The number of Irish millionaires hits the 90,000 mark
AS PROPERTY PRICES SURGE UPWARDS
SURVEY SHOWS THAT IRELAND’S HOUSEHOLD WEALTH IS NOW RISING AT 14TH FASTEST RATE GLOBALLY
Rising property prices, particularly in Dublin, saw the number of Irish households with wealth of more than $1 million surge from 77,000 in 2013 to more than 90,000 in 2014 according to Credit Suisse.
Despite the fact that most Irish households are still struggling with the after-effects of seven austerity budgets – not to mind the imminent imposition of water charges – soaring property prices mean that Ireland experienced one of the fastest growth rates in household wealth in the past year.
According to the fifth annual global wealth report fromCredit Suisse, the total wealth of Irish households increased by 10 per cent ($68 billion) to $737 billion (€577 billion) in 2014. The UK reported the fastest growth rate of 19.1%, followed by Korea (18.3%) and Denmark (16.6%).
Ireland’s household wealth rebounded to $737 billion in 2014, giving Ireland a 0.3% share of global wealth. Wealth per adult stood at $209,976 (€164,425), up by 8.8% from 2013, of which $150,084 is non-financial. Irish adults have debt of $71,283 per adult and median wealth per adult is $79,346
In comparison, in the UK, wealth per adult is $292,261, with debt of just $55,727 and median wealth of $130,590. The US has wealth per adult of $347,845, debt of $57,826, and median wealth of $53,352. One of the richest European countries is Switzerland, with median wealth of $106,887, debt of $148,345 and wealth per adult of $580,686.
Ireland’s household wealth peaked in 2007 at $222,823, before falling to $176,881 in 2011.The survey also points to a significant selling down in equities by Irish investors, with 22% of the country’s financial wealth held in equities in 2008, compared with 14.1% in 2014.
According to the Credit Suisse survey, some 41 per cent of the Irish population have wealth of between $100,000-$1 million, with 2.6% (or 91,208 people) falling into the +$1 million category, up from 77,000 in 2013.
The compares with 5.9% in the US; 4.2% in the UK and 2.9% in Germany. In Switzerland on the other hand, the proportion rises to 10.8%.
Just 0.3% of Ireland’s population falls into the top 1% of global wealth, but 0.38% are in the top 10%. This compares with 6.17% and 38% for the US and UK respectively.
There are five Irish billionaires according to the survey, but more than 100 with wealth of between €100-$500m. The US can claim 504 billionaires, and the UK 44, with five each in Norway and Greece.
The survey also shows that the richest 1% of the world’s population own nearly half of global wealth, and it warned that growing inequality could be a trigger for recession.
“Taken together, the bottom half of the global population own less than 1% of total wealth. In sharp contrast, the richest decile hold 87% of the world’s wealth, and the top percentile alone account for 48.2% of global assets,” said the annual report.
Permanent TSB the most vulnerable bank in Ireland and at risk of a new bank bailout
The stress tests will examine whether lenders across the Euro area are in a position to deal with a shock, by assessing whether a bank would still have 5.5% of capital after a new crisis.
Permanent TSB will have to find €170m for every percentage point it falls short of European capital standards after Sunday’s ECB stress test results, if it fails the review.
“The Permanent TSB bank is the most vulnerable of the Irish banks,” according to Emmet Gaffney, an analyst at Investec in Dublin.
But he said there is little risk of taxpayers being hit for fresh cash to cover any shortfall, because the bank already has a €400m cushion from taxpayers to help cope with the test results.
AIB and Bank of Ireland are regarded as better capitalised – meaning they would be better able to cope with a future shock because of cash already invested into the banks, Mr Gaffney added.
Ulster Bank, which is also undergoing the probe, is UK- owned and part of RBS, a much bigger bank, which could shore up its Irish unit, if needed.
The stress tests will examine whether lenders across the Euro area are in a position to deal with a shock, by assessing whether a bank would still have 5.5pc of capital after a new crisis.
