Russian Economy General News: #11

Foreign-owned multinationals make up a significant percentage of Ireland's GDP.[37] The "multinational tax schemes" used by some of these multinational firms contribute to a distortion in Ireland's economic statistics; including GNI, GNP and GDP.[41][42] For example, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows Ireland with average leverage on a gross public debt-to-GDP basis (78.8% in 2016), but with the 2nd highest leverage, after Japan, on a gross public debt-per capita basis ($62,686 in 2016).[43][44][45] This disconnect led to the 2017 development by the Central Bank of Ireland of Irish modified GNI (or GNI*)[32] for measuring the Irish economy (2016 GDP is 143% of Irish 2016 GNI*,[33][34] and OECD Irish gross public debt-to-GNI* is 116.5%).[43][46][47] Ireland's GNI* per capita ranks it very similar to Germany. According to an OECD report, productivity growth among foreign owned entities averaged at 10.9% for 2017, and was a lower 2.5% for indigenous firms.[48]

The distortion of Irish economic data by US multinational tax schemes was a key contributor to the build-up of leverage in the Celtic Tiger, amplifying both Irish consumer optimism (who borrowed to 190% of disposable income, OECD highest), and global capital markets optimism about Ireland (enabled Irish banks to lend over 180% of deposit base, OECD highest).[49] Global capital markets, who ignored Ireland's private sector credit, and OECD/IMF warnings, when Irish GDP was rising during the Celtic Tiger, took fright in the financial crisis. Their withdrawal precipitated a deep Irish property correction, which led to a crisis in the Irish banking system.[42][50]

A particularly dramatic growth in Ireland's 2015 GDP (from 1% in 2013, to 8% in 2014, to 25% in 2015) was shown to be largely driven by Apple restructuring their double Irish subsidiary, ASI, in January 2015. A follow up EU Commission report into Ireland's national accounts showed that even before this, 23% of Ireland's GDP was multinational net royalty payments,[51] implying Irish GDP was inflated to 130% of "true" GDP (before the Apple growth). This led to the Central Bank of Ireland proposing a new replacement metric, modified gross national income (or GNI*), to better represent the "true" Irish economy.[32][52]

flamming_python wrote:

kvs wrote:Thanks for the long list of GDP growth numbers in Europe for Q1 and Q2, FP.   You can see a pattern.   Many key EU member states had negative
growth in Q1 before Covid really hit as it did in Q2.   Even in early affected Europe, the pandemic only became important in the second half
of March in therms of lockdowns.   So the negative Q1 figures indicate a contraction already in progress.

The second half of 2019 was not so great for western economies.   Covid-19 has become a fig leaf to obscure this fact.

China was affected earlier, that's already a big disruption in demand and production; other Asian countries started to be affected from February, and tourist links and travel started to degrade from that sort of time.

The coronavirus was already spreading in Europe by March and causing a lot of curtailed spending and less business confidence

Putin signs a law on tax support for publishing houses

But there is one place where officials are not hypocritical about their true motives and desired outcomes: Russia, where the government minister in charge of getting companies to keep production at home thinks the ruble's recent 20% plunge against the dollar is simply "awesome."

miketheterrible wrote:I'll explain like this.  I dealt in hiring process for south Koreans in the past.  Answers are rather simple.

In South Korea, it's like a mafia state but business style. In other words, 4 companies own the country.  Hyundai, Samsung, Daewoo and LG (maybe) and they control nearly every economic aspect of South Korea.

Now average South Korean is paid shit.  And cost of living is high in places like Seoul. Outside it isn't too bad though. And you do get a good quality of life if even a bit expensive.

But it's like every major industry - you can get job offers making huge money if you have a skill in that field.  But since it's a small country and small competition, the number of specialists needed have dropped considerably. To the point the government is telling people not to bother with higher education as there are no jobs in those fields.  But there is the odd demand here and there where they are willing to pay the amount.

In Russia or elsewhere is the same but on a grander scale.  Yes, you can get a high paying job at Rosatom, or Rostec, or etc etc etc. But demand is limited and if positions are filled, well guess what? Gotta look elsewhere.  Problem is average Russian is very educated. But if the demand for that job isn't needed, guess what? You look elsewhere.

It's like programmers in Canada.  High paying job right?  Wrong. It's a small portion are paid well but on average, the wages had dropped for application developers across the board.  Not enough work vs the amount of people there.

Start ups exist but many fail too.  Not all ideas are great ideas.

My colleague is actually a computer engineer who worked in Taiwan designing controller boards for hard drives.  He was eventually let go and had to move to Singapore because he couldn't find work in Taiwan for computer engineering - and that is all the country is known for.

It isn't all black and white.

miketheterrible wrote:Dunno if you heard the news lately, and KVS sure as probably heard it, but pos boy Trudeau is wanting to bring in 1.2M more migrants into Canada while we have the highest unemployment in the G7 and probably worst than it was 30 years ago.

What are we gonna do with 1.2M migrants? Jobs are scarce and if they are skilled workers (I doubt a lot of em are), it will drive wages down even further.  Most do not create jobs besides owning a liquor store and or other business where they either pay employees under the table at below minimum wage or at minimum wage as is.  And for maybe 2 to 3 employees total.

It's a joke and we are setting ourselves up for further failure than before.

GDP means fuck all in whole honesty. It is a broad measurement that doesn't really equate to a good life style.  We only have a higher standard of living cause we live on credit. I live on debt currently.  And my debt is massive, apparently it is very small compared to average.

It is stupid and gonna get worst.

miketheterrible wrote:Dunno if you heard the news lately, and KVS sure as probably heard it, but pos boy Trudeau is wanting to bring in 1.2M more migrants into Canada while we have the highest unemployment in the G7 and probably worst than it was 30 years ago.

What are we gonna do with 1.2M migrants? Jobs are scarce and if they are skilled workers (I doubt a lot of em are), it will drive wages down even further.  Most do not create jobs besides owning a liquor store and or other business where they either pay employees under the table at below minimum wage or at minimum wage as is.  And for maybe 2 to 3 employees total.

It's a joke and we are setting ourselves up for further failure than before.

GDP means fuck all in whole honesty. It is a broad measurement that doesn't really equate to a good life style.  We only have a higher standard of living cause we live on credit. I live on debt currently.  And my debt is massive, apparently it is very small compared to average.

It is stupid and gonna get worst.

miketheterrible wrote:My wife is from India and she told me she was offered all these benefits including subsidized post secondary education.  She ended up saying no and asking how that was even legal and why Canadians don't get this?

It disgusts me how much the government robs us working people to give it to people who don't work, don't respect our culture/country and just make babies all day to get more subsidies.

I can't wait for this system to collapse entirely and every one of those parasites are told "sorry, can't do it. No more money".

miketheterrible wrote:Dunno if you heard the news lately, and KVS sure as probably heard it, but pos boy Trudeau is wanting to bring in 1.2M more migrants into Canada while we have the highest unemployment in the G7 and probably worst than it was 30 years ago.

What are we gonna do with 1.2M migrants? Jobs are scarce and if they are skilled workers (I doubt a lot of em are), it will drive wages down even further.  Most do not create jobs besides owning a liquor store and or other business where they either pay employees under the table at below minimum wage or at minimum wage as is.  And for maybe 2 to 3 employees total.

It's a joke and we are setting ourselves up for further failure than before.

GDP means fuck all in whole honesty. It is a broad measurement that doesn't really equate to a good life style.  We only have a higher standard of living cause we live on credit. I live on debt currently.  And my debt is massive, apparently it is very small compared to average.

It is stupid and gonna get worst.