ulster bank

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

There has been no shortage of drama on the economic and political fronts during September. And the drama is focussed on shortages.

A number of crises, that have been the subject of previous podcasts, are converging.  These include supply chain disruption, inflationary pressures and adapting to Brexit. Shortages are becoming ever more problematic from labour to energy. 

We have had supply chain disruption intensify most recently with petrol shortages. Some headlines ran with Kung Fuel Fighting as skirmishes broke out in GB petrol station forecourts like something out of a Mad Max movie.

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

Recessions traditionally follow a standard playbook. A fall in output followed by a lagged rise in job losses and unemployment triggering a decrease in consumer spending hitting retail sales and the housing market. 

That was the typical path of recessions. The COVID-19 pandemic spawned a new recessionary variant. The UK economy posted its biggest slump in output in over 300 years.  Yet a comparable rise in unemployment did not occur. Similarly, a fall in house prices was viewed as a ‘no brainer’ but it too did not occur.

Rather than double-digit declines in house prices, almost every major economy is reporting booming house prices, marking the biggest rally in more than two decades. 

The local housing market has defied economists’ predictions too. 

The Ulster Economix Podcast. 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.

Five years have passed since the EU referendum. The result was clear, but the outworking of Brexit has not.  That is because Brexit is a process and not an event. It has been a much slower, laborious and complicated process than many of the proponents of Brexit had anticipated. 

Liam Fox dubbed securing an EU trade deal “one of the easiest in human history”. Though things have not panned out that way. The UK left the EU on 31 January 2020. But, as part of a transition period, remained in the EU customs union and single market until the 31st December 2020. 

Since then, regulatory borders have been redrawn, including a new regulatory sea border in the Irish Sea as part of the NI Protocol - which governs NI’s special status as being in both the UK & EU’s respective single markets for goods.

The Ulster Economix Podcast. 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.

It could be said that we have a Ketchup bottle economy at the minute. Shake a ketchup bottle and nothing happens. But eventually we will get covered in red sauce as the blockage is worked free. Something similar is happening in global supply chains at present and this is impacting on all of our lives.

Inflation has been the buzzword in recent weeks around the world. Households are experiencing a pick-up in both consumer prices and house prices. Meanwhile businesses are reporting soaring input costs such as increased freight costs and rising raw material prices. These additional costs will be passed onto firms’ customers in due course. 

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 7 – Brewster’s Millions  

In the 1985 film Brewster’s Millions, Richard Pryor’s character is left a £300 million fortune. Provided Monty Brewster meets the challenge of blowing $30 million in thirty days he can keep the whole estate. Simply giving the money away though is forbidden and there are limits on gambling and donating to charity. The lead character embarks on a spending spree and fulfils the conditions of the will, therefore inheriting the lot.

 Will we see a Brewster style spending spree in the global economy in the months ahead? Some think so. 

The Ulster Economix Podcast. 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.

March saw the end of another historic Rugby Six Nations. Scotland may not have won but they certainly rolled back the years by beating England at Twickenham for the first time since 1983 and defeating France in Paris for the first time since 1999.  

Following the deepest recession in three hundred years, March also saw Rishi Sunak roll back the years with his second Budget - albeit his 15th fiscal event in the space of a year.

New Year, new era. January has already heralded much change on both sides of the Atlantic. There is a new president in the White House with Joe Biden. In the UK, the Brexit transition period has ended and through the EU and UK's Trade and Cooperation Agreement, signed last month, a new chapter in the UK-EU relations has begun. The UK-EU deal that has been secured is unique in that it is the only trade deal in history which creates and adds barriers to trade rather than remove them. 

You wait ages and then three come along at once. Since March, it has been clear that a highly effective vaccine is required to cope with COVID-19. A sustained and meaningful economic recovery can only take hold if one is found. Following the encouraging news on three potential vaccines hope has returned. First out of the traps was Pfizer and BioNTech successful trials. Their news saw the share price of Zoom & Peloton slump and those of airlines and cruise ships soar. 

A fresh round of lockdown restrictions in November and December coupled with the incoming news on the vaccine front has seen economists continue to revise down economic forecasts for 2020 and simultaneously revise up growth expectations for 2021. This doesn’t mean that the sunlit uplands are around the corner. 

Traditionally a month renowned for its beer festivals and socialising, October is shaping up to be quite the opposite, with the second wave of restrictions hitting the hospitality sector.  These have been applied to varying degrees across the UK and in the Republic of Ireland. With the daily COVID-19 cases surging across much of  Europe, any hopes of a V-shape recovery have been snuffed out.

So what the local economy in Northern Ireland? what is the incoming economic data and news telling us about the economy and the strength of the recovery?