Sugar Rush

Our economy is showing considerable signs of life. Many indicators, which were dormant for years, are now pointing upwards. The big question is whether this is something muscular, the fruition of a long lasting plan or is it a massive sugar rush, fuelled by six years...

Two things can be true at the same time

Two things can be true at the same time. An economy can grow strongly and also be badly managed. The key is what Keynes called “animal spirits” which can’t be suppressed indefinitely. In fact, history suggests that economies can grow despite bad...

The horror show in the UK is both instructive and a cautionary tale

Balance sheets with too much debt, at variable rates, are about to be crushed. On the flip side, institutions that lent at fixed rates will also disappear. Interest rates are the culprit. If interest rates are rising and your borrowings are at variable rates, you are...

China is experiencing a giant property crash. Ireland could be next

The dog days of late summer sometimes disguise nasty surprises in financial markets that dominate economic news for subsequent months or even years. In August 2007, Bear Sterns, then a huge Wall Street bank, announced it was having some difficulties in an obscure fund...

Ireland has lots to lose if Taiwan tensions heighten

Ireland is one of the few countries in the world that runs a trade surplus with China. In 2021, total exports to China stood at €11.89 billion, a nearly 8 per cent increase from 2020. Total imports from China in 2021: €8.4 billion. Exports from Ireland to China over...

Here’s a way to lower houses prices and make all Irish people richer

Ireland — a country that only 40 years ago had almost no manufacturing sector — is a manufacturing powerhouse. We have transformed our industrial base from what was a “beer and biscuits” economy, exporting derivatives of basic agriculture, into a highly efficient...

Why the next slump will not be anything like as bad as 2008

A chance conversation this week with a builder friend, who specialises in high-end home renovations, got me thinking of the months ahead. He told me that many construction jobs in his area are being cancelled. As the price of labour and materials soar, only those who...

Conditions are ripe for economic, financial and humanitarian crises

The village bureau de change is protected from the scorching sun by a large cedar tree. We are in Mount Lebanon, a region split between Maronite Christians and Druze. This village is Maronite, and the local people default to French when speaking to foreigners, while...

Isn’t it about time we started loving Dublin again?

In Ulysses, James Joyce highlights the vibrancy of Dublin’s street life. From first thing in the morning when at 8am on June 16th, 1904, Leopold Bloom leaves his house in Eccles Street — chatting briefly to the public Larry O’Rourke on Dorset Street — Joyce draws a...

Putinflation’ has rewritten the economic rulebook

Recent falls in stock markets are just what we needed. In fact, the falls in all financial markets – bonds, stocks and of course, the plaything de jour, crypto – may just save the world from an economic catastrophe. This may sound counterintuitive. Aren’t financial...

I have a terrible neighbour, and so do you

Isn’t it amazing that British intelligence can be so accurate on Russia and so appalling on the EU? The latest ruse on the Northern Ireland protocol is a classic “false flag” operation. It is designed to shift the blame from London to Brussels for the crime of...

Ultimately, uncontrolled inflation will be followed by a recession

Inflation concerns us all as the value of money is being eroded by higher prices. To understand what is happening, let’s go right back to where money started. Herodotus’s Histories (4th century BC) tells us that the Lydians were the first people to use money and...

We face a very different economic picture for next 2 years

In the late 1970s, the US launched a monetary war on inflation which culminated in the early 1980s with US interest rates peaking at 22 per cent. The Federal Reserve chairman at the time, Paul Volker, had no qualms about destroying the country’s existing manufacturing...

Putin and Musk deploying different methods to achieve power

News this week has been dominated by two alpha males who deploy contrasting mechanics to gain power, seeing the world from entirely different angles. Vladimir Putin and Elon Musk might not be an obvious pairing. In many respects they are not. What they share is a...

State has completely lost control of the housing market

Two plumbers are sitting in my kitchen, drinking tea, shooting the breeze. They are out the door with work. The sites are buzzing and, according to the lads, there is any number of “small jobs”. But the price of materials is crippling everyone and, even if the client...

If the fuel runs out, what’s Ireland’s back-up plan?

Ireland has about five days’ diesel supply in Dublin Port. A few weeks ago, at the start of the war in Ukraine, this dipped to one day. The authorities scrambled to find more, and vital diesel arrived on the unusually named STI Clapham, a tanker from the UK that...

Why young Irish are still leaving for London in their droves

In my parents’ day it was Kilburn, in mine it was Clapham and for my children it’s Hackney. Whether its north, south or east, the move is the same. Despite a booming local economy, record low levels of unemployment, higher wages and career opportunities that were not...

Should Putin be looking over his shoulder at his own borders?

Hemmed in by the Kremlin and the Basilica of St Basil, Red Square comprises the twin powers of contemporary Russia: the government and the Orthodox Church. Despite the religious significance of the cathedral, the square is anchored by the bulky mausoleum of Lenin,...

To learn how Russia got to this point, follow the money

The story of Champions League title holders Chelsea Football Club is essentially the financial story of modern Russia, one characterised by asset-stripping, enormous wealth being squirrelled offshore, money-laundering and sportswashing on a monumental scale. This...

Putin knows West’s economic strength is its weak spot

In time of war, talking about money may seem distasteful but the flow of finance, capital and the direction of trade will have as much bearing on the endgame in Ukraine as the movements of tanks. The entire western strategy against Russia is an economic one. The...

Dereliction is vandalism and must be stopped

Walking from Limerick train station towards the city centre, an eclectic mix of Georgian and Victorian architecture, takes you past Turkish barbers, Asian food markets and mobile phone fixer-upper shops – all signs of a changing Ireland. But turn down towards the...

Government has no instruments to combat inflation

As a boy I loved the smell of turpentine. It reminded me of our garage at home, where my dad painted landscapes most evenings when he came home from work. Painting was his way of winding down, and the garage was his private world of tools, drills, stepladders,...

Irish cities’ future lies in free public transport, not electric cars

Now that we are back to work, traffic volumes are rising. Not only is sitting in traffic sedentary, unhealthy and a monumental waste of time and precious road space, it is incompatible with our climate change objectives of reducing carbon emissions. What are we going...

The rich will own the metaverse. Our children will live in it

What binds Microsoft’s takeover of Activision, the distant memory of Sunday closing, and the craze of premiership clubs selling their fans digital memorabilia? The answer is the next iteration of the internet, or what Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg calls “the metaverse”....

Irish people are both capitalists and workers at the same time

We are moving into the opening stages of the next election campaign. The battle lines are blurred but they will become clearer. Some might look at this as a straightforward left/right shoot-out, dividing the Irish population neatly along ideological grounds. On one...

Cryptocurrency is patently not real money

Will 2022 be the year that cryptocurrencies falter? Or will these parallel currencies, “private money” issued by private tech platforms, continue to fascinate? Whatever cryptocurrencies are, they are patently not money. Money needs to be a store of value, widely used...

The big events that will affect Ireland in 2022

Happy new year. A few events to watch out for in 2022 could have a material impact on global economics. As Ireland is so plugged into the world economy, these are some of the issues that are likely to percolate down to us at the national level. Brexit forever Just...

How has Biden’s grip on power become so fragile?

Democracy is a funny thing. In the US, we end 2021 with one holdout senator, from one of the poorest states in the union, a place that desperately needs better social services, voting against the biggest expansion of public services the US has ever seen. Senator Joe...

Licensing laws are strangling our night-time economy

When this is over, we should carry out a full investigation of the hospitality trade and in particular the restrictive licensing laws around venues, bars and the so-called “night-time” economy. At a time like this, it may be unusual to argue for more rather than less...

My builder told me about ‘the inflationary climate’. It must be true

When it comes to economics, jargon is often deployed to obscure. The straight-talking Harry Truman cut through the waffle when he observed, “It’s a recession when your neighbour loses his job; it’s a depression when you lose yours”. This week, we could have done with...

If Finland can eliminate homelessness, so can we

When describing social and behavioural change, probably the finest, and certainly most thoughtful, Irish economist of his generation, Eric Lonergan, speaks of a concept called “extreme positive incentives for change”, or Epic for short. The nub of the idea is if we...

