Where Will Ireland’s Next Financial Boom Come From?

hfallada

Foreign direct investment still as ireland is the only country in the eu that the population is growing naturally without any immigration. Germany is supposed to lose a third of its population by 2040 as Germans aren't having enough children. Who is going to invest in a country with no workers? Like wise chinas population is aging rapidly.

I think if the government stops spending huge amounts of welfare( no benefit to the economy in the long term) and spent more on education, Ireland would be very attractive for FDI

Plus Irish people are educated and intelligent. In London, Irish people are the second most common nationality in a boardroom after the uk( own low corporation tax has nothing to do with that).

gdkaufmann

hfallada wrote: »

Foreign direct investment still as ireland is the only country in the eu that the population is growing naturally without any immigration. Germany is supposed to lose a third of its population by 2040 as Germans aren't having enough children. Who is going to invest in a country with no workers? Like wise chinas population is aging rapidly.

I think if the government stops spending huge amounts of welfare( no benefit to the economy in the long term) and spent more on education, Ireland would be very attractive for FDI

Plus Irish people are educated and intelligent. In London, Irish people are the second most common nationality in a boardroom after the uk( own low corporation tax has nothing to do with that).

But Germany has a big manufacturing sector. You can't really compare that to Ireland.

And, given its high emigration rate, how is Ireland's population actually growing? I know the figures ( see link below) say the numbers will be up by 2035 and 2060, but it's not clear what that growth is based on?

http://airo.ie/news/europe-2060-population-projections-ireland-increase-465-interact-data

swampgas

hfallada wrote: »

Foreign direct investment still as ireland is the only country in the eu that the population is growing naturally without any immigration. Germany is supposed to lose a third of its population by 2040 as Germans aren't having enough children. Who is going to invest in a country with no workers?

gdkaufmann wrote: »

But Germany has a big manufacturing sector. You can't really compare that to Ireland.

And, given its high emigration rate, how is Ireland's population actually growing? I know the figures ( see link below) say the numbers will be up by 2035 and 2060, but it's not clear what that growth is based on?

Maybe we should be teaching German instead of Irish in our schools, that way the surplus Irish workers can move to Germany, find good jobs in the manufacturing sector, and make up for the declining German population?

It's a win-win!

* edit *

On a serious note - what about internal migration within the EU, might this not affect these predictions?

skafish

From what I can see, the next boom in Ireland will come from a multitude of sources, based partially on multinationals, partially, as has been hypothesized, on providing support (through management, IT etc.
However, I also think a large part of our next boom will come from food production. There is a lot of work to be done, but it is possible (extra horse meat an optional extra:P)

maninasia

The next boom (or one of the next partial booms) will be building more houses in the biggest cities for the young population coming through. Some things never change.

thebman

Irish Independent and Times have been trying to make everyone think the property ladder is back and everyone should be looking to buy houses again.

They have had a few articles about with especially subject headlines especially when more independent news sources like the Wall Street Journal (Independent on Irish issues anyway) are using the same statistics to show the housing market is going nowhere ....

Roger_007

The question is where will the next boom come from. There will be no next boom or even a modest improvement in our economic outlook until we change our attitudes towards economic development. For far too long we have over-relied on attracting foreign investment to provide employment and a growing economic base. This is a dangerous policy. Large multi-nationals, which provide a huge chunk of our GDP, can disappear very quickly if there are better opportunities elsewhere. Companies like Google and Facebook can be wiped out overnight by the advent of some new technological development. We are educating our children to aspire to get a job with one of these companies. What we should be doing is changing the mind-set to one of encouraging our children to think of creating jobs for themselves, to be entrepreneurial and try start new enterprises. Just think; the Googles and Facebooks of this world came about from people doing just that.

There is an emigration culture here that is a self-fulfilling prophesy. It is extraordinary to hear parents of teenage children saying that they are raising their children for 'export'. Then they are 'devastated' when their children do emigrate; surprise surprise. The attitude of young people seems to be that you send out a load CVs and if nothing comes of it, off to Canada or Australia or somewhere.
There are opportunities if only they would look for them. It may mean taking risks and working hard for little return at first. They should ask themselves this questions: "how did all the jobs get created in Canada or Australia"? and "can I do that here"?

realitykeeper

The next financial boom will happen when the government reverses its protectionist policy of bailing out the banks. The Icelandic economy is booming because it applied capitalism and let its banks fail. Iceland now has unemployment down to 5% and growth at 3.5% and rising. This is a link to the Icelandic finance minister, I recommend it to Minister Noonan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMXSvgpsd8k

Tabnabs

realitykeeper wrote: »

The next financial boom will happen when the government reverses its protectionist policy of bailing out the banks. The Icelandic economy is booming because it applied capitalism and let its banks fail. Iceland now has unemployment down to 5% and growth at 3.5% and rising. This is a link to the Icelandic finance minister, I recommend it to Minister Noonan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMXSvgpsd8k

Ah yes, Iceland, the poster boy of recovery.

"Iceland's economy is on a path to recovery, but legacy vulnerabilities are weighing on growth," the IMF said. It noted gross domestic product growth slowed to 1.6% in 2012 after reaching 2.9% in 2011, and said inflation is still too high.

The IMF's concern follows Standard & Poor's move late last month to change its outlook on Iceland's BBB- credit rating from stable to negative because an effort to lessen the burden on households could "substantially" increase government debt. The government wants to negotiate debt relief with foreign creditors who hold Icelandic kroner that they can't take out of the country because of capital controls.

The government's aim is to encourage creditors to accept less money back than they are owed in order to be able to exchange their kroner into euros or other currencies and take it out of Iceland.

IMF Warns on Icelandic Economy

All in all, real output in Iceland remains 10% below the pre-crisis peak. And while GDP did grow at around 2.9% in 2011, it slowed to around 1.6% last year and is expected to fall even further this year. This is the ugly side of capital controls. In short, by restricting what people can buy and invest in, i.e. only Icelandic goods and opportunities, individuals eventually stop spending.

Indeed, domestic consumption and investment in Iceland are both down 20% from their pre-crisis levels and continue to fall. Icelanders are instead choosing to pay down their debts, which, while positive, comes at the expense of economic growth. And despite the debt paydown, household and corporate debt remain high, coming in at 109% and 170% of GDP, respectively.

Furthermore, Iceland's banks are not unlike those in Spain as they both financed housing booms gone bust. How Iceland's banks deal with the problem of its bad loans after capital controls are lifted could have a major impact on the way investors choose to look at Spain and its bank issues. Iceland's banks are expected to force losses of around to 75% to 100% on their investors and large depositors, many of which are hedge funds that also buy and sell sovereign debt and the insurance linked to it. How these hedge funds will retaliate could be replicated in Italy or in France where sovereign debt continues to mount relative to the size of their economies.

Iceland is Europe's ticking time bomb -- again