Facts: Ireland's GDP per capita was €25,300 in 2022

Eurostat: Actual individual consumption per capita in 2022

Last April the International Monetary Fund (IMF) published gross domestic product (GDP) data for countries across the globe, in current US dollars.

The Irish level adjusted by me for overseas multinational data in the National Accounts was at $26,600 (€25,300) in 2022 with Lithuania and Portugal just behind and Estonia and Czech Republic ahead.

If the polluted Modified GNI* metric was used the GDP per capita would be €53,600.

Irish public debt rose more than 11% to €226bn at the end of 2022. The Department of Finance announced in March 2023 that the per capita debt was at €44,000. It said, "Ireland has one the highest per capita debt burdens in the world."  

Last February The Financial Times ran a story titled "Irish central banker defends runaway economic growth as ‘real.’"

Sept 2023: Irish wealthiest in the World in 2023! Brits ahead in GDP per capita

However, the governor was economical with the truth.

Gabriel Makhlouf told the Financial Times that much of Ireland’s growth — forecast to be 12.2% last year, more than treble growth in the overall EU — comes from “real factories with real people” even if a lot of activity stems from big technology and pharmaceutical groups.

“Too many people think or jump to the conclusion that this is all about intellectual property that’s sort of moving around and it’s not real, and that’s wrong,” Makhlouf said.

In late 2021 economists at the Central Bank of Ireland noted: "Further increases in exports due to contract manufacturing and merchanting will continue to distort Ireland’s trade performance and inflate GDP in the National Accounts."

Ireland is not among the wealthy countries.

Last June Eurostat reported that actual individual consumption (AIC) consists of goods and services actually consumed by households, irrespective of whether they were purchased and paid for by households directly, by government, or by nonprofit organizations. It said the AIC per capita is an indicator of the material welfare of households.

Ireland in 2022 fell to 87, meaning AIC was 13% below the EU average and a gap of 32% with Germany.

Ireland was at 115% in 2006-7!

Patrick Honohan, a former governor of the Central Bank and emeritus professor of economics at Trinity College, Dublin, has written a piece "Is Ireland really the most prosperous country in Europe?"

Ireland’s average per capita consumption ranked 21 in the world in 2017 (ignoring countries with less than a million population).

The OECD club of mainly advanced economies, ranked Ireland 19 of 38 countries for household net adjusted disposable income.

The 2022 edition of the European Commission's Scoreboard of 2,500 business companies, outlines spending on R&D (research and development) worldwide in 2021.

Ireland has 24 companies on the global listing led by Medtronic of the US having a spend of €2.4bn (the redomiciled firms are mainly American). However, the only Irish-born companies are Kerry Group and both Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Banks.

Irish SMEs (small and medium-sized firms) also export less than their European counterparts. Survey data shows the percentage of SMEs that do not export fluctuated between 58% and 65% over the past 5 years – well above the Euro Area (single currency area) average. In 2022 Irish companies exported to the other 19 other member countries, were at a paltry €8.9bn. The Euro Area has a population of 347mn including Ireland's 5.057mn.

American business firms global champions for now

The genesis of multinational enterprises (MNEs) dates from the early 160Os when the state trading companies, the English East India Company, and Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC: 1602-1799) — United East India Company in English, but commonly known as the Dutch East India Company, adopted the shareholder model. China in particular preferred silver rather than European-produced goods in exchange for spices and tea, and the trading companies became leading Asian traders in opium — in effect drug cartels. Finfacts: First Modern Economy: Myths on tulips & most valuable firm in history.

The misplaced fascination with the RMS Titanic

The Titanic leaving Belfast on April 2, 1912

The sinking of the RMS Titanic in April 1912 has been in the news again and the US Coast Guard has announced that a “catastrophic implosion” of the submersible, known as “Titan,” killed the 5 people on board. The front cone and other debris were located by a remotely operated vehicle 1,600 feet (487 metres) from the bow of the Titanic, which rests in 13,000 feet (4 kilometres) deep in the North Atlantic Ocean. It was about 400 miles (348 knots; 644 km) off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.

In 1985, it took Robert Ballard (born 1942), a former US naval officer, eight days to be the first person to locate the wreck of the RMS (Royal Mail Steamer) Titanic.

“A Night to Remember” (1958), a British film directed by Roy Ward Baker, was acclaimed for its accuracy on the sinking of the Titanic and had been based on Walter Lord’s 1955 book. "Titanic" (1997) which was directed by Hollywood film director James Cameron, brought the story to another generation. It's reported that Cameron has completed 33 dives to the wreck of the Titanic.

Harland and Wolff Ltd was founded in Belfast, north-east Ireland, in 1861. It had in the first decade of the 20th century won orders for 3 giant 'Olympic Class' liners from the White Star Line. Employing about 15,000 people on a 300-acre site, the nearby Belfast College of Technology provided vocational education for the firm's apprentices.

Catholics comprised 24% of Belfast's population in 1911 and a small number worked at the shipyard in East Belfast. There was a myth that the Titanic's hull number "3909 04" flipped over, read "No Pope."

The chairman of Harland and Wolff in 1895-1924 was a leading Liberal peer, Lord Pirrie, and on April 11 1912, the British Liberal Party government introduced the Third Home Rule Bill which would grant Ireland self-government.