Irish soccer is the winner as Premier League loses its way

Tomorrow, between 30,000 and 35,000 fans are expected to be at the FAI Cup final in Dublin’s Aviva Stadium. Even without Shamrock Rovers, the league champions, it should be quite the afternoon of soccer in the city, in a league where the standard of the game is...

Stop hiding behind faux arguments when objecting to new homes

The solution to too few homes is more homes. The solution to far too few homes is lots more homes. You might think this is obvious. It is. Yet objections to new building abound and are coming from several quarters, including a quite unscientific movement which argues...

What happens to a country when its money dies?

The road from Beirut to the Roman ruins at Baalbek takes you on the main highway to Damascus, the same route the occupying Syrian army rumbled along, east to west, throughout their 20-year occupation during Lebanon’s civil war. With a certain cruel symmetry, it is the...

We can do climate action our way, or the Norway way

Fossil fuels are the slave trade of the 21st century, and these companies defiling the planet will be ostracised over the next 30 years. We will make this change, without doubt. Supporting the burning of fossil fuels will soon become a mark of shame and derision....
Wages will rise and profits will fall amid the Great Resignation

Wages will rise and profits will fall amid the Great Resignation

One impact of the Black Death in the mid-14th century was an upsurge in the international slave trade. The collapse in Europe’s population caused by the plague led to a massive labour shortage. Slaves were the solution. Italy, being the centre of the European economy,...
Flipping rezoned land is nothing short of a State-sanctioned heist

Flipping rezoned land is nothing short of a State-sanctioned heist

Two weeks ago this column examined the Government’s proposed Housing for All initiative. One of the significant positives is an undertaking to prevent “flipping” of sites after planning permission is acquired.

Flipping is a process whereby someone buys non-zoned land and then makes the right noises to the council about what could be done with the site in the public interest, such as how many homes could be built on it and the like. Once the zoning is acquired, the value of the land rockets. But rather than carry out the building, the land speculator sells the land on to another developer and trousers the difference in the land value.

Where are the normal people? Blame elite over-production

Where are the normal people? Blame elite over-production

What was Sally Rooney’s crime? The more she writes, the more her books sell, the more incoming fire she seems to take from reviewers, opinion-makers and various salon arbiters of literary standards.

Could it be that she is the author of choice for many, writing novels with characters and experiences that readers bond with, and that annoy critics? Could it be that she’s simply a better writer than some of the reviewers who have decided she needs to be taken down a peg or two?

Housebuyers in Ireland should step away from the market

Housebuyers in Ireland should step away from the market

If you are looking to buy a home and are only being offered dilapidated, third-rate places in parts of town you’ve never wanted to live in, you should get out of the market and wait.

Until the huge supply promised by the Government’s “Housing for All” initiative comes on stream, leaving this dysfunctional market is the only rational reaction to a comprehensive national housing plan. The State is in effect advising buyers to wait, as we will be coming down with apartments, rental properties, family homes, duplexes and maisonettes, with more options for buyers and renters in the coming years.

Fourth industrial age has begun and will end the ‘full-time, pensionable job’

Fourth industrial age has begun and will end the ‘full-time, pensionable job’

As I’ve been working from home for the past 20 years, never truly having a “real job”, trying things, some of which work, some of which fail, the pandemic has not dramatically changed the way I live. That slightly precarious, gig-by-gig, skin-in-the-game existence, which many people fear, is normal for me. I can’t imagine living any other way.

In the future, this slightly blurred lifestyle, where the line between work and play is ambiguous, looks likely to become a reality for more people. Some call it “the gig economy”; others might prefer to call it “living a sovereign life”, where you can have more control over your own affairs.

Swiss model of local power is the key to successful united Ireland

Swiss model of local power is the key to successful united Ireland

An unexpected consequence of Brexit has been the dramatic increase in trade between the Republic and the North. In the past six months, trade has increased by €800 million, as supply chains adapt to the new realities.

Unlike politics, commerce does not see flags, slogans or borders. The merchant has always favoured cosmopolitanism over nationalism, money over votes, flexibility over regulations and freedom of expression over dogma.

Donegal to Dingle could become the world’s most innovative energy hub

Donegal to Dingle could become the world’s most innovative energy hub

Standing in the west of Ireland, almost flattened by gale force winds, peering out through the horizontal rain at those enormous Atlantic waves crashing ashore, don’t lament your sodden staycation, rather consider this: you are experiencing the future wealth of the country.

In the 21st century, Ireland is to renewable energy what 20th century Saudi Arabia was to fossil fuels. The only difference is that unlike the Gulf States, where oil will run out, our energy sources will not deplete. Our island’s wind, wave and tidal potential in generating renewable energy, is unparalleled.

A new Dublin Port City is an obvious solution for the housing crisis

A new Dublin Port City is an obvious solution for the housing crisis

In the past couple of days, a row has broken out between Minister for Transport and Green leader Eamon Ryan and Eamonn O’Reilly, the public servant who runs Dublin Port. It’s a turf war in essence.

Ryan, as Minister and a TD for some of the area covered by the port, leads the party committed to higher density and more environmentally sustainable living, and he wants to set aside vacant but highly valuable land on the Poolbeg peninsula for housing. O’Reilly, meanwhile, wants to expand the port’s capacity without moving.

The global population will soon fall, and this will change the world

The global population will soon fall, and this will change the world

Demography is destiny” is a phrase said to have been coined by the French philosopher August Comte. The Irish people, perhaps more than most, should appreciate the significance of this expression. After all, no European country, possibly no modern country, has experienced as traumatic a demographic pattern since 1840.

With the island’s population only just moving back towards the eight million recorded in the early 1840s, Ireland’s 200-year experience is a source of fascination for demographers. Yet our experience of falling population is about to be copied all over the world, albeit under very different circumstances.

Brown Thomas has a car park problem

Brown Thomas has a car park problem

Having originally scoffed at it as an empty “woke” gesture, the UK’s Tory government then scrambled to back the English football team “taking the knee”. This is a fine example of a brand trying to get back on the right side of public opinion. It turns out that the majority of English people – and particularly the young – agree with Marcus Rashford, who is a far more potent adversary to Boris Johnson than Keir Starmer.

Like all brands, the Tories live and die in the court of public opinion, and public opinion shifts. Just ask Fianna Fáil. Being on the right side of these cultural swings is essential for any brand.

Ireland a tax haven? I don’t think so

Ireland a tax haven? I don’t think so

In January 1988, the Economist magazine carried a special report on Ireland entitled “The poorest of the rich”. Our economy was in a tailspin. Emigration was skyrocketing, we had just devalued the currency for the fourth time in a decade and the country was flirting with a debt crisis.

Capital and talent continued to flow out of the country, leaving a fragile shell of vulnerable local companies and a bloated public service, undermined by a current account deficit. In short, a basket case.

In the mandarin v merchant debate, my money is on the merchants

In the mandarin v merchant debate, my money is on the merchants

One of the great mysteries in economic history is why large parts of Africa and Latin America do not speak Chinese but rather English, Spanish, Portuguese or French.

In 1492, when three rudimentary Spanish vessels alighted in what is now the Dominican Republic, the Chinese navy dwarfed the combined sailing infrastructure of competing European kingdoms. Technologically, China was miles ahead of Europe, with gunpowder, watches, paper money and a whole host of other innovations, created and honed over centuries. These innovations beguiled Marco Polo.

Germany under pressure to reinvent itself for a post-carbon world

Germany under pressure to reinvent itself for a post-carbon world

When it comes to foreign politics, we tend to get hot under the collar about events in the UK and the US. Yet in terms of the impact on Ireland and Irish policy, events in Germany are more material. We are on the path to closer EU integration, and Germany is the dominant country, so Germany counts now more than ever.

The Merkel era is over – a new Germany is recalibrating. What sort of Germany will we get?

Irish people like houses because they have made people rich

Irish people like houses because they have made people rich

To understand the grip that property ownership has on Irish people, it is reasonable to start with history, group psychology and sociology. The chapter on the concept of home in President Michael D Higgins’ book Recapturing the European Street is an excellent place to start.

With great erudition and learning, the President traces our relationship with the notion of home, the legacy of national dispossession, the emergence of the Land League and the centrality of land ownership to the Irish national project. The chapter glides effortlessly through different European philosophical ideas of home, particularly both the German and French strains, before landing back here, in our Irish home.

