A packed podcast! For the past year or so we have been noticing weakness in Irish exports, particularly pharmaceuticals and one or two other key areas. Falling exports were a big driver of the Irish 'recession' last year. At least part of this was Covid related and the fall represented payback for the massive boost arising from exports of vaccine and other health related products during the pandemic. It's only one month's data, so shouldn't be over-interpreted, but latest numbers hint at two thi...
Mar 17, 2024•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Everybody in financial markets is starting to ask: is this another bubble, a near quarter century after the dot.com crash? Are those comparisons with 1999/2000 valid or is the AI boom for real? What does AI think of the AI 'bubble'? The UK ends its mild recession but lots of workers are going on the sick - the long term sick. This could be a real problem for growth prospects. The Central Bank of Ireland forecasts a robust irish economy and muses about workers shifting from building offices to co...
Mar 14, 2024•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast All the latest economic data Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/the-other-hand-with-jim.power-and-chris.johns . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Mar 11, 2024•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast All the latest economic news. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/the-other-hand-with-jim.power-and-chris.johns . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Mar 08, 2024•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast On the numbers, the Irish economy is in recession - but is it? Talking to one segment of the Irish diaspora - what do they think of their host country? And their thoughts on Ireland. European inflation comes in at 2.6% vs 2.5% expected. How awful. "The incumbent government is deeply unpopular with younger voters because NIMBY older voters are allowed to block all development" Which country is described in this quote? Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/the-other-hand-with-jim.power-and-c...
Mar 04, 2024•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast Current opinion polls are pointing towards another coalition government. How long would those coalition negotiations take? Would a prolonged period of no government be a bad thing for business and the economy? Are banks making too much money? If so, what is the right remedy? Tax those profits? Break them up to force competition? Encourage Fintech new entrants? Irish jobs at a record high. A truly remarkable story. 2nd anniversary of the Ukraine war. Many are in denial but Russia is on the advanc...
Feb 27, 2024•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast House prices rise in Ireland - - for the fourth month is a row? How come? Plenty of buyers is the simple answer. It seems that higher interest rates don't work in the way they used to. Do they even work at all? Speaking of interest rates, the prominent economist who got the US - and global - inflation story right, and therefore the interest rate story right, is musing about the possibility that the next move in US rates might have to be up. That's right, up. If true - and it's only an outside ch...
Feb 23, 2024•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast A lawyer - a 'special prosecutor' - recently caused a furore with an allegation about Joe Biden's 'cognitive decline' In conversation with Professor of neuroscience Shane O'Mara we explore the mysteries of ageing and the emerging evidence about how to maximise our chances of becoming a 'Super Ager' That lawyer shouldn't have tried to diagnose Biden. Nor should any non-specialist. There are strict criteria for that sort of thing. There is no publicly available evidence that suggests Biden meets t...
Feb 21, 2024•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast The other day we received the longest email ever sent to The Other Hand. It was a thoughtful point-by-point critique of pretty much everything we have said about Trump, Biden and the state of American politics. We get lots of emails and comments and Tweets etc. We try to reply respectfully to as many as we can. Indeed, we encourage the conversation. In replying to this email we attempt something different: the salient points are given voice by an AI robot. A pretty simple and cheap one, admitted...
Feb 19, 2024•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast What is public service broadcasting for? Why does RTE exist? Should it? Whatever the answers to these questions, a new model for public serve broadcasting is sorely needed. Populist suggestions for an amnesty for licence fee dodgers are unserious politics. But that's the dilemma facing Sinn Fein: become a party of teh centre or spout more populist nonsense? As they lose votes to the anti-immigrant right, they are caught between a rock and a hard place. Why is the hard left, especially in the UK ...
Feb 17, 2024•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast Inflation comes in higher than expected in the U.S. Markets push interest rate cuts further into the future. Inflation comes in lower than expected in the U.K. Markets think the Bank of England has a green light to cut soon. This might come as a surprise: nobody is quite sure what causes inflation. Central bank models assume the link between interest rates and inflation is via the labour market - wages. But inflation has come down, as interest rates have gone up, without any connection with the ...
Feb 15, 2024•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ever heard of DEXIT? Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/the-other-hand-with-jim.power-and-chris.johns . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Feb 13, 2024•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast John Bruton RIP Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/the-other-hand-with-jim.power-and-chris.johns . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Feb 08, 2024•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast 'Dr Strangelove' was a 1960s movie that satirised the cold war. It explored 'Mutually Assured Destruction' and was a riff, in a way, on 'game theory'. A number of characters have emerged that echo Strangelove. The US economy continues to power ahead, not least in terms of almost unbelievable job creation. Higher interest rates were supposed to cool the economy, destroy jobs and therefore lower inflation. In theory anyway. Job growth continues to astound yet inflation is, essentially, back to tar...
Feb 05, 2024•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Sleepwalking to war? Not so much! Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/the-other-hand-with-jim.power-and-chris.johns . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jan 31, 2024•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast The super soaraway US economy and stock market Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/the-other-hand-with-jim.power-and-chris.johns . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jan 28, 2024•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast It's coming up the 75th anniversary of the publication of George Orwell's 1984. We discuss with professor Shane O'Mara the various psychological insights of Orwell and how they endure and resonate to the present day. We don't like chaos and detest change. When our beliefs don't cost us anything - and keep us on good terms with fellow group members - we don't care about the facts. Winston Smith's torturer didn't just persuade him to say two plus two equals five, he got Smith to truly believe it. ...
