Michael Taft: Colm McCarthy’s post on Irish Economy takes a sceptical look at ‘productive investment’, or more precisely, the Government’s claim that the New ERA proposals – can create up to 100,000 jobs. This leads him to state that:
‘The spectre of politicians seeking to create 100,000 jobs through extra public spending is every economist’s nightmare.’
One could quip that not creating 100,000 jobs should be every economist’s nightmare. However, let’s examine what exactly a public investment-led recovery programme is intended to do. For the last thing we need in the debate is a series of assertions that sheds little light on means to kick-start recovery. You can read the rest of this post here.
1 comment:
Don't worry, Michael. This is the triumph of the politics of 'something must be done'. Politically, it doesn't matter if it'll retard Ireland's economic recovery. A lot of largely unproductive and unsustainable economic activity will be generated, but it will allow all those currently capturing economic rents in all sorts of ways to continue enjoying them. That's one of the key criteria.
It's just the eagerly anticipated return to a variation of the 'business as usual' that got us into this mess.
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