Are we rich or poor

Some are filthy rich, some are rich, some are managing, some are poor and some are filthy poor

Oh they know alright, they just don't want to admit it. The rich are getting richer and everyone else is suffering. Food and goods inflation is hitting people in the pocket, each month they have less disposable income but the government get more tax take, as the inflation means higher vat returns for them.

It's too ambiguous to define rich or poor. A guy might think the guy next door is rich whereas the guy himself might consider himself middle of the road or lower. Guy A probably has no clue what guy B next doors financial situation is. One mans definition of rich will be completely at odds as someone else's.

That makes sense.

To me it seems that Ireland is not just rich country but one of the richest in the world. The problem is that none of the wealth generated has been sensibly invested. During the boom years, it was wasted in the form of tax cuts so what could have been invested in education and infrastructure was fritted away on home makeovers, holiday homes and keeping up with the Joneses.

That means that Ireland is a very wealthy country with the same infrastructure it had before the boom so that when Brexit happened, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase immediately ruled out Dublin as a place to move to.

In the meantime, house prices have soared and we're now at a point where adding to supply in order to make it more affordable would put a huge amount of people into negative equity. Add in NIMBYism and BANANAism and I can't think of a surer way for a propsective TD to commit political suicide than showing serious intention to build houses.

The housing crisis is choking the country. It's sending a generation of Irish people abroad, it chokes business and innovation and it's only going to get worse.

its virtually impossible to 'run out of money' in modern economies, as money is created on a regular basis in our financial institutions in both the public and private domains, but yes, money 'velocity'(turn over of money) most definitely can slow to potentially dangerous levels, inducing recessions etc. yes irelands deposits are currently at an all time high, but resting money does virtually nothing for the economy, i.e. has virtually no velocity, it just helps to safe guard the banking sector, helping to meet reserve requirements etc, but again, no velocity

we do actually need to save the planet, and theres actually a possibility, we re fcuked in that regard, but taxing and indebting the bollcoks out of the population simply wont work, governments need to take on significant amounts of debt to do so, but they wont, so leaving us in the current fcuked state!

we clearly mix with different long term unemployed, some i know regularly miss critical payments such as electricity, the odd meal etc etc, many struggling do deal with long term mental health issues, addiction problems, some engage in crime, to try survive, feed addictions etc! holidays, thats funny, some i know havent been on a holiday in decades, some even never, so……

again, its all relative, wealth is generally stored in the value of assets such as property, if you dont own assets such as property, theres a good chance you re not wealthy, i.e. not rich!

welfare and unemployment does need to be a part of the discussion, as it can be a very useful metric to gauge the health of an economy, but its commonly misused, misunderstood, misconstrued, mis……….etc etc etc

immigration is the only game in town, after that its potential economic stagnation, later and later retirement, longer and longer working hours etc etc, so take your pick!

not only do we need them in services, we also need them in other critical sectors such as construction, health services, and their adjacent sectors etc, but since we re now starting to engage in stricter immigration rules, similar to other countries, all thats looking out the window, so get ready, its not gonna be pretty, particularly as we all age!