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Nice work, Don. It seems that Ireland has to pay more than average for goods she doesn't produce.

I support your suggestion for Banking act to also include company level-ups.

Nice one Don. Interesting stuff.

Very nice work. However please keep in mind that the best way to achieve lower prices is to ENCOURAGE imports, not to raise import taxes.
Trade is beneficial.

Very nice article Don. Two other "perceptions" I have, the size of the markets is scrinking, as seen in lower tax takes. This might be the reason for more competition at lower qualities. Secound it is very difficult to hire Irish workers now and this will lead to prices increasing in the future. It might be more economicial to encourage import licences at higher quality then upgrading domestic companies. Great ansysis, the strenght of a nations economy represents the strenght of the nation.

Good job Don. I disagree with Starkad. I think that we should support our manufacturers. Not by prohibitive duties but balanced rates. Flooding our market cheap products from abroad puts employers in a difficult situation. The Irish market is small, for ourselves we are very competitive: -)

Well I guess it depends on what you want to achieve. Maximum wealth for everybody, or maximum wealth for our company owners.

I want to achieve the former.

Maximum wealth for everybody ? Sounds like utopia ; - )

I own an oil company, it makes small profits, quite marginal, but I get on!

The basis of each strong country are the Industry and Army.
Demand for any material on the Irish market is defined. I would prefer that this demand was largely met by our indigenous companies. We employ Irish workers. From their wages we pay taxes to the Irish treasury.
Obviously we can not completely prevent the import because it could lead to a crazy rise in prices.
Also notice that at the current rates on the Market, we can boldly think about exports.

Good summary, thx.

Nice work Don. Good analysis of our economy. There are many economic theories that we all ascribe to so your recommendations as to how to improve things are valid. Others have different ideas. I don't think anyone should attach "sinister" motives to individual ideas.

I agree with Starkad on the import front, our protectionism benefits no one but a few lads with well developed companies..

I sense no reason to be neither too US nor too Canada. I am with d.7.b as an enthusiastic supporter of open market before.

import? - YES but as a complement to our domestic production, especially at the time of excess production on world markets.
We may also reduce the import tax rates to 1% and just shut the Irish companies. We can become an outlet where the Irish citizen eats Polish bread, lives in a Canadian home, works in American company and on the battlefield is using Russian AK47.
My point is we do not need protectionism, we need common sense.

please, get yourself informed about basic economic principles. A free market does NOT hurt the irish economy, it BENEFITS the irish economy.

And this is not an opinion, this is a scientific fact that has been known for about 200 years now.

There are many copmany's owned by players but not runing, why is that?? because they cannot compete in some fields of industry with the price of imports...we need to find a balance in import taxes, they should lower the competition, but not ban them from our market (croatia has 99% import taxes on grain, but that is out of the question for ireland).

I proposed the tax raise for grain, and the price went up for 0.02 IEP, there is less competition but some of the foreign company's are still selling...this benefits the domestic company owners and the government because it collects higher taxes on imports.....

And that's not all, taxes should be changed every 2-3 week's and be adjusted to the current situation in the world...

Good report!

@ Starkad Rorlikson - the free market is a myth. The most liberal (economically) countries use duty to protect domestic producers - See EU tariffs on imports from China. There is no country in the world who do not control the market. You say that "this is a scientific fact has been known That for about 200 years now." - once "scientists " have claimed that the earth is flat - and so what? Give a scientific fact own judgment based on observation rather than duplicate populist password.

The free market is NOT a myth.

I will never grasp how people with no economic education have the balls to walk around and discuss economics as if they got a clue about it.

@All. Thank you for the comments. Glad my article sparked so much debate!

Personally I saw that there are very few competitive importers in lower quality goods and raw materials. This is excellent for Ireland as it shows we have a very strong manufacturing and raw base.

The higher quality goods have importers overcharging due to lack of competition domestically. The free market theory does not work in this area because there is no competition. If we could find some reputable Q5 companies in Canada or Croatia and offer them a free license to sell goods in Ireland then it would force the price gouging importers to either post fair market offers or get out of the market. This is the only way that the free market would work.

I still think that domestic production in combination with fair imports is the real solution. There is so much money to be made.

Please also notive that there is a significant difference between Food and Weapons.
Unlike with weapons, the healing effects of Foods are scalable along the diffrence quality levels. So in essence, we dont need high quality food companies like we need high quality weapons companies, because we could simply eat more lower quality food.

@Starkad - first, how you recognize that someone has a degree in economics or not? recognize by the avatars? Second - to return to eRep, Show any support to your theory. Scroll to the example of countries which apply the free market.

Any discussion is good - provided it is constructive and businesslike. I am glad that I can "quarrel" on topics that interest me: -) I'm not saying I'm absolutely right, the truth usually lies in the middle: -)

@Starkad. I agree with that position in my article. Food is not so much the priority as weapons. Q5 weapons are the ultimate battle tool. My personal feeling is that the government should take initiative on this. Either fund company upgrade or take bids for foreign importers.

@d7b

First off, I quite frankly dont care how many countries run free markets or not because its not relevant to the validity of the underlying truth. Taxation distorts the effects of supply and demand and thus destroys wealth for a society. If you dont know what I am talking about....google it. This is really something every 1st semester in economics can explain, so there should be plenty of sources on the net.

Also the eUS has been having 1% import taxes and 1% VAT across the board for well over 6 months now.

@Starkad... My teacher of economics, in addition to theory, taught to submit everything in doubt. I agree with you that the idea of a free market is great but our country must be ready for market opening. Anyway thank you for an interesting discussion.

@Starkad

Still we have more things to take into consideration other than utilization level of citizens especially if we have a population below certain limit.

I definitely agree to carefully weighting the pros and cons of every decision before making it. Its just that this seems like an easy one. Of course most grain companies are gonna go bust if we open the markets, but weapons, food and iron companies are gonna florish in return and the bottom line for eIreland will be bigger.
And we gotta think of eIreland first, not of grain company owners.

Real Life capitalism is faulty. It always, even in theory, leads to distorted incomes among the rich and the poor which we can clearly see in America today (1% of the population owns about 90% of the wealth, move down a percent and they own about 95% of the wealth). It will always lead to outsourcing, the cheapest supplier will always win. In a globalist world outlook, this means Americans will need to give up the things they take for granted if they don't want to face the worst in the future. There needs government intervention to stabilize an economic system. We saw the faults of a right-wing economy, we saw monopolies and a great depression. I believe in Libertarian Socialism.

All of this is real life stuff man....lets talk about eR.

I just love the way all this seious discussion is there, when John G says 'good report'

@Starka😛 Aye, sorry. eR I am not the economic master. All I know is that the more we buy, the better for our companies, and the more we sell the richer we get lol.

Some seem to want to talk about jam on toast so... The interesting data and graphs were delicious enough by themselves but the complementary economic discussion means I'll certainly be back for another mind meal 😉

@Sean. Economics is a sticky enough debate without jam. I'll not have ye gumming up my diabolical plans with yer sticky sweetness mate.

Great article Don, and I'm glad to see them back again. Keeping a database like this is essential for logical public policy towards economics

Great article

The free market is working so very well in the US right now that all of our refrigerators and stoves and other major appliances are made in Mexico and the rest of our crap, the cheap stuff, is made in made in whatever third-world backwater came in with thelowest bid.

And all of the workers who used to make those products are now serving french fries or taking care of the spoiled progeny of investment bankers, corporate wonks and insurance executives.

loads of Info, thank you for putting the time into doing this and then sharing it with everyone.

Admin: 'oil is being removed, as are MTs, houses, stone DSs and hospitals.'