Stephen Kinsella
@stephenkinsella
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Professor of Economics @UL | Head of Department, @Economics_UL | Economic Advisor to the Taoiseach | Director @ImmersiveSE
Limerick, Ireland
Joined August 2007
A little personal news. As of today I'm Professor of Economics at the University of Limerick. I'm not here to humblebrag though. I want to tell you a story involving a friendly tractor, a Hugo Boss suit, and some shoes.
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@LuckyChengs @thecurrency I work in a place where people are sound enough to take panicking young lads on tractors to job interviews. I have been incredibly lucky. I have family and friends and colleagues and a mug with my name on it.
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A tiny, tiny subversion: Let’s officially change the name of the road the Russian embassy in Ireland is on from ‘Orwell Road’ to ‘Zellensky Road’. Be good to address some correspondence to them then. How does one do that? By petition?.
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@LisaMMcGee 1999 in college I told my taxi driver dad I had writer’s block for an assignment. He told me he didn’t get fucking taxi driver block, that it’s just a job, and to get back to work. Never had a problem writing since.
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People angry today & demanding accountability for #golfgate. Only reason we know about it is @aoifegracemoore & @PTHosford @irishexaminer. Another ex. of why journalism matters & you need to pay for it with your money. Journalism is the creation of consequences for the powerful.
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Would love to walk @disruptionhedge around Limerick. It’s absolutely *not* what he describes. I raise my kids here. I love the place dearly. Nothing written in the 1st few paragraphs is correct. Appalling piece slandering 100,000 people. And two exceptional ones & their parents.
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@LuckyChengs UL is a great place. I'm Professor of Economics at a triple-accredited business school. I'm Head of the Department of Economics and co-director of the most innovative software development courses in the world. I write a weekly column for @TheCurrency I'm really proud of.
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@causalinf My dad was a taxi driver, some times he'd drive boxes of blood between hospitals around the country late at night. He'd get me out of bed, and we'd drive for 4, 6, maybe 8 hours until dawn. Long discussions, he taught me a lot.
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Thanks to @RadioBrendanRTE for inviting me on. My tone was more aggressive than usual, apologies. I simply couldn’t let the statement around suspending human rights go unchallenged. #COVID19 is a crisis. We do what we must for each other. That doesn’t cost us our rights.
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Lots of people will be doing microeconomics exams about now. Here’s a cheat sheet of some of the major concepts. Not sure who created it so if you know, reply and I’ll tag them.
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Without free fees I would not have gone to college at all. When I met her, I told her that. I got the sense she didn’t hear it enough. RIP Niamh.
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End of an era--Chuck Feeney's Atlantic Philanthropies ends its work. Impossible to overstate the impact Feeney's generosity has had on Ireland and especially higher education here.
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Wasn’t going to post this, but can’t stop being annoyed about it. This is how Acorn Life addressed my wife, Elke Hayes, this week. Elke happens to be an independent person. It’s maddening that this stuff keeps happening.
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.@PearseDoherty consistently one of the best parliamentarians in the Oireachtas. Very smart, always prepared, focusing on the numbers.
Sinn Féin Finance spokesperson @PearseDoherty has called out the insurance industry for magnifying the scale of the issue of fraudulent claims in order to justify their high premiums and increases.
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Check the time stamp. Have a read. Recall what everyone was saying at the time.
Going viral. What if this coronavirus is the pandemic that public health people have been warning about for years?. It would accelerate many pre-existing trends. - border closures.- nationalism.- social isolation.- preppers.- remote work.- face masks.- distrust in governments.
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This is one reason why I no longer use textbooks in any of my courses. They are pure rent-seeking, and are mostly redundant in an online world.
Price changes in textbooks versus recreational books over the past 15 years. US textbooks are an infamous way of ripping off students. Source:
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Often hear about the country being a ‘failed state’. While not without problems, Ireland is one of the best places on earth to live. In 20 years, the life expectancy of people born in Ireland has gone from 76.6 to 82.6, one of the EU’s biggest increases.
