We have been provided with two examples in the past week of Irish national newspaper columnists, Bruce Arnold and Fintan O’Toole showing themselves to be dodgy “economists” and our business is to present economic facts, where available!

Global Economy 2010: The cyclical economic upswing in the developed world will continue into the early part of 2010 and, apart from eastern Europe, developing countries will recover relatively quickly from the 2008-09 financial and economic crisis.

Ryanair, today confirmed that its quarterly board meeting yesterday determined that its negotiations with Boeing for an order of up to 200 new B737-800 series aircraft for delivery during the period 2013-2016 cannot be successfully concluded prior to the end of the calendar year and have been terminated unsuccessfully.

Principal news stories from the Irish Independent, Irish Times, Irish Examiner, Financial Times and New York Times.

Creating 160,000 net new jobs in the Irish economy is a daunting challenge but starry aspirations and pious hopes about exports from armchair ”experts,” are a far from adequate response.

Bank of England’s executive director for financial stability, Andy Haldane, says “there is not so much as a scintilla of evidence of bigger being better in banking is the truth of it. A lot of the noise around that really is rhetoric.” He also believes that UK should support regulation that risks losing some financial business

Markets news on stocks, currencies and oil; The US Senate Banking Committee voted 16-7 in favor of confirming Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke for a second term. Six Republicans and one Democrat opposed confirmation. The full senate is expected to vote on Bernanke’s confirmation in early 2010. Meawhile, the US Labor Department reported today that the number of Americans claiming jobless benefits has risen for the second week running.

The US Leading Economic Index (LEI) increased 0.9 percent in November, following a 0.3 percent gain in October, and a 1.2 percent rise in September.

The number of people with Irish private health insurance has fallen by over 40,000 (almost 2% of those insured) in 2009 and the numbers forced to cancel their policies is likely to increase significantly in 2010 the Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children was told today.

The majority of Irish Defined Benefit  Pension Schemes, which guarantee final benefit are insolvent, according to a report published Thursday.