Tax unused land and the housing market will be sorted

Tax unused land and the housing market will be sorted

Economics is counterintuitive – and maybe this is the most important lesson in macroeconomics. Here’s a good example. A responsible household will try to save but the economy is not a household. When everyone in the economy saves at the same time, it may look good and responsible from an individual perspective but, if everyone is saving, who is spending? Since your spending is my income, if you are not spending, where is my income going to come from? And as savings flow from income, if my income is falling so too are my savings, thus everyone saving at the same time leads to a fall rather than an increase in savings.

When so-called “serious” people call for general belt-tightening, urging people to save and not spend, it sounds parsimonious – and in modern economics we’ve fetishised parsimoniousness – but it’s actually silly. What seems like common sense isn’t sensible at all.

Ireland must escape the clutches of old economic ideas

Ireland must escape the clutches of old economic ideas

The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones — John Maynard Keynes.

This week, the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council has shown it is wedded to old ideas by trying to bully the State into cutting spending and raising taxes. Meanwhile, the world is moving into an era of greater government spending, backed to the hilt by new central bank financing, in order to fix infrastructure.

Tyranny of short-termism contributing to housing crisis

Tyranny of short-termism contributing to housing crisis

Our world is terrorised by short-term thinking. We are living longer but thinking shorter. So many aspects of our lives are now governed by instant gratification from Insta likes to Twitter notification on our mobile devices. TikTok thinks YouTube isn’t short enough.

In our working world, people expect emails will be answered immediately. WhatsApp groups bark for attention. Amazon urges us to “Buy now”. Netflix tracks our habits, reminding us of the next “must watch” mini-series. We are increasingly out of breath. In business, chief executives are obsessed by quarterly results. Shareholder value demands immediate profit. In the financial markets, Bitcoin surges and then collapses, driven in part by the oppressiveness of nanosecond algorithm trading.

A city must not be just an amusement park for the well-off

A city must not be just an amusement park for the well-off

The other night I was watching an episode of Parts Unknown in which Debbie Harry is chatting to Anthony Bourdain. Although they didn’t address it directly, they alluded to the long term cultural consequences of the unaffordability of housing in New York.

It reminded me of Bourdain’s descriptions in his memoir Kitchen Confidential of the people who work in the heat, sweat and electrifying atmosphere of a busy kitchen:

We are at the end of a slow-moving housing Ponzi scheme

We are at the end of a slow-moving housing Ponzi scheme

After years of hard slog, failed experiments, dry runs, tinkering around and enormous effort, an American medical researcher, Jonas Salk, developed the first safe vaccine for polio in 1955. A brutal, highly contagious disease, polio attacks the central nervous system and can cause deformity, particularly to the legs. It was a common killer in Ireland and around the world.

Salk, a fascinating character who married Françoise Gilot, a muse and mistress of Picasso, could have been made fantastically wealthy by his discovery, but he chose to give away the patent rather than cash in. The polio vaccine was given out for free to millions, saving countless people. In later life, Salk was asked why he chose not to profit from his breakthrough. He responded that his philosophy in life was to be “a good ancestor”.

Serial objectors are colonising future through Nimbyism

Serial objectors are colonising future through Nimbyism

We are in the middle of an epidemic of the “serial objector” virus; the system is on the verge of collapse, with serious – almost unquantifiable – long-term consequences for the future economic health of the nation. Every time there is an objection to a housing development, the cost of housing rises, the housing crisis deepens, and one more young person’s life is blighted by the entitlement of someone else, usually an older person.

Although a worldwide condition, the Irish variant of the “serial objector” virus is particularly virulent. A recent report suggested that the number of housing units in Strategic Housing Developments that have been stalled or blocked by judicial reviews in Dublin last year jumped by more than 1,000 per cent.

A 30-year economic supercycle ended this week

A 30-year economic supercycle ended this week

Imagine the messages in the self-congratulatory, encrypted WhatsApp group of the bankers, football club owners, lawyers and their key management on Sunday night as they announced their intention to stitch up football for unfeasible personal gain.

Man Utd is typing …
Woohoo!

Liverpool is typing …
Happy days!

By Tuesday the WhatsApp group was still giddy.

When the US and Russia finally negotiate, Ireland should play host

When the US and Russia finally negotiate, Ireland should play host

A keen language student back in 1990, I arrived in the village of Stari Ruza, 50 odd miles west of Moscow. Near Borodino, where Napoleon’s republican advance was halted by Russian forces, the last westerners seen in the village were Hitler’s retreating army in 1942.

The local babushkas, intrigued by the arrival of this red-haired foreigner, referred to me as Gitler. Yes, that’s me, Hitler, pronounced with the Russian inverting “g” for “h”. The grannies hadn’t seen foreigners since 1942 and apparently the last Nazis in Stari Ruza, teenagers from the Rhineland, had red hair. Who doesn’t put two and two together?

Are Ireland’s relatively low Covid deaths due to emigration?

Are Ireland’s relatively low Covid deaths due to emigration?

The majority of older Irish people who died of Covid-19 probably died in England. When it comes to fewer deaths from Covid-19, our reasonably good outcomes may have less to do with lockdown and more to do with the echo of emigration.

The huge proportion of older Irish people living in England is a function of the massive emigration to England in the 1950s and 1960s. In the 1950s, half a million people left for England and in the 1960s another 300,000 followed them. There is scarcely a family in Ireland without an old uncle or aunt in Coventry, Manchester or London.

Stay away from the Irish property market. It holds no value

Stay away from the Irish property market. It holds no value

The Irish housing market has hit peak dysfunction. Stay away. The fourth quarter of 2020 saw the lowest level of supply of homes for purchase since 2006. In Dublin, supply was down 21 per cent last December relative to the same time the previous year, with just 3,400 homes listed and prices up 7.2 per cent over the same period.

In the Connacht-Ulster market these trends are more severe, with supply down 30 per cent over the year to December and prices up 8.8 per cent. In December there were just 15,390 properties listed for sale on Daft.ie – down about one third from an already low level a year earlier and well below the average 40,000 properties listed annually over the past 13 years.

No one seems to have noticed there’s a monetary revolution under way

No one seems to have noticed there’s a monetary revolution under way

There is a monetary revolution happening right under our noses. It is of such seismic proportions that the insurrection will force the EU to make a choice: either it accepts that in the future the ECB will continue to finance everything as it is doing right now, or it will try to go back to the past, reasserting Maastricht Treaty ideology on austerity and government deficits.

The latter option would mean the ECB will blow its own currency apart in a violent, self-inflicted crisis, which would see billions of euro leaving Italy, Spain and Greece in the biggest synchronised current account crisis the world has seen.

Ireland has too many stockbrokers and lawyers, not enough engineers

Ireland has too many stockbrokers and lawyers, not enough engineers

The Davy debacle has many angles, most of them unsavoury. One, not being adequately investigated, is the effect on an economy that attracts bright people into sectors that exist to extract fees rather than sectors that produce things.

The fee-extracting economy, known as the rentier economy, is one that rewards people who don’t produce anything but extract fees from property (physical or intellectual) while operating under licences. In contrast, the productive sector is the part of the economy where people make things, innovate, add value and sell new products in the market.

This St Patrick’s Day, Ireland should do a vaccine deal with the US

This St Patrick’s Day, Ireland should do a vaccine deal with the US

This St Patrick’s Day, the Taoiseach should ask US president Joe Biden for help. What about asking him for four million vaccines? In a sign of solidarity with its oldest ally and the homeland of more than 30 million Irish-Americans, the US could exercise its ample soft-power and help a friend in need.

Vaccines save lives, and saving citizens’ lives is the primary responsibility of any state. We can’t get our hands on enough vaccines via the EU’s centralised scheme, but we have the option to look elsewhere.

Why Ireland will recover faster than others

Why Ireland will recover faster than others

It may be difficult to imagine but there are significant grounds to believe that the economy will recover quickly from this trauma, and there are strong reasons to be optimistic that the eye-watering budget deficit, a cause of concern to many, will narrow, on its own, with no need for austerity.