Research by Andy Bielenberg, senior lecturer at University College Cork (UCC), shows that by 1907, the 6 counties of the north-east accounted for two-thirds of Irish industrial output and two-thirds of industrial exports originated in Belfast, Ireland's biggest city in 1911.

"Dear dirty Dublin" — Air pollution low among Europe's capitals

Una Mullally of the Irish Times said this week that "Dublin is a dirty, smelly, sticky old town once again." I was back in Ireland in May and I stayed in the city centre south of the River Liffey for more than a week. It looked clean to me; the sun was shining and people were using the recently installed outdoor furniture.

IQAir is a Swiss tech firm - IQAir World Air Quality Report 2022 Finds Only 5% of Countries Meet WHO PM2.5 Air Pollution. For example, it collects data from Ireland's Environmental Protection Agency. There are 30,000 air quality monitoring stations across 7,323 locations in 131 countries.

Dublin's north inner city has been named Ireland's "litter blackspot'" in a survey. The country's latest litter league, compiled by the Irish Business Against Litter, lists the north inner city bottom of 40 areas across Ireland for rubbish.

The Irish Times reported last week that members of the public have been urged to treat outdoor spaces with care and protect fragile ecosystems as part of a new campaign launched by Leave No Trace Ireland, an organisation that campaigns for “outdoor ethics”.

“The lowest awareness of the impact of irresponsible behaviour was shown to be among those below 35 years of age and the 2023 Love This Place Campaign is focused on this demographic to increase education around the simple actions people can take to protect and enhance our experience of the outdoors countryside, and recreational spaces.”

Irish Celts are as real as Leprechauns

In Ancient Greece Κελτοί (Keltoí) was the word used for "Barbarian" (non-Greek-speaking people, including Egyptians, Persians, Medes, Phoenicians, and tribes in Europe, emphasised their otherness. According to Greek writers, this was because the language they spoke sounded to Greeks like gibberish represented by the sounds "bar...bar")." While viewing foreigners as inferior, they were also often treated as candidates for conquest and enslavement.

The mainly independent tribes collectively Keltoí had their own names during the Iron Age, between about 600 BC and 43 AD. It would be about 2,000 years, in the early 18th century, for the words "Celt "or "Celtish" to enter the English language.

Greeks established a colony in Southern Gaul around Masallia, or modern-day Marseille in 600 BC. There were about 60 tribes in the area of the Gauls in Western Europe.

There was no invasion of Ireland by these tribes that settled in land stretching from the Atlantic coast to Asia Minor (see map above). What tribes invaded Ireland?

Putin critic gets 25 years evoking Gulags and useful idiots

Russian opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was accused of treason and spreading "false" information about the Russian army, stands inside a defendant's cage during his sentencing at the Moscow City Court on April 17, 2023. Handout/Moscow City Court Press Service

The Russian Putic critic Vladimir Kara-Murza (41) has been sentenced to 25 years in jail in Russia for charges linked to his criticism of the war in Ukraine. He was found guilty of treason, spreading "false" information about the Russian army and being affiliated with an "undesirable organisation."

The "outrageously harsh court decision clearly demonstrates yet again the political misuse of the judiciary in order to pressure activists, human rights defenders and any voices opposing Russia's illegitimate war of aggression against Ukraine," the EU's top diplomat Josep Borrell said in a statement.

Putin's Federal Security Service, or FSB (the successor to Putin's KGB), tried to kill Kara-Murza by poisoning in 2015 and 2017.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny (46) was poisoned with novichok by FSB agents in August 2020. Bellingcat, the investigations group, identified the team that was authorised by Putin to kill Navalny.

After treatment in Germany, Navalny returned to Russia and is now serving 11-1/2 years in the IK-6 penal colony, and may also face another charge with a sentence of 5 years.

Navalny is allowed only four visits by relatives per year instead of the usual six visits and there can be no communication with other prisoners. His lawyers believe that he is being slowly poisoned. “Our theory is that they are gradually killing him, using slow-acting poison which is applied through food."

Today April 26, 2023, Alexei Navalny (46), the jailed critic of the Russian dictator who is 70, has said he is being investigated on terrorism charges that could see him sentenced to 30 years in prison. Putin couldn't kill him by poisoning and now he wants to have Navalny in jail indefinitely.

Success of Irish economy masks the extent of underlying weakness

The International Energy Agency was set up in the wake of the 1973-1974 oil crisis to help industrialised countries to respond to major oil shocks — this year the head has warned that the “energy battle” between Europe and Russia is not over, despite a sharp drop in wholesale gas prices that has eased concerns over high bills and blackouts. Fatih Birol said Europe’s efforts to replace Russian gas supplies this winter had been a “big success” but cautioned there were lingering fears over next winter. IEA

Indigenous Irish exports were 4.7% of total merchandise and services exports in 2021, dominated by FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) firms.

In 2021, the highest price level for consumer goods and services among the EU member states was observed in Ireland (44 % above the EU average) and the lowest in Romania (45 % below the average).

The USA was Ireland’s largest merchandise export market in 2021, with over €52bn in exports. This accounted for 32% of the total value of exports. Medical & Pharmaceutical Products and Organic Chemicals comprised €37bn, or 71% of the total exports to the USA in 2021, according to the CSO (Central Statistics Office). The second biggest export partner was the UK with over €18bn of exports, closely followed by Germany with over €17.7bn.