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@LuckyChengs UL has these mini tractor things which only hold 1 person in the cab, so I get on the back, facing backwards. In my suit. With my pleather bag. We got a few looks but seriously, whatever. We shoot straight to the Engineering building, over curbs and across courtyards.
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#tommytiernanshow is just the best thing on TV, because it's a series of real conversations, not sales pitches, or moralising tales. It's just a series of real people, telling their stories, and being sincerely listened to. The format is genius.
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.@SimonHarrisTD has one of the most interesting jobs at Cabinet. He gets to build a new department to address sectors with a long term deficit but which can give long term benefit to the country. He’s been really effective in Health so I’m very hopeful.
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@LuckyChengs I check in. Thankfully, they are running behind. I clean myself up a bit, do my talk, do the interview, and walk back to the hotel barefoot. I head for the airport. The then Head rings me as I board for New York to tell me. I accept immediately.
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In a sane world, people would know Alan Turing's name as well as they know Winston Churchill's. We dedicated our book on Computable Economics to his memory.
On this day 65 years ago, Alan Turing (41) killed himself. He had played a pivotal role in WWII by cracking German enigma codes, thus saving millions of lives. In thanks the British state chemically castrated him for being gay. Words cannot express what we all owe to Alan Turing
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I’d happily donate to a crowdfund of this series if one was set up. Who else would?.
We badly need a television series that looks at vacant properties and dereliction in Ireland but nobody wants to fund or broadcast it. Nobody wants to open that Pandoras box. But another property porn television series? No problem, you could start tomorrow. #derelictIreland
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Again, the scale of the damage is extraordinary. 5 million hectares burned or burning/500 million animals dead/11 people dead and many hurt. Compare the map of Australia and it’s fires to the overlay in European terms.
Here is a map of all the fires burning in Australia. Here also is a map of Australia overlaid on Europe. #Bushfires #AustraliaFires #vicfires #nswbushfire #NSWfires
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@LuckyChengs I even get a little tour as we go. I don't take in much of what he says except to note he is incredibly proud of the place. Look at UL's grounds today, you'll see why. The campus is really beautiful. We get there.
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*Does a little dance*. OK, it's out there. @UL has designed a new approach to software engineering. It's called Immersive Software Engineering, and you can learn about it here.
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@LuckyChengs I tip toe right through the players, in my suit, apologising. I go straight through the next field too, apologising more, waving my briefcase as if that explained what I was doing, more worried about getting mud on my suit than anything.
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#GMST Step 1. Finish thesis. No more arsing about anthropology seminars with Jeanne Shu and Markus Schneider trying to steal food and wine. I get so focused my friends think I don't like them anymore. This is not true of course. I am just mildly terrified.
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The country is having a kind of national wake via the #latelate. Can't imagine us doing that for someone else. That perhaps says something.
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Mary Lou on #rtept just called the chair of the climate advisory council's position on carbon taxes and their ability to alter behaviour his 'view'. It's not his view. It's what the research says. Also, designing carbon taxes properly needn't be regressive. Just ask @ESRIDublin.
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Let's set the scene a little. It is January 6th, 2006. I am a PhD student at the New School for Social Research, living my best life in the East Village in New York. We are poor but starving proudly. I own nothing but a chair and some books and I am very, very happy.
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Truly an extraordinary amount of economic damage yet to come for Russia. This is just a preview.
BREAKING - The Russian central bank has ordered market players to reject foreign clients' bids to sell Russian securities from 0400 GMT on Monday, according to a central bank document seen by Reuters. The bank did not reply to a Reuters request for comment.
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I don't come from money. (I once did, but that is another long thread). My dad was a taxi driver. My mum was an air hostess who finished up selling bathroom wear in Dublin. We grew up in housing the government paid for, with very little money. I have worked since age 13.
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My (now) wife is 5/6 months pregnant so the wedding's theme is shotguns. Obv. My friends are regulars at @LuckyChengs, the ladies give us a machine, and we have karaoke-themed craic until the wee hours. Best. Day. Ever.