Structural trends in our society as we adapt to new ways of working will enhance productivity, because of the end of the enforced commute. From a productivity point of view, commuting is dead time and dead time is dead money. This, too, will change.

Ireland builds houses at the wrong time, in the wrong place, at the wrong price

Ireland builds houses at the wrong time, in the wrong place, at the wrong price

Planning for housing based on national population dynamics is one of the most basic functions of economic policy in any country. More people means more homes delivered at stable prices, built by a healthy, innovative construction industry, using the most up-to-date techniques to meet whatever communal and societal standards are expected without requiring long commutes.

This is what proper countries do. On this score, Ireland is the dunce of Europe. We build in the wrong places, at the wrong price, at the wrong time, driven by the interests of landowners and banks, leading to booms and slumps, bankruptcies, ghost estates and now hundreds of thousands of citizens priced out of a pathetically dysfunctional market. This has to stop.

A solution to Irish house-price silliness

A solution to Irish house-price silliness

If coronavirus eventually recedes as we all hope, public health will be gradually elbowed out by public housing as the number one issue facing our economy.

A year ago this week, an election was fought more or less on the issue of housing. Sinn Féin did exceptionally well in that ballot, not least because it created the perception that it cared more than others about the anxieties of younger people.

Covid-19 and Zoom will not finish off Dublin

Covid-19 and Zoom will not finish off Dublin

We need to take a breath regarding the “end of the city” narrative. It takes quite a bit to finish off a city. Berlin was reduced to rubble, yet it rose again. If carpet bombing couldn’t destroy the German capital, Covid-19 and Zoom will not finish off Dublin, although their impact on the city will be profound.

Change happens when technology and culture move in the same direction. Technological change is never enough to drive social change. It is necessary but not sufficient. There needs to be cultural buy-in too.

Why the young are priced out of the Irish economy

Why the young are priced out of the Irish economy

The annual hullabaloo about RTÉ presenters’ salaries focuses attention on the licence fee. In this system, a captured audience is obliged to pay a fee to an organisation, whether it uses the service of not. Irish citizens risk jail if they don’t stump up to pay the salaries of these presenters. It seems quite anachronistic.

Unlike the BBC, RTÉ also raises private advertising revenue. Some justify this fee on grounds of culture, others don’t. Economically, this arrangement is a form of capitalism, “rentier capitalism”, prevalent in Ireland, where anointed organisations are preferred and are allowed to operate in a grey area – half public, half private – where budgets are soft, the market is captured and over-runs are common.

What a Doc Martens boot can teach us about the wealth gap

What a Doc Martens boot can teach us about the wealth gap

Do you remember when you got your first pair of Doc Martens?

For me, it was 1984, just in time for The Clash at the SFX. With The Clash you knew who was going to turn up but to spice it up, London’s finest were supported by an anarchic Belfast skinhead outfit, The Outcasts, who brought their own crew.

Capitol rioters can’t stop the economic forces undermining their tribe

Capitol rioters can’t stop the economic forces undermining their tribe

The Jamiroquai frontman look-alike, all buffalo horns and fox pelt, who stormed Washington’s Capitol on Wednesday was the standout character of Trump’s raiding party.

Channelling his inner Daniel Boone, the space cowboy returned to the epicentre of the American republic, vowing to take back control, seize the stolen election and, in true backwoodsman fashion, embody the pioneering spirit that powered the great frontier expansion to the American West.

Covid and Brexit a confluence of opportunity for Ireland

Covid and Brexit a confluence of opportunity for Ireland

Could Ireland be in a for a manufacturing renaissance in the coming decade? It might sound optimistic to think of moving manufacturing plants over here, given our high wages and lack of deep manufacturing networks, but only 30 years ago Ireland had no pharmaceutical or tech industry.

Today, due to ongoing multinational investment, we have a generation of local managers schooled in the most up-to-date manufacturing processes. Such management talent is a critical advantage.

The Airbnb mania gripping Silicon Valley and Wall Street has me worried

The Airbnb mania gripping Silicon Valley and Wall Street has me worried

When interest rates are low and capital easy to come by, the valuation of assets can be out of kilter. Take Airbnb. Last week it was floated on the US stock market. The company was hoping that the shares might trade at about $60 (€49) a share. This week it was traded at just shy of $140 a share. Twice what the company valued itself at.

Earlier this year, as travel stopped, people in the know suggested that the company should trade below $30 a share. Today this company, which has yet to make a profit, is valued at $85 billion. Remember that behind all the hype, Airbnb can’t make a profit, so how can it have such a huge valuation?

The break-up of the United Kingdom has just accelerated

The break-up of the United Kingdom has just accelerated

The break-up of the United Kingdom has just accelerated. The DUP, a party that never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity, has done more to undermine the Union than Sinn Féin.

As leaders of unionism in the north-east of this island, the DUP’s manoeuvring over the past few years has culminated in customs checks between Northern Ireland and Great Britain for the first time since 1801. The English nationalists, otherwise known as Brexiteers, who lectured the world about the merits of buccaneering global free trade unencumbered by meddling Brussels, have ensured that the UK itself is actually a smaller free trade zone than it was before they started. Not only does the UK now have barriers with the EU, but it has barriers with itself. In short, the UK has declared, and successfully prosecuted, a trade war with itself.

Start building and don’t stop until we have all-island transport

Start building and don’t stop until we have all-island transport

One of most significant macroeconomic developments, particularly in Ireland, has been the fall in interest rates over for the past four decades. When it comes to long-term investments, falling interest rates profoundly alter what is possible.

Lower rates will continue as we find ourselves in a monetary union with a continent that doesn’t want to have many children. Yet we are still having babies. Demography is destiny.

We need to reinvent our empty city car parks

We need to reinvent our empty city car parks

Some of the most beautiful and evocative buildings in rural Ireland are stone, narrow steepled Church of Ireland churches. Many are now forlorn, ivy-clad and abandoned.

Some have been deconsecrated and transformed into homes, work spaces, shops or cultural centres. Others struggle on as places of worship for dwindling, elderly populations with rectors driving from service to service on a Sunday, keeping lights on and isolated communities together.

The business trip is dead. Dublin goes into mourning

The business trip is dead. Dublin goes into mourning

Now that we are looking at the beginning of the end of the pandemic, it is time to assess the likely long-term impact of this experience on the economy. Calling the end of a pandemic is obviously fraught with danger, but at some stage we have to believe in science.

Middle-aged unemployment is Ireland’s new growth area

Middle-aged unemployment is Ireland’s new growth area

Anyone who has experienced unemployment or seen it afflict close family or friends knows that it is not just about income, it’s about soul.

Unemployment affects your spirit, sense of worth and can cause feelings of fragility, hurt, sadness and even despair. Such emotional and psychological scars are not easily healed with a weekly government cheque.

A plan to put Ireland’s 200,000 vacant buildings to use

A plan to put Ireland’s 200,000 vacant buildings to use

Property owners have a duty of care towards their properties. There is such a thing as an appropriate owner and an inappropriate owner. The appropriate owner looks after their property, makes sure it does not fall into disrepair. Such an owner should be encouraged to maintain the property.

If the property is part of our urban heritage, that encouragement should also be accompanied by an equally firm penalty for dereliction to punish the inappropriate owner. The owner of an historic property is a custodian.

Lockdown decision makers still get paid. Those they shut down do not

Lockdown decision makers still get paid. Those they shut down do not

My colleague, Fintan O’Toole, deems it “breathtaking” that a group of 11 men, and not a single woman, took the decision to lock down.

Of course he is right. Robust decision-making must be representative. None of the decision makers – all public servants or politicians – works in the sectors that they are closing down.

The rules of the property game have changed

The rules of the property game have changed

In the mid-1990s a foreign friend, visiting Dublin for the first time, lamented how malicious the British must have been to bomb the city’s quays, great squares and wide streets before they left.

Looking at the dereliction, beautiful buildings without roofs, gutted internally, their facades crumbling, this visitor concluded that some vindictive scorched-earth policy had resulted in such destitution, and that the poor post-independence Irish simply never had the money to refurbish.

Why an Irish mortgage costs €80k more than a German one

Why an Irish mortgage costs €80k more than a German one

The macroeconomy operates with two arms: the fiscal arm and the monetary arm. It can been seen as a boxer, with a left jab and a right hook.