China and Belgium (for onward flights to other destinations) complete the list of the remaining top 5 export markets.

The UK was the biggest source of imports in 2021, with imports of €19.5bn.

Ireland remains an important UK trading partner

The UK’s trade surplus with Ireland was the UK’s second highest, after the surplus with the United States. Ireland was one of seven EU countries the UK had a trade surplus in 2021 — the remaining six were with Malta, Luxembourg, Cyprus, the Netherlands, Denmark and Estonia. Overall, Ireland was the UK's fourth-largest export market and tenth-largest source of imports.

A UK Department of Business & Trade factsheet issued on March 17, 2023, noted that total trade in goods and services (exports plus imports) between the UK and Ireland was £82.0bn in the four quarters to the end of Q3 2022, an increase of 25.2% or £16.5bn from the four quarters to the end of Q3 2021.

Ireland was the UK’s 6th largest trading partner in the four quarters to the end of Q3 2022 accounting for 5.0% of total UK trade.

In 2021, 40% of Northern Ireland's goods exports were to the Republic of Ireland (compared to 7% for the UK as a whole) while 36% of Northern Ireland's goods imports were from the Republic of Ireland (compared to 3% for the UK as a whole).

UK exports to Ireland were worth £41.6bn; imports from Ireland were £20.4bn, resulting in a trade surplus of £21.3bn. The UK had a surplus with Ireland in both goods and services.

Ireland was the UK’s 4th largest export market and the 10th largest source of imports.

FT 1000: 7th ranking of Europe’s fastest-growing companies 2023

Ireland has no native-born firms in the tech categories. The only entry is in the Food & Beverage category: Bevcraft Group (181), a specialist process and packaging business. Last December it merged with a Norwegian firm — Cubicle 7 Entertainment (192); System.I0 (271); Zoosh Digital (423) — these 3 Irish firms were founded by foreign nationals.

The Irish Venture Capital Association (IVCA) last month reported  an estimate that venture capital investment "in Irish tech firms and SMEs in 2022 totalled €1.33bn, no change on the previous year." The data are not reliable as it includes foreign firms, mainly American, that become Irish for tax purposes. 

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says "Ireland has a large population of very low-productive SMEs that co-exist with high-productive large firms (mainly foreign firms)." Employer firm births are low (even including foreign firms) and the number of firms that export is also low (separate article pending). 

The Financial Times's FT 1000 published in March 2023 with Statista, a research company, data on the European companies with the highest compound annual growth rate in revenue between 2018 and 2021.

The minimum CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) required to be included on the rankings, was 36.2% — slightly below the 35.5% in last year’s ranking.

The Big 4 countries Italy (260); Germany (217); the UK (155) and France (140) accounted for 772 of the 1,000 firms or 77%.

Children of 1960s refugees/asylum seekers to UK push for migrants to return to Africa

Their parents fled Africa as refugees in the 1960s. Now they want to ship migrants to Rwanda

Rishi Sunak, the British Prime Minister, Priti Patel, the former Home Secretary in the Johnson administration, and Suella Braverman, the current Home Secretary, all support sending refugees to the African country of Rwanda, even if they had no family ties in that East African country. In the 1960s their parents fled Africa and likely broke the then-British laws.

Last year Suella Braverman said, “I would love to have a front page of The Telegraph with a plane taking off to Rwanda, that’s my dream, it’s my obsession.”

Britain abolished slavery in 1807 but existing slavery remained in the British Empire until 1834-1838. In effect for Indians a form of slavery remained called an indenture. Many Indians agreed to become indentured labourers to escape British-controlled India's widespread poverty and famines. Some travelled alone; others brought their families to settle in the colonies they worked in. 

Between 1834 and 1917, Britain took more than 1mn Indian indentured labourers to 19 British colonies, including Malaya, with its tin mining and rubber plantations.

In Africa, they settled in South and East Africa. Mauritius was successively a French and a British Colony during the period 1715-1968 and under British rule, Mauritius became a sugar-producing island.

White South Africa got its independence from Britain in 1961; Tanzania / Tanganyika in 1961-1964; Uganda in 1962; Keyna in 1963 and Mauritius in 1968.

Both the newly independent states in East Africa and the Republic of India did not want the Indo-African populations. Free Indian migrations in the 20th century had become elites in the countries.

Plunge in Irish rental residential properties raises prices

On February 1, 2023, it was estimated that the number of housing units for rent in Ireland was just over 1,000. This plunge in the market has resulted in pushing up the rents of the existing stock of rental properties.

Until land reforms in Ireland by the British administration, in the late 19th century and the early 20th century, the Anglo-Irish "absentee landlord" was a hated figure in Ireland. Today the term "landlord" is still a pejorative for some of the population.

There is a misleading notion that most landlords are making a lot of money, squeezing poorer people.

However, in 2021 the CSO (Central Statistics Office) reported that landlords (86%) owned only one or two properties. Most of them owned one. It added that half of all landlords earn less than €10,000 on these investments after allowable expenses — such as mortgage interest, depreciation on fittings and furniture, repair and maintenance costs and letting costs.

If an individual was taxed at a higher rate the net annual income from their investment was €5,150 or less. If the lower tax rate was applied it could be as high as €7,150.

