Richard Tol writes in today’s Irish Times about how to turn the Irish economy around. You probably don’t see it in the online edition, but the subeditor responsible for the front page has summarized the article as ‘Privatize them all’. (Some comment on ‘The Irish Economy Blog’
The cuts are pretty small when you consider the context – it costs 60 billion to run the country, we will only get 40 billion in taxes. The plan is to cut back by a few billion, and just borrow the rest. Of course, the debt will bear down on us in the future.
The cover page header was very off putting, along with the “withdraw from areas it has no business in” mantra in the opening pars. So much so I didn’t read the article in print.
But in whole it’s sensible and balanced more than it first looks.