Sunday Independent

The Sindo leads with a piece by Jody Corcoran and Maeve Sheehan on a Sunday Independent/Quantum Research telephone poll to gauge public feeling on the Government and the economy.

The poll consisted a sample of just 500 households randomly selected.

The questions asked:

• Do you have confidence in the political system produce answers to our current economic crisis?
  • Yes – 24% / No – 76%
• Do you worry about your ability to earn or to continue earning a living?
  • Yes – 48% / No – 52%
• Are you concerned that you could possibly lose your home?
  • Yes – 20% / No – 80%
• Have you felt ashamed because you could not pay your bills?
  • Yes – 27% / No – 73%
• Have financial worries ever seriously affected your mood?
  • Yes – 54% / No – 46%
• Do you believe Ireland has anything to offer to those who will finish their education in the next few years?
  • Yes – 38% / No – 62%
• Would you see emigration as an option for yourself?
  • Yes – 22% / No – 78%

The Sindo also says it can:

reveal that officials empowered to seize goods to meet an undischarged debt are coming away empty-handed from the often palatial homes of wealthy developers, lawyers and celebrities.

Dublin County Sheriff John Fitzpatrick said: “A different class of individuals are coming into us. We are getting developers, lawyers, celebrities… and for very big money too.”

…

His current caseload includes a court order against a property developers for €18m, a judgment of €3m against a solicitor and one for €1.4 against a “celebrity”. He does not believe he has a “hope in hell” of getting the money back.

The minor lead is a piece on how the late Celine Cawley’s family is upset with her characterisation as a “ruthless, domineering businesswoman.”

Brendan O’Connor is kicked to the inside pages by Ann Harris with a piece on Brian Cowen’s speech to the Dublin Chamber of Commerce dinner last Friday.

Sunday Business Post

The SBP leads with a story by David Clerkin and Ian Kehoe on how a loophole allowed companies and the super-rich to avoid paying Capital Gains Tax to the tune of €400m in a single scheme. Some 26 taxpayers availed of the scheme.

Ian Kehoe follows up the lead with a front page piece how the owners of the Shelbourne hotel “may never see any return on their €230m investment in the St. Stephen’s Green property.”

He writes:

The consortium of investors, including Bernard McNamara, bought the hotel in 2004 for €120m and injected a further €110m into a redevelopment and refit of the property.

However, court documents filed by John Sweeney, the Galway businessman who owns one-third of the hotel, state that investors have earned nothing from the investment to date and there is no indication that there will be any return in the near future.

Another minor lead by John Burke says that the ESRI was forced to withdraw a “controversial report” on waste management in Dublin due to errors.

Professor Richard Tol said that the move was being taken after the institute identified significant errors after publication. He confirmed that the conclusions reached in the report would be reviewed in the light of the errors and could potentially be changed.

“Any errors identified will be corrected… we’re in the middle of redoing what needs to be redone,” Tol told the Sunday Business Post.

Burke follows this piece with a page 2 piece on how Dublin City Council has paid almost €15m more to consultants that gave it advice on the controversial Poolbeg incinerator.

The council agreed to pay €6.5m to the consortium, headed by consulting engineers RPS, in July 2001, according to documents seen by the Sunday Business Post. However, the local authority has paid more than €21m up the start of this year for services connected to the incinerator project.

Links go live as the pieces do, so do pop by and I’ll send you to the full stories!

(Post 2009 figures are budgetary estimates!)

Barack Obama presented his $3.8 trillion budget yesterday to muted fanfares of fiscal responsibility and chagrin of NASA cuts. Obama’s budget seeks to rein in government spending while delicately attempting to revive the America’s flagging economy.

While the American press is hopping on the palitable story of how NASA’s Constellation program has been chopped off at the knees, the real meat. The real message of the budget is jobs, jobs, jobs.

The US jobless trend is scary. The past two years have seen the number of people seeking work double from 5% to almost 10%. These highs have not been seen since the early 1980′s.

Obama is addressing the weak employment numbers by applying over a $100B in stimulus programmes to staunch the flow of new jobless. Despite the announcement of the tax cuts for small businesses that hire employees, Obama’s budget forsees the percentage those out of work to drop ever slow slightly to average at 9.2%. Perhaps a nod to further economic weakness before Budget 11 comes into force on October 1st next?

The elephant in the room, however, is the US’s widening national debt now standing at over $12.2B. With the biggest deficit in history, can Obama’s reform pump the much needed stimulus in the US economy?

