cia page on ireland

[joe sod]

[broken link removed]

I just had a look at the cia fact page for ireland. It is a minefield of statistical information. There is more information on this than you will get from any irish government website. One of the most interesting is that 17% of our exports come from britain but we import 37% of our imports from britain. Maybe this another reason why our inflation rate is so high as sterling is now very expensive. Also the growth in the irish population at 1.143% is one of the highest in the world comppared to 0.27% for britain. also it has external debt at $1.392 trillion, a massive figure presumably this is the debt of all people in the country combined

 

[CGorman]

Yeah, CIA's got interesting stats... however your interpetations are misguided. The debt figure equates to $350k per person... €255k per person. You must remember that a large proportion of Irish external debt is due to the workings of the IFSC and to borrowings by Irish firms and individuals to invest in productive assets and business expansion. Debt is only a tool to them to allow us to conquer European and world markets. Airtricity must borrow to build new windfarms, Aer Lingus must borrow to buy planes to start new routes, CRH must borrow to buy US materials groups to expand... all this is hugely positive. Granted there is risk associated to this debt and to the part of it that does constitue borrowing to buy new cars or to do up the house... but thats normal. I'd add that Ireland is in the unique situtation of simultanously having one of the fastest growth rates of both debt and savings in the EU.

As for currency change induced inflation... its actually the other way around. The euro/pound rate has risen in our favour from 0.61 to 0.68 since 2002. Thats a good 11% improvement for us. Likewise the euro/dollar rate has changed from 0.88 to 1.37 - a 55% improvement in our favour. Without these changes, inflation might have been much higher in the last few years. For example, had the dollar rate not changed, petrol prices would be a good 55% higher now!! So instead of an average litre costing €1.20... it'd cost closer to €1.85!!!

[broken link removed]

There is more information on this than you will get from any irish government website

Emm.. try the CSO website... I assure you it has far more stats on Ireland than the CIA's website...

 

[ClubMan]

Other sites of relevance might include Department of Finance (in particular monthly economic bulletins), OECD, [broken link removed] etc.

 

[CCOVICH]

I wouldn't necessarily assume that the CIA info is that accurate either-I have seen it ridiculed in the past. Nevermind that 'intel' on Iraq....

 

[Leo]

... Likewise the euro/dollar rate has changed from 0.88 to 1.37 - a 55% improvement in our favour...

Great for imports, hurting exports. So overall, not in the national interest.

 

[CGorman]

Of course, but that comment was refering to the direct impact on inflation... a numerical improvement in exchange rates will bring down inflation in the short term... long term, of course exports hurt and hurt us.

 

[joe sod]

I wouldn't necessarily assume that the CIA info is that accurate either-I have seen it ridiculed in the past. Nevermind that 'intel' on Iraq....

Maybe their intelligence on terrorist organisations etc may not have been accurate. However facts on countries is not exactly secret information, it just requires an awful lot of effort to have it in such a concise an easy to read format. What Im pointing to is that no government agency presents its information in such a concise and no nonsense format. If you go to the cso or finance department, the information may be there but requires an awful lot of work to get the bits and pieces you are lucking for, in other words its not that easy for the layman to get this information. For example the population information would not be presented in such a way on a government website it would need to be deduced from census figures, something a layman is not going to do, but something a layman would be very interested in.

 

[gonk]

What Im pointing to is that no government agency presents its information in such a concise and no nonsense format. If you go to the cso or finance department, the information may be there but requires an awful lot of work to get the bits and pieces you are lucking for

The CSO is probably less interested than the CIA in such statistical gems as the "manpower fit for military service" and "military expenditures as % of GDP".