Category: Economics
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Outsourcing your coursework
The FP blog has a good story in US and British students outsourcing their “studies” to people in India. Work is being contracted out for as little as £5 on contract coding websites usually used by businesses. Students are outsourcing everything from simple coursework to full blown final year dissertations. It’s causing a major headache…
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Immigrants leave Ireland
The Wall Street Journal highlights the downturn here with a story on immigrants leaving. The statistics are pretty stark, and I like how the WSJ uses these and most Irish media don’t: Citigroup economist Piotr Kalisz in Warsaw estimates that up to half of Polish émigrés to Western Europe since 2004 will return home in…
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Recession in Ireland
I should remind readers that the Economist Intelligence Unit in November 2007 said the following: * Despite an estimated increase in the euro area inflation rate to 2.6% in October, the European Central Bank (ECB) is not expected to increase interest rates above the current rate of 4%. * The fiscal position is deteriorating, and…
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Americans driving less
As petrol prices hit record highs in the US, people are driving less, and taking public transportation more. According to AAA, the national average price for a gallon of regular gas rose to a record $3.936. That compares with an average price per gallon of $3.23 last Memorial Day. “With it being near $4 a…
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House prices to 'bottom out' – NIB
Am I missing something? It is impossible to call a bottom on any market, except through sheer luck. And claims to have done so should be treated with nothing but derision. NIB clearly has vested interests in this sector.
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Was the Fed duped?
The Big Picture speculates that Bernanke was caught out by Societe Generale dumping futures contracts. The WSJ Market Beat blog tends to agree. Did Bernanke know about the fraud on Monday? Did Societe Generale tell the Bank of France, who then would have told the ECB? Did the ECB inform the Fed? The dumping of…
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Housing in Ireland
What stage are we at? Fear? Good post from HousingPanic [via arandomwalk].
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Intervention for broadband
On a tangent to Frank’s discussion on the costs of corruption, I asked myself a slightly related question. While I am of the opinion that government should be kept to a minimum, and that the market should be largely left to it’s own devices, I am dismayed by the lack of broadband in this country.…
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Microsoft stock
What happened the Beast? MSFT fell 11% in one day, wiping $32 billion off the value of the company. Results did not meet expectations. They are now trading at just over $24. In related news read Cringely’s latest. He speculates that Apple will buy Adobe.
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DOW Jones to reach record high?
It looks like the Dow Jones Industrial Average is about to surpass the record levels it was reaching prior to September 11 2001. The Dow reached a high in May 2001, at 11,301. The highest closing figure of the Dow Jones was 11,722 in January 2000, right before the bursting of the dot com bubble.…