What Americans know about Ireland - CNBC interview

Paramite Pie · 05-11-2014 1:10am

murpho999 wrote: »

Also met Asians who had never even heard of Ireland.

I thought I met Asian's who never heard of Ireland until I learned to say it in their language. Then they knew. Rain, drink, shamrocks and potatoes. Check.

Those with high fluency in English had only heard the American pronunciation (3 syllables) and many people thought i was saying "island" or "our land".

anncoates wrote: »

Does the video involve somebody making uninformed generalizations about Ireland or is it something completely different to what is described?

An Economic Expert insisting that the Irish use Sterling not Euro to an Irish official, not a mere somebody. It's his job to know when interviewing an Irish person on our economy, at least for those 5 mins.

Flutterby80 · 05-11-2014 1:31am

Iranoutofideas wrote: »

At least he wasn't asked - "have you got electricity in Ireland?" like I was when I was over there.

I was asked if we have trees in Ireland....Sweet Baby Jesus

SpaceTime · 05-11-2014 1:31am

To me it just summarises what's wrong with the global economy and how we end up in all these crisis.

The speculators are are largely a bunch of arrogant idiots who are about as insightful as people betting at the racetrack.

All they look at are trends in numbers and don't really go beyond that which basically just magnifies waves in the market rather than actually doing any difficult things like analysing companies and industries in depth.

These kind of gobsheens were the exact same type of people who were singing the praises of various mysterious derivative market products that nearly brought the global financial system to its knees when they were found out to be made up of worthless loans.

I also think that the likes of the EU and Merkel don't really understand what a bunch of arrogant clowns they're dealing with. There was a lot of talk about 'negotiating' with the market as if they were rational, emotional political types who would actually care if you defaulted on stuff for would hold a grudge.

You're dealing with speculators with the attention span of a goldfish who has attention deficit disorder.

Thanks to this level of insight, the entire Western global economy is running on results from the last quarter. A company has a slight glitch and these guys shred it on air even if its fundamentals are sound and next thing it's gone.

Shorttermism, ultra-fast trading and treating these types of commentators with undue respect while ignoring the difficult things like reading in-depth analysis from actual economists is what's going to ultimately wreck our entire globalised economy.

Ultimately, they don't really care where Ireland is or if speculating on the price of say grain, gas, oil etc causes serious hardship for people in some weird country they've only vaguely heard of. All they care about is 'good numbers' and 'green numbers'... the rest of it is just stupid normal people with funny accents who they don't encounter much on exclusive golf courses in countries they can't even find on a map despite having visited.

SimonTemplar · 05-11-2014 1:48am

The guy on the right is a complete buffoon. Here's another video of him attempting an Indian accent:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2431261/CNBC-host-Joe-Kernen-adopting-Indian-accent-asking-rupees-good-7-Eleven.html

Meirleach · 05-11-2014 3:03am

Well that was weird, first half of it fine. When he even brought the golf into it, it seemed okay, hitting on the tourism angle and interjecting a bit of personality.

But...then he just kept going, very strange for what seemed like it was meant to be a serious segment.

Kermit.de.frog · 05-11-2014 3:50am

Even the New York Times have picked this up.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/05/world/europe/irish-agog-that-cnbc-host-joe-kernen-missed-their-exit-from-britain.html?smid=tw-share

How can any anchor be so unprepared? Yes Ireland is a small place and we don't expect them to know everything but on a business channel about Ireland's economy one host does not know the currency we use? Seriously!?

In fact I believe the anchor in question actually covered the Euro crisis of which unfortunately Ireland was one of the main actors.

Even Paul Krugman can't resist

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/04/keeping-informed-with-cnbc/?smid=tw-NytimesKrugman&seid=auto&_r=0

fryup · 05-11-2014 10:32am

they even show ignorance towards our snacks....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTjg_xkPmW8

A Primal Nut · 05-11-2014 10:45am

realies wrote: »

Agree with this, just had a conversation with a lovely Ukraine lady who was shocked to be told that Ireland wasent England lol
Have to say I laughed myself as if 'twas before I be reading her the proclamation,anyway I left her more confused than before...

