Business and Finance News
Irish food/ drinks exports in 2015 – far below potential
Another Irish public agency had a good news story to tell on Wednesday on performance in 2015 with many superlatives deployed to please ministers. Media headlines have noted that Irish food and drinks exports rose to a record in the year and it certain…
China’s foreign trade surplus rises 56.7% in 2015, imports fall
China’s foreign trade surplus widened to 元3.69tn yuan/ renminbi ($562bn) in 2015, an increase of 56.7% from a year earlier, customs data showed on Wednesday.
Lagarde says emerging world facing new reality on growth
Christine Lagarde, IMF managing director, said Tuesday that after years of success, emerging and developing countries are now confronted with a new reality. Growth rates are down, and cyclical and structural forces have undermined the traditional growt…
Ireland not only country with dodgy unemployment data
The US has published two monthly rates of unemployment since the mid 1990s and in Europe Jacques Freyssinet (b.1937), the prominent French labour economist, has succeeded in having what he calls “halo du chômage” or unemployment halo — unemployed people seeking work who are not included in the International Labour Organisation (ILO) definition of unemployed — included in official data. Official training programmes also give an opportunity to massage the data and in Ireland Enda Kenny, taoiseach, has announced a bogus full-employment target.
War and Peace: Tolstoy’s rejection of the ‘Great Man’ theory
Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910: Lev Nikolayevich, Graf [count] Tolstoy, in Russian], one of the world’s greatest novelists, is currently getting general attention because of the BBC’s adaptation of his epic and monumental novel War and Peace, which was written in 1865–1869. It is set in the period from 1805 to 1820 and describes the war between Russia and France through 1812. The book also contains an analysis of leadership that has resonance today, and Tolstoy rejects the notion that great men were instrumental in achieving success or failure in history.
Irish standard of living below EU28, Euro Area and Italian averages
The Irish standard of living per capita is below the averages for the European Union (EU28), the Euro Area (EA19), and struggling Italy, according to data published in December 2015 by Eurostat, the EU’s statistics office.
US adds 292,000 jobs in December 2015, Broad jobless rate at 10%
US nonfarm payroll employment increased by 292,000 in December, and the unemployment rate held at 5.0%. Job growth occurred in several industries, led by professional and business services, construction, health care, and food services and drinking plac…
Irish dole claims end 2015 at 410,000, Broad jobless rate at 19%
The number of Irish unemployment benefit claims at the end of 2015 amounted to 410,000 comprising 329,000 on the Live Register and 81,000 in publicly funded activation schemes, according to CSO data published Thursday. The broad jobless rate based on a…
Firms in Japan, US, France account for 85% of Top 100 innovators
Firms in Japan, US and France account for 85% of the Top 100 innovators in the global corporate world according to Thomson Reuters. The selection is based on an analysis of overall patent volume, patent-grant success rates, global reach and invention i…
UK Economy: Osborne warns of global risks and complacency
UK Economy: George Osborne, UK chancellor, is expected to warn Thursday of a “dangerous cocktail” of global threats faces the British economy this year. He also will warn that complacency about the economy is starting to take hold.