Let’s hope Ireland isn’t still relying on the third level to deliver growth.

Daniel couldn’t read or write. He desperately wanted to learn, but it would have taken a major input from the State to teach him the basics. There was nothing forthcoming.

… without the political will, particularly now with resources stretched, children like Daniel McAnaspie will continue to be thrust out beyond the bounds of basic nurturing that all children require.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/michael-clifford/nurture-little-children-who-come-to-thee-198399.html

We now have three non peer reviewed papers in the public domain on the subject of welfare vs. work. Apparently, if Frances Ruane is to be believed, these aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. Who was it said: “If the fact that 1+1=2 were to have a political dimension there would be a faction formed to deny it”?

I love this bit from Doris et al above:

“If you have a higher income, you are more likely to go for a spin in the car at the weekend, to buy a takeaway on Friday night, to employ a nanny rather than use the local childminder, and to leave the heating on if it’s chilly. It is therefore very important to take this income effect – which is going to be substantial – into account before labelling the difference in expenditures as working costs.”

What data set were they working off to form these conclusions? I love it when middle class people start pontificating on life for those on welfare. Mrs B works with disadvantaged children and, by extension, their parents. Doris et al really need to talk to some Community Welfare Officers, Social Workers, and others to see how unemployed people (both short-term and long-term) actually live their lives.

[1] Anto wants you to wear the Irish Rugby jersey for the award ceremony

[2] Aoife wants to meet your own childer

1. If you could have then it’s pretty clear that you *should* have.
Also, why would the international academic audience listen to self-confessed inaccurate work? Unless you weren’t going to tell them…

2. I have not met Eithne, though I am sure that she is great. You clearly agree with this since on your blog you make the obviously flattering (though barely intelligible) statement that, “She faithfully represents both the research and its early stage”. Are you now claiming that in this case she did not?

You also say that the “ESRI should have explained that the paper was a working paper…”. But that wouldn’t have been necessary if you had done it in the first place. Isn’t that right?

Quality Control over and out

The Eurostat data underlying this report is here:
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php/Comparative_price_levels_of_consumer_goods_and_services

Ireland is the fifth most expensive in the EU and third, behind Finland and Luxembourg, in the EA. There has been an improvement since 2008 when Ireland was in the stratosphere, but the improvement has been mostly in the more exposed sectors. Still major room for improvement in the sheltered sectors, as evidenced by the CSO CPI sub-indices, but we wouldn’t want to inquire too deeply in to that, now would we? In any event, we don’t have enough appropriately qualified microeconomists to do it.

Requires patient sole searching.

The Irish Federation of Toddlers’ Groups (IFTG), an emerging activist childer group in the Irish public sphere (run for and by toddlers only) put out a tender to garner a few her_an_him_eneutics on the state of childer_care in Ireland. The Blind Biddy Hedge School won the tender over an outrageous bid from Inde_kon (which the IFTG Board chuckled out of the playground to immense glee). Following extensive co-creation research, in which toddlers were directly involved, numerous focus groups (N=30) and a reasonably representative sample of interviews across the hidden Irish class divisions (N=44) [n.b. the toddlers love the perfect corrleation between the Inde_kon 44-economists and the 44% supposedly at home with the toddlers on the dole]. Based on the preliminary findings, Aoife and Anto (spokeschilder for the group; age 2yrs11mnths & 3yrs 10mnths) would like to announce the following awards from the IFTG: (the working report, which will remain open to comment and consultation for one month only will be placed online on WikkiLeaks, Facebook, and all over the Internet with full functionality):

[1] Childer Champion of the Month

Dickie Tol ….

… for recognising childcare in Ireland and putting it on agenda - we luv ya Dickie -don’t kut da hair

[2] Bold Mistress of the Month

Frances Ruane … because we’re worth it

[3] Hard readin award of the month

IrishEconomy.ie more cartoons and funny pictures please.

The IFTG want to tank The Blind Biddy Hedge Fund for financial assistance in buggy hirin, nappy dryin, taxidrivin, digital recordin trains_scription, snacks, and all dat other stuff. Responsibility for the content of the IFTG report remains solely with the authors and the IFTG. The usual disclaimers (wat are de?) apply.

“2. I see you have never met Eithne.”

+1

2. I see you have never met Eithne.

Neo-classical economics is somewhat similar to medieval medical practices - lots of purgatives, leeches and incantations. The latter are written in math notations rather than Latin. This allows the practitioners to perfom catastrophic social experiments and blame failures on ‘evil spirits’ and illiterate peasants who fail to follow the instructions on the label.