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This is so, so important when thinking about #COVID19. Your behaviour, my behaviour, our behaviour today can save lives in 14 days’ time.
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#WhatWeWantRTE I'd like to see fewer economists and more social scientists of all kinds talking about the major issues of the day. There are lots and lots of experts with multiple perspectives out there, let's hear from them.
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I'm doing this silly thread instead of thanking everyone. Why not thank everyone? Partly because that list is truly, truly huge, and partly because I was only formally promoted today. Everyone who knows me has known about the promotion since early December.
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Well done @DrLucyRogers, what a cool video to help explain why soap helps kill #Covid19. Doing this experiment with my kids today.
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The wedding happens in June in our friend Chelsea Mozen's family house in the Adirondacks. The wedding is tiny, unique, glorious. I buy a second hand Hugo Boss suit and shiny new shoes in Century 21. I do not try the shoes on.
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My fiancee sits me down and tells me she's pregnant. I am very happy for us. I am also very terrified for us.
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#GMST Step 2. Get married. Kid on the way or not, we'd planned on getting hitched in the US, but we have no money except my wife's tips from working in a bar, which were considerable and paid for just about the whole wedding.
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Finally, thanks to everyone here on twitter. I like it here, because I follow the right people and I use it carefully--mostly to learn from people who are smarter than me. Have a good holiday, please do try to take one if you can, and I'll see you all in 2021.
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@LuckyChengs The University puts me up in the Kilmurry Lodge Hotel for 2 days. I practice my talk constantly. I do not leave the room except to walk the 2km to the interview location to ensure I get there in good time on the day. I really, really need this job. I must look after my family.
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This deserves as much of an audience as possible. It is focused on medical issues but the lessons it teaches go beyond that. Would love to see one for public policy, for example. Could be an @anniewestdotcom special.
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Watching #reelingintheyears and struck by what any Irish person above about 30-35 has lived through. 80s recessions, 90s Celtic Tiger, 2000s boom, bust, and austerity, 2010s austerity and recovery, Brexit, & now a pandemic. As @Noahpinion said of the US, we’re tough as f*ck.
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@LuckyChengs I am shortlisted for Interview. Dublin snob to the heels, I am shamefully barely aware of UL's existence. But I really, really need a job. I swat up on the place, and fly to Ireland with my presentation, my plans for research, my Hugo Boss suit , and my warn-once shoes.
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@LuckyChengs As I walk I become aware something is wrong. The shoes are, literally, slicing into my heels. This is bad. I start tip-toeing along the road, like I am about to sneak up on someone. I can feel blood welling in my shoes. I have 2km to walk.
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For that plus a load of other reasons, my fiancee saying she was pregnant was more than a bit of a shock. With no income or assets of any kind, from January 6th, 2006, it was time to get my shit together, and in a big way. #GMST.
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Cheap at triple the price. Assume cost of €270m reduces probability of another lockdown which just in direct & indirect supports from govt cost c.48bn by just 1%.
Taoiseach: It could cost €90m to fit every classroom with Hepa filter
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Each of us has a responsibility to do what we can to stop the #COVID19 spread. Remember the lag involved is 14 days. We are all working to keep the numbers heading to hospital down in 2 weeks’ time. That’s the goal we have to get to together.
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OK here comes the story. (If you are waiting for the Whitney Houston bath story, I'll do that one later if I am still sober. Big if.).
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@LuckyChengs I explain I have a job interview in like 8 minutes in the engineering research building, that I really need the job, and that I can't walk because I am an idiot.
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Well done, @LeoVaradkar. Exactly what the nation needed to hear, including our kids. The message has to be solidarity, solidarity, solidarity for the coming months.
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Note to Irish journalists. Unlike so many of your colleagues in the U.K., please give political actors like Barrett their words back and ask them to correct them. When that doesn’t work, preface interviews with their misstatements. Facts matter.
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@LuckyChengs I make it to the edge of the pitches. There's one of the ground staff, tidying up. (I haven't asked if it was cool to use his name so I won't. He knows who he is). He looks up, looks me up and down, and asks me what I'm doing.