Permanent TSB’s core tier 1 capital was 13.1pc at the start of last year, but slipped to 12.7pc at the end of June.
Unlike the other banks it remains loss making, and a large number of low interest rate tracker mortgages makes it hard for the bank to rebuild margins.
While its seen as the weakest of the Irish banks, its unlikely the bank will require a large injection of capital even if it struggles with the stress tests this weekend, according to Emmet Gaffney.
The European Central Bank (ECB) will publish the results of the tests of 130 banks next Sunday.
Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Fiona Hayes says one factor that could impact on the results of banks here is the timing of parts of the review which will not capture what she called the significant improvements in the Irish economy and banking sector over the last 10 months.
She expects AIB and Bank of Ireland to pass comfortably, and that Permanent TSB’s existing cushion should provide a solution even if the bank struggles to pass the tests.
Permanent TSB has lined up Deutsche Bank to help raise capital on the markets, including in the event it is needed after the tests.
The stress tests are being run to give the ECB a thorough appraisal of Europe’s banks before it takes over as regulator on November 4.
The Irish economy still remains rooted in agriculture
Over three days in late September, in glorious Indian summer weather, nearly 300,000 people turned out for the biggest public event in Ireland. It is not a technology fair. It is not a football or hurling match. It is not even St Patrick’s day.
It is the National Ploughing Championships, “the most beloved rendezvous in Ireland’s rural calendar”, as Irish President Michael D Higgins said as he declared the event open.
Held on 800 acres of prime farming land in County Laois, this year’s championships attracted the biggest crowds in their 83-year history.
As well as ploughing (a skill at which Irish farmers have traditionally excelled), the event also includes vast exhibitions of Irish food, agricultural products, animals, machinery and farming techniques.
The event is claimed to be the biggest of its kind in Europe. Rural Ireland has always turned out in force, but it also attracts large crowds from Dublin as well as political leaders keen to be seen.
As Mr Higgins remarked, a visit to the championships is “an encounter with rural Ireland and the real economy in its best sense”.
Much of the international focus on Ireland concerns its recently acquired status as a European technology hub, the growth of the pharmaceutical sector over the past four decades, and the factors – especially favourable tax treatment – that attract the tech and pharma industries. Yet Ireland’s domestic economy is rooted in agriculture.
The technology sector, the result of Ireland’s long-established policy of attracting foreign direct investment, is vital to the Irish economy. It employed 160,000 people at the end of 2013, and is one reason why the country has become an admired business location by US multinationals, despite the trauma of its financial collapse.
Tech companies led by Google and Microsoft accounted for six of Ireland’s top 10 exporters last year, while the list included two pharma companies, according to the Irish Exporters Association. (Ireland runs a large trade surplus: €3.4bn at the end of June.)
But two factors affect the business landscape. The first is that the scale of the Irish food industry is both large and under-appreciated.
According to Bord Bia, the Irish food board, exports of Irish food and drink reached €10bn last year – up 40% over the past four years. While the country’s total exports are about €180bn, the sector is the largest indigenous industry in Ireland. The department of agriculture estimates that it employs 167,000 people.
The second factor is that Ireland is not just a location for foreign direct investment, but a source of it. Like Switzerland, Ireland is home to more multinationals than the size of its economy and domestic market would warrant.
Many of these global companies – names such as Smurfit Kappa in packaging, CRH in building materials and DCC in distribution – began life as small local operators. They have expanded over the past 30 years, mainly through acquisitions. Only 1.8% of Smurfit Kappa’s annual revenue (€8bn in 2013) is sourced in Ireland, for example.
Ian Hyland, the founder and president of Ireland INC, a body that promotes Irish business overseas, says Ireland-based companies employ 170,000 people in the US – more than US companies employ in Ireland.
“We need to respect what Irish companies are doing right across the world,” Mr Hyland says, pointing to Irish companies not just in the US but also in places such as China.
