ulster bank

The podcast that keeps you up to date with what is happening economy-wise in Northern Ireland.  Telling you what you need to know but not necessarily what you want to hear. It is better to be prepared for the economic environment we are operating in and not the world we would like to be in.

Hosted monthly by Ulster Bank's Chief Economist, Richard Ramsey

Featuring Sir David Sterling KCB

The podcast that keeps you up to date with what is happening economy-wise in Northern Ireland.  Telling you what you need to know but not necessarily what you want to hear. It is better to be prepared for the economic environment we are operating in and not the world we would like to be in.

Hosted monthly by Ulster Bank's Chief Economist, Richard Ramsey

Featuring Grant Thornton’s Chief Economist Andrew Webb

The podcast that keeps you up to date with what is happening economy-wise in Northern Ireland.  Telling you what you need to know but not necessarily what you want to hear. It is better to be prepared for the economic environment we are operating in and not the world we would like to be in.

Hosted monthly by Ulster Bank's Chief Economist, Richard Ramsey

Featuring Mark Spence, CEO, Construction Employers Federation

The podcast that keeps you up to date with what is happening economy-wise in Northern Ireland.  Telling you what you need to know but not necessarily what you want to hear. It is better to be prepared for the economic environment we are operating in and not the world we would like to be in.

Featuring John French, Chief Executive at Utility Regulator

The podcast that keeps you up to date with what is happening economy-wise in Northern Ireland.  Telling you what you need to know but not necessarily what you want to hear. It is better to be prepared for the economic environment we are operating in and not the world we would like to be in.

Featuring Jordan Buchanan, Chief Operating Officer, PropertyPal

The podcast that keeps you up to date with what is happening economy-wise in Northern Ireland.  Telling you what you need to know but not necessarily what you want to hear. It is better to be prepared for the economic environment we are operating in and not the world we would like to be in.

Featuring Siobhan McAleer, Managing Director at The Mortgage Shop.

The podcast that keeps you up to date with what is happening economy-wise in Northern Ireland.  Telling you what you need to know but not necessarily what you want to hear. It is better to be prepared for the economic environment we are operating in and not the world we would like to be in.

Featuring Dr Lisa Wilson from Nevin Economic Research Institute

The podcast that keeps you up to date with what is happening economy-wise in Northern Ireland.  Telling you what you need to know but not necessarily what you want to hear. It is better to be prepared for the economic environment we are operating in and not the world we would like to be in.

Episode 26 - The Good Friday Agreement 25 years on featuring Prof John Turner, Queens University Business School

The podcast that keeps you up to date with what is happening economy-wise in Northern Ireland.  Telling you what you need to know but not necessarily what you want to hear. It is better to be prepared for the economic environment we are operating in and not the world we would like to be in.

Episode 26 - The world's most exciting economic zone with Mark O'Connell, Executive Chairman at OCO Global

The podcast that keeps you up to date with what is happening economy-wise in Northern Ireland.  Telling you what you need to know but not necessarily what you want to hear. It is better to be prepared for the economic environment we are operating in and not the world we would like to be in.

Episode 25 - Unhappy Anniversary with Mark Magill, Senior Economist at Ulster University's Economic Policy Centre.

The podcast that keeps you up to date with what is happening economy-wise in Northern Ireland.  Telling you what you need to know but not necessarily what you want to hear. It is better to be prepared for the economic environment we are operating in and not the world we would like to be in.

Featuring Andrew Webb, Chief Economist at Grant Thornton 

The podcast that keeps you up to date with what is happening economy-wise in Northern Ireland.  Telling you what you need to know but not necessarily what you want to hear. It is better to be prepared for the economic environment we are operating in and not the world we would like to be in.

Sorry, no Jamie Dornan or Gillian Anderson on this podcast. Just an economist and a mortgage broker chewing the fat.

‘The Fall’ refers to the continued fall in output, confidence and living standards amongst other things. We will major on the local mortgage market in a bit.

In this episode we are delighted to be joined by Siobhan McAleer Managing Director of The Mortgage Shop - which Siobhan founded in 1992 and which has become one of the largest mortgage brokerages in Northern Ireland and which has branches in Great Britain / Mainland UK. 

But first reflecting on another month and we had not one but two fiscal events. 

The podcast that keeps you up to date with what is happening economy-wise in Northern Ireland.  Telling you what you need to know but not necessarily what you want to hear. It is better to be prepared for the economic environment we are operating in and not the world we would like to be in.

Featuring Gareth Hetherington - Director of the Ulster University Economic Policy (NICEP) at Ulster University.

The podcast that keeps you up to date with what is happening economy-wise in Northern Ireland.  Telling you what you need to know but not necessarily what you want to hear. It is better to be prepared for the economic environment we are operating in and not the world we would like to be in.

Featuring Andrew Webb, Chief Economist at Grant Thornton 

To say that September has been a dramatic month in politics is an understatement. 

It marked the end of an era in so many ways. Queen Elizabeth II’s 70-year reign has come to an end with the longest serving monarch of all-time replaced by King Charles III. 

The end of one Elizabethan era has coincided with the start of another, with Liz Truss replacing Boris Johnson as Prime Minister. Kwasi Kwarteng became the third chancellor of the exchequer in three months. Similarly, Northern Ireland saw the appointment of Chris Heaton-Harris, its third Secretary of State in three months and the first Northern Ireland Secretary of State with a double-barrelled name.  

