Are we rich or poor

as a country the last figure I saw was that we are in gross public debt to the tune of approximately between €218.2 - 223 billion

debt isnt necessarily a bad thing, but like most debt, it depends what its being used for, bailing out asset markets such as property markets probably isnt a great way of using such money(debt), but using it for long term infrastructure spending, tends to be a far better way of using it.

in order for an economy to grow, its overall debt must also grow, as debt is our money supply, and public debt is simply adding to the overall money supply, noting in modern economies, such as ours, credit is the primary money supply, although critical to the overall money supply, and the overall well being of our economies, we have become overly reliant on this critical supply, which is now being the main driver of the overall value of our asset markets such as our property markets, i.e. its effectively causing the hyper inflation of our assets markets, in particular our property markets, which of course is now causing extremely serious social and economic issues.

i.e. debt isnt always bad, but its critical its used in an effective way, and simply not to just inflate the value of assets, but to actually be used in creating them, i.e. infrastructure spending etc

Many people currently have very high incomes, own luxurious cars, take expensive holidays, live in top quality houses and enjoy an unrivalled standard of living. Especially in the countryside and areas adjacent to the cities and industry. However, it is virtually all dependent on foreign investment. Since the 2008 crash, much of our investment property has been sold to US companies while virtually all of our independent shops etc have lost out to large multiples. The very wealthy developers of that period, who were in the process of accumulating real asset wealth are long since bankrupted. Our wealth is very precarious imo dependent on the fortunes of US companies, subject to an economic upheaval at any time.

The articles referenced in OP reflect two different outlooks on what economies should do. The first is that you run it like a house and save for a rainy day, the second is that its nothing like a house and you should invest it in productive infrastructure so that you can diversify avoid the impact of the rainy day.

Th first would see the Corporation tax boom as something that could go away therefore we should save our surpluses for the future.

The second would see it as only being something that will definitely go away if we don't invest it now in our future.

I am inclined to see it as the second. The spending of our surplus on well planned productive infrastructure grows the economy in the long term mitigating the risk of the corporation tax going away by opening up new sources of internally generated tax revenue. By saving it our returns will be less than or equal to inflation meaning the money is wasted.

This is also why government debt and deficits are not necessarily a bad thing, once the borrowed money is used to help grow productivity. Saving it just sucks productivity out of the economy hindering the future potential. Productivity is ultimately what drives wealth growth on a population not the raw economic growth numbers.

Do you have a source for this? I'm curious to see how many jobs are created by vulture funds and grotty offshore accounts in tax havens.

As i said cake n eat it. They want this constant transfer of wealth but each generstion has less which means either having families later in life or not at all due to costs. Theyre trying to fill the void of an older population with migration which might work short term but still the problem of greed exists and on the cycle will continue.

They're not poor but they're not comfortable. One bad injury for a self employed plumber or plasterer and he'll be barely making his bills inside 2 months. Wages have lagged way behind inflation and the cost of living and housing. I remember my parents selling a house in 1987 for €26k, same house today is 10 times that but wages have gone up by double. CEO's have convince people that they're worth 15 to 100 times the salary of their median employees but when that same company goes bust due to that CEO's strategy, they walk away scot free. Their employee gets the dole.

Its not a trope. Its very much an organised transfer of wealth both through the hoarding of assets inflating asset prices and through consolidating the productivity gains made by all workers into the hands of the share holding class (they will try to tell you "but but but that's the ordinary persons pension - well over 90% of the stock market is wealthy individuals and institutions").

From the early 20th century to about 1980 the growth of productivity and the growth in wages and standard of living were reasonable aligned. Then the wealthy changed their message and managed to sell the message that to do well the wealthy needed to hoard everything and trickle down bs.

This is not an argument. You've cherrypicked two questionable examples which don't back up what you're saying.

I have recently being trying to get our unborn first child into childcare for September of 2026 with great difficulty. What struck me is the number of workers that we have had to import in order to keep an under resourced childcare sector working. So yes, without immigration many of our critical sectors would be in major trouble. But that does pose the question, what sort of society are we creating where two working parents may struggle to mortgage a modest house and, are we as a nation happy that we have created a society where it is necessary for both parents to work full-time such that we have created an under resourced child care sector that is very reliant on imported labour?

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