The median price of a dwelling purchased in the 12 months to July 2022 was €295,000.

The return of 1.75% is not extortion.

The lowest median price for a house in the 12 months to July 2022 was €145,000 in Longford, while the highest median price was €610,000 in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown.

According to Ronan Lyons of Trinity and producer of the Daft rental report, "Fewer than 1,100 homes were available to rent on February 1, 2023. This is largely unchanged from the number three months ago, at the time of the last report, and down almost 22% on the figure available on the same date a year ago.

But that figure from 2022 was itself a complete outlier in a series that stretches back to 2006. Between 2015 and 2019, a time when supply was very weak relative to demand — pulling up rents — there were typically 3,800 homes available to rent at the start of February. The average for February 1st over the full period 2006-2021 was 8,500."

Jon Stewart on gun control and Irish useful idiots

Jon Stewart is an American comedian, political commentator, actor, director and television host. Stewart hosted The Daily Show, a satirical news program on Comedy Central, from 1999 to 2015 and he is now the host of The Problem with Jon Stewart, which premiered in September 2021 on Apple TV+.

In an episode, "Chaos, Law, and Order" on gun control with Oklahoma state senator Nathan Dahm, Jon Stewart argues Dahm's support of anti-drag show laws directly conflicts with the logic he uses for loosening gun restrictions.

Dahm and other Republicans want to shield children from drag but firearms are the biggest cause of death among children in America.

During the pandemic, firearm-related deaths rose among children, with seven children per day dying by firearm in 2021. From 2011 to 2021, nearly 18,500 children ages 17 and younger died by firearm.

Dahm has introduced several bills loosening gun restrictions, including the first anti-red flag law against restricting gun access to those deemed dangerous.

Jon Stewart: “And what you're telling me is you don't mind infringing free speech to protect children from this amorphous thing that you think of. But when it comes to children that have died, you don't give a flying fuck to stop that, because that shall not be infringed. That is hypocrisy at its highest order.”

Not only does he want to protect the Second Amendment, but he also believes that more guns make Americans safer.

Putin follows Peter the Great as Russia's 1% own 59% of wealth

Peter the Great (1672 -1725. He modernised Russia and visited Western Europe in 1697 and 1717. His eldest child and heir, Alexei, was tortured and executed in 1718. Alexei had a poor relationship with his father. 

The Russian war against Ukraine is a year old and it's the biggest land war in Europe since 1945.

On April 30, 1945, in an underground bunker in Berlin, Adolf Hitler committed suicide by swallowing a cyanide capsule and shooting himself in the head. After the death of the beast Germany unconditionally surrendered to the Allied forces,ending Hitler’s dreams of a “1,000-year” Reich (empire).

Another insecure dictator in 2022 wanted to restore the Russian Empire and he too had a record of mass murder.

It was not on the scale of the Austrian-born Hitler but Putin and his henchmen have no mercy when it comes to targeting civilians.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said this week that nearly 18mn people are in dire need of humanitarian assistance. Some 14mn people have been displaced from their homes while 8mn have moved abroad.

Vladimir Putin, the current Russian dictator, has compared himself with the tsar, Peter the Great (1672-1725), in their historic quests to win back Russian lands.

“Peter the Great waged the great northern war for 21 years. It would seem that he was at war with Sweden, he took something from them. He did not take anything from them, he returned [what was Russia’s],” Putin said last June after visiting an exhibition dedicated to the tsar.

The revelation of imperial ambitions showed that the alleged grievance of the eastward Nato expansion was a facade for a conventional war of conquest.

Peter's rule, Putin suggested, was proof that expanding Russia had strengthened it.

"It seems it has fallen to us, too, to reclaim and strengthen," Putin concluded, with a near-smirk (according to Sarah Rainsford, the BBC's Eastern Europe correspondent) that left no doubt he was referring to Ukraine and his aims there.

Populist agitator Paddy Cosgrave hates Ireland

Ireland and 12 other European countries are Full Democracies: only 21 in World

Paddy Cosgrave, chief executive of the Web Summit and the most prominent business backer of the Sinn Féin political party, seems to spend a lot of time seeking material to support his claim that the Irish Government "is the largest organised crime cartel in Ireland, maybe Europe" and "the corruption & criminality of the old economy is seeping into the new economy of Irish tech."

This delusional partisan says most Irish journalists are "sycophantic, bootlicking, propagandist[s] for the crony class." In his dystopia, the Irish Government operates like Mexican drug cartels and the Italian Mafia.

The Web Summit mainly holds events in countries - Portugal, Brazil and Qatar - where bribery is endemic. Cosgrave has no problem with corruption in these countries and the Portuguese government provides half of the annual revenue of the Web Summit. However, Ireland is a cesspit of corruption according to Cosgrave!

The 3 founders of the Web Summit had a bitter public bust-up and they have amassed 14mn documents in advance of a hearing at the Irish High Court.

Cosgrave has become Ireland's Donald Trump.

Founded in 2010 the Web Summit company got funding and public agency support from the Irish Government. 

Eaten bread was soon forgotten by Cosgrave and he has copied the tactics of both the far-right and Trump.

The demonisation of groups is the tactic of the authoritarian and if one person behaves badly, they are all tarred with the same brush. If the pattern in the US follows, public officials will be exposed to violence. Dr Anthony Fauci, America's recent top medical expert on the coronavirus pandemic, had to get police protection.

