Good economic news thread

oscarBravo

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

Public expenditure, per capita is greatly imbalanced towards those living in Rural areas.

And EU expenditure is imbalanced towards poorer areas. I guess we should give back all those structural funds.

Taken to its logical conclusion, you've got libertarianism - I've got mine, and everyone else can f*ck off.

The idea of investment in poorer parts of the country is to make them less poor and improve the lot of the country as a whole. If you genuinely think that Ireland would be a better place if all tax was spent within a few kilometres of where it was collected... well, let's just say we have very different ideas of what "society" means.

BoJack Horseman

oscarBravo wrote: »

If you genuinely think that Ireland would be a better place if all tax was spent within a few kilometres of where it was collected... well, let's just say we have very different ideas of what "society" means.

Indeed I would... and yes, I assme we do!

I've (personally at least) never heard a politician who knows how to spend my money better than me.
I've also (forgive my audacity), pondered as to the imbalance in how money is spent in Ireland.

I would happily see counties & communities have a greater say in how their money is spent.

I don't think that makes me a bad person.
And I don't think an Ireland that is more engaged locally in that way is any weaker for it.
Better than your status quo we enjoy!

Godge

draiochtanois wrote: »

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It is the cost per citizen that is the point.

Why should we pay €100,000 per user connection to Slea Head for maybe 200 connections, when we could pay for drugs for MS sufferers with that money?

Critical mass for public services is the key issue that Ireland has never addressed. Whether it is schools, broadband, hospitals, GP, post offices or garda stations, you should be living in a community of a certain size to avail of these services. The selfish Irish attitude of wanting to live in isolation but still have every public service is doing this country huge harm.

draiochtanois

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draiochtanois

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FreudianSlippers

draiochtanois wrote: »

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I'd love to go along the Wild Atlantic Way, but its lack of gigabit internet is a total deal-breaker if I'm honest.

I don't have a problem with people living in isolation and having access to services - they certainly weren't the people that brought about our banks needing to be bailed out, etc

Of course not, but I think people living in remote areas need to understand that they may have to travel to the nearest city to get to an A&E or a cancer treatment centre. We simply can't have a massive medical centre in every town in Ireland.

oscarBravo

Godge wrote: »

Why should we pay €100,000 per user connection to Slea Head for maybe 200 connections...

I get that your perspective is very city-centric, but if you think it's going to cost €20,000,000 to bring fibre to Slea Head, I suggest you revisit your calculations.

...when we could pay for drugs for MS sufferers with that money?

Why should we pay for special needs assistants, when there are people living in the streets?

There's no requirement to solve all of society's problems in strict order of priority.

Critical mass for public services is the key issue that Ireland has never addressed. Whether it is schools, broadband, hospitals, GP, post offices or garda stations...

...electricity or running water. Uppity peasants.

Godge

oscarBravo wrote: »

I get that your perspective is very city-centric, but if you think it's going to cost €20,000,000 to bring fibre to Slea Head, I suggest you revisit your calculations. Why should we pay for special needs assistants, when there are people living in the streets?

There's no requirement to solve all of society's problems in strict order of priority. ...electricity or running water. Uppity peasants.

I wasn't suggesting it would cost €20m, that was just an illustrative example.

The point I am making is that universality of services just isn't possible on limited budgets. Every other country in the world knows this. No super-speed broadband in the Australian outback, no hospitals either.

Every other country is urbanizing at a faster rate than Ireland. We are being left behind in the bigger scale of things.

oscarBravo

Godge wrote: »

The point I am making is that universality of services just isn't possible on limited budgets.

I guess that's why there are no universal service obligations for electricity, phone or postal services.

Every other country is urbanizing at a faster rate than Ireland. We are being left behind in the bigger scale of things.

I'm conscious that there are those for whom urbanisation is a sufficiently attractive goal that they would be perfectly content to deprive rural dwellers of even the most basic services in an attempt to force them into towns. (I'm starting to get the impression that some would cheerfully cut off the electricity to everywhere outside of two or three giant cities.)

The problem is, the legacy of decades of piss-poor planning is that Irish people don't live in cities. Your personal response to this may be to say "fcuk 'em, when they're suffering enough they'll see the light and move to a high-rise apartment where I think they belong", but happily that's not your call to make.

keane2097

oscarBravo wrote: »

The problem is, the legacy of decades of piss-poor planning is that Irish people don't live in cities. Your personal response to this may be to say "fcuk 'em, when they're suffering enough they'll see the light and move to a high-rise apartment where I think they belong", but happily that's not your call to make.

You will then have people who don't even bother to hide their views of everywhere outside the pale as unworthy of any investment baffled at why vast swathes of the population vote for locally focussed representatives every chance they get.

Godge

oscarBravo wrote: »

I guess that's why there are no universal service obligations for electricity, phone or postal services. I'm conscious that there are those for whom urbanisation is a sufficiently attractive goal that they would be perfectly content to deprive rural dwellers of even the most basic services in an attempt to force them into towns. (I'm starting to get the impression that some would cheerfully cut off the electricity to everywhere outside of two or three giant cities.)

The problem is, the legacy of decades of piss-poor planning is that Irish people don't live in cities. Your personal response to this may be to say "fcuk 'em, when they're suffering enough they'll see the light and move to a high-rise apartment where I think they belong", but happily that's not your call to make.

keane2097 wrote: »

You will then have people who don't even bother to hide their views of everywhere outside the pale as unworthy of any investment baffled at why vast swathes of the population vote for locally focussed representatives every chance they get.

