Israel's Carthage and Netanyahu's long record of duplicity

Evacuation warnings issued by Israel to people in Gaza ahead of attacks contained a host of significant errors, BBC analysis has revealed. Warnings contained contradictory information and sometimes misnamed districts, making them confusing to Gazans seeking safety. Experts have said such mistakes could violate Israel's obligations under international law.

Cato the Elder (234–149 BC) is said to have repeatedly uttered the line Cato the Elder (234–149 BC) is said to have repeatedly uttered the line "Carthāgō delenda est" / "Carthage must be destroyed" in the Roman Senate.

The city was destroyed by the Romans in 146 BC during the Third Punic War.

Carthaginian, 62,000 dead and 50,000 enslaved of an estimated 112,000 present in the city; Roman, 17,000 of 40,000.

After several decades, Carthage became one of Rome’s most important colonies.

What was common between Carthage, under Roman control of the rubble, and Israel since its independence in 1948, is collective punishment.

The United Nations in 1980 said "It is estimated that between 15 May 1948 and the end of 1951, more than 684,000 Jewish immigrants settled in Israel on a substantial part of the land abandoned by the Palestinians.

Of the 370 Jewish settlements established between 1948 and the beginning of 1953, 350 were established on land abandoned by the Palestinians. In 1954 more than one-third of Israel’s Jewish population, plus 250,000 new Jewish immigrants, settled in whole cities that had been completely deserted by the Palestinians as a result of the military operations of 1948. Jaffa, Acre, Lydda, Ramleh and Beisan were some of them.

As to the Palestinian Arabs who had remained in Israel, restrictive measures amounting to dispossession were taken by the Custodian of Absentee Property, who was inclined to interpret the Absentee Property Law of 1950 rather too broadly."

B'Tselem, the Iseral civil rights organisation, in 2023 said that 554 homes, not related to construction, were demolished, and 784 houses were demolished in 2022.

B'Tselem said in 2021 "Israel embarked on a large-scale demolition campaign throughout the West Bank, in which it destroyed and confiscated dwellings, tents, livestock enclosures, buildings under construction, a road, and even a structure intended for burial. Twenty-two people, including 15 children, lost their homes in one day."

"Demolition for alleged military purposes is also common."

This is common in the West Bank and East Jerestelam and has been standard since 1967.

B'Tselem says Israel is an apartheid state.

"Israel’s regime of apartheid and occupation is inextricably bound up in human rights violations."

B'Tselem was established in February 1989 by a large group of Israeli lawyers, doctors and academics with the support of a lobby of ten members of the Knesset.

B’Tselem – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories strives for a future in which human rights, liberty and equality are guaranteed to all people, Palestinian and Jewish alike, living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. 

[Such a future will only be possible when the Israeli occupation and apartheid regime end. That is the future we are working towards. B’Tselem (in Hebrew literally: in the image of), the name chosen for the organization by the late Member of Knesset Yossi Sarid (1940-2015), is an allusion to Genesis 1:27: “And God created humankind in His image. In the image of God did He create them.” 

The name expresses the universal and Jewish moral edict to respect and uphold the human rights of all people.] 

Ireland’s dual economy: divergent performance, lowest export rate in EU

"Ireland now is one of the top 10 investors in the United States’ economy," President Biden said at the 2024 St Patrick's Celebration. In 2022 the amount was almost $300bn and $431bn for Germany. This Irish yarn is about redomiciled US firms for tax purposes, not the small number of Irish multinationals.

Irish multinationals with market cap €10bn+: CRH plc (1970) from merger Cement Ltd (1936) & Roadstone Ltd (1949) market cap €54bn; Ryanair (1985) €24bn; Kingspan (1965) €15bn; Kerry Group (1972) €14bn; Smurfit Kappa (1934) €11bn.

Micro: enterprises with less than 10 persons employed;

Small: enterprises with 10 to 49 persons employed;

Medium: enterprises with 50 to 249 persons employed;

Large: enterprises with more than 250 persons employed.