George Orwell in 'As I Please: 1943-1945' wrote “Do remember that dishonesty and cowardice always have to be paid for. Don’t imagine that for years on end, you can make yourself the boot-licking propagandist of the Soviet régime, or any other régime, and then suddenly return to mental decency. Once a whore, always a whore.”

Mainstream journalism is not perfect in a free society but Cosgrave's abuse is from the Trump playbook.

India used to be proud of its democracy but the Hindu nationalist government "Through its control of the media, monopolization of campaign finance and harassment of opponents, India seems set on a path to becoming an illiberal pseudo-democracy similar to Turkey or Russia." The present prime minister ordered a raid of the BBC bureau as he was upset with a TV documentary.

Reporters Without Borders ranked India 150th worldwide for press freedoms in 2022, down from 142 the year before. China is at 177.

Ireland has a ranking of 6 among 180 countries

The Irish and Finnish states despite their achievements or faults were the only two new states after the First World War to survive as democracies in the period 1918-1945.

In November 2021 Cosgrave opened the web summit in Lisbon with "evidence" of Irish corruption. 

Last November the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD: a club of mainly advanced countries) said that since "the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention entered into force over 20 years ago, Portugal has not had a single foreign bribery conviction. Detection remains low and Portuguese authorities prematurely closed foreign bribery cases without investigating relevant allegations thoroughly and proactively, with the number of cases terminated having increased significantly compared to Phase 3. Notwithstanding recent reforms, Portugal has not addressed longstanding Working Group concerns regarding its legal framework, and sanctions for foreign bribery against natural and legal persons do not appear to be effective, proportionate or dissuasive."

It's ironic that to Cosgarve, the Irish Government "is the largest organised crime cartel in Ireland, maybe Europe" when Sinn Féin was the political front for Provisional IRA, and together with other Republican paramilitaries, they were responsible for 60% of the deaths in what were called the Troubles in 1966-1999.

Both the Provisional IRA and Provisional Sinn Féin were led by the same people.

2022: Web Summit chief calls Irish government a crime cartel

Michael Hennigan's year of 1953 and 70 years later

"Tour Bus made a short stop here. A small village near Galway. May 14, 1953"

Photo by Martin J. Walsh Jr on a trip to Ireland in 1953, from Minnesota

The Irish Times newspaper reported on Saturday 17 January 1953 that weather conditions would be good and this was the day my mother gave birth at St Anthony's Hospital, in the southwest Irish town of Dunmanway, County Cork. I was named Michael Anthony Hennigan with the first name after my father. I had two older brothers and Maurice the eldest had been named after his paternal grandfather while Thomas was named after his maternal grandfather.

My parents had a farm east of the town and the quality of the land was not good.

On 16 January, a resolution in the US Senate called for the end of Irish partition. The future Irish American president co-sponsored the resolution.

On 18 January 1953, a political group calling itself Sinn Féin, (Irish: 'We Ourselves' or 'Ourselves Alone') said it would contest all 12 constituencies in the next Westminster elections in Northern Ireland (this Sinn Féin was a separate entity from the Provisional IRA and its political wing called Sinn Féin, that were created in Belfast in January 1970).

On 31 January, Dublin Airport's weather station showed a jump in rain and high gusts of 61.9 knots per hour. However, the Republic of Ireland escaped the massive storm damage that day, and into 1 February. The MV Princess Victoria ferry sailing between Stranraer, Scotland and Larne, Northern Ireland, sank during a storm with 133 lives lost, including every woman and child aboard while 44 men survived. In the North Sea, the storm caused extensive flooding. There were 19 deaths in Scotland; 307 in England; 28 in Belgium, and 1,836 in The Netherlands where the dykes were breached.

This event resulted in the greatest storm surge in the North Sea, on record.

Europe's music man André Rieu: famous Dutch violinist and conductor

Maastricht, The Netherlands

André Rieu created the Johann Strauss Orchestra in 1987 and began with 12 members, giving its first concert in January 1988. The largest private orchestra in the world has about 60 musicians.

Rieu known as the 'King of Waltz', has sold over 40mn CDs and DVDs and at 73 he still performs at concerts worldwide.

He was born on 1 October 1949 the third of six children, his father, Andries Antonie Rieu, was the conductor of the Maastricht Symphony Orchestra.

In the past, Rieu used a 1667 Stradivari violin at his concerts. The Italian maestro liutaio (master luthier) was about 23 when the instrument was produced. More recently André Rieu uses a 1732 violin which was made when the maestro was about 87.

The renowned Antonio Stradivari (Latin: Stradivarius circa 1644-1737) had a workshop in Cremona, Italy, and it is believed to have produced over 1,100 string instruments. Two of his sons worked with him and today the most common number of extant instruments in Google Books and other references is about 650. However, that is typically copied from other publications without a source.

There have been many copies of the Stradivari violin since his death and Wikipedia sourced in 2022 282 original extant violins; 12 violas and 63 cellos. The number in private collections is still being determined.

A 1714 Stradivari violin was sold at auction in June 2022 for US$15.34mn. A new Stradivari violin in the early 18th century in Lombardy would have cost the equivalent of $17,000 to $18,500 US dollars today.

