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

*missing quote

Sadly our weather is much closer to the Northern European countries than the Mediterranean ones. 🤨

The relationship between population and prosperity is basically this: output in the economy is a function of (a) how many workers you have, multiplied by (b) labour productivity. You can grow total output by increasing (a), or increasing (b), or (very often) increasing both. Obviously, increasing both will tend to give you the greatest growth in output.

Ireland has been increasing both. Population growth we already know about. Labour productivity has been increased in a number of ways, including:

1. Massive long-term investment in education and training.
2. Attracting inward investment. It may not be immediately obvious that capital investment increases labour productivity, but it does. A worker in a pharmaceutical plant may not work any harder than a worker in, say, a ball-bearing factory, but what he produces can be sold for much more; his labour is therefore more productive. And what enables this is the huge capital investment that is required to establish a pharmaceutical plant.

Britain's industrial revolution, already mentioned in this discussion, was powered both by a growth in population and by a rise in productivity. The rise in productivity was, again, the result of several factors, including:

1. Technological innovation (steam engines, railways, etc)
2. Massive capital investment, initially funded by the slave trade and later on by the rape of India and other colonies

China's more recent boom was also driven to some extent by population growth, but only to a limited extent — as already noted, the Chinese government was actively trying to limit population growth for much of the period. Economic liberalisation, enabling the more efficient allocation of resources, was I think the main driver.

One other point should not be lost sight of. To the extent that growth in output is fuelled by growth in population/labour force, that may make the country richer, but it doesn't necessarily make people richer — 20% more wealth, divided among 20% more people leaves people with, on average, exactly the same wealth that they had before. Plus, regardless of whether wealth is increased by population growth or other factors, the increased wealth won't necessarily be evenly shared — rising wealth can be accompanied by rising inequality, leaving most people worse off. Exactly this happened in the early part of the British industrial revolution. And, in our own time, it is notoriously the case that rising wealth in the US over the past 30 years has accrued almost entirely to the top 10% of the population in the form of increased profits, dividends, asset values, etc. Real wages, by contrast, have stagnated for most of that time, while the minimum wage (and, therefore, the income of people in minimum-wage and low-wage jobs) has fallen steeply.

So that's another way in which GDP — even a more robust GDP than Ireland's — is not necessarily a very reliable indicator of the wealth or well-being of individuals or families.

Again you failed to understand what I said. I didn't say that economic growth is because of population growth, but that massive economic growth is often accompanied by population growth. If you can't understand the nuance that's okay, but stop getting so agitated by stuff you fail to comprehend.

You're off on a tangent now talking about getting immigrants vetted... that's a whole other conversation. Not one I'd want to engage in with you.

Its not true at all - most countries huge economic growth comes from widespread access to education.

Converting workforce from uneducated to highly educated of the #1 predictor of economic growth.

There's a construction crisis looming in Germany.

I wonder would that benefit us.

It could provide us with construction workers and also cost of materials might drop. Germany's huge so even a small crisis could benefit us.

I'd be interested in anyone's opinion on this.

Also China might be in crisis. This might result in drop in price of commodities.

The Economist reckons we will do OK, in a rather light hearted assessment. Housing output can only grow slowly, but it is growing year and year and the decline in office demand will free up some construction resources. If a few people come from Germany, then so much the better. We can catch up on green energy.

There's also large scale immigration ramping up our population at the fastest pace in , what 150 or 200 years . It's not birth rates which have plummeted. Just look around Dublin or any town. It's a major factor and pretty obvious factor in terms of driving up demand for housing and therefore scarcity . I'm not saying that we have not done a piss poor effort in building housing !

It's not a fair comparison if the only metric you're using is wait times.

Our health services are fantastic, so long as you get to use them.

We have one of (if not the?) highest life expectancies in the EU and the highest self reported health status for both males and females in the EU.

So we live longer and consider ourselves healthier than any other country in the EU. Surely our health system has to take some credit for that?

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Self-perceived_health_statistics#:~:text=More%20than%20two%2Dthirds%20(69.0,good%20or%20good%20in%202021.&text=Self%2Dperceived%20gender%20health%20gap,their%20health%20better%20than%20females.

We are also amongst the most obese, gonna the healthcare system with that as well? :).

