Economics 22/06/2009: All Quiet In Offaly Bogs & Apple

Hat tip to PMD: I was wrong. Irish economy is now on track to full recovery: read the details here.

In a nutshell, "workers at... bogs in Offaly, Westmeath and Longford" are back to "...harvesting process for peat delivered to power stations in Edenderry, Shannonbridge and Lanesborough."

The company - flagship of Ireland's knowledge economy is one of the largest peat producers in the world, with annual production second only to North Korea's 'Socialism = Electrification of Party Palaces' State-owned peat-fired rocket building enterprise. Bord na Mona's latest Annual Report (2007/2008) is available in English, Irish and Corporate-Social-Responsibilish on its website, showing

• Turnover of €371mln in 2007/2008 up 24.1% on 2006/2007 year;
• Profit after tax of €16.8mln - down 32.5% on 2006/2007
  
• Payroll costs €101mln (gross of employers’ pension costs) against €95mln in 2006/2007
• Average employment numbers 2,035 in 2007/2008 against 1,751 in 2006/2007.

So 'workers at bogs' were earning a tidy sum of €49,471 per annum on average in 2007/2008 - down from a whooping €54,037 per annum average for 2006/2007, making Bord na Mona one hell of a place to work for high wages and marking the company as one of the prime high-value added employers in Offaly.

A picture is worth a 1,000 words:So we have: more workers, less peat produced... lower profits...

Now, the company's latest Annual Report is loftily titled A New Contract with Nature. Of course, the State (aka taxpayers) is its shareholder and owner. Keeping in focus on contracts with nature (old and new ones), and keeping its unionised workers off the strikes lines, of course, does not distract Bord na Mona from delivering value to us, the taxpayers:
Hmmm... As I said above - all's good in Offaly bogs.


In the mean time, MarketWatch reports that Apple Inc. has sold "more than 1 million iPhone 3GS models through Sunday, just three days after the phone's launch". 6 million customers have downloaded the new iPhone 3.0 software in the first five days.

Spot the difference between RTE and the WSJ?

The next DofF Sales Brochure on Ireland Inc should, thus, contain a Yankees-only slide titled: "You have the iPhone, we have Bord na Mona's. Jealous?"