The most prominent of the first generation of international business figures is Tony O’Reilly, the former chairman and chief executive of Heinz, the US food group, and of Independent Newspapers, Ireland’s biggest media company. Others include Michael Smurfit, who made Smurfit Kappa into a global operator from its base in a Dublin suburb, and the late Tony Ryan, founder of Ryanair and a pioneer in aircraft leasing.
They have now been replaced by the next generation, led by Michael O’Leary, who has turned Ryanair into an international brand.
There is a limitation to being an Ireland-based indigenous multinational: the small size of the Irish stock exchange.
In 2011, CRH became the first to shift its primary stock market listing to London. It was followed by Greencore (in the food industry), UDG Healthcare, Grafton (building materials) and DCC.
Much of the trading in those stocks is still done in Dublin, but the emigration of such big names has been a blow to the Dublin capital markets.
Nevertheless, business chiefs say, Irish multinational businesses have weathered the financial crisis and the collapse of the economy relatively well, given their extensive exposure to international markets.
More domestically focused companies are still recovering, as consumer sentiment revives slowly from the downturn and six years of austerity. But they remain an essential part of the economic and business landscape. “It’s not all about technology,” says Mr Hyland. “Our indigenous companies are vitally important for us.”
Ten plus simple ways to increase your metabolism
SPICY FOODS SUCH AS CHILLI WILL INCREASE YOUR METABOLIC RATE
You’re fooling nobody with your ‘slow metabolism’ claims, as we all know food and exercise are key to losing weight. You can however, improve your fitness by boosting your metabolism.
It’s a stock excuse for many of us who weigh more than we would like – it’s not that I overeat, it’s just that I have a slow metabolism.
In truth, aside from people who have certain recognised metabolic disorders, it’s diet and exercise that are the biggest factors contributing to weight gain. That’s not to say, however, that we shouldn’t pay attention to our metabolism too. In fact, many top personal trainers say that boosting their clients’ metabolism is the central element of their fitness regimes.
Clinically speaking, the word metabolism covers a range of chemical activities in the body, such as the absorption of nutrients by the cells. The activity that most affects our body weight is the burning of food or fat to create energy – known as metabolic rate. Your basal, or resting, metabolic rate is the amount of calories the body needs to maintain essential functions, such as keeping your heart beating. This rate does vary from individual to individual – and is influenced by gender and age – but only by as little as 10pc, meaning there is very little difference between natural ‘slow’ and ‘fast’ metabolisms.
The difference, then, is up to you. However, by eating recommended foods and doing certain activities, it is possible for anyone to raise their metabolic rate and by extension burn more body fat. Here are 10 of the best metabolism boosters…
1 EAT BREAKFAST
Yes, it seems that eating a hearty breakfast is the cornerstone of most healthy-living advice – but that is actually due to its effect on the metabolism. Morning time is when your digestive system is naturally most active, meaning that the calories consumed early in the day are efficiently converted into energy, rather than being stored as fat. Not only does skipping breakfast tend to lead to overeating due to hunger later in the day, it will not, as many people think, help burn stored fat. Instead, the body stays in its overnight fasting mode and doesn’t produce the enzymes needed to start breaking down fats.
2 Turn down the thermostat
Forget hot yoga and sweat-inducing saunas, the best way to boost your metabolism and burn fat is by keeping cool. A host of international studies have shown that lowering body temperature boosts metabolic rate. It was discovered in recent years that this is due to the cold unlocking a healthy brown fat, previously thought only to be found in babies, which attempts to stabilise body temperature by burning more calories. To activate your brown fats, experts recommend injecting 20-second bursts of cold water into your morning shower and drinking ice water throughout the day.
