citizen of nowhere

The coffers are empty. The kingdom is bankrupt. Emergencies have broken out everywhere. The state demands more taxes so the citizens, regardless of what burdens they already carry, must pay more, and more, again and again. Their burdens will increase until they can carry no more and then the state will pile still more on them. These words would serve as a reasonable description of conditions at many times in ancient history, in the age of Savanarola, during the black death, at times of shortage or war or during the great breakdown of European civilisation in the 20th century. Who would have imagined we would find ourselves here again? Surely this is some nightmare, some fantasy that will pass in a little while? No. We find ourselves suddenly cast back into a dark and unexpected age of fear. The language of the age of optimism, just ended, is of no use now. Thoughts of prosperity or hope are behind us. We must turn our minds to survival. Most public thinking has been devoted to one que...

Stone broke How things have changed! Last year it was known as the Celtic Tiger. Now it's a sickly creature living on borrowed time. Ireland is, according to figures published by the Irish central tatistics office (CSO), the world's most indebted country, as a proportion of GDP. The government has an urgent need to replace a sudden and severe loss of revenue from income tax, VAT & property transaction taxes. Various measures have been proposed , mostly focussing on sharp increases in income & property taxes. This may help to rebalance public finances in the short-term but also risk a further sharp contraction in consumer confidence and economic activity, with further weakening of state finances in due course. Reliving the past In previous economic cycles elevated income taxes have coincided with reduced consumption, severe loss of confidence, recession, unemployment and emigration. There is a real danger Ireland will return to past failures if measures to repair governm...