Budget 11 facts:

• $53B in tax cuts
• $30B in tax breaks to incentivise small business to hire new employees
• $6B for clean energy tech innovation
• $735M for full body scanners in airports
• $15.5B proposal aimed at IP from US firms being floated to international subsiduries in tax havens
• 3 year freeze on non-military and medical aid spending – aims to save $447B
• End to fossil fuel subsidies, raising $90B over next ten years
• 10 year old tax rates for the rich reinstated: 36% tax rate for single people earning $200k and over (up 3%), 36.9% for couples earning $250k and over (up 4.6%)
• New bipartisan fiscal commission composed of Democrats and Republicans
• Budget 11 kicks off Oct 1

Despite Obama’s tough love budget trying to balence the need to shave off unnecessary spending and apply the right sort of stimulus into the American economy, his stern hand on the tiller freezing Federal spending for three years might be too much for his Dem colleagues in the Congress. Pelosi has already been commenting that spending freezes should include Defence.

Today, Spyker‘s CEO Victor Muller said that Saab (his firm’s new addition) would struggle to sell 100,000 cars this year. This despite his insistence that he was ”looking forward to a bright and exciting future” on the announcement of the deal.

News came on Tuesday, that Saab has been saved from oblivion by Dutch sports car manufacturer Spyker. General Motors, the world’s second-largest car seller had begun to wind up the Saab’s operations. The last-minute deal inked with Spyker will yield Saab $74 million in case and $326 million in preferred shares in Saab. The deal is expected to be completed by the end of next month and both Saab and Spyker will be managed by a new parent company Saab Spkyer Automobiles.

Part ownership by General Motors paired with an investment of $600 million came in 1989. Saab’s DNA was shared with GM’s Opel Vectra. By 2008, GM sales were hurting and it put the Saab marque under review. Saab sales in 2008 numbered 95,000. Sales dropped to 40,000 the following year.

Saab has been in sale ping-pong for many months now. Spyker had jumped into the breach after Koenigsegg (another sports car maker) pulled out citing successive delays in closing the deal as its reason. Spyker’s deal beat a competing offer by investment firm Genii Capital and F1 honcho Bernie Ecclestone.

While Saab has been on the ropes, it has been hard at work in reinventing itselfin order to find its customers that have moved to other manufacturers. Just last September, Saab showed off its rebooted 9-5 at the Frankfurt Auto show.

Video via WorldCarFans.com

Built on GM’s Epsilion saloon, the new 9-5 appears to be a completely different animal. Gone is the paneling that creased the sides. Detailing around the cab is much more subtle. The new 9-5 is sleek and built to The gently sloping canopy sinks into the boot, a swift nod to the classic 9-5 profile. Engine sizes differ too, moving down a fwe notches. The range starts at a 1.6l turbocharged up to a max 2.8l V6. On launch, Saab will ship the 2.0l four cylinder turbodiesel with 160 brake horsepower.

Production of the new 9-5 has already begun in Saab’s facilty at Trollhättan and the new model is due on forecourts before the Autumn. Could it help win back Saab fans? Time will only tell.

Forfás released it’s Annual Business Survey of Economic Impact for 2008 today. The survey takes a statistical snapshot of economic activity of sectors, Irish firms and foreign firms over several years and it makes for very interesting reading. The data is based on firms that deal with Enterprise Ireland, the IDA, Shannon Development and Údarás na Gaeltachta.

The overall numbers nabbed from the report, starkly show the bite of the recession on Irish firms from 2007 to 2008:

And foreign firms:

Foreign-owned firm fared a little better in manufacturing sales, exports and value-added activity, yet direct expenditure to the Irish economy dropped. Those that operated in the services sector was badly hit too. This is possibly a nod at the meltdown of international banking and financial services melting down world-wide.

Some interesting findings:

• Irish manufacturing and services companies made sales of just over €31B in the year 2008. A tiny bump of 0.7% year-over-year contributing an annual average of 3.9% from 2000-2008. Easy to see the massive drop here.
• Modern manufacturing, energy and information & communications systems were positive sectors for sales by Irish firms in 2008. While sales in legacy sectors like food & drink or traditional manufacturing shrank by 0.4% and 4.2% respectively.
• Looking at food & drink sales by foreign firms in Ireland, their sales grew by 22%. Alarm bells!
• In terms of payroll costs, the average salary of a worker in the survey in an Irish firm was €45,200. This constituted an increase of 6.1% over the surveyed period of 2000-2008

How is it that foreign firms can grow so healthily in the food & drink sector, yet Irish firms struggle?

Photos: forfas.ie

Just have tomorrow’s Sunday Independent to hand this evening. It leads with the story of the Listowel sexual assault case. Consumer confidence is up following the Budget.

While below the fold, Brendan O’Connor moves into McWilliamslandia with easy turns on phrase metaphorising on Ahern, the Budget and our economic legacy.

Inside, in the Life Magazine The Apprentice’s Bill and Jackie plus the usual Irish renta-celebs (Lorraine Keane, Niall Quinn & Fam and Barry Egan plus newcomer the Breffmeister) share their Christmas Day. Mistletoelicious!

We’re liveblogging Budget 2010 with Irish Election, Irish Economy, Suzy Byrne and loads of other political animals.

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