How Things Have Changed

I left Dublin in the late 1980’s with a suitcase and a couple of hundred dollars in my pocket and headed for New York where I have lived for the last 20-years. I left Ireland with an official unemployment rate of 20 percent and a weather forecast that seemed to match the doom and gloom of those difficult economic times - rain followed by more rain. Fast forward to today and I am still in New York, but the Irish economy has moved on with close to full employment and an economy that just seems to hum along, despite recent reports.

Recently, I spotted an article in the New York Times (12/21 ‘New York Condos Lure Deal-Seeking Europeans’- http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/21/realestate/21condo.html?_r=1&oref=slogin), that described an Irish couple apartment hunting while visiting New York. On at least two occasions this year I have read about the Irish coming to New York not just to spend their euros on Christmas presents like the Nintendo Wii, but to buy Manhattan apartments. (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/realestate/04cov.html?vendor=GABRIELS&partner=GABRIELS&ex=1198645200&en=166fd27125a233ee&ei=5103.)

Personally, I take great pride in reading about the Irish spending their disposable income on New York apartments. It makes a pleasant change from those stories about economic migrants seeking a new life. My Irish friend’s tell me a cautionary tale of borrowed money, but my reply to them is - who cares if it’s borrowed money? The United States economy is built on borrowed money. I read somewhere recently that the majority of Americans have a negative savings rate. Americans spend more money than they make, all the time. That is want keeps the U.S. economy running.

When I visit Dublin I like listening to friends economic success stories. The pub talk has changed from whether so and so living abroad will be home for Christmas, to talk about whether to spend the Christmas holidays at their primary residence or at their holiday homes. The Irish economy has brought economic wealth but also an economic confidence that I never saw before. For all the doom and gloom that forecasters predict for the future of the Irish economy, I sincerely doubt that those horrible days in the early 1980’s will ever return, now that the Irish have seen what is possible.

Now if there was only something we could do about the weather!

Happy Christmas y’all.