Aaron McDaid

Thinking recently about the relative importance of various skills required by scientific researchers, I wondered if expert programming skills would become more important in future, rather than less so. The same question goes for expertise with statistics.

Within weeks, I'll be starting a PhD in UCD in Dublin. I'm delighted to be returning to university again. I'll be studying and researching for about 4 years as part of the Clique research project at UCD. I intend to blog everything about my research.

I've just quit the teacher training course I did for the last 6 months in Bristol. Being a secondary school maths teachers just isn't for me. I enjoyed it for months, but once the novelty wore off I realised that it required was too little maths and too much parenting.

I'd be happiest doing a PhD. I'm got enough qualifications and experience in maths and software development. I could return to full time employment also, but I want to investigate the PhD first.

Some of the complaints in the US and elsewhere against stimulus plans for the economy are that the expenditure today, and the debt repayments in the future, will somehow 'crowd out' wonderful efficient private activity and investment.

I mentioned previously that I am doing a one-year teaching training course. I'm loving it now. I've enjoyed it all so far, but I'm particularly happy just in the last couple of weeks as I'm settling into my second teaching practice quite well. My mentor is really fantastic, a really nice person who knows how to train a teacher. As a result of a few of the lessons this week and a couple of interesting discussions with Denise, my mentor, I think I've learnt more about teaching than I learnt in the entire course since September!

It's easy to recommend straightforward Keynesian responses for the Republic of Ireland today, such as David McWilliams. But this neglects one crucial factor, Ireland is in the euro now. I hope David will go into more detail sometime on what we should do given that we can't print punts any more.

When Ireland had its own currency, the punt, creating full employment and fixing the economy was relatively easy. The government could borrow as much money as it liked, by printing punts if necessary. Keynesianism tells us that full employment will cause the recovery, not the other way around; so any move to increase employment is a good thing. Hence deficit-funded infrastructure programs are a no-brainer. And any mild inflation that results is probably a good thing, because the alternative is much worse; deflation can be the final straw that turns a recession into a depression.

'Capital growth prospects' are very often misunderstood. It is often interpreted as 'house prices rocket forever' and drivel such as 'Microsoft will return to its traditional, very large, price earnings ratio'.

The price of an asset cannot be any more or any less that the sum total of all future income. And future incomes aren't as valuable as immediate consumption; you're not going to pay a full year's rent in 2009 to be able to use a house during the year 2020. So a house is only ever going to be worth approximately 20 years' rent.

Recently, I had become a fan of David McWilliam's writing, but not any more. In "Fight for our right to prosperity" he vaguely argues that the Republic of Ireland's economic salvation will lie in increased exporting. He seems to even hint, in the final paragraphs, that the Republic of Ireland should leave the eurozone.

We can't just wave a magic wand and become exporters again. Our trading partners, such as the UK and US, will be trying to do the same. We can't expect that Germany and Japan and China will suddenly decide to import trillions of dollars of stuff every year instead of exporting.

We're generally accustomed to the idea of evolution by natural selection of DNA and genes. We are simply machines to help our sperm and eggs to copy their data into the next generation. Or are we? Why do many people die, childless, for a political or religious idea? Our brains use our mouths to try to copy ideas from one brain to another, the obvious examples being political or religious ideas. There is a symmetry between our brains and our sex organs - each tries to take advantage of the other to advance their own copying. Nature obviously chooses the genes that are best at replicating themselves. But the same is true of memes; why else do we want to 'win the argument'? It probably explains why I'm writing this piece! Winners of arguments are helping the meme to replicate, and may be actually harming their genes' prospects.

I wrote this piece on 8th November, and I should have published it then, but I'm publishing it now over a month later. I have just recently bought a few book on economics (including Keynes' famous book) to read over the holidays. Hopefully this post will still make sense to me after I've educated myself a bit more!