According to the Central Statistics Office (CSO) there were 11,785 exporting enterprises in 2022 i.e. with goods exports of over €1,000 in the year. (The minimum level is farcical.);

There were just 469 large exporting enterprises (with over 250+ employees) but they accounted for 79% (almost €161bn) of all exports in 2022. These large enterprises comprised only 4% of all enterprises;

There were 11,314 SMEs exporting goods in 2022. The total value of their exports was €38.3bn or 19% of total exports. This includes 6,917 micro-enterprises, which exported €10.1bn of goods;

Micro enterprises accounted for 59% of the number of exporters, but only 5% of the value of goods exported.

The 2021 EU chart above shows that from Micro to Medium the rate of 21% (19% on the bottom of the page) exporting was the lowest in the 27-member European Union and the highest at 79% for Large companies.

Small and medium enterprises in The Netherlands and Denmark have export rates of 60 and 50%.

The average reported turnover for the 12 months up to and including September 2022 was €4.03mn. This was €792,000 for Micro companies and €4.05mn for small-sized enterprises, while medium-sized companies reported an average turnover of €9.99mn.

Gross Value Added (GVA- see below) per person employed for large Irish-owned enterprises (250+ persons employed) was €68,993 but rose to €369,918 when foreign-owned large enterprises were included.

According to the CSO, a third of employment in Foreign-owned firms in Ireland is in SMEs.

Foreign-owned firms accounted for €332.1bn - an increase of 9.0% over 2020. This represents 86.6% of total sales related to government agency's clients in 2021.

Sales for Irish-owned firms increased by 13.1% between 2020 and 2021, amounting to €51.4bn or 13.4% of total sales.

(See below that other Foreign-owned firms import and sell in the Irish market.)

FT 1000 in 2024 tracks Europe’s fastest-growing companies

Raylyst Solar, a Prague-based solar panel distributor, heads the eighth annual FT 1000 ranking with a Compound Annual Growth Rate (%) of 824.4%. The company says "We are a leading distributor of photovoltaic products for the European region. We provide the highest quality solar panels falling into the Bloomberg Tier 1 category, as well as inverters and battery systems from verified manufacturers in the market."

Adagio of France, primarily sells to the digital advertising industry. It was founded in 2012 and is ranked second with a CAGR of 582.6%, followed by an Italian digital ad agency. Bidberry has 424.4% growth.

The FT 1000 ranking produced by the German statistics firm, Statista, highlights the European companies that have grown fastest.

They rank from the highest compound annual growth rate (CAGR), in revenue from 2019 to 2022. This year, a minimum average growth rate of 36.9% is required for participation.

Ireland's GDP per capita in 2023 at €30,000 - Denmark at €69,000

ECB: (European Central Bank): Intangible assets of multinational enterprises in Ireland and their impact on euro area GDP

The 20-country Euro Area has a population of about 348,000,000 and the EU is at 448,000,000.

The Irish population in December 2023 is estimated to have been 5,330,000.

Denmark in 2023 had a euro income per capita of €69,100. It is the most prosperous country in Europe (absen shenanigans) with a population close to 6mn.

A phantom Contract Manufacturing /Goods for processing was to be among MNC (multinational) deductions made in 2017. It was to be deleted from the headline GDP to produce a Modified General National Income (GNI*).

However, it got worse every year between 2017-2023 (see the chart above).

Irish Government may have nixed a key remedy for 'Leprechaun economics'

GDP (Gross domestic product) was falsely boosted in 2022 by €143bn and €115bn in 2023.

I deducted €115bn from the GNI* and the Irish income per capita was about €30,000 in 2023.

The notion that Ireland is among the richest in the world, would earn a Piseóg (an Irish curse) from many Irish people.

Denmark ranked 9th among the 132 economies featured in the Global Innovation Index 2023. Ireland has a small innovation base.

In 2023 Denmark's flagship drug firm Novo Nordisk, became Europe's most valuable company. In early March 2024, Novo Nordisk was the 12th most valuable company in the world, with a market cap of $604bn.

Competition for obesity drugs will bring down current high valuations enjoyed by Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly. However, Denmark has been a pioneer in developing commercial wind power since the 1970s and Denmark is the world's fifth-largest maritime shipping nation.

It's 39 years since the birth of a significant multinational in Ireland: Ryanair the largest airline in Europe both in terms of fleet size (527 aircraft) and routes served (1,831).

