Hemingway had it right on bankruptcy, that it happens slowly then all at once. So too it seems are changes in how the world sees finance. For the best part of a decade now the (final?) flowering of Financialisation has been rampant. In the Eurozone we have seen the coupling of private financial sector debts to the state. In the USA we have seen the obsessing by the Republicans on inflation (though to be fair their store of things to be obsessed about is deep and wide). In the markets we have seen case after case of alleged manipulation, if not downright rigging, of key features. We have seen the growth of “dark pools” which have the effect of making organized markets such as the NYSE or the LSE less and less relevant with trading happening “offsite” And yet all these have been addressed.
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so…. another CSO release of house price statistics. Recall that a bubble is where prices deviate fundamentally from their warranted levels. We know that there are massive supply constraints in the dublin region so we should see house price appreciation. But this much? The largest ever year on year percentage rise ? We are back to the madness it seems.
Here is my old friend SupADF…. Remember when Mr SADf crosses Mr 95% from below, its BUBBLETIME. So technically not a bubble but give it time… these figures should be a very large bucket of cold water in the face of government insouciance about back to the future…
We are having a glorious summer, all in all. This is probably down to global warming or El Nino or something but anyhow lets enjoy it. Continue reading
How can arts and social science faculty show their quality to be just as high as STEM? One of the things that becomes clear when you spend any time engaged in the promotions or hiring process of universities is that there is an increased drive towards metric. This has spread from the STEM area to the AHSS areas .
Michael Seiler thinks it might be this way… see his paper below for more details.
History and business are rarely taught or even studied together. That’s a pity. Economic history, as subject, has disappeared down the memory hole. What is more worrying perhaps is that the methods of historical analysis, careful source text reinterpretations, critical data analysis and a cool analysis, are not often applied to business. Enter Jill Lepore, a Harvard historian, to remind us why this ahistorical business analysis is a weak approach Continue reading
Ireland, or at least the government, is in the grip of a frenzy around entrepreneurship. From local government, through the higher education system, to the highest in the land, hardly a day goes by without some new band jumping on the wagon. We are being flogged with the mantra that we must start up, become entrepreneurs, be self-employed, yadda yadda yadda. It’s a diversion of resources, built around a self-perpetuating meme. The SME sector is really important, in Ireland and in Europe. In Europe, as of 2012, SMEs accounted for over 99% of all companies, employing just under 90m people. They account for 66% of total employment and for about 58% of total output. However, when we think of SME’s in Ireland we think of small and medium-sized companies. The SME definition is companies with less than 250 employees, €50m in total turnover. This is by Irish standards a fairly substantial enterprise. In Ireland, SME account for 68% of total employment. Thus, it makes sense, to some extent, to ensure that SMEs as a sector are in rude health. What it may not make sense to do is to pour more and more scarce resources into creating startups and micro enterprises, in pursuit of a problem that doesn’t exist.
I was recently in a midlands town, on a weekday morning. Like most such places it had on street pay parking. Like most places, it was pretty haunted at that junction. There were therefore vast numbers of available spaces in which to park, but the cost remained fixed. This got me thinking
So.. there is a lot of (self)congratulatory backclapping, cheering, smugness and so forth about how Ireland is out of recession. Again.
The thing is, we really should by now have gotten used to the volatility of the quarterly GxP figures. The rise in GxP this time was due, in part, to the inclusion of some of the shadow economy. But hey, lets not quibble. Shadow, dark, black, its all part of the economy.
We have however been here again. This is the fourth time since the depths of the crisis that we have seen year on year percentage growth.
We know the metaphysical issues about the sound of one hand clapping. What about four hands clapping, perhaps on empty air?
Brian M. Lucey 