I well remember when George Osborne said if only the UK was more like Ireland all its problems would be solved. Oh for the heady days of 2006, eh, George? When you wrote in The Times of the “Irish miracle” that “stands as a shining example of the art of the possible in long-term economic policymaking”.
Think what a mess we'd be in now if George had been in charge then.
And remember that tomorrow when George blames everyone but himself for the mess he's made now he's in charge here.
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Ireland still has a higher per capita GDP than Japan, France, Germany, Sweden, UK, Spain, Italy & Denmark.
Thirty years ago Ireland was the poorest country in western Europe.
It has obviously done something right.
I’m not sure those emigrating now will agree with you
Or the 15% unemployed
Or those losing homes
If you take your view on reality from numbers you have a horribly distorted view of human life
I say that as a chartered accountant
But presumably you are basing your views on numbers too – numbers of people emigrating, numbers unemployed, number of repossessions etc.
In the 1970s Ireland was an economic backwater, an irrelevance. It is highly unlikely to go back to that status, even with the fall out from the GFC. It’s workforce is now too highly educated for a start to ever revert to those bad old days.
Look of course numbers matter
But to say that Ireland’s doing fine right now is just wrong
I agree – Ireland has real strengths now – and that’s great
But until it can be liberated to enjoy them many are going to suffer
Hi Richard Murphy, Was not Iceland one of the richest countries in the world, and then 18 months later it was wiped out and bankrupt,
Yes
“Ireland still has a higher per capita GDP than Japan, France, Germany, Sweden, UK, Spain, Italy & Denmark.
Thirty years ago Ireland was the poorest country in western Europe.”
GDP is not a very accurate measure where Ireland is concerned; a lot of its GDP (over 20% IIRC) comes from tax avoiding transfer policies practiced by the likes of Google, who base their company HQs in the IFSC and then pretend that all their corporate profits are generated in Ireland, to take advantage of the absurdly low corporate tax rate.
The real economy, outside the Wizard of Oz World of balance sheet trickery, is really suffering – debt/deflation caused by the deleveraging of possibly the biggest asset bubble in history; enormous unemployment, especially in the 18-25 age-group; insane no-strings-attached bailouts of criminal banks like Anglo-Irish Bank (the “systemically vital” bank that “had to be saved”, despite the fact it has no branches, no ATMs and no small customers);and, unlike Iceland, membership of the euro has meant we cannot, unlike Iceland, try to kickstart the economy with a massive devaluation (the Icelanders also had the common sense to repudiate their odious banker debts).
Ireland’s prosperity was largely a credit-fuelled illusion, caused by massive over-leveraging in the manner of the US in the 1920s or Japan in the 1980s; not a good example for you to be extolling as “doing something right”.
Oh, and Portugal was, and is, the poorest country in Western Europe. both in 1980 and now. Spain wasn’t too far behind it either back then. That’s what fascism does for you.
Excellent point
I’d forgotten how inflated Irish GDP was by profit flows
Osborne’s economic credentials are that he has a rich daddy. Don’t blame the man, blame the system that elevates so inept an individual to such an eminent position.
Yes Bill, his “skills” have been honed to enable him to act out the role of the international bankers’ conduit. The title of the song with which Sandie Shaw won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1967, comes to mind.
I agree that this was an absurd statement by Osborne.
However, who was chief economic adviser to Gordon Brown when GB claimed several times to have ended boom and bust in the UK (Hint he is now shadow chancellor)?
My point being that gross mismanagement of the economy of the country is not a preserve only of the Tories.
It’s the end result of politics as a career.
The closest many have come to economics is part of the title of their degree.