The Dossing Times » Economy

Frugal Food Blogs

ck — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 15:57:06 +0000

Cheapeats.ie is now part of my daily browsing routine. The sorry state of affairs is that I don’t even have the budget to fill a frugal storecupboard at the moment but the recipes and price watches they offer are excellent. They have been included amongst a list of the top 100 frugal food blogs. Read the remainder of the entries here. The list is not just confined to Ireland.

Thoughts of a Public Sector Worker

ck — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 12:22:52 +0000

To begin, I am the pen pusher that has been lambasted for months now in the press and the scapegoat for the state of the economy. My job is not a straightforward role to explain, in a state agency very few people have heard of – I am not a nurse, or fireman or carer who went to work a 12 hour shift last night having learned they will be called upon to fork over more of the money which in no way matches the way their jobs own their lives. The news of the pension levy/new tax is not welcomed, I honestly thought people in the lower income brackets would be spared, it turns out people earning half the amount I am are to be effected.

The statements in the Dail yesterday from Cowen and the opposition were the outcome of weeks of negotiations, and marked the outright failure of all parties to manage and try to cohere a position in such difficult times. Its starkly real how this is impacting on us all, we seem to be quite literally in a spiral. There were job losses of 1, 500 a day in the month of January. Thats an overwhelming figure. The pension levy is to contribute 1.4bn of the 2bn savings target set. Yet there is no sense of confidence this morning we are anywhere nearer a stable position. The country is borrowing to run basic day-to-day services. Its an absolute misery.

This post is going to be me feeling sorry for myself, though there I will leave it. I’m budgeting and I am determined to get out of my own financial slump, with some peace of mind I have happy memories creating the debt. That said I want everyone to suffer and will not relent on the injustice of people earning so far below the average industrial wage being effected and also why people providing the essential services we dont value are being punished. I do not understand the point put forward by Sarah Carey in todays Times:

The problem is that social partnership has turned thousands of public servants into rich men and women in expensive coats while the porter rots on his

Cheapeats.ie

ck — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 20:54:59 +0000

Frugal shopping and economic eating habits – the topic of many blog posts, cookery books filling out shelves and news articles – a blog on the topic that I’ve come across makes for some good reading and information, if like me you spend components of your evening reading food blogs.

David McWilliams terrible use of Statitistics

simon — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:10:10 +0000

The subject of David McWilliams column today is how the GAA transfer index shows a growing trend of immigration from Ireland.

According to the GCTI, emigration is on the increase from all over Ireland and it is recurring in precisely the age group that we need most — our young, fit people. What makes the change in the index all the more startling, is the dramatic turnaround in fortunes between the beginning of the year and now. In January, not one club player transferred to a club outside Ireland. This month, over one third of all transfers involved lads leaving the country and signing up for clubs in New York and London.

Ok so I decided to look at the figures.

As you can see January Is usually very quiet and the sumer months quiet busy. Jan 2004, Jan 2007 and Jan 2008 are all quiet low, indeed Jan 2004 when we would be in the middle of the boom was busiest. The reason I guess has a lot to do with young people going abroad for the summer and playing in a GAA club in New York, London or Oz. Suggesting that the difference between Jan 2008 and summer 2008 is plain silly and a abuse of statistics. It is simply following the trend of Summer being more busy then January. Indeed in absolute terms Jun and july 2007 saw 235 people move abroad while Jun July 2008 saw 223 people move. Basically there is nothing statistically significant in these figures to show an increase in immigration.

Creating Innovation

simon — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:30:17 +0000

In the wake of Bertie resignation there has been much along the lines that Bertie wasted the Boom a mantra that the opposition have been touting out for years. Now there is indeed some validity to that. For one thing the way we invested in housing and not in innovation was disappointing. One of the biggest indications of innovation is the amount of patents filed. Ireland ranks 28th over all in terms of the number of patents filed with the US patent office. Although we have improved in the last 5 years we have jumped to 25th. Now to be fair taking patents as a whole is a bit wrong due to population difference. Taking population into account we are 23rd for patents filled over the last 5 years.

A note on Obama

simon — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:56:19 +0000

From Ireland.com

Obama, an Illinois senator, said all McCain offers “is four more years of the same George W. Bush policies that have gotten us into this pickle.”

He noted McCain’s support for extending Bush’s tax cuts, which Mr Obama said would help the wealthy, and his support for trade agreements that Mr Obama said do not protect US workers.

Does Leo Varadkar believe in ghosts.

simon — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 12:37:01 +0000

From Fine Gael

February saw the biggest ever monthly increase in the live register in absolute terms, proving that Fianna F

Crisis?

simon — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 09:46:45 +0000

Economics is always a subject that interests me but one I have never studied it. So here is a quick thought on something I know not alot about. Which might annoy John Walters but I never read him and I guess he never reads me. Anyway. Consumer confidence seems to be one of the main concerns surrounding the current downturn in the world economy. So it was quiet amazing to hear the Fed in America making a giant cut in interest rates. This is usually done to put more money into an economy (easier to get car loans etc) which will fuel inflation. And thus cause consumer confidence to fall even more. But considering that the crisis has its roots in the Sub-Prime lending market in the US maybe the cut will be helpful to bolster that. One thing that is not going away is high fuel prices what can be done about that is of paramount importance.

Michael Taft has an interesting piece on the boom here which I should look into sometime if I have more time. .