[lbo-talk] Irish economy

[Wendy Lyon]

If you're talking about the *current* trade surplus, which is at a
record high, that's mainly due to a collapse in imports over the past
year (since nobody's buying anything these days). The export rate
generally is deceptive because something like 90% of "Irish" exports
actually come from multinationals based here... our GDP is way way
above our GNP, unusually so for Europe at least.

Productivity growth has slowed down a lot over the past couple years
too, I'm not sure what statistics you're looking at.

A couple good blogs for more info on this stuff:
http://www.irishleftreview.org/category/economy/
http://notesonthefront.typepad.com/politicaleconomy/
http://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/  (more discussion-based than the other two)

On 16/03/2010, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> Anyone know anything about the Irish economy? I'm just looking at some stats
> and am surprised by the huge trade surplus (corporate tax shelter services?)
> and strong productivity growth (way ahead of Germany's, which is way ahead
> of most of the rest of Europe). But bubble, then bust. Wuzzup?
>
>  Doug
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