I wouldn't mind average people not knowing much about Ireland; for example I doubt many Irish people could distinguish between Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Papua New Guinea and Equatorial Guinea; or even what continent they are all in. So I find it funny when Irish people complain about other countries lack of knowledge about Ireland given their geography isn't very good themselves.

That said for a presenter on a business show not to know all this is shocking. And the fact he kept going on about it was embarrassing.

A Primal Nut · 05-11-2014 11:13am

SpaceTime wrote: »

You're obviously hanging around with very unrepresentatively worldly wise people.

I've encountered people in Cork who thought that Donegal was in Northern Ireland and were actually surprised to learn that it was in the Republic.

At times it's surprising that a significant % of the human population can manage to tie their own shoelaces.

I knew a guy from the south of Ireland who was quite clever in other ways but Irish geography was not his strong point. He asked if Cavan is in Connaught or Leinster; he didn't believe me when I said it was in Ulster. He then insisted that Ulster and Northern Ireland are the same thing!

I thought all this stuff had to be learnt off in School!

Funnily enough I haven't encountered the "Ireland is in the UK" thing as much as people mixing up Ireland and Scotland. The amount of people who tell me how much they love Braveheart when I tell them I'm Irish! When I was in Australia some guy asked me if Scotland and Ireland are the same thing; even the other Australians in the elevator started laughing!

Maximus Alexander · 05-11-2014 11:35am

Balmed Out wrote: »

To be fair Ireland is close in size to Sierra Leone and probably as close in distance as Ireland is to America. How much does the average Irish person know about Sierra Leone?

Doesn't really hold water. I know feck all about Sierra Leone but you can bet your sweet ass I'd have the basics down before hosting a TV interview with a Sierra Leonean about the economic environment there.

Brigante · 05-11-2014 11:48am

I've been bartending in New York for the last 2 years and I hear this **** atleast once a week. "Britain? Ireland? Same thing, right?"

SpaceTime · 05-11-2014 11:59am

Big mistake though - Ireland has weight on social media, speaks English and Irish-America is quite embarrassed / disappointed by the looks of things.

It's fed back into US mainstream news outlets and I'm sure he'll get parodied on the Daily Show or elsewhere before the week is out.

Doesn't make CNBC look very good tbh and I'm sure plenty of its competitors will want a bit of a giggle at their expense.

Major own goal

foxy farmer · 05-11-2014 12:00pm

Cousins of mine were on a bus in New York heading to the airport a few years ago. Some yank sitting behind them got talking to them. Went something like this
You guys aren't from around here.
Where you guys from?
Ah we're from Ireland.
Ireland where's that?
Ah it's across the Atlantic next to the UK.
Ok I get it now Ireland. You're irish so. So that what you guys look like!
Wtf like?
They had another experience on a bus where the driver got diverted while heading for the airport got lost and followed the same route 3 times before he stopped and had to be escorted to the airport.
The level of ignorance and lack of general knowledge in the Yanks can be frightening.

SpaceTime · 05-11-2014 12:10pm

I was in Boston on the T and some very obscure team from the Midwest was playing at Fenway Park (The equivalent of Croke Park to baseball... Very historic)

A woman walked up to me and said "Hi! I've never been on a train before... This is really exciting. How do I tell the driver where I want to get out?"

She'd also somehow boarded via an exit and hadn't paid.

I got talking to her. She'd never been outside her own state, had never seen the sea and was incredibly excited about getting to the coast.

She also couldn't understand most Bostonians' accents because they were "super strong'.

So, yeah you can get some very sheltered individuals in the US probably much more so than here because they can be extremely inwardly focused in terms of what they do and some never really travel much and when they do they stay within the US because they've no passports.

However, that's not everyone and you'll encounter the other extreme in the big cities and the business and financial communities.

I could understand that level of ignorance on an obscure, locally focused news station but CNBC broadcasts to an internationally savvy audience and globally too.

It's just mindbogglingly bizzare.

