From yesterday’s Sunday Business Post
Month: August 2009
I received this official NAMA question and answer sheet from a member of the Fourth Estate on the day the draft legislation was released but then I noticed that it didn’t appear on the DoF website so I never linked to it. In any case, it turns out that it is now on the NAMA website. It is a very interesting document containing plenty of discussion about issues not addressed in the draft legislation itself.
In yesterday’s Irish Times, Stephen Collins wrote:
The current appalling plight of the public finances is a direct result of the profligacy of Bertie Ahern’s governments since 1997 when public spending was ratcheted up far ahead of economic growth, year after year.
If public spending grew at rates far ahead of economic growth, then government spending must have increased as a share of GDP. However, when I check one of my favourite sources of information, the Statistical Annex of the European Commission’s European Economy publication, page 174 tells me that government spending as a share of GDP fell from 39.1% in 1996 to 36.9% in 1997 and fell further to 31.5% in 2000. The ratio moved up to 33.4% in 2001 and then stayed at essentially this level until the final two years of the second Ahern government at which point there was a gradual rise in this ratio to 35.7% in 2007, still below the level inherited by Ahern.
So the figures show that on average, rather than increasing public spending at rates far ahead of economic growth year after year after 1997, Bertie Ahern’s governments on average increased spending at a lower rate than economic growth.
Many fiscal policy mistakes were made during the Ahern era but it would be better if public discussion of these mistakes started from facts rather than imagined truths.
Here‘s a link to an article I wrote on NAMA for today’s Sunday Independent.
The CSO released the Live Register figures for July today.
Optimists can point to the fact that the month-on-month increase (s.a.) for July was 10,500, slightly down from 12,000 in June, and only one third the January increase of 31,400.
However, the composition of the total is changing towards longer-term unemployment, as may be seen in the shift among males aged 25 and over from Jobseeker’s Benefit, which actually fell in July, to Jobseeker’s Allowance, which rose steeply. (You may get Jobseeker’s Allowance if you don’t qualify for Jobseeker’s Benefit or if you have used up your entitlement to Jobseeker’s Benefit.)
There are now more males aged 25 and over in the Allowance than in the Benefit category. The number of females claiming the Allowance is also rising very rapidly.
No doubt when details on the duration of claims are released, they will confirm the shift towards longer-term unemployment.
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