Ireland's growing population gives it an opportunity to do something ambitious: create dense, liveable cities as good as the best in Northern Europe and Japan.
Since the start of the pandemic, the US Federal debt has ballooned. To implement many of the new administration’s longer-term objectives, Congress will have to find trillions in new spending capacity. And they will have to do this against all political odds and market sentiment.
There is little chance that sufficient flexibility or capacity will materialise to soften the blow of the new EU-UK trade relationship. Much like Covid-19 lockdowns, public policy is now to take the Brexit hit and compensate those most affected.
In truth, the decision to hedge or not is complicated. For most long-term investors, the best decision is arguably to accept their inability to forecast, while also accepting that hedging is a poor solution.
Google's employees -- today's car-makers -- are seeking unionisation. The gig economy is in full swing. The world of work post-Covid looks more atomised every day. If unions want to reinvent themselves, they need to find ways to increase associational power.
The largest impediment towards institutional investment in Bitcoin has been the lack of established custodians in this sector. This is now changing, and there is a grudging acceptance that cryptocurrencies are here to stay.
For the first time in many years, companies supported by Enterprise Ireland lost more jobs than they created in 2020. Beyond the pandemic effect, it is time for the state agency to reassess its priorities away from traditional food production and into riskier innovation areas – as well as the domestic economy.
The key message for investors is that the risk borne by equity investors in a bank is of a fundamentally different order than that borne in almost any other business.
We have witnessed a dramatic reassertion of the power of the crowd by Donald Trump and his supporters. Yet, the social cohesion which underpins our stressed society is as fragile as anywhere else. Crowds can turn into mobs anywhere and can be easily manipulated by the unscrupulous.
The lockdown is another test for public-facing companies. But have hope: by the middle of this year, the economy should be back to full health.
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