Grab All Association · 05-11-2014 12:23pm

SpaceTime wrote: »

That just makes me wonder about the quality of the rest of their output tbh.

The guy is supposed to be a business news expert not the weathercaster from some remote TV channel in small town Nebraska totally out of his depth doing the business report for the first time.

(Sorry Nebraskans, I'm just using you for illustrative purposes, I'm sure your local TV anchors would be better than that!)

I would assume the producers probably provided briefing notes too. That's fairly normal for anything involving live guests.

Not knowing that Ireland's a founder member of the Eurozone when it was featured in so many stories about the Eurozone crisis etc is pretty bad for a business presenter.

Then asking a public servant questions that you know he won't be able to answer like trying to engage him in a discussion about why Ireland is in the Eurozone is pretty stupid too. The guy isn't a politician and can't publically theorize on his own government's policies.

You might as well have asked Why is Ireland in the Atlantic? Why does it begin with the letter I and not Q..

Trying to get into a debate about things that are just facts is pretty lousy interview technique.

Likewise the question on taxation will not lead to a discussion just a robust defence. Again, I'm not really sure what the point of that was either.

All in all from a viewer's perspective that interview provided absolutely no insight into Ireland really at all.

Then he started making some kind of waffly noises about gold and basically going on a weird Eurosceptic rant towards the end.

Bizarre maybe but from a consumer of CNBC content just a complete waste of time.

That wouldn't happen on CNN Business or BBC Business output.

I know a lot of people in rural Nebraska and they're a lot smarter than that. You should have used one of the bible belt/deep south states.

I once met a girl from Georgia in McDonald's Ennis who thought we were still part of the UK. How she was even let into the country or booked a ticket I will never know.

SpaceTime · 05-11-2014 12:25pm

Chris___ wrote: »

I know a lot of people in rural Nebraska and they're a lot smarter than that. You should have used one of the bible belt/deep south states.

I once met a girl from Georgia in McDonald's Ennis who thought we were still part of the UK. How she was even let into the country or booked a ticket I will never know.

See 3rd paragraph in what you've quoted above...

gormdubhgorm · 05-11-2014 1:19pm

I know this will probably sicken people but this Joe Kernan guy (the eejit who would not shut up and could not believe Ireland was in the Euro) - he gets $2m per year from CNBC's Squawk Box and has a net worth of $14m !!!
http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-businessmen/wall-street/joe-kernen-net-worth/

To me it shows that money can not buy you class.

But apparently he has "master's degree in molecular biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he worked on cancer research."
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1711162/bio

I can't believe they have cancer in America now they would want to get their act together!

cofy · 05-11-2014 5:44pm

fryup wrote: »

they even show ignorance towards our snacks....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTjg_xkPmW8

At least they liked the taste of the best part of a good "fryup":D....... Until they found out what it was made of:D:D:D

Kermit.de.frog · 05-11-2014 5:52pm

The Torygraph spots it's chance. So WHY do Ireland use the euro? They should return to empire etc...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11210280/CNBCs-real-life-Ron-Burgundy-had-it-about-right-on-Ireland-why-on-earth-are-they-using-the-euro.html

DEFTLEFTHAND · 05-11-2014 6:18pm

Chris___ wrote: »

I know a lot of people in rural Nebraska and they're a lot smarter than that. You should have used one of the bible belt/deep south states.

I once met a girl from Georgia in McDonald's Ennis who thought we were still part of the UK. How she was even let into the country or booked a ticket I will never know.

That misconception is common all over though. I've encountered it in different parts of Europe and even Britain itself.

SpaceTime · 05-11-2014 6:30pm

cofy wrote: »

At least they liked the taste of the best part of a good "fryup":D....... Until they found out what it was made of:D:D:D

Yeah, as opposed to all that completely bloodless meat made at the meat factory out of candy floss that they eat in the US...

If you're squeamish about a bit of blood in a sausage, you'd probably want to reconsider eating any meat.

pcardin · 05-11-2014 6:50pm

murpho999 wrote: »

It's very annoying. I know we speak English but so does USA, Canada, Australia etc.
People don't seem to have confusion with Austria and Germany or France and Belgium.
Don't understand how it happens as basic geography teaches you here about other countries so surely it's the same abroad?

