Agreed. This is not worth a headline. No one ever argued it was.
Oh trust me, we know…
Who would have guessed?
Headline misleading, the economist says whether or not Ireland is a rich country cannot be determined using the metric they applied. “Not truly rich” and ‘we don’t know if they are truly rich are two very different things.’
Being successful for a short period of time isn’t enough to make a country ‘rich’
Saying it’s not truly rich if you didn’t bother to try ranking it is a bit silly. Luxembourg is obviously pretty well off also.
Never thought the economist would be the one to call us out as ‘non-U’.
Define truly rich
Ok – let’s be honest here – are we richer than Bulgaria? Barundi? Yes we are, by any metric you choose – are we richer than Portugal? Yes and so on and so on… we are a rich country. Is everyone rich? No but that’s the case in every country but we have excellent social supports, decent infrastructure and a functional (if troubled, like most) free health service. If we could stop wallowing in our misery for a second we would realise that being left out of this list is just the economist avoiding comparing the UK unfavourably with Ireland
We ain’t. We are like a guy who earns a pile of money working at his father in laws firm (our FIL being the USA) but blows it all every month on an expensive lifestyle and is two paychecks or a divorce away from being broke.
Leprechaun Economics makes it sound like a joke, but it’s not. GDP numbers are shooting up while people’s actual quality of life is falling off a cliff. These so-called wealth indexes don’t mean anything on the ground, they just hide how rough things really are for ordinary people in Ireland.
I mean, the Swiss cost of living makes us look rich… except we don’t actually have their salaries. 🤓😵💫
We run our services like a 3rd world country
We are like the lad who won the lottery and spent all partying then had to become a bin man again.
Please stop voting FF/FG
Nonsense! We all know Ireland is the richest country in the world as its capital is always Doublin’.
They are so jealous independent Ireland is doing so well. The Economist has form of dissing Ireland going back years. They can’t quite get over Ireland does so well outside the UK (I know, it is 2025 and we still have this). It is the same mentality Russia has with Ukraine, belittle the former colony.
This is not to say Ireland has no problems. We do. Our government needs to do a hell of a lot better. But in comparison to the UK and other European countries we are definitely a rich country doing well.
Anyone with the data be able to rank us based on both GDP and GNI*
Of course this sub gobbles up a bullshit article like this as long as it projects some sweet sweet misery porn.
If it stated the opposite all the replies would immediately shoot it down as fake news
I was just listening to an economist on Newstalk, he sounded very hurt by the article.
Ireland’s wealth feels increasingly illusory. No point in having billions stuffed under the mattress if the roof has a hole in it.
Responses here show how out of touch we are.
Threshold for a high income country is about 13k gdp per capita.
We obviously have problems around cost of living, inflation, housing, etc.
But anyone who thinks Ireland isn’t rich hasn’t been outside our very cushy corner of Western Europe
We are not ‘truly rich’ but we are not poor, failed or anything like that either. We are a small country and so many of those metrics are calculated for bigger countries. Those figures/calculations have always had flaws, it is why the CSO doesn’t relay on GDP.
The Economist recently had a cover story about how summer holidays are why Europe will never be a superpower so I’d take what they say with a large dollop of salt tbh
Ireland is like when you visit your rich aunt with the fancy old jacket who has a massive house but for some reason she can’t afford a 59 cent lidl crossaint.
There’s obviously a very valid point about taxes, but I do find it pretty hilarious how these articles that point it out always go to pains to pretend the US is not also at this stage, a corporate tax haven of it’s own.
We’re a rich country on paper but a poor country in reality. We have serious infrastructure deficits that need to be addressed once and for all. This is no surprise.
Someone coined the expression “Vibecession” people know intuitively by vibe how they feel.
On paper we are considered rich if you count GNP/GDP etc. but take away the big multinationals and we aren’t rich at all.
We squandered our windfall by not investing properly in infrastructure when we had a chance. And it might be too late.
Ya think????
But GDP!!
I think the people who genuinely think Ireland is a rich country just live in Dublin. Go live anywhere in the countryside for a year and you’ll see how poor people are.
A very small few are getting rich beyond their wildest dreams
Most reasonable people comprehend that the very recent influx of revenue we have received in the past 7 or 8 years does not mean we are a suddenly rich country. But it also doesn’t mean we are poor and we are certainly in an overall better place than 10, 15 or 50 years ago.
What’s odd is how the same people here who claim we aren’t rich will be the same people being critical over the lack of sudden infrastructure building that should happen because they claim we in fact are rich.
UK publication mostly written and edited in London won’t include Ireland in its league table of rich countries so that it doesn’t look bad by comparison would be more accurate.
You can call be any names you like but I think we are a rich country.
And I don’t disagree that we need to invest in infrastructure housing education etc.
I rather start from our position inside the EU with a budget surplus than where the UK are.
It’s just jealousy and hate from our former colonial overlords.
🇮🇪
3rd world in many respects especially healthcare
**The Economist** The index also leaves out Ireland, where GDP calculations are polluted by tax arbitrage, and Luxembourg, where incomes are inflated by cross-border commuters.”
