Ireland’s Budget 2012 is being released this week, over two days. The principal measure in relation to taxation is a two-percentage point increase in the standard rate of VAT, from 21% to 23%. This post separates out the reasons why this is a bad idea from the commonly cited fear about people going to buy “up North”. This is not about diverting consumption, this is about destroying it.

The Nobel Prize in Economics, awarded yesterday, highlighted the important role of expectations. The IMF’s World Economic Outlook has given the world an important barometer of expectations about the economic climate and how they change over time. This post uses IMF figures to estimate how many jobs will be lost over the period 2011-2015 in the Eurozone, the USA and in the rest of the developed world, due to politicians’ inaction on the debt crisis over the last twelve months alone.

The latest Daft.ie Rental Report, released today, found that rents nationally rose in the third quarter, for the first time since early 2008. The urban-rural difference in trends persists, though. This post looks at trends by bedroom number, finding rising rents for family homes in most urban segments. A persistence in thinking about one national property market, however, will prevent the response required to keep an adequate supply of competitively priced accommodation.