3 But turn up the heat
Adding spicy ingredients such as chilli, mustard, horseradish, cinnamon and ginger to your meals increases the metabolic rate. Capsaicin – the essential compound found in chillis – is particularly effective at doing this. Though many studies have proven this, there is some debate among the scientific community about what level the metabolism is increased to and how long it lasts. Even if the effect is only temporary, however, spicy foods also create the feeling of satiety, or being full, more quickly than other dishes, meaning you are likely to consume less calories to begin with.
4 HAVE A CUP OF COFFEE
The debate about whether coffee is good or bad for your health is one that will rage for eternity as one study disproves another, but one thing that is certain is that coffee boosts the metabolism. To be more precise, it’s caffeine that raises the metabolic rate by between 3-11pc, by sending signals from the brain to the cells instructing them to burn more fat. The more caffeine that is consumed, the bigger the burn rate. The effect is most pronounced in those with slim physiques and is thought to diminish with age.
5 Or even a green tea
Best known for having high levels of cancer-preventing anti-oxidants, green tea is also good for raising the metabolism. A study carried out in the University of Geneva in 1999 found that green tea boosted the metabolism beyond the rate of the caffeine it contained. Though many health experts were not wholly convinced by the study due to its small scale, it’s generally accepted that catechin, the central compound of green tea, has healthy metabolic effects.
6 Eat more and regularly
Eating more often can help you lose weight. When you eat large meals with large breaks in between, your metabolism slows down. Having a small meal or snack every three to four hours keeps your metabolism cranking, so you burn more calories over the course of a day. Aim for three meals and two snacks.
7 DO INTERVAL TRAINING
Increasing fitness doesn’t necessarily lead to weight loss, as many regular walkers and joggers will know. So, instead of doing one continuous exercise activity, experts now recommend High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) to stimulate the metabolism. This means doing extreme bursts of exertion – such as lunges, squats, jumps or a 30-second sprint – followed by recovery periods of gentler exercise. HIIT encourages weightloss through excessive post-exercise consumption – more commonly known as afterburn. When you do an exercise that you can comfortably keep up for a few minutes, your body uses a normal amount of oxygen. When you push yourself with a high-intensity exercise, however, the body uses up oxygen supplies, which it has to restore later on.
8 Drink plenty of water
When you are dehydrated, all of your body’s cellular functions are slowed down – including your metabolism. Even a mild level of dehydration can cause your system to become sluggish Experts recommend drinking two to three litres of water a day and say that this not only restores your metabolic rate to normal but may actually increase it.
9 Become a meat eater
The recent surge in interest in endurance sports here in Ireland has led to the rise of protein-centred diets, and with good metabolic reason. Though both protein and carbohydrates both contain four calories per gram, protein has a thermic effect that means more of its calories are burned off while it is being broken down for digestion. Research suggests that up to 30 in every 100 protein calories are used to break it down. Meals with high protein content will also make you feel full sooner.
& 10 flex your muscles
A high-protein diet is also good for building muscle. When we exercise, the body adds protein to the muscles to increase their mass. Muscle needs more energy than fat, even when it’s sitting idle, so as your muscles grow your basal rate metabolism speeds up to meet the increased demand. Weights and resistance exercises are the best for muscle gain and stimulating the metabolism.
Prozac may be harming bird populations, a study suggests
Starlings who were fed same levels of antidepressant drug found in sewage earthworms suffered loss of libido and appetite
Starlings tend to flock to feed at sewage works, where they feed on worms with low levels of Prozac from human waste. Photograph: SIGI TISCHLER/EPA
Increasing consumption of antidepressant drugs may be helping humans but damaging the health of the bird population, according to a new study.
An expert who has looked at the effects of passive Prozac-taking on starlings says it has changed not only their feeding habits but also their interest in mating.
Dr Kathryn Arnold, an ecologist from the University of York, said: “Females who’d been on it were not interested in the male birds we introduced them to. They sat in the middle of the cage, not interested at all.”
Arnold’s research, which is investigated on BBC2’s Autumnwatch, took her to sewage works where birds flock to feed.
