Dan O'Brien

Ireland needs more construction workers. Despite big infrastructure gaps, particularly in housing, the share of workers employment in the construction of buildings is only slightly above the EU average, and well below many other slower growing EU countries.

Ireland's leftward lurch is discussed in my column in The Currency today.

thecurrency.news/articles/199...

European consumers should be able to make their own minds up on clearly labelled products and importing more US LNG makes sense for both sides, but the VAT request is bizarre and a non-runner.

Irish exports to the US increased by a staggering 210% in February. Companies have been scrambling to get product across the Atlantic before tariffs hit.

From today's CSO

Six basic principles behind the White Paper:

- deterrence
- no competition EU & NATO
- defence industry as a resource
- responsibility for European defence
- autonomy of action
- solidarity

Full remarks ⬇️
ec.europa.eu/commission/p...

🎥 Keynote and Q&A⬇️
audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/video/I-2...

First month-on-month decline in US inflation since...Trump was last in office.

German manufacturing could most certainly do with cheaper electricity costs…

Trump’s tariff announcement on April 2 was so big, @soumayakeynes.ft.com joined @chadpbown.com
for an emergency episode. They cover history, the dollar, and even the U.S. legal system to clarify what we know about the tariff actions so far.

EPISODE #207: tradetalkspodcast.com/podcast/207-...

US tax changes incentivised American pharma companies to shift production to Ireland, ship product back home and pay tax in Ireland.
On 'This Week' on RTE radio at 1.30pm later to discuss the tariff threat.

If the world's biggest economy puts the sort of tariffs that are being mooted on all countries globally, it will arguably be the biggest economic policy decision in history.

The nuclear option of economic warfare.

125-year history of US tariffs charted below.

And unemployment just keeps falling in Europe. Yet another record low - 5.7% of the workforce is jobless.

The last decade has been quite glorious for the European labour market, after decades of unemployment being a huge problem in many countries and regions.

Far more Americans think joblessness will rise that when Covid hit and employment tanked.

European policy makers have long fretted about the continent’s savings being invested in the US stock market. Trump may be solving that issue to their satisfaction as capital flows out of American stocks and into Europe.

Today's full-year figures on asylum applications from Eurostat show that Ireland had the joint fourth highest rate per capita in Europe in 2024, with Iceland even higher curiously.

The big bearish USA / bullish European trade in one stunning chart.

The March Bank of America Fund Manager Survey shows the largest monthly drop ever in US equity allocation - whilst investors are ploughing into European equities.

As we say in Dutch: one man's death is another man's bread

Title: Both Liberal and Conservative Judges Rule Against Trump Description: A scatter plot showing the rulings of judges against or in favor of Trump, categorized by ideology using the DIME score. The x-axis represents Judge Ideology (DIME Score), ranging from liberal (-1) to conservative (1), and the y-axis represents the case outcome (against or for Trump). • Blue dots represent liberal judges, purple dots represent moderate judges, and red dots represent conservative judges. • Some judges are labeled, including Rudolph Contreras, Lauren King, John Coughenour, and James Emanuel Boasberg on the liberal to moderate side, and Carl Nichols, Richard J. Leon, and Joseph N. Laplante on the conservative side. • A note mentions that Boasberg, though slightly right-leaning, was initially appointed by George W. Bush. • The visualization suggests that judges from both ideological backgrounds ruled against Trump.

1/🧵 Judges across ideological lines are ruling against Trump at strikingly similar rates (84% liberal, 86% centrist, 82% conservative). This isn't partisan opposition to Trump—it's the judiciary functioning as intended by cutting across partisan lines to uphold the Constitution.

Europe courts US scientists fleeing Donald Trump crackdown Cambridge university among institutions seeing chance to hire talent unsettled by US spending cuts

Amidst the chaos there is opportunity: Europe can brain gain from the US.

www.ft.com/content/cdcb...

Except the French put the bottle of wine away after dinner is finished.

Exactly, the agricultural culture in France really reminds me of Ireland, the rural Ireland I grew up in and live again in today.

L’Irlande profounde and La France profounde, as de Tocqueville noted, are very similar in many ways.

The EU exports more than it imports in all main categories of manufactured goods because 32 million people work in the sector - the second biggest industrial base in the world after China.

No knowledge of the motives of course, but I’d be more inclined to attribute this to Trump’s need for maximum attention than part of a plan to alter politics in small European country.

I didn't mean it to be about abuse on X, but rather how the algorithm is programmed to support certain causes, in this instance Russia.

Another great Danish/European company, of many. Europe has a scaling problem for sure, but it actually manufactures far more than the US.

Very much same thing happens on X when I post anything on Irish security and defence. ‘Russia is not threat to anyone’, ‘go the front’, ‘send your kids to die’, ‘bald c***, f*** off’ etc.

Population density across South America by @pythonmaps. Star shaped distribution pattern of people in Argentina looks rather pretty on this map.

Central bankers live in fear of an ‘unanchoring of inflation expectations’. Looks like the tariff insanity has cut the anchor entirely.

On today's Ireland-US Oval Office meeting
* As 'good' as could have been hoped for.
* None of the animus shown towards some other countries/leaders
* Tariffs on April 2 still coming and a huge threat
* Not an issue for now, but care needed not to allow appearance of being peeled from the EU.

Thx. My urgings were in vain!

The first wave of data from Wuhan showed this and was quickly replicated world wide. Despite this, messaging that 'this virus doesn't discriminate' went out. Killed my faith in the rationality of our species.