Running on empty

by Maria on March 29, 2007

Rather worrying news from Ireland where figures from the last quarter of 2006 show that, as expected, new building is declining, but also that exports dropped by 10% when they’d been expected to rise by more than 2%.

The last couple of years of Ireland’s economic boom have been fuelled by new home construction, much of it for first time buyers whose ability to purchase is the basis of price inflation throughout the market. As that demand is satisfied, people further up the chain have started to worry. The increasing value of bigger, more central homes has powered a massive consumer splurge. When you look at how many of Ireland’s richest 200 people are builders and property developers, it becomes obvious that our self-fuelled economy may contract or even collapse. The response? Endless newspaper articles urging people to ignore the basic economic facts of over-valued property, rising interest rates, and our vulnerable position as one-time poster child for globalised multi-nationals, and just buy, buy, buy.

There’s an inter-generational dynamic to all of this. People in their forties and fifties have done very well from rising house prices, but are also of an age to have been looking for work during the 1980s, when there was almost none to be had (and you’d be paying >60% tax at the top rate, anyway). They’ve known hard times, and are established enough to fill the media with exhortations to the next cohort down to stick our fingers in our ears, and sing a happy song about economic stability. The message is that if we all just ‘keep our nerve’, the market can stabilise with minimal pain.

The thirty-somethings, on the other hand, are mortgaged to the hilt and watching ECB interest rates like hawks. Many of this generation got their down payments from parents in the 50 to 60 something generation who cashed out some equity in their more substantial family homes. Those with children have little choice but to live on two incomes in satellite developments, miles from their extended families, leaving for work at the crack of dawn and returning to too late and too tired to spend time with their children or build a community. If negative equity hits – and it’ll hit them first – they have nowhere to go, and no one to buy their houses. They’re the people working for the Microsofts, the Intels, the outposts of Big Pharma, and they know their jobs could disappear from one day to the next.

That’s why the really worrying news is the following:

“Final quarter net exports – exports of goods and services less imports of goods and services – fell annually by 10.2 per cent, a significantly worse outturn than the 2.8 per cent growth that was recorded for 2006 as a whole.”

Aside from the property bubble, Irish economic growth has been export-led through foreign direct investment by mainly US firms. The attraction is of our English-speaking and educated workforce, EU-funded infrastructure and access to European markets. But with property prices in Dublin rising 10-15% year on year for much of the last decade, the cost of labour has risen. A sudden and unexpected drop of 10% in exports indicates that something may be seriously wrong. We need to ask why, and figure out what, if anything, we can do about it.

However, the government says hopefully that growth this year will be driven by domestic demand. But how can an export-based economy sustain sufficient domestic demand for more than months at a time? Maybe the promises and give aways of an election year will fuel our faltering economy for another while, or maybe we’re already running on fumes.

The whole country has lost sight of lost sight of the fact that house building and buying are not the keys to economic and financial success, but merely indicators of it. Our economy is distorted, and so are our politics. The establishment generation (those forty and fifty-somethings) have done very well and have the most to lose. Much of our political debate in the last few months has focused on whether and how to reduce stamp duty on house purchases, i.e. how to keep the property boom going by ensuring stamp duty reductions don’t form a simple transfer from buyers to sellers. The real question is; are we fighting an election on spending promises when there won’t be much money left to spend in a year or two? One commentator said recently that this is an election to lose. He may be right.

The generation I worry about are the twenty somethings. They’ve never known a recession, never known a life without part-time jobs and disposable income, never known Northern Ireland before the peace process. They haven’t known hard times. It’s not all doom and gloom; GDP is pretty stable, and our economy is still growing by 5-6% a year. Hard times may not be coming, but straitened ones surely are.

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{ 20 comments }

1

william 03.29.07 at 11:42 am

I agree with the basic thrust of your post, so this is just a nitpick, but: where are these endless newspaper articles? I honestly feel like I see far more articles warning about the possibility of a slowdown than urging people to clap their hands and believe in fairies. But then I read the Times

2

Z 03.29.07 at 12:02 pm

A sudden and unexpected drop of 10% in exports indicates that something may be seriously wrong. We need to ask why, and figure out what, if anything, we can do about it.
Could it simply be that Ireland is now a rather typical european country? I mean, a mere 13 years ago, Ireland had a cost of labor of 75 (if the US had 100), with only Spain cheaper amongst the developping european country plus the US, Canada and Japan. In 2004, it had reached 96 (US=100), above Spain and Italy, but also almost at the french level. Presumably, foreign companies have now less incentives to invest in Ireland in comparison with neighboring countries and the EU has eastern countries to help now.

3

paul 03.29.07 at 12:41 pm

A large proportion of Ireland’s exports emanates from a small number of pharmaceutical plants and software houses, many established here by foreign multinationals to reduce their home tax bills. If even a couple of these report reduced exports, either due to decreases in production or changes in reporting procedures, it could have a very large effect on the national figures.
So, this 10% drop may not be as worrying as it first appears (if indeed it is due to one of the above factors), but it does serve to illustrate how precariously perched our economy is. We have placed a lot of our eggs in very few baskets.