Fighters go into the ring with a chance of beating their opponent, but if they have one arm tied behind their back against a two-fisted adversary, their chances fall to zero. Same with an economy. If either monetary or fiscal policy is not working, the ability of the economy to stay in the game is drastically diminished.

The budget’s great opportunity to give young people a stake in Ireland

The budget’s great opportunity to give young people a stake in Ireland

On Monday night, some 1,000 young people gathered near the Spanish Arch in Galway and were roundly criticised for doing so. But in vilifying them, we forget at our peril that those young people are also Ireland’s future.

They will pay for your retirement and will propel the country forward. They will take the risks, create the companies, music, art and culture of 21st-century Ireland. They will possibly manage and navigate the country towards a United Ireland.

Johnson’s UK and Milosevic’s Yugoslavia – spot the difference

Johnson’s UK and Milosevic’s Yugoslavia – spot the difference

We could be witnessing the beginning of the end of the United Kingdom. The centrifugal forces of competing nationalisms are strong enough to recast the old order and to redesign this part of the world in a way that has not been seen since the Tudor era, when England started its Imperial project in Ireland.

The centre now struggles to hold because nationalism is being driven by the centre. Nationalism is now Whitehall’s default position.

The UK’s economic illiteracy is Ireland’s opportunity

The UK’s economic illiteracy is Ireland’s opportunity

This week, we’ve had so much incoming economic information, it’s hard to know where to start. News that the economy is in a recession confirms what we all knew.

Likewise, Google’s decision, which it came to well before the rout in tech stocks this week, not to take a large office block in Dublin 2 is not such a surprise and is a portent of things to come. As this column argued a few weeks back, commercial property in Dublin and other major tech-focused urban centres, like San Francisco, is in for a torrid time.

Italy has done us a huge favour by defeating Germany on monetary policy

Italy has done us a huge favour by defeating Germany on monetary policy

While we are still convulsed over Phil Hogan, the EU has moved on. This week, the powerful head of the German Bundesbank, Jens Weidman, sought to reframe the battleground for 2021 and beyond.

The future of Europe will be a struggle between the North and the South and, more specifically, between Germany and Italy, Europe’s two manufacturing powerhouses.

Nobody’s lending. Nobody’s borrowing. Here’s what to do

Nobody’s lending. Nobody’s borrowing. Here’s what to do

Another lockdown will destroy the economy unless we change direction. It’s really that simple, and it is because the banking system no longer works as a distributor of capital in the country.

Our Government and ECB have approached the crisis in the same way: cutting interest rates to zero to coax businesses to borrow and to encourage banks to lend. As a result, banks are the critical intermediary between the Central Bank, the State and the economy.

There is a vaccine to immunise the economy. It’s the bond market

There is a vaccine to immunise the economy. It’s the bond market

During the first great agricultural revolution (10,000 BC to 5,000 BC), when humans moved from being hunter-gatherers to farmers, settling in small villages and ultimately towns, the world human population is estimated to have increased from four million to five million.

In the next 5,000 years, from 5,000 BC to the birth of Christ, the human population is thought to have increased from five million to 100 million. In this second 5,000-year period, the human population increased approximately 25 times whereas in the first 5,000-year period, the increase was marginal. The reason for this disparity is that the earlier five millennia of domestication were the most lethal years in human history.

It is time for a major property reset

It is time for a major property reset

Pepare for carnage in commercial property. In the past few years investors have piled into the Irish commercial property market, with a particular focus on Dublin. Initially, it was international players but latterly, as is always the case, Irish financial firms have been putting Irish investors’ and pension fund money into the mix, adding to the frenzy.

By the beginning of this year, average annual Dublin rent was €673 per sq m, placing Dublin just above Geneva and Milan but below London, Paris and Zurich. It ranked as the fifth most expensive city in Europe.

John Hume understood the power of credit

John Hume understood the power of credit

In Mickey Bradley’s book Teenage Kicks: My Life as an Undertone, the bass player reveals that without Derry Credit Union, set up by John Hume in 1960, The Undertones might not have happened.

On June 15th, 1978, The Undertones had blagged their way on to the bill of a battle of the bands in Belfast, hosted by the legendary Terri Hooley of Good Vibrations record shop. Belfast was home to Stiff Little Fingers, whom The Undertones had just seen play in Kelly’s of Portrush. SLF had released the highly charged political single Suspect Device under their own record label and had just signed a new deal with the most happening independent label, Rough Trade. For the Derry boys, Belfast was big time.

The State can finance everything for nothing – if it wants to

The State can finance everything for nothing – if it wants to

The Irish summer is hard to love. Walking towards the Twelve Bens, above Roundstone village on the bog road, beaten by torrential rain coming at you sideways, mightn’t be everyone’s idea of the perfect holiday.

In fairness, there’s something comical about paying for such a spiteful drenching. The late July temperature hits a sizzling 13 degrees, away from the wind.

How Covid-19 could change Lahinch and Ranelagh for the better

How Covid-19 could change Lahinch and Ranelagh for the better

The July stimulus plan announced by the Government this week is a step in the right direction. Expect more because the economic heft needed to lift the economy out of this slump will be hindered by coronavirus.

In normal recessions, the recovery emerges slowly as people become more confident, looking forward instead of backwards. An iterative process, this recovery is a step-by-step movement, like climbing a ladder, looking for the next rung. Confidence builds, one small decision at a time. We edge upwards. True escape velocity is only achieved when consumer spending – 60 per cent of GDP – kicks in. Without consumer spending, there is no recovery.

Apple decision shows Ireland is not a tax haven

Apple decision shows Ireland is not a tax haven

Whether they be city states or countries, all jurisdictions that experience growth rates and increases in prosperity that, for a time, dwarf those of their neighbours tend to have deployed an innovation, a resource or a policy that gives them a unique economic advantage.

For France, that policy might have been mass and brutal colonialism in Africa. For Holland it could have been the wholesale plunder, at gunpoint, of the natural bounty of Indonesia and Borneo. For Belgium, early 20th-century wealth came with the gruesome hacking-off of the hands of men, women and children in the Congo in order to force the enslaved African population to produce more rubber.

The Pandession is destroying Ireland’s Craic Economy

The Pandession is destroying Ireland’s Craic Economy

To understand new phenomena, we need new language. Language is critical to our comprehension because language allows us to paint mental pictures. Language is a shortcut and a sort of thought organiser that allows us to see the world with more nuance and depth.

Unfortunately, economics treats language as an afterthought, mangling its beauty and humanity in a grating, mechanical dullness.

Do whatever it takes to cushion the blow of Covid-19

Do whatever it takes to cushion the blow of Covid-19

During the week I joined a fascinating webinar given by the brains and policy guru behind the European Central Bank, Philip Lane, its chief economist. He looks like a man with the job he always wanted and is comfortable with it.

The reason I used the term “brains” is very simple: Lane is now the intellectual driver of policy. As I listened to him, I heard a combination of Ben Bernanke’s deep appreciation of monetary history and Mario Draghi’s sharp understanding of the power of the central bank and the breathtaking array of tools at his disposal. Lane grasps what is at stake and is prepared to act comprehensively.

The programme for government will leave young people behind

The programme for government will leave young people behind

A gerontocracy is a country run by old people or people who are considerably older than the average. Traditional societies (and communist ones) were typically run by the elderly.

For Plato it was obvious that the old would run Athens as they would bring wisdom to decision-making. In contrast, the Roman republic usually vouched for younger men. Later Roman emperors tended to be young not least because being the boss was a dangerous job; many met with premature and nasty deaths.

It’s time for a new Irish economic model

It’s time for a new Irish economic model

As the lockdown eases, let’s look to the future with confidence. We should soon have a new government and maybe this will bring new thinking. There is little to fear as the local economy and the global economy open up. While we might have to get used to living with Covid-19 rather than talking about “before” and “after”, it is time for big thinking. The lockdown has given us this opportunity.

By coincidence, the financial markets are presenting the country with a unique opportunity and we must take it.