Ha ha ha... you'd be surprised how many times in ten years I've been surprised for Irish lack of knowledge in geography too.

I heard that Portuguese and Spanish are all the same and how many don't know where or what for example Latvia, Lithuania or Estonia is and so surprised by the fact that people from these 3 countries are actually not Polish.

So geographic idiocy is common to Irish too, not solely limited to American. :pac:

WesternZulu · 05-11-2014 7:28pm

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

The Torygraph spots it's chance. So WHY do Ireland use the euro? They should return to empire etc...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11210280/CNBCs-real-life-Ron-Burgundy-had-it-about-right-on-Ireland-why-on-earth-are-they-using-the-euro.html

He's nearly as ignorant himself for his comment at the end of the article.

Richard · 05-11-2014 11:52pm

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

The Torygraph spots it's chance. So WHY do Ireland use the euro? They should return to empire etc...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11210280/CNBCs-real-life-Ron-Burgundy-had-it-about-right-on-Ireland-why-on-earth-are-they-using-the-euro.html

They don't mention the empire.⁉️

gidget · 06-11-2014 12:28am

I remember when I was on holidays in California years ago & went into a shop got to talking to the assistant with the usual her asking me where I was from & when I said Ireland, she said "And where's that?"

FloatingVoter · 06-11-2014 2:44am

I was hoping Jon Stewart might pick up on it and invite his good pal Liam Neeson to do a remedial Irish lesson for the folks what are slow of the brain.

Ireland isn't in the United Kingdom
Northern Ireland is complicated and unwanted (a difficult child)
We have no money so it doesn't matter what we don't have to spend
We do web summits without wi-fi. Next year we'll be doing washing without water.

Simple as that.

Duffy the Vampire Slayer · 06-11-2014 5:41am

Lot's of Irish people also have a shocking ignorance of geography. My friends mother was surprised to learn there were both a North and South Korea.

The important thing to note is that she wasn't presenting a TV segment on Korea.

Kermit.de.frog · 06-11-2014 6:04am

WesternZulu wrote: »

He's nearly as ignorant himself for his comment at the end of the article.

Indeed Ireland is by some distance Europe's fastest growing economy now. That is a fact that should be pointed out.

Frank Lee Midere · 06-11-2014 8:29am

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

Indeed Ireland is by some distance Europe's fastest growing economy now. That is a fact that should be pointed out.

Any one year if growth tells you nothing. The euro has exacerbated boom and bust cycles.

WesternZulu · 06-11-2014 8:44am

Frank Lee Midere wrote: »

Any one year if growth tells you nothing. The euro has exacerbated boom and bust cycles.

Well it tells you that Ireland is doing a hell of a lot better than other countries like Spain/Portugal/Greece/Cyprus who were part of the bailout.

SpaceTime · 06-11-2014 4:15pm

I think the difference is Ireland had an underlying strong effort export led economy that was swamped by a speculative bubble and property / banking collapse.

Certain other countries were entirely about the credit bubble and economic activity had been driven hugely by public borrowing for massive infrastructure development.

In Ireland it was dramatic but not AS dramatic in real terms.

I spent time in Spain and the difference between there and Ireland is stark.

I'm really not sure that Spain should stay in the Euro if devaluing might reignite a tourism and manufacturing boom for example.

What's the benefit to them at the moment?

Jamsiek · 07-11-2014 9:55am

SpaceTime wrote: »

A surprising number of Irish and British people don't know the difference between the US and Canada

This is true. I live in Canada and I was asked by people in Ireland if Canada was a state in the US.
I told them it was a separate country and that they use different money which was news to them

Jamsiek · 07-11-2014 9:59am

Thargor wrote: »

Complete and utter garbage.

I have been asked if Canada was in the US by people in Ireland and I even had a card sent to me with "Canada, USA" at the end of the address
Most people in Ireland are educated though so it's very rare

What Americans know about Ireland - CNBC interview

Comments