André Rieu and John Sheahan who had been a member of 'The Dubliners' group in 1964-2012, performing 'The Marino Waltz' live in Dublin. 

 

Foreign-born in Ireland overtake Irish-born in countries overseas

The main facade of Government Buildings in Central Dublin

The Irish population grew by 11.7% in 2011-2022 (535,000: 362,000 in 2016-2022) while net housing units were at 130,000 at Census 2022 in April (new completions from 2011 were at 163,000 in December 2022; 29,000 in 2011-2015). However, employment (15 years +) in 2011-2022 (Q3) jumped by 668,000 or 35% (the unemployment rate was above 15% in 2011 and at 4.5% in 2022). Non-Irish nationals (excluding naturalised) were at 13.8% of the population. Inward migration in 2016-2022 was 190,330 and almost 47,000 settled in the Dublin area in the 6-year period.

Foreign-born residents of the Republic of Ireland have overtaken the number of Irish-born living overseas. Residents of Northern Ireland are not included.

According to Census 2022, the total population was 5.124mn — the highest since 1851.

In the Census 1991, the total population was 3.297mn. The foreign-born population was 5.5% — Great Britain was at 3.9% and the Rest of the World was at 1.6%. In 1981 the total number was 5.6% and in 1971 it was 2.5%.

The first census was held in the Irish Free State in 1926. The population was 2.972mn and the foreign-born population was also 2.5%.

The rate was 12% in 2011 including about 40,000 people, who got certificates of naturalisation that were issued to people from 2000 to 2011.

In April 2022 the foreign rate in the total population was 18.5% compared with 14% for expatriates. The rates compared with the native-born population were 23% and 17%.

In England & Wales in the last decade, the Irish-born population fell 80,000 to 325,000 and adding 21,000 for Scotland, Great Britain has a current population of about 67mn and the Irish population is about 346,000.

Since Brexit in 2016 about 100,000 Irish passports have been issued annually to British residents. "If one of your grandparents was born in Ireland, but neither of your parents was born in Ireland, you may become an Irish citizen."

Silicon Sultans as gatekeepers and controlling innovation

I published a post titled 'Robber Barons & Silicon Sultans: Rockefeller vs Bezos' on February 20.

The original robber barons operated in the Rhine valley, as the river had been Europe’s principal highway for 1,000 years. In the decades after the US Civil War, the American robber barons were industrialists and financiers who amassed huge fortunes by monopolizing key industries by forming trusts and engaging in unethical business practices including fraud.

Today the Big Tech gatekeepers are Apple; Microsoft; Alphabet (Google); Amazon and Meta (Facebook). They operate in most of the world with the main exception being China.

Big Tech firms spent $603bn (Amazon spent $242bn) on innovation in the 11 years 2010-2020 but they also limit competition including copying promising work by young innovators or acquiring them.

Facebook for example copied Snapchat's features after the Snapchat founders rejected Zuckerberg's offer to acquire the site.

In 2021 revenues of the 5 firms were at $1.4tn.

Researchers at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business have said that when a startup was bought by Google or Facebook, VC (venture capital) investments in the same space dropped by 46% in the following three years, and the number of deals by 42%.

Economic globalization at a crossroads

According to the IMF (International Monetary Fund) economic globalization (or globalisation in British English) "is a historical process, the result of human innovation and technological progress. It refers to the increasing integration of economies around the world, particularly through the movement of goods, services, and capital across borders. The term sometimes also refers to the movement of people (labour) and knowledge (technology) across international borders. There are also broader cultural, political, and environmental dimensions of globalization."

Besides the economic form, cultural and political globalization also exist.

The terms ‘globalize’ and ‘globalism’ were coined in a treatise published in 1944. The noun ‘globalization’ first appeared in Webster’s Dictionary in 1961. Google's Ngram has the term earlier than 1944.

It became popular in the 1980s and in 1983 Theodore Levitt of the Harvard Business School had an article in the Harvard Business Review entitled 'Globalization of markets.'

Putin's Irish useful idiots vote down European Parliament resolution on Russia

Russia and Ukraine were the biggest states in the Soviet Union after its collapse in 1991 (December 26, 1991). Ukraine held an independence referendum in early December 1991 with the blessing of Russia. Voter turnout was at 84% and a stunning 90.3% voted for independence. Two-thirds of the estimated 1-1.5mn Soviet military personnel stationed on Ukrainian territory backed independence. Hundreds of foreign observers and correspondents were in Kyiv.

The new independent republic held about 5,000 nuclear missiles. Only Russia and the United States had more weapons. In 1994 the Ukrainian government decided to give up its nuclear arms in exchange for security guarantees from the US, the UK and Russia. The agreement is known as the Budapest Memorandum.

Putin, the Russian dictator, dismissed the Budapest Memorandum and since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he has threatened to use nuclear weapons in the country.

The Crimean peninsula was annexed in 2014 after a pro-Kremlin government in Ukraine was ousted. The president fled to Russia in February after protests in which more than 100 people died. Russian troops began an invasion of Crimea later in the month.

In a televised address before the invasion in February 2022, Putin explicitly denied that Ukraine had ever had “real statehood,” and he claimed that the country was an integral part of Russia’s “own history, culture, spiritual space.”