We won’t have another 1980s-style recession

We won’t have another 1980s-style recession

It is difficult to be confident about the future when our rate of unemployment is 25 per cent, the State’s budget deficit is massive, and geo-politically the streets of the US, our most important investment partner, are in flames. But there are grounds for optimism. If we do the right thing now there is a pathway whereby the economy can recover quickly, and, with political vision, it can be reset to create a more inclusive and ebullient society underpinned by a competitive economy.

At the moment people are traumatised. Trauma tends to shorten time horizons. In a crisis we stop thinking about the future and focus on the here-and-now. Tomorrow becomes today. However, it is important to see beyond this emergency, and appreciate that the economy was vibrant in March. That economy has not died. It remains in “virus-imposed” hibernation. We can waken it.

Ignore the austerity ‘jihadis’. Here’s an alternative economic strategy

Ignore the austerity ‘jihadis’. Here’s an alternative economic strategy

As the lockdown rules are eased, the economic and political ramifications of the Great Pandession of 2020 are only beginning to take shape. Some people are traumatised by the experience of the past three months while others look to the future with trepidation.

As is the case with most challenges, much hinges on the plan. What is the recovery plan? At the moment, there seems to be none bar the usual murmurs from the austerity jihadis – the old orthodoxy, who don’t seem to realise that the world has changed. We are not in Kansas anymore.

Beware Paschal Donohoe’s conventional thinking

Beware Paschal Donohoe’s conventional thinking

This is not the time for conventional thinking. We are in a pandession. As I wrote recently, a pandession is neither a recession, nor a depression – which are both consequences of economic exuberance. Traditional economic downturns are the wages of inflation.

Such inflation might be exhibited in wages and general prices (as we experienced here in the 1980s after the 1970s inflationary burst) or in house prices (as we experienced here in 2010 after the 2000-2008 credit splurge).

We are living through a ‘Pandession’ – here’s how we escape

We are living through a ‘Pandession’ – here’s how we escape

As the world economy remains largely closed down, it is essential to understand what we are experiencing. We are not living through a recession. Nor are we witnessing a depression. We are suffering from something new, something I’d like to term a “Pandession”.

A Pandession is a new word because it is a new thing. Language is vitally important when confronted with something novel. If you don’t have the language, you can’t visualise, conceive of or think your way out of it.

When will the money run out in the Covid-19 pandemic?

When will the money run out in the Covid-19 pandemic?

How long can we go on like this and when will the money run out? This is the question I am being asked all the time. Whether I am out for a walk, in the supermarket (at a safe distance) or on the phone, it’s the same question over and over. How long can we survive?

Some people are concerned about the massive increase in Government spending via the wage subsidy. When will that money run out? Small business owners want to know how long this can go on before they default on loans.

How to avoid an economic depression

How to avoid an economic depression

Whether or not we can avoid an economic depression will be determined by what we do now. Amid the pessimism it is crucial to appreciate that it is possible to avoid this outcome if we deploy all the right levers of economic policy. The European Central Bank (ECB) has underwritten the economy at borrowing rates below zero. As a result there should be no hesitation in borrowing more to tide us over.

We can also reprice existing debt to dramatically reduce the cost of outstanding debt, and we can boost demand to cushion the slump by putting money directly into people’s and businesses’ accounts.

Health crisis has now become a wealth crisis

Health crisis has now become a wealth crisis

Economics is not a cult. It is not a set of definitive, unchanging rules. It is not a religion. There is no creed. There are no believers and there is no dogma. While there are clubs or factions, membership of those is optional. At its core, economics is the art of the possible. It is the study of a complex system that is never at rest, a dynamic and adaptive system of enormous energy and potential. It evolves rather than grows or contracts.

The economy is like an immune system, dealing with new dangers, learning on the job and constantly acclimatising. Despite what most economists say, there is no such thing as equilibrium. A moment’s thought would tell you that an economy in equilibrium is a ludicrous notion.

Here’s how we can avoid the predicted depression

Here’s how we can avoid the predicted depression

The colours of the traditional barber’s sign, a pole with red and white diagonal stripes, signify blood and the barber’s apron because the barber use to double-up as the local leacher. He was the man who bled the sick. For hundreds of years, since the Greeks, rudimentary medics believed that sickness was carried in the blood and the solution for this was to drain the patient of blood in order to expel the bad blood. The theory was that the less blood, the less the disease had to work with. Sometimes they used leeches to do this but oftentimes, they simply cut a vein – or perhaps an artery. The barber had blades, knives and scissors, sure what more did you need?

We should reopen the youth economy first

We should reopen the youth economy first

How we behave in this crisis will determine how we come out of it. In the 1960s Martin Luther King spoke of the “fierce urgency of now”; what is critical in a crisis is today – tomorrow can look after itself. We can view our traumatised economy in a similar way.

From the point of view of commerce, the most critical point is to keep small businesses afloat and prevent mass bankruptcies, which would prompt defaults and prevent business people from getting back on their feet.

We need to totally reimagine economics

We need to totally reimagine economics

When events change, we change our minds. Old rules go out the window and new ideas are embraced. What was once radical becomes mainstream and what was once mainstream becomes redundant. In a crisis, you run out of time. You can’t wait; you must act.

This week, the Department of Finance acted with remarkable speed, implementing what might be called the “Danish model”, soldering the link between employers and employees by subsidising people’s wages to the tune of 70 per cent. The civil servants are to be commended in how quickly they turned this around. It should help enormously. Hopefully, we will see results in a stabilising of the rise in unemployment.

The most critical objective is to keep businesses afloat

The most critical objective is to keep businesses afloat

What can we do now to prevent this crisis getting worse? What can Irish policy-makers do to prevent company closures, militating against more mass redundancies? How can we buy time? Buying time is a critical way of looking at the crisis because in a crisis you run out of time, not money. It’s essential that actions we take today are designed to ensure that a temporary crisis doesn’t become permanent chaos.

The good news is that this will pass; the better news is we can do something to cushion the blow; the even better news is that it demands only courageous thinking and action. The bad news is that, up to now, there is little evidence of courageous thinking, and that includes the European Central Bank’s €750 billion mega-intervention.

Why Central Bank must give everyone free money right now

Why Central Bank must give everyone free money right now

We are in a crisis. The health panic will be followed by an economic panic. People will stop going out, stop shopping and dramatically reduce spending. This will have an immediate impact on cashflow. Without cash, businesses will go bust. Without cash, suppliers don’t get paid and they in turn can’t pay their creditors. The knock-on effect will be swift. Tax revenue will seize up. In addition, businesses without cash can’t pay their employees who will have to be laid off. This will exacerbate the slump.

Unfortunately, as cashflow dries up, those with cash will hoard it. Hoarding is the natural reaction to a panic – witness what is happening right now in supermarkets. The same will happen with cash. As more and more cash disappears from balance sheets, more and more cash will be hoarded. In fact, as always happens in a panic, more cash will be hoarded than is actually needed for the rainy day. That’s human nature; we overreact when panic sets in. There will be a run on cash as businesses try to stay open.

The coronavirus loves shopping, hospitality and entertainment

The coronavirus loves shopping, hospitality and entertainment

The loud woman at the bar of the French Roast on New York’s Upper West side is agitatedly telling her brunch partner, and (given her operatic volume), everyone else in the joint, how her business in China has stopped working.

“It’s gonna happen here too,” she admonishes. “We’re gonna have to shut the place down.”

‘I’m all right Jack’ politics has fuelled the rise of Sinn Féin

‘I’m all right Jack’ politics has fuelled the rise of Sinn Féin

The excoriation of Sinn Féin in recent days seems to be directed from the top, with the intention of softening the ground for a Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael coalition. ABS (“Anyone But Shinners”) certainly gives cover to both leaders, allowing them to ask their followers to hold their noses and do the deed with each other, based on having no alternative.

A battle is raging right now for the soul of both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Political parties are a bit like golf clubs: rules and sacraments that matter enormously to members seem silly from the outside. Members of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are agonising about purity rather than policy.

Germany needs a new business model

Germany needs a new business model

The Metzer Eck in central Berlin is one of those traditional German bars – lots of beer, sausages and bread designed to fill you up. Nothing fancy, nothing elaborate, everything simple and, like almost everywhere in Germany, affordable. It’s a wonderful place to be the night Leipzig give Spurs a lesson in attacking football.