You are 100% correct about the digital health records, that is a complete disgrace, and that contributes to inefficiency which affects the other measures. However, the other issues should not be overstated, in a prosperous country with a higher cost of living it is inevitable that dentists etc get paid more.

Certainly I agree Ireland is far from being the only country among its peers in terms of developed countries where housing is a major issue. I also have and do travel extensively so while there are worse in that regard in my experience also I would say Ireland is pretty bad in that regard. Nonetheless as with health care I brought it up as the problem is IMHO one of the major issues which negatively impacts overall quality of life in Ireland currently.

We all know the large disparities between GNI and GDP.

I think it's more useful to look at certain metrics such as wages and government tax revenues though

1. On wages we seem to rate relatively highly compared to most of Europe and indeed the world. And yet we are definitely second rate compared to American wages. Take any mid level to senior job in Ireland in a US multinational and I bet the American coworker in the same position will be on 1.5 to 3.0 times the wage. And that's before higher income taxes. I always find that curious. it could just be Americas exceptional capitalism at work. Or it could be Europe is losing it's competitive advantages vis a vis the rest of the world over time (lack of resources on a small land mass, aging population, increased competition). Anyway Ireland stacks up well enough in Europe in terms of salaries. But beyond compared to resource rich countries or US, not so sure.

2. Government revenues are off the charts for the last few years due to high taxes on pretty much everything along with full employment and multinational sector washing their European incomes thru us. No matter what you think about it, the Irish government is CASH RICH (yes I know the national debt etc etc). So the Irish state is rich. But are they rich at the expense of...

Us?

It's no wonder you won't feel rich if your pocket is getting dipped by well over 50 per cent (income taxes , VAT, excise duties and carbon taxes ) while allowing costs to rocket (insurance, housing, fuel).

it's no wonder you don't feel rich when that money is flowing away from you after you worked hard for it.

It's no wonder you don't feel rich when you get **** all back for it from the state although they constantly give it away on extremely generous social welfare (billions on very generous COVID schemes , provisioned a billion just for Ukranian refugees this year , I believe somebody can correct me if I'm wrong, I guess hoteliers are feeling rich right now though basking in the state's cash bonanza).

I am not talking about top jobs in the US. What I'm saying is that middle managers and professionals tend to get paid much better in the US. Why that is, scale or some other reason, I'm not sure. Go on to Glassdoor to see for yourself.

Everybody knows no single metric proves or disproves things.

Give us your preferred metrics and stats and YOUR opinion instead of chunks of waffle and nuggets of gold such as most people don't get sick etc. EVERYBODY gets sick, it's only a matter of time.

One thing is for sure , at the moment the Irish government is cash rich but they are also throwing billions here and there at their favorite voters and causes. They are forecast to have a 6% growth in revenue this year on top of 7% growth last year. Did you readers see your wages go up by similar amounts the last two years?

Another point is who owns most of the assets on Ireland. Over 80% of people over 40 own their own homes but under 40 the number who own one drops dramatically, turning them into the tenant class with little assets and who don't benefit from rising housing prices.

I asked a question I didn't answer the question because I want to see what other peoples ideas are.

Ireland is definitely NOT like most countries, we have a pretty unique economic model in Europe still and by far the most successful in attracting foreign investment in the world except for Singapore. Interestingly salaries in multinationals in Singapore for locals are pretty high too , usually 120, 000 USD for any kind of professional role (they strongly favour local hires in Singapore).

But I think it is interesting that a similar job in an American multinational in Ireland would often pay significantly less than that job in the US. And there are a LOT of employees of those US Multinationals in Ireland. But the firms here are ALSO pulling in huge amounts of revenue from all over EU and beyond . They are often well paid in Ireland and compared to local companies so I guess it is all about the local base of comparison (indigenous companies) being lower in Ireland and of course huge numbers of European and foreign workers who will also happily accept these wage levels.

You claim operational workers are paid a lot less in the US but from what I understand they are actually paid reasonably well and often more than operational workers here e g. Autoworkers . I also know many working in other technical industries and they have done very well over many decades. There is higher income inequality but that doesn't mean that is a bad thing if more people are earning more money and starting from a high base. It's a fairly meaningless stat taken on its own .

I mentioned resource rich countries to give some balance. They are also very diverse e.g. Canada, Australia, UAE, Russia etc.

Care to furnish us with the actual statistics?