Maintenance & Upgrade Time

The site will be down this coming Sunday morning  Saturday afternoon for maintenance and upgrading. After backing up the database, etc., we’ll be moving the design of the site to the Twenty Sixteen default, which is much better for viewing on phones, tablets, and other devices. We’ll also be adding more features for posters on data and images as well as other upgrades.

There will be more changes coming in the next few weeks, so please bear with us.

By Stephen Kinsella

Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Limerick.

19 replies on “Maintenance & Upgrade Time”

Hi John, it will, hopefully the entire thing will remain in archive form. My plan will be to allow posters to manually edit categories themselves to stop the ‘unclassified’ thing happening as much.

This is certainly an improvement. Many thanks to those involved.

The interest and the passion that was evident in the years after the triple blow-out has, understandably, subsided. There are relatively few economists engaged in public policy issues in a disinterested manner and even fewer prepared to raise their heads above the parapet.

That doesn’t mean that there aren’t serious public policy issues that need to be addressed. But we’re back to the usual “Tóg bog é an saol; and tógfaidh an saol bog duit”. I expect we’ll have lots of “interesting”, quirky, magazine pieces. And the rent-seekers, unhindered, are seriously getting back in to their stride – ripping off all and sundry.

I agree with the positive opinions expressed with regard to the change of format. Also with your comment regarding the “watching brief” of the economics profession. (This, it seems to me, is attributable to the evidently dated and rather theoretical basis for much of the actual instruction).

There is widespread scepticism with regard to the sudden conversion of Fianna Fáil to Scandinavian forms of governance. On that point, I remain of the view that it will actually happen but not because of any change in the quality of our political representation, or economic debate, but because of the universally shared fear of another election combined with EU legal constraints.

Two texts of interest, in the context of assessing the texts that may now emerge from the FF/FG minority government negotiations, are (i) the OECD report on better budgetary oversight by the Oireachtas and (ii) the Expenditure Report already associated with the existing archaic national budgetary arrangements in the context of the Medium Term Budgetary Framework (MTBF).

http://www.oireachtas.ie/parliament/media/housesoftheoireachtas/Ireland-Parliamentary-Budget-Review-Preliminary-Draft.pdf

http://www.budget.gov.ie/Budgets/2016/2016.aspx

Parts I, II and III of the Expenditure Report – updated to 2019 – could provide the basis for what could be submitted – by one department of finance – to a reinforced Joint Budget Dáil Committee in the context of the “Spring Statement”, shorn completely of the guff that the outgoing government attached to it. The draft “Ministerial expenditure ceilings” would then have to be taken more seriously than they have been hitherto and, of course, no longer be submitted as useless decoration at budget time.

I like the new look. Complacency is the order of the day under the CB soma regime. It looks like the real thing. It tastes like the real thing. But the great tottering tower of neoliberal TINA debt will crash again because there will not be any growth. Very few economists or finance pros willing or able to see the system for what it is. Social welfare for the billionaire class.

Just wondering if all previous bans are still in place? I used to post regularly under a different name some years ago but found myself permanently banned after making reference to how a particularly large Irish legal firm had a detailed and sophisticated billing system. The previous owner of the site appeared to have a particularly thin skin and, for example, deleted a post which pointed out a possible ‘porkie’ in the CV of a senior DoF official. I appreciate that we are all bound by site rules and legal restrictions but in neither case was there anything libellous in the posts. I think some other people were banned too e.g. the guy whose name rhymed with ‘stork’. Where is PR Guy now? He always had some interesting insights.

The ‘Fork’ continues his good work elsewhere, I think. All previous bans are still in place. The rules of commenting are pretty simple: stay on topic, don’t go ad hominem, and keep it between the ditches as regards both civility and legality. You’re free to allege any kind of misconduct on any matter anywhere, but it’s probably not going to be germane to the topic at hand. Our comment policy is also to be maximally risk averse, simply because this is a tiny blog and not a large media organisation with legal resources, etc.

So why don’t we try this? You’re unblocked, but on probation, as it were. If that works for you, drop me a mail at stephen.kinsella@gmail.com and I’ll sort your user stuff out.

By Post Author

Actually, I quite like my new appellation so I think I’ll stick to that as it reflects my principal pleasures in life for the moment.

I think blanket bans are a very blunt instrument and the site has lost a lot of ‘bite’. It has become quite staid. Remember the halcyon days when Karl Whelan and Aisling went toe-to-toe in debate over bailing out Anglo? Or Richard Tol got up the noses of so many people on climate change issues and the costs of taking up work?

I’m sure that now, like a lot of people, I no longer read many of the posts as I could write them myself for those people e.g.

DOCM: EU is great and we need better governance in Ireland.
Paul Hunt: rent seekers are everywhere and they are bad.
Colm McCarthy: ECB is bad and EURO not well thought out.
Michael Hennigan: I had bad experiences in Ireland and now I’m going to trash the place at every opportunity.
Seafoid: re-hashed Granuiad articles and capitalism is going to eat itself.
Brian Woods Snr: I’m more intelligent than everyone else.

A really important issue at the moment is the whole issue of the taxing of multinationals and I check the site regularly to see if Seamus Coffey has blogged. His posts are very well argued and tend to put things in context.

Good luck with your moderation/ownership of the site. I’ve done a bit of blogging myself for an assignment in a social media course and I lost interest after a while.

QE has taken a lot of heat out of macro for the moment and growth is just around the corner. The Fed will raise rates 4 times this year. Nothing to see. A lot of people have moved on.

I bet the site will be buzzing again as soon as the first TBTF bank hits the deck. The Euro will never have a bank resolution system either.

Both John McHale and Philip Lane have moved on to serious jobs since the site started so their insight is no longer available. A pity cos there is no going back to the economic certainties of 10 years ago.

Comments are closed.