Putin also said Russia would "seek to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine,” stating, “your fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers did not fight the Nazi occupiers and did not defend our common Motherland to allow today’s neo-Nazis to seize power in Ukraine.”

The Soviet Union long denied collaboration with Nazi Germany under the secret 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, only acknowledging and denouncing it in 1989 under Mikhail Gorbachev. In September 1939 the Nazis invaded Poland from the west and Soviet Communists invaded from the east.  

Kievan Rus’ – a medieval state that came into existence in the 9th century had Kyiv as its capital and was founded hundreds of years earlier than Moscow while Ukraine has its own distinct language and customs.

Putin could not tolerate an emerging democracy on his borders with the prospect of Ukraine joining the European Union. However, joining NATO was not on the agenda of the organisation. 

Brexit returns UK to status of a sick man of Europe

Bloomberg commented "Nothing illustrates it better than the slide in the pound. It’s fallen from a high of more than $2 in 2007, just before the financial crisis, to $1.50 at the time of the Brexit referendum, and is now on the brink of parity with the dollar." In 1945, about half the world’s trade was still transacted in sterling. IMF data show that sterling accounts for 5% of global foreign reserves, which is above the currencies of Switzerland, Australia and Canada. It's also ahead of the Chinese renminbi which is close to 3%. The current value of the UK is 3% of global GDP. The Euro Area's equivalent numbers are 15% and almost 21%.

The economic dunces that sit in numbers 10 and 11 Downing Street, London, thought that giving big tax breaks to the mainly wealthy would turbocharge the British economy. Meanwhile, mortgage rates will rise for many people following expected high interest rate changes from the Bank of England.

The first decision of Kwasi Kwarteng, the chancellor, was to sack the civil service head of the Treasury. He rejected involving the public body, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), in forecasting economic growth and with the support of Liz Truss, the prime minister, he plucked the annual growth target of 2.5% from the air.

The Office for National Statistics said in August 2022 that it had revised down annual volume GDP growth in 2020 by 1.7 percentage points, meaning that it fell by 11%, the largest in more than 300 years and the worst recorded among G7 countries ((US; Japan; Germany; France; UK; Italy and Canada). 2021 growth was 7.44%; 1.67% in 2019 (pre-pandemic) and 1.65% in 2018.

A recent analysis by Oxford Economics for the Tony Blair Institute concluded that aggregate UK output might be cumulatively 0.4% higher five years hence.

Truss talks of economic growth while deriding an “anti-growth coalition.” But of course, she ignores the biggest drag on growth: Brexit.

In Kwarteng's mini-Budget on September 23rd, he proposed the biggest tax cuts since 1972. The unfunded £45bn cost would be added to the deficit and 5% of households would get almost 50% of the benefit, according to the Resolution Foundation, a think tank. In addition, £60bn+ would be spent on energy subsidies.

Update: The British government on Monday, October 3rd, U-turned on plans to scrap the top 45p rate of income tax, the chancellor confirmed at the Conservative Party Conference. This would have benefited people earning more than £150,000 at a cost of just£3bn of the£45bn mini-Budget. The Resolution Foundation said that despite Monday’s U-turn, the richest households would still gain almost 40 times as much as poorer families from policies announced in the mini-Budget.

More U-turns are expected as the new government searches for savings if any on public services while at the same time seeking the support of the majority of Tory MPs that did not support Liz Truss for prime minister (the final ballot of MPs had 137 votes for Sunak, 113 for Truss.)

In October 1980 Margaret Thatcher, then prime minister, in her speech to the Conservative Party Conference, said "To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase the 'U-turn,' I have only one thing to say: You turn if you want to: The Lady’s not for turning."

Fairy tales of Irish economy obscure truth

This is my sequel to the article 'Leprechaun economics continue to distort Ireland's statistics' which documents the continuing multinational distortions in Ireland's National Accounts.

The focus here is on propaganda and ignorance in particular from government enterprise agencies and the media, which give a false image of the Irish economy. The national statistics office has also sowed confusion with the terms "Irish-owned" and "Native Irish" firms.

In 2019 the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reported that Ireland's SME firms (micro 1-9 employees, small 10-49 and medium 50-249) size companies dominated by domestic firms, had the lowest rate of exporters in the European Union, along with Greece.

Also in 2019 Enterprise Ireland, an Irish government agency, forecast that Irish-owned firms in the United States had created 180,000 jobs in 2017 and 2018.

This was a fairy tale!

Last June the Central Statistics Office (CSO) in a report said that in 2020 Irish-owned enterprises accounted for 27% of innovation expenditure in Ireland, while foreign-owned enterprises accounted for 73%. In October 2021 the CSO confirmed to me that Irish ownership includes mainly American Redomiciled PLC firms! They typically become Irish for tax avoidance purposes and control remains in the United States.

Leprechaun economics continue to distort Ireland's statistics

In July 2016 American economist Paul Krugman dubbed the annual revision of Irish 2015 GDP (gross domestic product) "Leprechaun economics." The 2015 GDP had jumped to a stunning 26.3% on the 2014 data. In more recent times, the Irish ambassador to the United States, Daniel Mulhall, called the use of the word "leprechaun" by the Nobel Prize-winning economist"an unacceptable slur."