I’ve been coming to this spot for four decades. In the 1980s it was firmly behind the wall, and still has a bang of the DDR off it. The locals are in great form, discussing football and rent control, and later, after more pints, politics.

Which coalition contenders are most economically compatible?

Which coalition contenders are most economically compatible?

In keeping with the times, let’s quote Vladimir Lenin. The Communist leader, looking back on the October Revolution and seeing it in the context of what had gone before in Russia – from late 19th-century Tsarist reforms to the 1917 Bolshevik takeover – quipped “there are decades when nothing happens and then there are weeks when decades happen”.

Believers in the Leninist world view of big epochal moments might be tempted to conclude that Irish politics has just witnessed one. By this analysis, the previous status quo has been shattered, and a new paradigm is taking shape, whereby old people vote Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil, and young people vote Sinn Féin.

You will be a victim of the coronavirus

You will be a victim of the coronavirus

While we are engulfed with the election and wondering who might form the next government here, spare a thought for the world economy. Given that we are among the most globalised countries in the world, it might be prudent to look up from our own political navel and take stock of the past week in global affairs.

After 10 years of a global economic expansion, against a backdrop of historically low interest rates, debt levels are higher than ever and the global economy is more integrated than ever, not just financially but also from a supply chain perspective.

Bonanzavirus has struck Ireland this election, and there is no antidote

Bonanzavirus has struck Ireland this election, and there is no antidote

Bonanza
noun
a situation which creates a sudden increase in wealth, good fortune, or profits.

The bonanzavirus has struck. It is a dangerous, fiscal virus spread by politicians, and is particularly virulent in the excessive heat of an election campaign. The increasing political temperature, cramped living conditions and survival instinct change the economic molecules in politicians’ heads, coaxing them to abandon all budgetary decency.

A fall in house prices should be our goal

A fall in house prices should be our goal

Housing should be the defining issue of the upcoming election, but for Fine Gael the most recent developments on housing policy might be too little, too late.

Latest figures show we are building more houses than at any time in the past 10 years. A favourite indicator of mine to assess house building is the ESB grid connections, which show new homes signing on to the electricity grid.

Introduce a congestion charge and make public transport free

Introduce a congestion charge and make public transport free

Election season can be an opportunity to signal a change in behaviour. Arguably the politics of behaviour is one of the key crucibles of any modern election. People change their habits and do so regularly.

For example, in the 1970s, people lit up almost anywhere, smoking away in other people’s houses, in pubs and on buses. Today, smokers congregate outside. In the 1980s, drink driving was common. It was regarded as a bit iffy but we did it.

The party that taxes land hoarding will get my vote

The party that taxes land hoarding will get my vote

The imminent general election is likely to boil down to a showdown between the party of bricklayers and the party of bookkeepers.

In a country where we need to build housing yet keep within a budget, the bookkeepers will try to convince us that they can build, and the bricklayers will assert that they can balance the books. Which one of these voters believe will likely be the party that wins.

Eight global economic trends affecting Ireland

Eight global economic trends affecting Ireland

It’s pretty clear that we will have an election in the next six months. Although most of the debate will focus on domestic issues, particularly what can be termed supply issues, such as housing and transport, it is a good exercise, at the start of the year, to stand back and take stock of what is likely to be happening outside this jurisdiction.

Here are eight economic and political issues affecting Ireland.

Where is the slowdown experts warned us about?

Where is the slowdown experts warned us about?

When examining what is going on in any economy it is essential to have a framework to understand how the economy works and where it sits in the global scheme.

One of the reasons I was so agitated by the credit/housing boom of the 2000-2008 period is that in any framework the economy was bound for meltdown. You could go so far as to say that that economy was set up to fail. Yet all the official economic forecasting institutes missed it, preaching the soft landing mantra.

Today, those same institutes have been underestimating the strength of the economy year in year out since 2015. Indeed, official economic organisations have been at one in warning that there would be a Brexit-inspired slump by now, arguing that uncertainty would ebb away at confidence, leading to a slowdown. But the opposite has happened.

Without multinationals, Ireland is a bad-weather Albania

Without multinationals, Ireland is a bad-weather Albania

It’s easy to be a little perplexed by attitudes towards multinationals, given their transformative impact on our economy, their complete upgrading of our industrial base and the enormous capital and technological transfer their presence in Ireland has facilitated.

Economically, without multinational investment, Ireland would be Albania with brutal weather. Politically, without multinational commitment to Ireland, Ireland would likely have succumbed to the populist, nationalist, protectionist disease that is afflicting most western politics.

Ireland’s economic performance can be divided into two time zones; premultinationals and postmultinationals. In the premultinational period, from 1921 to 1991, when multinational investment was modest here, the Irish economy was the worst performer, in terms of income per head, in western Europe. Not the fifth-worst, not the third-worst; the worst. Since the multinationals began to select Ireland as a bridgehead into the EU, from the early 1990s onwards, Ireland has been the best performer economically in western Europe. Not the fifth best; the best.

A Swift lesson in Irish economics

A Swift lesson in Irish economics

Today is Dean Jonathan Swift’s birthday. He was born on November 30th, 1667, in the parish of St Werburgh’s in Dublin. Last weekend, I was asked to speak at his cathedral, St Patrick’s, as part of the Swift Festival.

It’s not every day you share an altar with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby (or indeed, with a former president of this country, Mary McAleese). The subject was identity and, specifically, Irish and British identity after Brexit.

Given the enormous constitutional upheavals that could be triggered by Brexit, not just in Britain between England and Scotland but obviously on our island too, “conflicted identity” may become a political buzzword of the third decade of the 21st century.

The post-Trump era could see the disruption of capitalism

The post-Trump era could see the disruption of capitalism

The word impeachment comes from the Latin “impedicare” meaning to catch with the foot or trip up. The American process of impeachment was inherited from the English. In pre-independence colonial America, the British instituted a process of impeachment to make sure that the king of England’s officials in the colonies, who had enormous powers, remained straight.

Originally, impeachment was a process whereby a grand jury was instructed to find sufficient evidence to commit to trial a high-ranking official – or indeed colonial governor – who might be taking bribes, using his position to advance his personal cause or consorting treasonously with a foreign power. Back then the foreign power would have been France, as imperial France was constantly at war with imperial Britain in north America and the Caribbean.

After the War of Independence, the USA did not start as a republic with a constitution but as a loose confederation of equal sovereign states. This messy arrangement proved far too disparate; and the revolutionaries decided to create a strong centralised executive with a president.

Ireland’s Monopoly money rents are no game

Ireland’s Monopoly money rents are no game

Looking out at the Atlantic from Lahinch in Co Clare, it’s hard to believe that one in 10 people was evicted in Ireland during the Famine. Two million Irish people emigrated in the 15 years from 1840 to 1855. Out here you can still sense this emptiness. Most Irish emigrants left from the west coast, heading across the ocean. Imagine what this part of the country would look like had they stayed.

The Famine, the result of immediate crop failure, was also the direct consequence of the conflict between a land-owning class and a landless class, leading to the Land League, which, most Irish historians agree, was the catalyst for the independence movement that led to the creation of the State.

Seen against this background, it can be hard to understand why the interests of the land and its income – rent – are still regarded as sacrosanct in Ireland.

Ireland was the big winner from the fall of the Berlin Wall

Ireland was the big winner from the fall of the Berlin Wall

Thirty years ago today the Berlin Wall fell. At the time it was widely thought that the main economic beneficiaries of the collapse of communism would be the former Soviet satellite states of eastern Europe, suddenly liberated from the stultifying grip of Marxism-Leninism.

This was particularly the case for countries such as Czechoslovakia and Hungary, which had impressive manufacturing bases before the second World War. The theory at the time was that educated and technically able communist workforces would embrace capitalism, attracting western investment due to relatively low wages, thus propelling those countries upwards.

However, the country that benefited most from the end of the cold war was one that had been neutral, poor and peripheral to the major conflict of the 20th century. That country was Ireland.

Burger King, Irish farmers and the end of meat

Burger King, Irish farmers and the end of meat

Are we witnessing the beginning of the end of meat? Will future generations regard our habit of using an animal’s digestive system to turn vegetable protein from grass into living body parts, and ultimately slaughtering that animal in order to ingest what was the original vegetable protein, as not only barbaric but idiotic?

