Extremely busy today folks, but a quick few budget/recession links before I go:

First off, here are the documents themselves from Finance.

Now for the reaction and some context:

Here's John Murray Brown from the FT on the budget. His 3 word review: Piece of Sh*t.

Lex is not too impressed either.

Here's Karl Whelan on the asset management agency, his 2 word review: Be Careful.

Gerard makes a terrible pun, but talks a lot of sense along the way about the difference between expenditure cuts and taxation increases.

Liam Delaney asks just what is good about this recession and those like it?

Kevin O'Rourke and Barry Eichengreen compares the crash of 1929 and our current woes properly. Finally, someone has done this comparison justice. The figures they produce are rather scary.

All the Irish Blogs have these things to say.

If you come across anything interesting, pwetty pwease leave a link in the comments.

3 Responses to “Budget Commentary”

1. Sarah Murphy

   08/04/2009 at 11:30 am

   The comparisons between the 1929 crash and our current situation are shockingly similar, great article!

   I really don’t see how Brian Lenihan can make this NAMA programme work in parallel with his aim to regain trust in the banks and the Irish economy. Its only adding to our national debt and downgrading the credit ratings of our banks.

   Also I can’t comprehend why the govt. insists on a €10bn recapitalisation plan when its planning on buying up all the banks toxic assets and bad debs anyway.

   Here’s a link to an artic in today’s Irish Times about Moody’s downgrading of BOI and AIB this morning…
   http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0408/breaking13.htm

2. Bitter As A Lemon

   08/04/2009 at 2:39 pm

   Just listened to liveline!! If I ever have to listen to another waster who has never worked a day in their life give out about not getting enough money for sitting on their backside watching Judge Judy re-runs............I will stone myself to death!!!

3. stephenkinsella

   08/04/2009 at 8:21 pm

   @Sarah, you're right, the devil is in the details, thanks very much for the link 🙂
   @ Bitter, it's true, there is a certain amount of begrudgery going on, but people are focusing on their losses (-2 to -9%) rather than the amount they've made over the last 10 years. The truth is we're not anywhere near the levels of personal effective taxation we experienced in 1996. We might see those levels again in the next 2 years.