(Provisional data on the Irish National Accounts have been published, and final figures will be published next July.)

Ireland once had a significant pharmaceutical company, at the turn of the century. It was founded by an American in 1969 and in the late 1990s, its value on the Irish Stock Exchange reached over €20bn. In 2001 Élan Corporation was the world's 20th-largest drug company.

In January 1984, Élan became the first Irish company to secure a public listing in America, floating on the NASDAQ. In 1990 Élan became the first Irish company to list on the New York Stock Exchange.

In 2002 a corrupt plan by executives was revealed. They had agreed on complex joint-venture agreements with 55 companies. By keeping the company’s stake in each of these vehicles below 20%, Élan was able to keep their poor results off the corporation’s income statements. There were problems with products and by 2013 several units had been sold and the company was acquired by an American firm. The price was €6.5bn.

Global Finance magazine has the 10 richest countries in the world in 2024 with Luxembourg, Ireland, and Singapore in the lead. Switzerland has a 6th ranking and Norway is at 9th. The United States is 10th.

Denmark with a population of 5,911,000 has an 11th position at $75,000 or €69,100.

GDP-PPP (Purchasing power parity) per capita ($): Luxembourg $143,304; Ireland $137,638 and Singapore is at $133,108.

Both Ireland and Luxembourg are anomalies.

About 75% of Luxembourg's workforce comprises immigrant workers or cross-border commuters. The share of cross-border workers has increased from 3% in 1961 to 47% in 2023; nearly one in two cross-border workers comes from France.

China world leader in 37 of 44 critical technologies, EU missing

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) was formed in 2001 and the Critical Technology Tracker was launched on 1st March 2023. It identified China as having stolen a march on its competitors.

ASPI said that China's global lead extends to 37 of the 44 technologies tracked, with the country excelling in defence and space-related technologies. The United States had 7 positions.

The think-tank said "Notably, China's strides in nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles, reportedly took US intelligence by surprise in August 2021. ASPI's Critical Technology Tracker shows that, for some technologies, all of the world's top 10 leading research institutions are based in China, collectively generating nine times more high-impact research papers than the second-ranked country, most often the US."

The dataset revealed a large gap between China and the US, "as the leading two countries, and everyone else. The data then indicates a small, second-tier group of countries led by India and the UK: other countries that regularly appear in this group — in many technological fields — include South Korea, Germany, Australia, Italy, and less often, Japan."

Australia was in the top five for nine technologies; Italy (seven technologies), Iran (six), Japan (four) and Canada (four).

Russia, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, France, Malaysia and the Netherlands were in the top five for one or two technologies. Several other countries, including Spain and Turkey, make the top 10 countries but were outside the top five.

ASPI noted, "One surprising finding of the report is that Iran has surpassed countries like Japan, Canada, France and Russia to secure its place in the top five in six critical technologies."

Value of Amsterdam house doubled in over 350 years - What happened next?

In 1625 Pieter Fransz, a carpenter, built a house on the outskirts of Amsterdam, by the new Herengracht (Gentleman's Canal). A picture of the house can be seen above (at the left) and below.

The Eighty Years' War, (1568–1648), was initially a fight for the Netherlands' independence from Spain, which led to the separation of the northern and southern Netherlands, and the formation of the United Provinces of the Netherlands (the Dutch Republic).

The Dutch Republic was a confederation from 1579 to 1795 and in the 1600s its population was the richest in the world on a per capita basis.

The Southern Netherlands also called the Catholic Netherlands, were part of the Low Countries. They were controlled by Spain (1556–1714), Austria (1714–94) and added into France (1794–1815). This area was most of modern Belgium [at the Congress of Vienna, in 1815, Belgium (The Southern Netherlands) and the Northern Netherlands (Holland) were united to form one state (Belgium became independent in 1831)].

First Modern Economy: Myths on tulips & most valuable firm in history

Piet Eichholtz (1962), professor of Real Estate and Finance at Maastricht University, in 1997 published 'A Long-Run House Price Index: The Herengracht Index, 1628-1973.'