@ PH: No matter you may have been mistaken. At least you recognize the situation. Lots of so-called intellectual folk are also wrong but their reference frames are set in military-grade concrete. It will take a very nasty political shock to shake their belief systems. Unfortunately they will reprise their old behaviours as they attempt solutions. Its both maddening and sobering.

I’d guess we may have to wait until the back-end of 2015.

1. Re Frank Walsh’s helpful comments [June 20th at 4:32pm], why did you not contact the CSO to get access to the appropriate data if it is so straightforward?

2. I, for one, think it’s a pity that you could not persuade the Sunday Times journalist, who contacted you, to hold back the “results” from your “proof of concept paper” until they had been subject to some quality control.
Do you agree?

Sorry, that was a hat tip to the BBC as it was a quote from their website, not a story about BBC employees. I didn’t make that very clear.

Some lite reading …

http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/interview-with-daniel-kahneman-on-the-pitfalls-of-intuition-and-memory-a-834407.html

@Paul Hunt
I recommend “Wittgenstein’s Poker” - available on Amazon. Enjoy

The ship of state is sailing on sedately down the river
And look at what awaits it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umwQG7fue84

Aedin and co do argue that our methods are flawed (albeit without demonstrating that it matters) and reckon that the ESRI’s claim, although not substantiated by the ESRI, can and should be substantiated.

As I wrote before, I don’t feel unfairly treated by Aedin. I publicly stood over what I did, so she should publicly scold me.

Aedin’s expertise is relevant. We should be glad that she has taken an interest in this thorny problem.

I have been primarily, and temporarily, lured back by the ‘event’ which the apparent inadvertent publication of this working paper provoked. It provides pretty solid evidence for the case I have being making for some time.

It is inevitable there will be more ‘events’ of all sorts and types, but the ability of Official Ireland to brush off the implications and to sail on sedately is quite remarkable. The people will have an opportunity to pass an interim judgement in the local and Euro elections in two years time, but it will probably generate only some trimming and tacking by the Government. I think it was Morgan Kelly who remarked that, while the last general election had some significance, it is the next general election that will have real significance.

I expect we will just have to wait for that. I had hoped that, at least, some of our ‘public intellectuals’ might have had the guts and gumption to confront this policy thrust that is driving the domestic economy in to the mire, but it was really silly of me. I should have known better, but I figured that the severity of this crisis might have focused, at least, some minds on the need for some restoration of an effective parliamentary democracy and of effective and resourced local governance and a reassessment of the requirement for some genuine political economy.

But I was wrong, wrong, wrong…

It is nice to see you back.

What has become clear to me after 2 years of reading content on this site is that the Irish state is in many key areas dysfunctional, sclerotic and not fit for purpose. You can take a pick from a wide range of failures that go far beyond the weekend of 29 September 2008 - Moyross, the explosion in the health budget under the PDs, 196 children dead in state care over the last 10 years, the state of protection the legal system provides to ordinary citizens, the negotiations with the religious orders over child abuse reparations,the NCC on Ireland’s competitiveness challenge, pyrite or whatever else you fancy .

Everywhere you want to look you can see failings in accountability, competence and project management capacity.

TSHTF may arrive with the banks when they run out of phone credit on the EUR 64 bn.

The last 4 years have been an exercise in hoping that time would sort out the banking crisis. it didn’t. Time to get real.
Or else shortly after.

But the country can’t afford another generation of this. There is just no point in educating kids to a decent standard when the country in which they will mature is run the way Ireland is.

You did not yourself invite any publicity for your working paper, rather it was unfairly thrust upon you.

so I do not see why Aedin Doris et als’ comments, that would be best communicated privately, should be posted here. What exactly are these comments intended to achieve?

The presence of mistakes or otherwise in the working paper is not the key issue in this whole unseemly episode, rather the motivation for doing so. Today’s comments seem to have the same counter-productive spirit of the ESRI’s initial withdrawal of the paper

Anyway following Aedins post today she can have few complaints if anyone chooses to post any critisicism / errors of her own on this website

But this blog is heading down a blind and rapidly narrowing alley.

