amidst other foreign news a short report from Hong Kong on Page 3 of his copy of The New York Times.

Wednesday, April 22, 2020

Grim Irish economic challenges from Covid-19 pandemic

Expedition 50 Commander Shane Kimbrough of NASA shared this nighttime image of Dublin on March 17, 2017, writing, "Happy #StPatricksDay - Spectacular #Dublin, Ireland captured by @thom_astro from @Space_Station. Enjoy the #StPatricksFest Parade down there!" Image Credit: ESA/NASA

Paschal Donohoe, finance minister, yesterday revealed the scale of the economic devastation in Ireland wrought by the coronavirus pandemic.

Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Half of ventilators in world's acute hospitals made in Ireland?

Racks of ventilators at Hamilton AG's factory in Switzerland

World medical ventilator demand during the Covid-19 emergency is about 10 times what's available and there's a scramble by countries to get supplies but sophisticated machines require 650 to 700 components and manufacturers around the world, including in China, are struggling to get supplies from about 100 companies, mainly in Asia.

Friday, April 10, 2020

An Organised Hypocrisy: Dutch relent in Covid-19 Eurozone funding

Christine Lagarde, ECB president, signs a Euro note.

Eurogroup finance ministers agreed on Thursday April 9th to present an emergency rescue package in response to the coronavirus crisis, to the heads of government of the 19-country Eurozone for approval. However long-term funding for economic recovery has not been agreed.

Sunday, April 05, 2020

Italy's coronavirus battle amidst 50-years long economic crisis

Italy has a history of high debt but it had an economic miracle in the period 1950-1970 with an average annual growth rate level with West Germany's. It ended with a national labour strike and in 1971 the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) noted that "The index of production showed no increase whatsoever in the course of 1970." The succeeding 50 years have been characterised by double-digit inflation and interest rates, persistent budget deficits and low growth both before and after the launch of the Euro.

Monday, March 30, 2020

Asia Covid-19: Lessons learned from past epidemics and high income helps

Kuala Lumpur: Coronavirus data for March 30th show that Japan (including the Diamond Princess cruise ship) with a population of 127m is just behind Ireland (population 5m) with 2,578 infections and 64 deaths; South Korea with a population of 52m has 9,661 and 158 deaths; Taiwan with a population of 23m has 298 and 3 deaths; Hong Kong (Special Administrative Region of China) with a population of 7.4m has 642 and 4 deaths; Singapore with a population of 5.7m has 844 and 3 deaths.

The health per capita spending as shown in the chart above (Taiwan's spending is $2,700) highlights how low the level is in several Asian countries.

Friday, March 27, 2020

Socialism for the rich: America's $532bn bailout of big companies

The top executives of most of America's biggest corporations are adept at dodging taxes, overpaying themselves, and buying back shares that they are invested in themselves rather than building rainy day funds. The Federal government and Federal Reserve are the backstops in the mythical land of free markets while the genesis of commercial pharmaceutical and tech innovations are often in public laboratories or institutions.

Fortune magazine noted last August that more than half of all share buybacks were funded by debt.

According to a January 2020 article in the Harvard Business Review, "in 2018, only 43% of companies in the S&P 500 Index recorded any R&D expenses, with just 38 companies accounting for 75% of the R&D spending of all 500 companies....The 465 companies in the S&P 500 Index in January 2019 that were publicly listed in 2009-2018 spent $4.3tn on buybacks, equal to 52% of net income, and another $3.3tn on dividends — an additional 39% of net income. In 2018 alone, even with after-tax profits at record levels because of the Republican tax cuts, buybacks by S&P 500 companies reached an astounding 68% of net income, with dividends absorbing another 41%."

Monday, March 16, 2020

Coronavirus - COVID-19: China "Sick Man" of Asia? US of Developed World?  

Get latest data Coronavirus Tracking Data from Johns Hopkins University

Data from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus database on March 16, 2020, show a fatality rate of 3.86%. However, this is not a reliable metric as the denominator is influenced by a recent spike in numbers while the numbers of people with the virus, not confirmed or showing no symptoms, are unknown.

Thursday, March 12, 2020

The Irish land racket and Dublin housing crisis

Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council and the Land Development Agency lodged planning application for 597 new homes at Shanganagh, Co Dublin, in Jan 2020.

The price of land is a key driver of housing prices and there has been a debate in Ireland and Great Britain for more than a century on the injustice of landowners near urban centres making huge gains at the cost of other country residents, without lifting a finger. Dermot Desmond, the prominent Irish businessman, raised this issue in an interesting opinion article in the Irish Times this month.

Friday, March 06, 2020

Zombie unicorns and struggling tech startups in Ireland and Singapore

This year's FT 1000 ranking of European companies that achieved the highest compound annual growth rate in revenue between 2015 and 2018, released in March, has 259 entrants comprising 189 technology firms together with fintech and e-commerce.