Jan 26, 2024•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast 'The Bitter lessons of Brexit'. We all fervently wish that Brexit has gone away. It hasn't. It's more like a slow moving chronic disease but it is sill an infection for the economy and the UK at large. It's going to stay that way. Was Darwin wrong? Could evolution go into reverse? Evidence of Homo Sapiens losing their backbone are everywhere, especially in Washington DC. De Santis demonises Trump and then endorses him. The Don has a new best friend. Yeats comes to mind: Turning and turning in th...
Jan 24, 2024•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast Trump is ahead in he polls and could be the next leader of the free world. He has promised to be a 'dictator for a day' Will it be the catastrophe that most seem to expect? Is everything he says wrong? Are liberals the ones who have created the conditions for the global march of right-wing populism? Immigration is the big controversy everywhere. Nobody is debating it rationally. We give it a try. Ireland says no. To Wind farms, solar farms, tall buildings, any buildings, data centres and immigra...
Jan 21, 2024•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast Latest trade data for Ireland suggest exports are struggling - for the first prolonged period in quite a while. That points to a world trade slowdown - and generalised economic weakness everywhere (apart from the US). Irish GDP could well shrink in 2024 if this continues - for the second year in a row. Inflation surprising to the upside is now a more-or-less global phenomenon after much bigger than expected falls through 2023. Is the last mile on inflation reduction going to be really hard? A lo...
Jan 17, 2024•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast Low or no economic growth is a bigger problem than most people realise. What we don't know about growth might surprise you. Too many country's are losing interest in growth. Not Ireland - yet. But unless growth is nurtured it will be quick to disappear. And there are plenty of warning signs on the horizon. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/the-other-hand-with-jim.power-and-chris.johns . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jan 14, 2024•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast China wants Taiwan on the same terms that it took Hong Kong. 'One country two systems'. A bargain that Xi Jingping failed to honour. No wonder most Taiwanese are suspicious. Taiwan's upcoming Presidential election merits close attention. There probably isn't a 'good' outcome. Just ones that hasten or defer a potential confrontation. Latest inflation data, for end 2023, has generally disappointed. We still think inflation will continue to fall and central banks risk cutting rates too slowly. Irel...
Jan 09, 2024•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast How many centrist political parties does Ireland need? Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/the-other-hand-with-jim.power-and-chris.johns . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jan 04, 2024•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Another year of forecasts, mostly wrong. And another season for making forecasts Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/the-other-hand-with-jim.power-and-chris.johns . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Dec 23, 2023•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Over 100 countries will have elections of one kind or another during 2024. Some analysts think that will be the largest number in history. A lot of those elections could be very consequential. We start the year with Taiwanese elections - the outcome could well provoke China, widely thought to be preparing for a possible war by the end of the decade. We end with the possible return of Trump. How bad could that be? Unimaginably bad. The Colorado Supreme Court made a last dict stand for democracy b...
Dec 21, 2023•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast The IDA's annual report on companies supported by them shows tech job losses. This is consistent with Ireland's external trade data - although the latter remains heavily distorted by post-pandemic return to normal for pharmaceutical exports. Three central banks met this week. All left interest rates unchanged but delivered very different messages. Members of the Federal Reserve's rate setting committee explicitly forecast US rate cuts next year. At a time when the US economy remains in rude heal...
Dec 17, 2023•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast Jim returns from Canada and stresses the scope for improved economic & business ties with Ireland. Inflation is coming down but the world's central banks are poised to to do battle with the markets and disabuse them of their assumptions about rapid interest rate cuts next year. Falling interest rate expectations have helped some mortgage rates to ease, especially in the US and UK. House prices have reacted in time honoured fashion and are showing signs of rising again. Is the great house price c...
Dec 13, 2023•43 min•Transcript available on Metacast In conversation with professor Shane O'Mara of Trinity College Dublin. Novo Nordisk has become Europe's largest, most valuable, company on the back of some new weight-loss drugs. Is the hype justified? It's early days but the preliminary evidence is an emphatic yes! There are familiar caveats: potential side effects and cost. But these drugs do seem to work. And not just for weight loss - this is where it gets more speculative/preliminary but there are hints that the drugs' effects on the brain ...
Dec 11, 2023•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Jim shares his impressions of the state of Irish-Canada relations during a tour of the major east coast cities. Also in the frame: latest Exchequer returns and GDP data. Boom and bust in a week. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/the-other-hand-with-jim.power-and-chris.johns . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Dec 09, 2023•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast Inflation surprises, again, by its rapid fall. But central bankers have been telling us that the 'last mile' will take years. The markets have been laughing at those central bankers. And it is said that our monetary masters value their 'credibility'. Self-awareness training wouldn't go amiss. Or maybe they should just hire a decent PR agency. A week of obituaries. The death of the greatest investor and one of the richest - that most people will never have heard of. Henry Kissinger: greatest stat...
Dec 01, 2023•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