4

ejh 03.29.07 at 12:51 pm

The whole country has lost sight of lost sight of the fact that house building and buying are not the keys to economic and financial success, but merely indicators of it

Probaby not the whole country. Probably that sector which is excluded from the whole buying-selling circus has been aware of it all along. Probably because it wasn’t really an “indicator” of the economy’s success at all, but the indicator of the success only of a part of it.

5

Ray 03.29.07 at 1:51 pm

Echoing Paul, above, aren’t a substantial proportion of Irish imports and exports purely notional, driven by the tax and reporting policies of companies with bases here rather than physical units of things being produced here and sold abroad? So what does a 10% drop in exports actually represent?

6

jay bee 03.29.07 at 1:55 pm

Enough about the property market, Cassandra, that’s Dave McWilliams’ job

What about the ESRI report published today that says that the National Lottery REALLY is the Government’s tax on the poor? They’re funding all these sporting facilities that are being used by the better off…

http://www.esri.ie/publications/latest_publications/view/index.xml?id=2061

7

Maria 03.29.07 at 2:03 pm

I must admit that in talk about ‘generations’ I was conscious of describing phenomena the middle class is experiencing, and wondered if I should point that out.

Thanks for the pointer, jay bee. I expect the Tessa Jowell’s Super Casino proposal would also have been a ‘dream tax’ on people who can least afford it.

8

P O'Neill 03.29.07 at 3:27 pm

Sort of on topic, it’s just mind-boggling that one of country’s cities — Galway — can lack drinkable water and have no clear date for correcting the problem. On the one hand one sees the statistics and reads (especially in the overseas media) about the endless boom and the overtaking of Northern Ireland. But don’t turn on the taps in Galway.

9

Doug 03.29.07 at 3:30 pm

“But how can an export-based economy sustain sufficient domestic demand for more than months at a time?”

Germany has asked this question for a mighty long time.

“our economy is still growing by 5-6% a year”

While 2.7% or thereabouts is considered a glowing year for the Germans, best since dotcom days…

10

dsquared 03.29.07 at 3:45 pm

We need to ask why, and figure out what, if anything, we can do about it.

unfortunately the answer are “because your competitiveness advantage has been eaten up by the EUR/USD exchange rate” and “nope, nothing”. This is the downside of being a small economy at the edge of the eurozone.

11

abb1 03.29.07 at 4:54 pm

I hear the present-day Irish are not god-fearing people they used to be. ’nuff said.

12

Maria 03.29.07 at 5:55 pm

Agreed, dsquared. There’s not always a something that can be done.

13

a 03.29.07 at 6:44 pm

Of course it’s not just Ireland. The U.S. is at the beginning of a housing-led recession. No body was ever forced to buy a house. By the same token no body was ever forced to give a loan. I presume these twentysomethings who bought beyond their means can declare bankruptcy and walk away?

14

dearieme 03.29.07 at 7:33 pm

“There are bad times just around the corner” has different lyrics for Britain and the US. How helpful of Mr Coward.

http://www.leoslyrics.com/listlyrics.php?hid=YNBPAw7pra4%3D

15

saorla 03.30.07 at 2:21 am

There are many who think that the crash will come sooner than the papers are reporting. The evictions have started but it is kept on the quiet. Several families have been evicted by the bank from properties they purchased in Kerry. Some organise to stay in the house paying rent to the bank. The situation is demoralising for young single professionals like myself, who, at current prices, cannot afford to buy a house/apartment on our own. Buying on a single income is next to impossible. It’s a bad situation

16

astrongmaybe 03.30.07 at 6:30 am

How long can we go on having these kind of discussions without the slightest reference to climate change? The thirty-somethings are watching interest rates like hawks, no doubt every politician and pundit is watching the GDP figures, but I doubt 1 in a 100 of them really, deep down, takes figures on carbon emissions (and thus the material basis of life in 50-100 years time) remotely as seriously. Particularly given the “economy as engine” metaphor, it seems worth thinking about.

17

EWI 03.30.07 at 9:53 am

A sudden and unexpected drop of 10% in exports indicates that something may be seriously wrong. We need to ask why, and figure out what, if anything, we can do about it.

#3 and #5 have the answer, I think.

18

Nick 03.30.07 at 7:53 pm

The thirty-somethings, on the other hand, are mortgaged to the hilt and watching ECB interest rates like hawks.

Does that mean that mortgages in Ireland have variable rates? With a fixed rate mortgage, I couldn’t care less what interest rates do after the loan is finalized.

19

Martin James 04.01.07 at 6:21 pm

…miles from their extended families…

Any American living only “miles” from extended family wouldn’t be considered to have even cut the apron strings.

20

Valuethinker 04.03.07 at 3:27 pm

Nick

If the Irish market is anything like the UK market, 70%+ of mortgages will be floating rate.

In the UK, most people are either floating, or on a 1 or 2 year rate fix (at most).

Ireland’s great advantage is it has a made in Germany interest rate, for a UK or Spanish style economy. Hence the massive influx of Eastern European immigrants (yes, people *immigrate* too Ireland, probably about the first time since the Vikings landed).

Irish property investors are also hugely invested abroad. I could name you a 50-story residential building in Toronto that was mostly sold to Irish buyers.

there’s huge housing equity in Ireland. I am less worried there, than I am in the UK or Spain, where it really does feel like the economies are built on bubbles.

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