Thursday, February 27, 2020

Nordic countries lead social mobility- Ireland and Korea among rich laggards

Kim family characters in 'Parasite' searching for Wi-FI signals from dingy flat in Seoul

'Parasite' the Best Picture winner at the 92nd Academy Awards this month, has shone a bright light on the grim social divisions and poor social mobility in South Korea.

Thursday, February 20, 2020

Irish employer entrepreneurship remains on respirator

OECD: Business economy excluding holding companies

In 2017 Ireland had the second-lowest rate of employer firm births among the mainly rich country members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Friday, February 14, 2020

Irish economic growth data remain unreliable

Trump likely doesn't know about the growing US drugs trade deficit with Ireland!

Following the report in 2016 that Ireland's GDP (gross domestic product) had jumped 26% in 2015, a Modified Gross National Income (GNI*) was produced that eliminated distortions caused by 1) redomiciled companies: mainly American firms that became Irish for tax purposes 2) depreciation of foreign-owned intellectual property (IP) and 3) depreciation of aviation leasing assets.

Monday, February 10, 2020

A radical Irish government would have to hike taxes

OECD data — ignore Luxembourg in this chart as over 40% of its labour force live beyond its borders — click image for bigger scale

The prospect of the first leftist government in Ireland since 1922 is exciting for supporters of Sinn Féin after its surge in support in the Irish general election that was held at the weekend. However, to be radical in the key areas of both housing and health, it would have to raise taxes more than it has provided for in its election manifesto.

Wednesday, February 05, 2020

Irish Housing Facts: Portugal has highest dwellings per 1,000 inhabitants

There are almost as many people renting in Ireland (24.9% with 14.3% subsidised) as those who have home mortgages (26%) — while 45.5% of owner-occupiers have no loans on their properties according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). 3.6% are unknown.

Monday, February 03, 2020

Ireland is already a socialist state!

With the exception of Spain and Sweden, which have ruling socialist parties with minority governments, Europe hasn't been a very welcoming place for left of centre parties in the past decade.

Friday, January 31, 2020

Confederacy of dunces: Worst Irish governments since 1922

Michael McDowell, a founder of the Progressive Democrats (PD) in 1985, affixes a poster to a pole in Ranelagh, South Dublin, during the 2002 general election campaign. The message on the poster was that the PDs were needed to ensure good governance. However, the PDs had already made a Faustian bargain with Fianna Fáil and they had gone along with the delusion that tax cuts would create a permanent prosperity while ignoring the risks of the property bubble. They also had to turn a blind eye to Bertie Ahern's dodgy personal finances and the bizarre explanations for funds in his personal bank accounts. In the 2007 general election, the PDs lost 7 of its 8 Dáil Éireann seats including McDowell's.

With just two years to the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Irish Free State which became the Republic of Ireland in 1949, by next week Ireland will have held 31 general elections beginning on June 16, 1922 — 12 days after the first general election, the shameful Civil War would begin.

Sunday, January 19, 2020

State of Irish high tech and biotech 2020

The state is not easy to discern because of the dearth of data, delusion and distortion.

For the third time in 14 years, an Irish government has published another plan to turn Ireland into a "world-class" knowledge economy, despite falsely claiming that the economy is among the most innovative in the world.

Sunday, January 12, 2020

The shameful stain of an Irish Civil War

Dublin Castle, the seat of Norman/English and later British rule from 1204-1922 was handed over to the Irish on January 16, 1922 by Lord FitzAlan-Howard, the last Viceroy of Ireland. Michael Collins, the 31-year old chairman of the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State, is pictured 'bouncing’ out through the Chief Secretary’s door after the handover. Collins is preceded by Kevin O'Higgins, who had been appointed Minister for Economic Affairs in the previous week. The new government issued a statement which said, ‘"The Members of the Provisional Government received the surrender of Dublin Castle at 1.45 pm today. It is now in the hands of the Irish nation." A unit of the Royal Corps of Engineers remained at the castle until August 1922. (Image courtesy of the National Library of Ireland)

The controversy this month about a proposed official commemoration for members of the British era Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) police forces who lost their lives in the Irish War of Independence of 1919-1921, is a foretaste of the upcoming centenary commemorations of the formation of the Irish Free State in 1922 and the shameful Civil War that it triggered.

Sunday, January 05, 2020

Entrepreneurship in rich countries declining; Innovation also sliding

In January 2004 Mark Burnett, a British-born producer of reality TV programmes in the United States and Britain, launched a new series that tapped into America's celebration of an era that many saw as an Age of Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Burnett teamed up with a New York serial bankrupt who was notorious for defrauding suppliers and who was on the blacklists of Wall Street banks.