High Irish GDP is an illusion, Ireland is not that rich

The simple fact is every single country has issues. Ireland has a great standard of living by any global metric. Its why people are risking life and limb to get here.

Every generation has disenfranchised youth. It's just the first period in human history to give them the ability to whinge to the world through social media.

Same with the people who didn't do as well in life as they hoped. They're usually the loudest and social media gives them a platform.

People choosing Dubai over Ireland, good luck to you. Wouldn't be for me but get what you can while you can. Just stop moaning about it at Dublin Airport to some virgin media hack.

the issue is that low coperation tax countries such as switzerland, luxembourg and irealnd create their wealth on the back off other countries and have a negative impact on the power balance between nations and multinational companies.

i wonder could we say that once gdp is not a good measurement of how rich a courntry is, that this indicates that a certain balance has been lost ?

Cash rich and asset poor would describe the country well imo

That's a very good question. I think what it indicates is that a certain relationship has been lost. The relationship in question is the one between capital and income.

Suppose I am blessed with a large portfolio of valuable property, good health, a good education, a capacity for diligent and intelligent work, an excellent social and business network, and the skills and aptitude to manage and motivate other people. You'd expect me, between rents, salary and the profits of my business to be earning a pretty good income, right?

But suppose I have no assets, poor physical and mental health, little education, no connections and poor social and employment skills. Now, you'd expect me to struggle to keep myself.

What you're looking at there is the relationship between capital (financial, material and social) and income. Capital generates income, so the more capital you have the more income you have.

This relationship can break down in two ways. You could have substantial capital but a low income — e.g. you sell all your productive assets and buy a very big house in the country instead; you could work in a high-paying job but choose instead to devote yourself to a life of indolence, parties and substance abuse. In that case you have substantial wealth which you are choosing not to exploit to generate income. We could debate the ethics of your lifestyle choices but there's no doubt that, economically, they are suboptimal.

Conversely, you might have little in the way of wealth but a large income. What this tells us is that you are exploiting the assets you do have in a highly efficient and effective manner to generate surplus returns. There may be ethical questions here too; you might be maximising your income by engaging in abusive or illegal businesses — drug dealing, intimidating your competitors, violating health and safety laws, whatever. Or, you may just be making very effective choices about how to deploy the social and economic assets that you do have.

OK. A not-rich country that has a high GDP is similar to the second case. It is generating a larger income than you would expect from the accumulated wealth it has. This could be because it is, e.g, a haven for drug dealers and Russian oligarchs seeking to hide their money, but it ain't necessarily so. It could also be that you are undervaluing the assets it has. Ireland doesn't have the accumulated investment that countries that have been rich for generations, like the UK or the US, has. But it has high social capital that is hard to value in financial terms - an open, outward-looking population, an excellent international network (both, ironically, the result of poverty-driven emigration in past generations) and it has social capital that is the result of wise investment choices in the past - specifically, in education. This is partly the result of government policy but also partly the result of cultural preferences.

It's also the result of our corporation tax policy which, yes, can be seen as predatory. I don't think its the case that this breakdown in the expected relationship between capital and income must be entirely the result of virtue, or entirely the result of vice. It's likely to be accounted for by a variety of factors, some more ethically questionable than others.

Is it inherently a bad or troubling thing? Fundamentally, no. Doing better than expected, given the hand that fate has dealt you is, on balance, more good than bad.

But it is an uncertain thing. Whatever combination of good fortune and wise choices had given you this unexpectedly high income is not guaranteed to continue indefinitely. Your continued prosperity is likely to be a bit more uncertain than that of a country that has a similar income, generated from a higher level of wealth. Ireland may have been smart to be as economically successful as it it; it will have to keep being smart for a while yet. It will take generations of high income before Ireland can expect to reach the level of accumulated investment and wealth that characterises countries that have been prosperous for generations.

Aircraft leasing and IP, yes. Pharma and most of IT, not immediately.

Huge amount of pharma factories in this country. Big investment, not easy to sell or move. Those arent going anywhere fast.

IT is less stable, but at the higher end reliant on the best staff so they will be kept. The less experienced may well be let go, but all we would see is downsizing rather than companies leaving ireland.

The big risk to irish GDP and irish tax revenues is corporate profits currently booked here but not earned here. Soon these loopholes will no longer exist.

Integrated circuits cost a lot to produce, a massive amount, unless you are trying to account for all the input costs less silicon as being part of "factory costs" which is incorrect.

Small stuff on old technologies 20years+ old are cheap to manufacture, in the pennies per chip. Anything more recent in cars, planes, phones, consumer computers, servers etc are all expensive to make.

I said it would take a massive hit, you agree.

Until our taxes have to service the interest on it : interest which is rapidly increasing. Countries which are highly indebted also cannot borrow as much in the future as they otherwise might.

Things can change rapidly. I remember well those celtic tiger days when people like yourself said borrow borrrow borrow, it is no problem etc.

Yet only a few short years later we could boorow no more on the international markets and the IMF, UK and EU bailed us out.

Yes the issue was debt, the national debt, as the country could borrow no more. Call it debt per capita if you want to put it in proportion to the population of the country. And our tax base now is "terribly narrow", extremely vulnerable: if half a dozen MNCs decide for whatever reason not to launder their profits through Ireland, we are in deep trouble.