At this rate, Beyonce’s going to have an economics prize named after her. Not only did her Stockholm concert in May cause a spike in Swedish inflation, her August tour date in Maryland was hit by severe storms and her team had to shell out $100,000 to keep the Washington DC Metro stations open an extra hour after the show was delayed, handily demonstrating the concept of marginal costs.
Bitcoin is back. After crypto’s annus horribilis of 2022, the world’s best-known and most widely traded digital currency has risen more than 70pc in euro terms this year.
It might seem churlish to have a go at Michael McGrath over Budget 2024. After all, Ireland is the only country in the eurozone and one of just two in the European Union to have run a budget surplus in the first quarter of this year, according to Eurostat.
If you want to find out whether the world is heading for a recession or if globalisation has finally had its day, then it pays to look at the likes of Ireland and Singapore as much as it does at the world’s industrial powerhouses of China and Germany.
Steady declines in headline inflation rates had created the impression that even if central banks were not ready to start cutting interest rates, then at least they weren’t going to keep on hiking for much longer.