These personnel changes will bring with them a new approach for a new era. Indeed, “a new approach for a new era” was a key message within Kwasi Kwarteng’s ‘mini-budget’ on 23rd September, a date that will go down in the history books of both the UK government and the Conservative party.

The podcast that keeps you up to date with what is happening economy-wise in Northern Ireland.  Telling you what you need to know but not necessarily what you want to hear. It is better to be prepared for the economic environment we are operating in and not the world we would like to be in.

Featuring Sam McIlveen, General Manager at NI Jobs (NIJobs.com)

Throughout August we’ve heard lots of comparisons between today and 1976, given the heatwaves and drought that affected both years. 2022 has been the UK’s driest year since and the driest in Europe for 500 years. Europe’s rivers, such as the Rhine, have been drying up with the record drought in China causing similar problems there. The Southwest of China depends on hydroelectric dams for three-quarters of its electricity generation. Rolling blackouts and business closures due to lack of power have become the norm. 

While we have been dealing with the impact of the warm weather, it is the cost of heat, light and food for households this winter that should be on all of our minds. We are after all currently experiencing the worst inflation since the late 1970s and the spectre of industrial action has also returned; albeit not on the scale of the 70s.

I’ve been working as an economist for the last 25 years – for those with long memories they will realise that this period has included the credit crunch / global financial crisis, housing crash, Eurozone debt crisis, Brexit, Covid and a war in mainland Europe – and today is the most concerned and worried I have ever been about the near-term economic outlook from the perspective of its potential impact on people.

The podcast that keeps you up to date with what is happening economy-wise in Northern Ireland.  Telling you what you need to know but not necessarily what you want to hear. It is better to be prepared for the economic environment we are operating in and not the world we would like to be in.

Featuring Jordan Buchanan - PropertyPal Chief Economist

We’ve become well used to price hikes with rampant inflation.  But April was marked by tax hikes with the increase in National Insurance Contributions hitting the pockets of many employees as well as employers. The attention now though is very firmly on interest rate hikes with the Federal Reserve having just delivered its first half a percentage point rate increase in 22 years with more to come as the Fed seeks to tame inflation which is at 40-year-high.

In the UK, the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) raised Bank Rate to 1% this month, its fourth consecutive hike – a first in the 25 years since it was granted independence – as CPI inflation currently stands at 9% a forty-year high too. Three members of the committee wanted to see rates rise to 1.25%, and Governor Andrew Bailey made clear that these hikes won’t prevent inflation from rising further, but judged they were needed to prevent it becoming entrenched.

The podcast that keeps you up to date with what is happening economy-wise in Northern Ireland.  Telling you what you need to know but not necessarily what you want to hear. It is better to be prepared for the economic environment we are operating in and not the world we would like to be in.

Over the last week or so the UK has been battered by Dudley, Eunice and Franklin.  Many households have been impacted by flooding and are knee-deep in water. We await to hear the ‘G’ and ‘H’ names of the subsequent storms that follow. 

We are already aware of the advancing ‘T’ storm, or Tax storm. April will see us showered with more tax increases most notably the hike in National Insurance Contributions. Other stealth taxes announced last year are set to be much more painful due to inflation being much higher than expected.  These include the four-year freeze on the various income tax thresholds and the five-year freeze on the Pension Lifetime Allowance.

But households and businesses are most concerned about the ‘I’ storm that has been battering their finances with increasing force. The forecast is that the I storm will get worse and will be with us for the rest of the year and beyond. I am of course referring to inflation. 

The podcast that keeps you up to date with what is happening economy-wise in Northern Ireland.

Listeners of a certain age may recall Johnny Logan taking to the stage in a black shirt and white suit to sing “What’s another year?” The Irish singer won the Eurovision Song Contest with that number almost 42 years ago. 

Economic conditions back in 1980 were grim with high unemployment in the UK, Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. And both the UK and Ireland were ‘in Europe’ in the shape of being members of the European Economic Community or the E.E.C. And there wasn’t a pandemic too

Fast forward to the start of 2021 and economic conditions were also grim. Private sector activity was falling with households and some businesses subject to lockdown restrictions. Fears of a surge in unemployment once the furlough scheme came to an end were real. Meanwhile the NI Protocol came into force and the UK was only in the early stages of vaccine rollout.    

The podcast that keeps you up to date with what is happening economy-wise in Northern Ireland.

COVID lockdowns meant 2020 was a year to forget for the film making industry and the movie watching public. No Time To Die, the latest film in the James Bond franchise was delayed three times because of the pandemic. Unlike 2020, 2021 has seen a steady stream of much anticipated sequels being released such as Top Gun: Maverick, Mission Impossible 7 and last month’s Halloween Kills.  Spiderman 3 and Matrix 4 are slated for release in December and next year we can look forward to Scream 5 and Legally Blonde 3 – or so I am told. 

Some sequels use the same cast and rehashed plotlines as the original. Others introduce new characters and new storylines to engage the audience and to keep the story fresh. In the economics world there are plenty of sequels too whether it is stock market crashes, recessions, or financial crisis.  

The podcast that keeps you up to date with what is happening economy-wise in Northern Ireland.

2020 will be remembered for many things but low energy prices is probably not one of them.

 Fuel costs have rocketed since then and are now centre stage within an evolving cost-of-living crisis for households. Those on Universal Credit – that’s around 134,000 in Northern Ireland – are particularly vulnerable having lost their temporary £20 per week uplift last month. Reduced income and rising costs are a nasty combo.