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@LuckyChengs #GMST Step 3. Get a J.O.B. But where? Ireland is the obvious choice. There are 3 jobs to apply for. Two postdocs at NUI, Galway and TCD. The other is a permanent Junior Lectureship at the University of Limerick.
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@LuckyChengs I do not sleep the night before the interview. The day is sunny. On with the suit, the warn-once shoes, my cheap pleather briefcase, and off with me. All in good time. It took 23 minutes yesterday. I allow 30 today. Off I go.
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Filling the car today. Maddest day at the pumps staff could remember. Crowd 30 deep waiting to pay. Everyone in the line saying “we’ve got to go electric”. They get it. This is a transitional moment, in a very specific sense.
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#tommytiernanshow doesn’t need the audience, the compère or the band. Just Tommy and his guests. Best thing on TV, by far. As @anniewestdotcom said, the silences are the loudest thing on the show.
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China is very big. Even so, this is quite the oversupply.
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@LuckyChengs I consider taking off my shoes and running. But what if my feet swell and I can't get back into them? I keep on tip-toeing. There's not a cab to be seen. I seriously consider stepping into the street to stop a car, but chicken out. I keep going.
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Renewable power companies should be putting their prices *down*, not up, to capture mkt share from fossil power companies. That they are not doing this is evidence of a. Managerial incompetence or b. Lies about where they get their power or c. Profiteering. Needs investigation.
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@LuckyChengs The route I am walking pulls me around the back of the University, and more or less around the back pitches. I realise I can make up time if I cut through the pitches. There's a problem. There are two matches on right now.
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Weird to see @ElaineByrne's requests for corrections being ignored. The #CarlowTeachers story went viral. The correction to it should go equally viral. Hope to see more corrections happening tomorrow.
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@LuckyChengs I start panicking about time. I am far, far slower than I was yesterday. I start to walk faster, thinking I'll just get it over with, slice through, and be done, but that doesn't work.
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Congrats to all @stripe on their latest fundraising round. @patrickc and @collision have built an incredible company. And 1000 new jobs along with it. Chapeau.
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Some personal news: after 4+ years I’ll be leaving the @sundaybusiness. It has been an incredible experience, and this week will be my last column. Thanks to my colleagues, and editors @ipkehoe @TomLyonsBiz @emmetoliver, Mark Brennan & @susmitchellSBP.
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Still the best ever letter to the editor, from six years ago:
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What's your definition of economics? Wrong answers only.
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.@paddycosgrave has been making a series of verifiable, timestamped claims over the last few weeks. He has gotten a lot of abuse. I hope that these claims are checked carefully. If they are found to be correct, I hope those disparaging him have the good grace to apologise.
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Love Claire Byrne but her having Nigel Farage on is just pure pantomime, this time coming via meme to mainstream TV. We learn nothing, it is mere entertainment, on a news show.
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All those putting themselves before the people in #GE2020 should be applauded. Next few weeks will be gruelling for them, their families and supporters. We need robust debate, not 3-word soundbites & invective. Twitter is not real life. Talk with real ppl about real issues.
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All the best to the Admin of @ULConfession tonight for the big reveal. All @UL’s staff, who most definitely do not read the page, wish you well.
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Tomorrow on @thecurrency I’m going to make myself popular by writing 1600 words with 6 charts about why you, yes you, need to pay more in taxes, and why expanding who gets taxed for what is a key debate we have to have this year.
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A #GE2020 debate I'd really like to see/hear/attend is the Finance Minister one. @Paschald, @mmcgrathtd and @PearseDoherty, chaired by an experienced business journalist like @TomLyonsBiz or @SarahAMcInerney.
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“Hi, would you take a picture of us please?”.“Sure thing. You seem a bit excited.”.“We’re economists, we sort of have to pay homage.”.“Yeah, I figured that out myself.”
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One thing the last crisis taught me was a deep distrust of dominant narratives and numbers expressed or compared without understanding the uncertainty around them. Popular threads around #COVID19 feature ample amounts of both today. Tools I use to get around these:.
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