The next recession

cremeegg

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David McWilliams, the man who made his name forecasting the last recession, is saying that the next one is not happening.



I think he is right, now while I am naturally an optimist, there are no real indicators of a recession on its way. Sure interest rates will rise, brexit all be a disaster and barriers to trade are the new fashion. However none of these things will derail us, none of then undermine our fundamental success as an economy.

We need to build infrastructure to match our success.
 
David covers his rear end with so many "ifs" and "buts", "could" etc, that he may never be called wrong. A great living can be made out of having the ability to schmooze with his line of banter. Ross O Carroll Kelly just happens to be better at it in my opinion.:cool:
 
Data is the biggest commodity of our generation. Google and Facebook are making huge sums of money from it and in the past 24 months this has been noticed. There is pretty much everyday a new story about Google / Facebooks use of data or them being called in front of x committee or x politician calling for regulation.

I firmly believe that facebook / google will not be the same entities in 10/20 years and with that all those jobs may disappear from Dublin and that is my concern for the next recession.

I am sure in the 70's central England never thought cars would stop getting made there.
 
When a Goverment is allowed to pick and choose particular commodities and base the inflation rate on that product going up or down in price it doesn't sit right with me. In fact it's ridiculous in my opinion. Then again, i'm not one of those exalted economists who know everything, but in reality wouldn't know the tail end of a bullock from its rear end.
 
I'm an economist by trade and subscribe to the approach, wherever possible, of not making predictions - especially about the future.
 
I'm an economist by trade and subscribe to the approach, wherever possible, of not making predictions - especially about the future.
My view of economists like Williams is that his “guess” has a 50 50 chance of being correct. And that my non professional economist view us equally as valid as his guess.
 
My view of economists like Williams is that his “guess” has a 50 50 chance of being correct. And that my non professional economist view us equally as valid as his guess.

The chance of a recession is indeed 100% if you wait long enough.
 
David McWilliams made his name in the 2000s by being anti establishment and by telling everyone years beforehand that the property boom was a bubble that was inflated by cheap money from the banks, in this he was absolutely correct. Guess what because he made his name then he makes big bucks now, but you don't make big bucks by being always anti establishment, that does not get you on tv shows or sells you books. He was a maverick then now he is "inside the tent pissing out".
The big danger this time comes from the multi nationals and Ireland's dependence on them. The eu is going to get heavy with Ireland on taxation, the British after brexit are reducing their corporation tax to 12.5 percent. Oh and we are talking down our only big indigenous industry, agriculture.
 
The big danger this time comes from the multi nationals and Ireland's dependence on them.

True, but this misses the point, that the multinationals are the best game in the world and Ireland has played that game well. Yes things may change but there is no point in not attracting FDI now on the basis that it may not be available in the future. And the FDI thing has gone well for Ireland for a long time, through two boom and recession cycles.
 
The eu is going to get heavy with Ireland on taxation
True again, but this is problem of success. If the multinationals all left we wouldn't have to worry about the tax issue.

he British after brexit are reducing their corporation tax to 12.5 percent.
After Brexit, Britain is likely to be poorer, a large trading partner with less money to buy our goods and services. Whatever tinkering they do with their tax rates will be irrelevant.

Oh and we are talking down our only big indigenous industry, agriculture.

Oh and we are talking down our only big indigenous industry, heavily subsidised and still loss making, agriculture.
 
True, but this misses the point, that the multinationals are the best game in the world and Ireland has played that game well. Yes things may change but there is no point in not attracting FDI now on the basis that it may not be available in the future. And the FDI thing has gone well for Ireland for a long time, through two boom and recession cycles.


I think we're the only game in town for the foreign companies. As an entry to Europe and being the only English speaking country in the EU and we have the graduates they require. Don't fool yourselves, we're smart old buggers and half smart when the need arises.
 
Oh and we are talking down our only big indigenous industry, heavily subsidised and still loss making, agriculture.

It may be loss making to some farmers, but its still our biggest indigenous industry, the likes of kerry group and glanbia and goodman international make loads of money and are irelands biggest companies. since the banking collapse they replaced the banks as the biggest stocks on the irish stock exchange. The agriculture industry employs alot more people than just farmers
 
It may be loss making to some farmers, but its still our biggest indigenous industry, the likes of kerry group and glanbia and goodman international make loads of money and are irelands biggest companies. since the banking collapse they replaced the banks as the biggest stocks on the irish stock exchange. The agriculture industry employs alot more people than just farmers

But this is industry, not agriculture.

It's like saying that making furniture is the same as growing trees.


The CSO statistics repeatedly show that all the value produced by Irish farmers (as it leaves farm gate) is offset by the subsidies they receive.
 
Farm lobby groups regularly overstate the importance and virility of the Irish agri industry.
It may be loss making to some farmers, but its still our biggest indigenous industry, the likes of kerry group and glanbia and goodman international make loads of money and are irelands biggest companies. since the banking collapse they replaced the banks as the biggest stocks on the irish stock exchange. The agriculture industry employs alot more people than just farmers
The reason these companies make loads of money is because taxpayers, via CAP, are bailing out farmers annually to produce cheap food that the processors sell on for the fat profit margins. Taxpayer are paying so we can undercut Asian farmers in their regional/domestic markets.

By value, Ireland imports twice as much food as it does oil (In 2016, Ireland had €13.2 billion of exports and €9 billion of imports of agri-food products. By comparison our total fuel imports amounted to €4.7 billion).

And according to the CSO, Agriculture, forestry and fishing employed 89k in 2016, behind retail (267k), health and social services (223k), manufacturing (201k), Real estate, renting and business activities (193k), education 177k... I'm sure the IFA will say the industry 'supports' thousands of jobs but everyone does that - if every industry counted their employment in the same way there would be millions of jobs supported in Ireland.
 
And according to the CSO, Agriculture, forestry and fishing employed 89k in 2016, behind retail (267k), health and social services (223k), manufacturing (201k), Real estate, renting and business activities (193k), education 177k... I'm sure the IFA will say the industry 'supports' thousands of jobs but everyone does that - if every industry counted their employment in the same way there would be millions of jobs supported in Ireland.

im not sure about those statistics, for example if a guy is employed manufacturing butter for kerrygold his job is included in category "manufacturing" not "forestry and fishing". All of the other categories are basically public service and non traded sectors, they are not wealth creators. The multi nationals are wealth creators and are our most important wealth creators but behind them is the agriculture industry. Raw materials grown in ireland are processed here , wealth creation, and by and large sold on the international markets. We dont have a comparable indigenous industry, we dont have pharma, we dont have tech, we do but they are foereign owned and the intellectual capital is developed abroad .
 
When a Goverment is allowed to pick and choose particular commodities and base the inflation rate on that product going up or down in price it doesn't sit right with me. In fact it's ridiculous in my opinion. Then again, i'm not one of those exalted economists who know everything, but in reality wouldn't know the tail end of a bullock from its rear end.

The Govt does not do this, they do not "pick and choose commodities".

The CSO construct the CPI, and the CPI basket is carefully constructed to reflect consumers spending patterns.
 
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