**The Irish Times** “Ireland not truly rich country according to The Economist”
Whether Ireland is rich is not, is a different story, and might be deserving of an article in itself, but it’s just an out and out incorrect headline given that the Economist literally made no such claim.
This is beyond a ‘misleading’ or clickbaity headline and it’s very much into the territory of just being a straight faced factually incorrect lie for a headline.
The reason why Ireland (and the UK because it is the only real country you can compare us with) don’t feel like rich countries; is because we have shite infrastructure and we don’t seem to be able to throughput this ‘wealth’ into good public services. Britain is a great example of this, where London feels like a completely different universe to the rest of the country with skyscrapers, excellent public transport (compared to Dublin certainly) and massive affluence. If you think Ireland is not a rich country, go to a regional town or city in England to see real social deprivation and inequality. There is certainly a large gap in equality here in Ireland but the gap in the UK is a chasm.
Ireland has another issue, in being that we were legitimately a very poor country 30+ years ago. In our history, being ‘wealthy’ or ‘rich’, is a recent phenomena. Ireland is objectively a much better and prosperous country than it was 30 years ago however and aside from our current depressing systemic issues; it was a very bleak place in the recent past.
A true measure of wealth is how we treat those at the very bottom. I’m not a Stalinist however we have left a lot of those who are in poverty even further in poverty. Our statistics on GDP are skewed with corporate profits and billionaires. Is there any other reliable metric
When people can’t afford a home they are poor.
That’s not what the economist said, they said it’s difficult to analyze, and it certainly is. However, on the basis of wage growth vs cost of living, savings levels, proliferation of luxury products and services, premium options etc, there’s *absolutely* a lot more money around than confirmation biases among young redditors would suggest. Mostly it’s clustered among the over-45s, people with mortgages paid off whose children are reared. Genuinely there’s probably *too much* buying power, and that’s what’s driving the poorer people to feel squeezed. This is a *feature* of rich areas, just look at San Francisco or London. Somebody is paying those rents, somebody is affording those €250/night hotels, somebody is sustaining €300 gig tickets.
Just a word of caution. I’ve been getting the Economist for 5 or so years. They have developed a strange anti-EU viewpoint and especially strange bias against Ireland, maybe not relevant here but definitely worth considering
Having a high GDP doesn’t equate to people having a good standard of living and access to good services. Anyone living in Ireland knows that people are really struggling.
It’s a house of cards.
There are many videos which go over this already and have done so for years.
44 comments
Well…no argument here, I’d say…..
Agreed. This is not worth a headline. No one ever argued it was.
Oh trust me, we know…
Who would have guessed?
Headline misleading, the economist says whether or not Ireland is a rich country cannot be determined using the metric they applied. “Not truly rich” and ‘we don’t know if they are truly rich are two very different things.’
Being successful for a short period of time isn’t enough to make a country ‘rich’
Saying it’s not truly rich if you didn’t bother to try ranking it is a bit silly. Luxembourg is obviously pretty well off also.
Never thought the economist would be the one to call us out as ‘non-U’.
Define truly rich
Ok – let’s be honest here – are we richer than Bulgaria? Barundi? Yes we are, by any metric you choose – are we richer than Portugal? Yes and so on and so on… we are a rich country. Is everyone rich? No but that’s the case in every country but we have excellent social supports, decent infrastructure and a functional (if troubled, like most) free health service. If we could stop wallowing in our misery for a second we would realise that being left out of this list is just the economist avoiding comparing the UK unfavourably with Ireland
We ain’t. We are like a guy who earns a pile of money working at his father in laws firm (our FIL being the USA) but blows it all every month on an expensive lifestyle and is two paychecks or a divorce away from being broke.
Leprechaun Economics makes it sound like a joke, but it’s not. GDP numbers are shooting up while people’s actual quality of life is falling off a cliff. These so-called wealth indexes don’t mean anything on the ground, they just hide how rough things really are for ordinary people in Ireland.
I mean, the Swiss cost of living makes us look rich… except we don’t actually have their salaries. 🤓😵💫
We run our services like a 3rd world country
We are like the lad who won the lottery and spent all partying then had to become a bin man again.
Please stop voting FF/FG
Nonsense! We all know Ireland is the richest country in the world as its capital is always Doublin’.
They are so jealous independent Ireland is doing so well. The Economist has form of dissing Ireland going back years. They can’t quite get over Ireland does so well outside the UK (I know, it is 2025 and we still have this). It is the same mentality Russia has with Ukraine, belittle the former colony.
This is not to say Ireland has no problems. We do. Our government needs to do a hell of a lot better. But in comparison to the UK and other European countries we are definitely a rich country doing well.
Anyone with the data be able to rank us based on both GDP and GNI*
Of course this sub gobbles up a bullshit article like this as long as it projects some sweet sweet misery porn.
If it stated the opposite all the replies would immediately shoot it down as fake news
I was just listening to an economist on Newstalk, he sounded very hurt by the article.
Ireland’s wealth feels increasingly illusory. No point in having billions stuffed under the mattress if the roof has a hole in it.