It is not a question of what I like or what I want, it is a question of looking at the reality of the world outside our little small island.

keane2097

Godge wrote: »

It is not a question of what I like or what I want, it is a question of looking at the reality of the world outside our little small island.

The reality of the world outside our small little island is that everywhere else is doing worse, n'est-ce pas?

Who are we looking at in particular, why are we so sure they are super-smart and doing all the right things?

Godge

keane2097 wrote: »

The reality of the world outside our small little island is that everywhere else is doing worse, n'est-ce pas?

Who are we looking at in particular, why are we so sure they are super-smart and doing all the right things?

On a decade-long perspective, everywhere else has changed and is doing better.

Rightwing

draiochtanois wrote: »

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It's basically a worthless point that appeals to numpties, it goes along the lines of Dublin is richer than Leitrim...Leitrim would be f*cked without Dublin. Serious intellectual stuff. You wouldn't think the country depends on the EU or that we live in an era of globalisation. :rolleyes:

carzony

We still have a serious youth unemployment situation in Ireland it appears. 20% of under 25's are unemployed and this does not include courses, education, unpaid internships/apprenticeships and the ones that have not got around to signing on after finishing school.. Seems a big problem.. That 20% could easily be bigger.

Dohnjoe

carzony wrote: »

We still have a serious youth unemployment situation in Ireland it appears. 20% of under 25's are unemployed and this does not include courses, education, unpaid internships/apprenticeships and the ones that have not got around to signing on after finishing school.. Seems a big problem.. That 20% could easily be bigger.

It's below the EU average

FreudianSlippers

Dohnjoe wrote: »

It's below the EU average

Having decreased significantly in the last 5 years.






Finfacts, however, points out the problem with Youth Unemployment Rates as a measure:

Eurostat notes an overlap between education, employment and unemployment as employment is defined by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) as having paid work of at least 1 hour per week, and unemployment as looking for such work.

Eurostat says:

A 25% youth unemployment rate does not mean that '1 out of 4 young persons is unemployed'. This is a common fallacy. Also, the youth unemployment rate may be high even if the number of unemployed persons is limited. This may be the case when the young labour force (i.e. the rate's denominator) is relatively small. This is not an issue for the unemployment rate of the whole population of working age due to the higher participation of that population in the labour market (43% at ages 15-24, compared to 85% at ages 25-54, 2012 EU-28 estimates)."

Charles Babbage

http://www.centralbank.ie/press-area/press-releases/Pages/PressReleaseQB22016.aspx

GDP growth of 5.1 per cent is forecast for 2016, a marginal upward revision of 0.3 per cent from the previous projection. The forecast for GDP growth in 2017 is 4.2 per cent, down 0.2 per cent from the previous forecast. The strengthening of economic growth over the past year has been underpinned by relatively strong and broad-based growth in employment.
The improvement in the labour market, which has probably been the most important factor in driving the recovery in recent years, has been particularly marked, with average annual employment growth of over 2 per cent since 2012.

Things should be decent, provided the British don't fire a salvo at Ireland as they attempt to rebuild their empire and withdraw from modern trade cooperation.

BoJack Horseman

huge slowdown from 2015 though.

FreudianSlippers

Ireland has sold €100m of 100 year bonds at 2.35%; by contrast Bloomberg points out (emphasis mine):

[...] investors are demanding a yield of 2.66 percent to lend to the U.S. government for 30 years.

That's incredible really.

BoJack Horseman

Why sell a 100 year bond at 2.35% when shorter bonds attract much lower interest?

Doesnt seem like "good news"?

Godge

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

Why sell a 100 year bond at 2.35% when shorter bonds attract much lower interest?

Doesnt seem like "good news"?

Because you can.

BoJack Horseman

Godge wrote: »

Because you can.

I'm sure they 'can' sell a 6 month bill @ 50% .... doesn't mean that they 'should'!

Suryavarman

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

Why sell a 100 year bond at 2.35% when shorter bonds attract much lower interest?

Doesnt seem like "good news"?

Bond rates are historically low. In five years time the ECB will (likely) have raised rates and rates on mid term debt will rise with it. Might as well lock in the rates for 100 years on at least a small portion of the debt.

The fact we can get such rates on 100 year debt when we wouldn't have got those kinds of interest rates on 5 year debt a couple of years ago is pretty good news.

Godge

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

I'm sure they 'can' sell a 6 month bill @ 50% .... doesn't mean that they 'should'!

Being able to sell a 100-year bond is the point.

Whoever is buying that bond won't be alive to see the money come back. The level of confidence required that a state will exist (or a successor state) in 100 years time to pay back that bond is a message to everyone else including the ratings agencies.

BoJack Horseman

Godge wrote: »

Being able to sell a 100-year bond is the point.

Whoever is buying that bond won't be alive to see the money come back. The level of confidence required that a state will exist (or a successor state) in 100 years time to pay back that bond is a message to everyone else including the ratings agencies.

Fair enough, I take that point.

As a statement maker, I guess it is impressive.
The nation itself isn't yet 100 years old after all.

Godge

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

Fair enough, I take that point.

As a statement maker, I guess it is impressive.
The nation itself isn't yet 100 years old after all.

Remember, it is only €100m, when we plan to raise several billion this year.

Avatar MIA

It's great value. The price of a loaf of bread could be 100m Euro in a 100 years

padd b1975

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

huge slowdown from 2015 though.

No harm I feel.

Anything north of 7% only brings bubble talk into play.

We can purr along nicely at between 2 and 5% without too many problems.

Sam Russell

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

Why sell a 100 year bond at 2.35% when shorter bonds attract much lower interest?

Doesnt seem like "good news"?

What were interest rates 100 years ago?