Gerry Cooke and Ann-Marie Hannon of Blackhall Financial Services with Jim Power (centre), guest speaker at the ‘2023 Economic and Investment Outlook’ seminar in Mullingar last Thursday.
Sun 11 June 2023, 9:00 am
Sun 11 June 2023, 09:40 am
NAMA caused the housing crisis, Brexit was the biggest economic fiasco imaginable, and Sinn Féin is likely to be in government by 2025 – these were some of the proclamations economist Jim Power made in Mullingar last week.
Mr Power was one of the speakers to address a seminar organized by Blackhall Financial Services at the Mullingar Park Hotel, ‘2023 Economic and Investment Outlook’. More than 40 entrepreneurs and investors were present.
The MC for the event was Gerry Cooke, director of Blackhall Financial Services. Panelists included Mr. Power, Darragh Murphy of Quilter Cheviot, James McEvoy, Greenman Investments, and Anne-Marie Hannon, Managing Director and Special Investment Advisor, Blackhall Financial Services.
Ann Marie Hannon with the evening’s speakers, Jim Power, Daragh Murphy and James McEvoy.
Mr Power, who pretended to be from the same parish in Waterford as retired Mullingar teacher, Tom Hunt, said the election of Donald Trump, Brexit and Covid all caused massive disruption, and was followed by the war in Ukraine.
He said when Covid restrictions were lifted, suppressed demand was accompanied by supply shortages – people had money to spend, but companies had scaled back or shut down production.
As things settled down, Russia invaded Ukraine. The prices of oil, natural gas, building materials and food rose enormously.
Energy prices have started to fall, Mr Power said, adding that European natural gas prices were €350 per megawatt hour in September last year; they were trading around €24/€25 last week and he expects consumers to benefit from this in the coming months.
Mr Power thinks world politics is ‘scary’. Brexit was the biggest economic fiasco imaginable – it made no economic sense. You look at Trump’s anti-globalization and anti-free trade policies; China is becoming more totalitarian and as an investment country it is becoming more dangerous. The war in Ukraine is going on and then there’s climate change, he noted.
Eddie and Miriam Simpkin, Anne Murphy, Anne Marie Hannon and Isena Pohl at the ‘2023 Economic and Investment Outlook’ seminar.
According to gross domestic product figures, Ireland’s economy has been booming since 2014/2015, but Power warned that those numbers are distorted by multinationals repatriating profits back to their home countries. Last year Ireland’s GDP was about €470 billion, but €130 billion of that went out of the country, mostly to the US, he said.
In 2015, a small number of global companies moved their intellectual assets to Ireland for tax purposes, with Apple being one of the largest. They have virtually no impact on the economy, but they are part of our GDP. This grossly overstated GDP means we pay more to the European Union, Power warned.
He reported that income tax rose by €4 billion last year, but 83% of that is paid by 25% of employees. We collected €22.6 billion in corporate income tax; 10 years ago we would have been lucky enough to collect 4 billion euros, but 10 companies account for 57% of that. If any of them got into trouble, we could see a significant drop in taxes, he warned.
Mr Power took “serious exception” to President Michael D Higgins’ comments “about economists obsessed with economic growth”. .
“I haven’t taken that man’s statements seriously in three decades,” he remarked. NAMA treated all developers as “tax criminals” and forced them out of business. Without developers, you don’t get development. Between 2011 and 2021, we completed just over 13,000 homes per year when we should have completed more than 40,000. They wonder why we have a housing crisis! It’s not rocket science! he noted.
The population has passed five million for the first time since the famine and people are living longer. In 2011, we had about 150,000 people over 85, by April 2022 there will be about 550,000, which has huge implications for health care, nursing home facilities and pensions, he said.
Power thinks there is a good chance that Sinn Féin will be in government by 2025. As individuals and companies you have to think about what economic policies they will pursue and what you need to do to deal with them, he advised the audience.
Responding to questions from the audience, panelists warned that houses need to be built and the whole planning system needs to be overhauled to make it “fit for purpose”, NIMBYism needs to be eradicated and a proper financing model needs to be devised for developers; energy bills may rise again this winter; the green energy business has the future and is ripe for investment; we will see more economic, political and climate-changing migration; Stocks are good investments.
Mr Cooke thanked all in attendance and invited them to have a no obligation talk with Blackhall Financial Services “to see what we can offer you”.
Christian Pohl and Jugiane Muller.
Gerry Cooke and Declan Lenihan.
Martin Doyle and Ann Marie Hannon.
Sun 11 June 2023, 9:00 am
Sun 11 June 2023, 09:40 am