Ireland is in the grip of a ‘democratic centralism’ more forceful and effective than was ever applied in the former Soviet Union - and puts the Politburo Standing Cttee of the Communist Party of China in the shade. At the apex is the Economic Management Cttee comprised of the Taoiseach, the Tanaiste, Ministers Noonan and Howlin, their special economic advisers and a handful of senior civil servants. (It is interesting, but not, perhaps, surprising that the Taoiseach has taken like a fish to water to this form of governance. There isn’t a politcian anywhere who wouldn’t relish it. How Chancellor Merkel (insofar as she might be aware of it) would love to exercise such authority. It is more understandable in the case of the Tanaiste as, during his formative political years, he probably imbibed the essence of ‘democratic centralism’ when Brezhnev elbowed Podgorny and Kosygin aside.)

The lower tiers of government and the rest of the expansive government apparatus take their cues, with varying degrees of enthusiasm and compliance, from this central ‘clearing-house of power’. Public policy is formulated and promulgated by this very tight circle. And detailed policy formulation is kept well away from any public scrutiny - and the impact of the influential sectional interests is kept well hidden. (An excellent example is this NewEra beast, handling state asset, semi-state and privatisation matters, hidden behind the walls of the NTMA as a non-statutory body.)

Almost all public policy research that is conducted by bodies with a nominal independence from government is funded by government or some part of its expansive apparatus. Not surprisingly, as this ‘Cost of Working’ working paper episode has revealed, how any research is scoped or conducted or the results that are presented must not cause upset to or prove difficult for the funding bodies.

This doesn’t mean that dissent doesn’t surface but it tends to be muted and murmered privately - and even if it is publicly presented it is easily brushed aside.

So, while a blog on Irish economic policy issues with contributions from leading practitioners seemed like a good idea - and has certainly contributed to the policy debate, the excessive democratic centralism governing policy formulation, the nature of the process of scoping, approving and funding public policy research, the ’siloisation’ of economic and political science and the apparent lack of expertise in some key policy areas have all contributed to an inexorable reduction in the number of active contributors and contributions, in the number of policy areas covered and in the depth and breadth of coverage.

For various reasons the leading practitioners have no incentive to rock such a comfortably provisioned and well-appointed boat. But outside the discontent and disaffection grows. It would be better of this were channelled and addressed in a civilised and rational manner, but the occupants of the boat seem to have no interest in this.

The simplistic idea that someone may be ‘better off’ or whatever way you may wish to frame it, is not the way to go. Rational Choice is NOT the way to analyse the issue. Its a behavioural matter.

Kahneman , D & Tversky, A. 1979. ‘Prospect Theory: An analysis of decision under risk’, Econometrica, 47; 263-291.

- for a political science slant on the same; -

Levy, J. 1992. ‘An Introduction to Prospect Theory’, Political Psychology, 13, (2):171-186.

“Do you have anything of substance …. to say”

I don’t. And you’re right to imply I should keep my trap shut if there’s nothing constructive coming out.
However I thought the point of the threads on this blog were to ‘play the man not the ball’ - and I’m glad you noticed that 95% of the posts before mine were irrelevant attacks on the professionalism of Aedin Doris et al.

Some slight ‘pushback’ though. Maybe 20% of the posts on here are from yourself, and I’m not so sure you’re living up to your standard of “Whereof one cannot speak - thereof one must keep silent.” ! -(Apart from clearing up that the authors of the paper extend beyond Richard Tol)

Anyway, I shouldnt have insinuated such things about Dr Tol. I guess I just miss Karl Whelan, and find it very difficult not to become an outrageous troll on this site! I will aim to be a better class of poster

Not unique to the BBC!.
It’s a ruling that will be welcomed by many closer to home.
In fact I believe it is written into law for all employees. Those that is who get ’sick pay’ from their employers.

It would appear that a quick site search for ” the fuckwit trolls that dominate this blog” no longer brings up that comment.

Normal 0 false false false EN-IE X-NONE X-NONE

The first “false” presumably refers to Kevin Denny but the rest has me stumped.

BBC “Workers who fall sick during their annual leave are entitled to take corresponding paid leave at a later date, the EU’s top court says.”

I hate being self-employed. I miss out on all these perks.

Limerick needs a revolution; The Claw at the head of an Emergency Maul and the place could be sorted in five years. There is previous ‘form’ from the early 20th century to draw on when the chaws got roightly p1ssed off with the governance and simply took over the place themselves. Took an empire to shift em .. and naatthin like an empire around at the mo! Twould certainly liven up the city centre …