Ambassador Mulhall and Enterprise Ireland, which promotes indigenous exporters, have promoted the fiction that investments by Irish companies in the United States are among the top foreign investors there. In 2021 it seems that Irish-owned companies "by country of ultimate beneficial owner" had investments of $353bn in the US — even bigger than France.

The biggest born in Ireland company, CRH, has a market capitalisation of about €29bn and the fake Irish firms called Redomiciled Companies, foster the delusion of large investments by many Irish firms.

Global exports by Irish-owned firms in 2021 were €25.5bn: €4.5bn to North America and €5.9bn to the other 18 member countries of the Eurozone — an external market of 437mn people. The UK was the biggest market at €7.5bn.

The total Irish export value in 2021 was €568bn and Irish-owned firms engaged in merchandise and tradeable services accounted for 4.5% of the total. International transport and tourism & travel had minus net export totals.

Fairy tales of Irish economy obscure truth  —  a related sequel to the current story

Irish Genealogy Page: Hennigans and Walls in County Cork

Leabhar Mór Leacain / The Great Book of Lecan, written in 1397-1418 AD

This page is a tribute to my parents Michael and Johanna Wall Hennigan, who were both natives of County Cork and were both born in 1914.

Donnchadh O Corrain, 'Ireland before the Normans' (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1972) noted that in the 10th century the Irish population was less than 500,000 people and Ireland had over 150 kings. These were petty kingdoms, or clans (tuatha), which typically elected the king. Also in the 10th century AD, a high king of Ireland (árd rí Éireann) emerged. In history, Brian Boru was apparently the most consequential high king, who reigned from 1005-1014 AD but the idea that Brian Boru saved Ireland from a Viking conquest is said to be “completely false.”

With respect to earlier times, even though the Gaelic language is Celtic in origin, the late Prof Barry Rafferty of University College Dublin said that from his research "there is no archaeological evidence for a Celtic invasion of Ireland."

While the term is useful, Raimund Karl, a professor of Celtic archaeology at the University of Vienna said, the “popular conception, that all Celts are the same, and that they are part of one big nation and people and race and so on, that is nonsense.”

The hereditary surname system evolved slowly replacing the patronymic tradition of a name typically derived from the name of a father or an ancestor. In Ireland Mac was 'son of' or Ó 'grandson of'.' Icelandic surnames today follow the Nordic tradition of patronymic and/or matronymic names.

Pronunciation, rather than spelling, guided scribes and church officials when recording names during the Middle Ages. This practice often resulted in one person's name being recorded under several different spellings.

Lowest interest rates in 5,000 years but low investments by advanced countries

The Sumerian civilisation lived in southern Mesopotamia, situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system (in modern Iraq.) They settled in the area at about 4,000 BC and first used interest related to barley and silver. It was used for valuing cattle for example. In the Sumerian period from 3000 - 1900 BC, the rate of interest on barley was usually 33-1/3% and 20% on silver — Sumer was the site of the earliest known civilisation, and it had a record of innovation: The Wheel; Sail; Writing; Corbeled Arch/True Arch; Irrigation and Farming Implements; Cities; Maps; Mathematics; Time and Clocks; Astronomy and Astrology and Medicinal Drugs and Surgery.

The Babylonian period stretched from 1900-732 BC and the Sumerian interest rate system was mainly copied.

King Hammurabi (circa 1810- c 1750 BC) ruled the city-state of Babylon and eventually, the Babylonian Empire covered most of Mesopotamia. The Code of Hammurabi had about 150 rules on financial and economic issues (see below).

In 2015 Andy Haldane, then chief economist at the Bank of England and his staff researched interest rates back to antiquity: Check Chart 5 here with sources.

The Bank of England was founded in 1694 and it lent £1.2mn to the English government at a rate of 8%. The record highest rate was 17% in November 1979.

The Federal Reserve was founded in 1913 and its record federal funds rate was a 19-20% range in December 1981.

In September 1992, the Riksbank — the Swedish central bank — raised the interest rate to 500% to defend the krona. This defence failed and the krona exchange rate was floated.

The Irish Times and online reader commentary

In May 2022 the Irish Times unveiled a new website and app with a significant redesign of its digital platforms.

Arc XP, a unit of the Washington Post, provided the content management system which produces Irish Times articles, videos, podcasts, photography and graphics across all of its platforms.

The Washington Post introduced the slogan "Democracy Dies in Darkness" in 2017 and the Irish Times adopted the slogan "Trusted journalism since 1859" as part of the recent revamp.

A version of the Washington Post slogan, "Democracies die behind closed doors" was used by Damon Keith, an African American appeal court judge, in a case brought after 9/11 (2001) by the Detroit Free Press, against the US government. Bob Woodward, the celebrated Watergate journalist, began using the expression "Democracy Dies in Darkness" but he thought it had been coined in the early 1970s before Watergate. Woodward also believed that the original was “Democracy dies in the dark.”

The New York Times introduced its famous slogan "All the News That's Fit to Print" in 1897. It was a time when yellow journalism was in the ascendant with sensationalism trumping facts. Newspaper owners William Randolph and Joseph Pulitzer led the fight for circulation. Yellow journalism is called tabloid journalism today.

The Irish Times slogan, "Trusted journalism since 1859," is weird given the history. The newspaper says today that "The Irish Times has delivered top quality news, opinion and analysis since it was first published in 1859."