Responses here show how out of touch we are.
Threshold for a high income country is about 13k gdp per capita.
We obviously have problems around cost of living, inflation, housing, etc.
But anyone who thinks Ireland isn’t rich hasn’t been outside our very cushy corner of Western Europe
We are not ‘truly rich’ but we are not poor, failed or anything like that either. We are a small country and so many of those metrics are calculated for bigger countries. Those figures/calculations have always had flaws, it is why the CSO doesn’t relay on GDP.
The Economist recently had a cover story about how summer holidays are why Europe will never be a superpower so I’d take what they say with a large dollop of salt tbh
Ireland is like when you visit your rich aunt with the fancy old jacket who has a massive house but for some reason she can’t afford a 59 cent lidl crossaint.
There’s obviously a very valid point about taxes, but I do find it pretty hilarious how these articles that point it out always go to pains to pretend the US is not also at this stage, a corporate tax haven of it’s own.
We’re a rich country on paper but a poor country in reality. We have serious infrastructure deficits that need to be addressed once and for all. This is no surprise.
Someone coined the expression “Vibecession” people know intuitively by vibe how they feel.
On paper we are considered rich if you count GNP/GDP etc. but take away the big multinationals and we aren’t rich at all.
We squandered our windfall by not investing properly in infrastructure when we had a chance. And it might be too late.
Ya think????
But GDP!!
I think the people who genuinely think Ireland is a rich country just live in Dublin. Go live anywhere in the countryside for a year and you’ll see how poor people are.
A very small few are getting rich beyond their wildest dreams
Most reasonable people comprehend that the very recent influx of revenue we have received in the past 7 or 8 years does not mean we are a suddenly rich country. But it also doesn’t mean we are poor and we are certainly in an overall better place than 10, 15 or 50 years ago.
What’s odd is how the same people here who claim we aren’t rich will be the same people being critical over the lack of sudden infrastructure building that should happen because they claim we in fact are rich.
UK publication mostly written and edited in London won’t include Ireland in its league table of rich countries so that it doesn’t look bad by comparison would be more accurate.
You can call be any names you like but I think we are a rich country.
And I don’t disagree that we need to invest in infrastructure housing education etc.
I rather start from our position inside the EU with a budget surplus than where the UK are.
It’s just jealousy and hate from our former colonial overlords.
🇮🇪
3rd world in many respects especially healthcare
**The Economist** The index also leaves out Ireland, where GDP calculations are polluted by tax arbitrage, and Luxembourg, where incomes are inflated by cross-border commuters.”
**The Irish Times** “Ireland not truly rich country according to The Economist”
Whether Ireland is rich is not, is a different story, and might be deserving of an article in itself, but it’s just an out and out incorrect headline given that the Economist literally made no such claim.
This is beyond a ‘misleading’ or clickbaity headline and it’s very much into the territory of just being a straight faced factually incorrect lie for a headline.
The reason why Ireland (and the UK because it is the only real country you can compare us with) don’t feel like rich countries; is because we have shite infrastructure and we don’t seem to be able to throughput this ‘wealth’ into good public services. Britain is a great example of this, where London feels like a completely different universe to the rest of the country with skyscrapers, excellent public transport (compared to Dublin certainly) and massive affluence. If you think Ireland is not a rich country, go to a regional town or city in England to see real social deprivation and inequality. There is certainly a large gap in equality here in Ireland but the gap in the UK is a chasm.
Ireland has another issue, in being that we were legitimately a very poor country 30+ years ago. In our history, being ‘wealthy’ or ‘rich’, is a recent phenomena. Ireland is objectively a much better and prosperous country than it was 30 years ago however and aside from our current depressing systemic issues; it was a very bleak place in the recent past.
A true measure of wealth is how we treat those at the very bottom. I’m not a Stalinist however we have left a lot of those who are in poverty even further in poverty. Our statistics on GDP are skewed with corporate profits and billionaires. Is there any other reliable metric
When people can’t afford a home they are poor.
That’s not what the economist said, they said it’s difficult to analyze, and it certainly is. However, on the basis of wage growth vs cost of living, savings levels, proliferation of luxury products and services, premium options etc, there’s *absolutely* a lot more money around than confirmation biases among young redditors would suggest. Mostly it’s clustered among the over-45s, people with mortgages paid off whose children are reared. Genuinely there’s probably *too much* buying power, and that’s what’s driving the poorer people to feel squeezed. This is a *feature* of rich areas, just look at San Francisco or London. Somebody is paying those rents, somebody is affording those €250/night hotels, somebody is sustaining €300 gig tickets.
Just a word of caution. I’ve been getting the Economist for 5 or so years. They have developed a strange anti-EU viewpoint and especially strange bias against Ireland, maybe not relevant here but definitely worth considering
Having a high GDP doesn’t equate to people having a good standard of living and access to good services. Anyone living in Ireland knows that people are really struggling.
It’s a house of cards.
There are many videos which go over this already and have done so for years.
Recent enough good video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWCxj__3Xx4
Comments are closed.