I say idiotic because, already, science can replicate meat using plant-based proteins.

Burger King this week announced it will be selling two plant-based burgers at its burger joints all over Europe. The Rebel Whopper and the Rebel Chicken King are already available in Sweden and are soon to be “rolled out” across Europe. When Burger King – hardly a cutting-edge player in changing dietary tastes – embraces synthetic meat, you know something significant is afoot.

Pessimism is the enemy of entrepreneurial creativity

Pessimism is the enemy of entrepreneurial creativity

This week an American survey ranked Ireland as the eighth most entrepreneurial society in the world. This is an essential characteristic if we are to maintain our relatively high standards of living.

In economics, not enough attention is paid to this cussed, sometimes unreasonable creature, the entrepreneur. Without the relentless pursuit of new business, an economy will stagnate, and without economic growth, tax revenue dries up, resulting in less money to fix social problems. A healthy economy is a risk-taking economy.

Over 70 per cent of Irish people are employed in small domestic companies. This is higher than the EU average. More than half of all Irish people are employed in small or micro companies that employ under 49 people.

The economics I learned are now wrong

The economics I learned are now wrong

What if everything you know is wrong? Imagine what it would be like, had you devoted your professional life to a discipline governed by reasonably predictable rules, only to find out, 25 years later that the rules no longer applied?

Spare a thought for the traditional macroeconomist, who has seen this happen. But the changing economic rules also affect your pay packet, and not in a good way.

For most of the past century, the world’s policymakers have been on the alert for inflation. The 19th century was an era of practically zero inflation, whereas the 20th century, in economic terms, was a period characterised by inflation. This was most notable during the 1920s in Germany and Austria, the 1970s in the United Kingdom, and the late-1960s to early-1980s in the United States.

If Cork can’t succeed economically, Ireland will regress

If Cork can’t succeed economically, Ireland will regress

If you happen to be a Jackeen relation of a large Cork family, we might get together and form a self-help group. Given the amount of inter-cousin abuse I’ve had to endure over the years, it’s tempting.

Being a semi-detached, arms-length Corkonian comes with its burdens but they are but nothing compared with those carried by the Leesiders themselves, who combine fragile victimhood with muscular self-regard. But putting the inter-city rivalry aside, one thing is clear to me: if Cork doesn’t succeed economically in the years ahead, Ireland will also go backwards.

Cork is the litmus test when it comes to Ireland’s ambition to lift the burden of development from Dublin’s shoulders. If Cork can’t do it, nowhere can. The development of Cork won’t come at the expense of other cities such as Limerick or Galway, but will be complementary, and is vital for spatially balanced growth in the country.

Wealth tax for Irish ultra-rich makes sense

Wealth tax for Irish ultra-rich makes sense

Have you ever wondered why the windows of the Bank of Ireland on College Green in Dublin are bricked up? It is because of the imposition of a wealth tax, called the “window tax”.

Ireland, the UK, Holland, parts of northern France – unlike the Mediterranean – are starved of natural light at certain times of year. In the pre-electricity era, light was a luxury in these countries.

The urban poor lived in a dark world of gloomy, window-less hovels, while the rich who wanted to live in the brightest rooms possible, built magnificent ceiling to floor windows to let in the light . Georgian sash windows attest to class difference; the poor lived in the shadows and the rich lived luminously.

If I were Paschal Donohoe, here is what I would do

If I were Paschal Donohoe, here is what I would do

On Wednesday evening at rush hour, with rain falling steadily and traffic bumper to bumper, I hopped on the Dart from Dún Laoghaire to Dublin city centre. Plugging in my headphones, I thanked my lucky stars that I live in one of the few areas of Ireland that has a reliable train service.

Relaxed ahead of a meeting, safe in the knowledge that the train would be on time, I considered how good public transport infrastructure enhances our lives. It’s not just a means of getting from A to B , it’s a mark of a civilised, democratic country. But why should citizens who live along the Dart line enjoy a luxury that is denied to others?

Providing public infrastructure is a basic function of any state – and we are failing. The track my Dart runs on was laid before the Famine. I’m not joking. Transport infrastructure is an ongoing project, and a country with a growing population and ambitions to compete internationally needs to constantly upgrade.

What the world’s megacities can teach Dublin

What the world’s megacities can teach Dublin

Dubai is not for everyone. The glittering metropolis, which erupts out of the desert, captures much that is good and bad about humanity in a few square miles.

On the good side, this extraordinary trading hub, reveals what human ambition can achieve. As it waves its two diamond-encrusted, air-conditioned fingers to Mother Nature, a city where none should be, Dubai stands testament to what can be done through sheer force of will and extraordinary urban vision.

On the other hand, Dubai’s legions of mostly Asian labourers, who toil away under the searing heat, remind us again of the world’s unacceptable inequalities and how – irrespective of the huge strides made in recent years – the lottery of location or the accident of birth, dictate our time on this Earth. The city’s success is partly a product of deeply problematic bonded labour.

Why Irish apartment rents are like the Cuban car market

Why Irish apartment rents are like the Cuban car market

Two years ago, my son spent half his transition year in the Vedado area of Havana, a few miles west of Havana’s extraordinary old city. Havana is a vibrant city. There might not be a more exciting place to learn Spanish – and the competition is stiff. The Spanish-speaking world hosts some of the most pulsating cities on Earth.

He stayed with a Cuban family, immersed in the fascinating psychodrama that is everyday life on that island.

When I went to visit, I was delighted to encounter himself and his mate haggling with the local cab drivers over fares, gesticulating wildly, half theatre/half commerce, in an accent that the locals told me was pure Havana.

Dún Laoghaire typifies Ireland’s poor use of land

Dún Laoghaire typifies Ireland’s poor use of land

Ireland’s population is surging, the fastest-growing in Europe, on target to hit five million citizens next year. Such burgeoning dynamism implies that our approach to planning and urbanisation needs to be revised.

The new reality promises all sorts of opportunities. For example, a rapidly rising population and, more significantly, large-scale increases in employment signal lower income taxes.

When your population rises, so does your tax base, and therefore income tax levels should fall, if we manage it properly. Conversely, as taxes fall and demand for housing rises, house prices are liable to increase unless we manage the economy better than we do at the moment.

Why your boss earns so much more than you

Why your boss earns so much more than you

One of the most difficult questions for any parent is: “What should I do in the future?” When your child asks you what is a good job, can we honestly say we have any idea?

Many jobs that pay well now, such as the highly sought-after data analyst, didn’t exist 10 years ago. What hope have we, mere parents, of predicting the future jobs market? Things are changing so quickly, driven by technology. Consequently, even making a stab at what might be vogue in five years is highly speculative.

The best we can do is look at big trends that are emerging all over the world.

Brexit is an opportunity. Let’s use it

Brexit is an opportunity. Let’s use it

There is something deeply elemental about being woken up by streaks of forked lightning illuminating the darkness in electric blue followed almost immediately by booming claps of thunder as a violent Adriatic storm passes just over the roof.

The Romans understood the power of the elements and observed that, in mid-August, the searing heat and soaring temperatures of the previous weeks tended to clash with colder weather coming in from the north or west, leading to dramatic electric storms. They took this to be a sign from the gods that one season was over and another starting.

Emperor Augustus named the 15th of August Feriae Augusti or the festival of Augustus, falling in the middle of the most significant month in the year, which naturally took the Emperor’s name. Today all Italia still closes on August 15th or Ferragosto, the modern Italian version of the Latin name.

The rules of economics have changed. Could someone tell central bankers?

The rules of economics have changed. Could someone tell central bankers?

This week, the column will focus on global economic policy and why central banks – still the most powerful economic institutions in the world – don’t understand how disruptive technology is changing the way our world works.

What if they are stuck in a late 20th-century mindset not sufficiently clued in to the impact of new technology and therefore, as the world worries about an impending recession, they are like old generals, fighting the last war not the new one?

This week saw a flurry of activity from the world’s central bankers. From the US to New Zealand, Thailand and India, interest rates were slashed to all-time lows. Why the hyperactivity now? What they are up to?