Prof Eichholtz had transactional details for 487 houses on the Herengracht and from 1632 to 1634 house prices fell almost 50%.

In 1636 alone 17,000 people or 14% of the Amsterdam population died during a plague.

700 years of Amsterdam was celebrated in 1975. The book 'Vier eeuwen Herengracht'(1975 'Four Centuries Herengracht') chronicled all the families that had lived on the Herengracht.

The average real price increase after World War II was about 3.2% per annum. Nevertheless, the real value of the index in 1973 was only twice as high as it was in 1628.

Prof Anne Goldgar, the author of 'Tulipmania: Money, Honor, and Knowledge in the Dutch Golden Age' (2007) wrote that the crash in 1637 was probably caused by unsustainability, and fears of oversupply. But the effect wasn't nearly as bad as the story suggests.

"I looked to try and find anybody that was made bankrupt because this is the myth of course that people were drowning themselves in canals because they were made bankrupt," she says. "Actually I couldn't find anybody that was bankrupt because of Tulip Mania."

Lodewijk Petram, author of ‘The World’s First Stock Exchange’ (2014) says “There were some 285 people actively involved in bulb trading in Haarlem, with an estimated sixty traders in Amsterdam.”

The Dutch economy primarily flourished due to its efficient textile, shipbuilding, and agricultural industries; also its development of an advanced financial system; and its establishment of monopolies on international trade such as in spices, sugar, and slaves were important. Migration to The Netherlands also helped.

Elections galore in 2024 - Ireland among reluctant voters

The Pew Research Center published in late 2022 the most recent nationwide election results for 50 countries, mostly with highly developed economies and solid democratic traditions. The Center said the clear turnout champion was Uruguay: In the second, decisive round of that nation’s 2019 presidential election, 94.9% of the estimated voting-age population and 90.1% of registered voters cast ballots.

The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) based in Stockholm, has a database of the Voting Age Population (VAP), as well as the number of Registered Voters (REG) as indicators of political participation. The VAP figure includes an estimated number of all those citizens over the legal voting age, while the registration rate comprises the actual number of people on the voters’ roll.

Ireland's VAP Turnout rate was only 56.65% in the general election of 2020; 58.04% in 2016 and 63.78% in 2011.

The Irish general election in February 2011 was crucial as it came months following the economic rescue following the busting of the property bubble.

In November 2010, the Irish government sought help from the IMF and the European Union, which together provided loans totalling €67.5bn — equal to 40%t of Ireland's then economy. The rescue involved the International Monetary Fund (IMF); European Central Bank (ECB), and also the British government, which gave a loan to Ireland.

In February 2011 36% of the 18 age-plus population did not vote.

The Irish VAP was 77.76% in 1973 when Ireland joined the European Economic Community (EEC). It was 73.41% in 1948.

The 2020 Irish poll was the first general election held on a Saturday since 1918 but the participation rate still fell.

The next Irish general election has to be held by March 2025 to elect the 34th Dáil, the lower house of Ireland's parliament, the Oireachtas.

Under the Electoral (Amendment) Act 2023, there will be 174 TDs (Repersatives) at the next election, an increase of 14 seats from the current Dáil, and an increase in the number of constituencies from 39 to 43. This will be the largest Dáil in the history of the state.

4,000+ big multinationals fall within new global tax regime

Paolo Gentiloni, EU Commissioner for Economy, says that the coming into force of new rules for big multinational firms in Europe and in jurisdictions around the world is a historic reform which marks a major step towards a fairer corporate taxation system.

He says the reforms have the potential to generate an extra $220bn annually — about 9% to help countries around the world, to fund crucial investments and high-quality public services.

Gentiloni says that since 1980 the rate of corporate taxes has fallen from an average of 40 to 23% and across Europe they have fallen from 45 to just under 20%. He says additional sweeteners, preferential rates and unacceptable loopholes allowing profits to be shifted to zero or low-tax jurisdictions have resulted in effective tax rates well below those headline figures.

"As the extent of such practices has come to light, the general public and owners of smaller businesses have become increasingly indignant...More than 4,000 large multinationals fall within the scope of this potential future top-up tax in the EU — an additional incentive for jurisdictions elsewhere to comply with the new rules."