“They’re a really great place to watch birds because they’re attracted by all the worms and invertebrates that live there,” she told Radio Times.
“I started thinking, ‘What about what’s in the sewage?’ If you or I take a headache pill for instance, a high proportion of it ends up being excreted completely unchanged.”
She measured the level of Prozac present in earthworms living in sewage. It was tiny, around 3-5% of the average human dosage.
She then fed worms containing the same concentration of the drug to 24 captive starlings and monitored their behaviour over six months.
The birds began to display side effects similar to those reported by humans prescribed Prozac.
“The major finding was a loss of appetite. Compared with the control birds who hadn’t had any Prozac, they ate much less and snacked throughout the day. The problem then is that they’re less likely to survive long, dark winter’s nights.”
It was not just food that lost its appeal – the birds’ libido also fell.
However, in one significant area, the starlings’ reaction to the drug did not mimic its effect on the human brain – their mood remained unchanged.
Arnold said: “Antidepressants reduce anxiety in humans but we can’t ask a bird if it’s anxious; we have to measure it in a behavioural way. We present them with an unfamiliar object and see how they react. If a bird is bold, it’ll carry on feeding, even though there’s something strange in its food bowl. But we found no effect on boldness, which is what we’d expected.
“Maybe we were measuring it the wrong way and that wasn’t a particularly stressful task. If we repeated it, we’d use a different method or different novel object. Or it could be that there are enough variations between bird and human brains that Prozac works in a slightly different way.”
Autumnwatch presenter Chris Packham said there may be no simple answer. He said: “This change in behaviour could impact negatively on their ecology. We know for instance we’ve lost 50 million starlings in the UK since the 1960s.
“Pharmaceuticals could play a part. The next stage of the work is to look at wild starlings to check if they also have chemical residue in their bodies.”
Arnold said she was not attacking antidepressants or the waste-disposal industry. “I’m not saying that if you’re depressed, don’t take Prozac. Sewage treatment works are really good sources of food for birds. We’re certainly not saying they should be covered over.
“Science needs to deliver better estimates of the environmental risks posed by pharmaceuticals. The effects we’ve measured so far are quite subtle.
“These aren’t big die-offs but they could have a negative impact on wildlife. We need to find out whether they are. It’s going to get worse so we need to get a handle on it.”
A Paralyzed fireman in Bulgaria now walks thanks to revolutionary cell transplant
DAREK FIDYKA, 38, WAS PARALYZED FROM THE CHEST DOWN IN 2010 AFTER A KNIFE ATTACK. BUT A SURGERY IN 2012 WAS ABLE TO REPAIR HIS SPINAL CORD, AND NOW HE CAN WALK AND EVEN DRIVE.
‘What I have learned is that you must never give up,’ said Darek Fidyka.
It’s a big step.
Darek Fidyka, a 38-year-old fireman from Bulgaria, can walk again after a knife attack paralyzed him from the chest down in 2010.
He’s able to walk, with help from a frame, thanks to a breakthrough transplant that took cells from his nose and implanted them into his spinal cord. Doing so created a “nerve bridge” between two damaged pieces of the spinal cord.
“It’s an incredible feeling, difficult to describe,” he said in a BBC documentary airing Tuesday. “When it starts coming back, you feel as if you start living your life again, as if you are reborn.”
His procedure “will result in a historic change in the currently hopeless outlook for people disabled by spinal cord injury,” said Geoffrey Raisman, a professor at the University College London’s institute of neurology, who led research on the treatment for the journal Cell Transplantation.
He called Fidyka’s recovery “more impressive than man walking on the moon.”
At the time of his attack, Fidyka was given a 1% chance of recovery. The Nicholls Spinal Injury Foundation, a British charity which helped fund the study, says Fidyka is improving better than expected and is now able to drive on his own.
“I think it’s realistic that one day I will become independent,” Fidyka said in the documentary. “What I have learned is that you must never give up but keep fighting, because some door will open in life.”
