General election 2020 (4 Viewers)

Ay, that's true enough


Ok, it sounds like you're answering "yes" to my question above. You want Ireland to stop being a tax haven, even if that means less revenue for the exchequer.

Is that a fair thing to say?

It also seems like you think there are social problems caused by us being a tax haven, and they might be made better if we stopped being one. Is that accurate too?

It's ending anyway Apple does the double Irish that is they are not only based here but the bremuda triangle or some place like that as well anyway the whole process that they took advantage of was announced to finish some years ago in advance. I think it's suspected that they may use the US as their tax base instead and especially if Mr Trump can lower the US rate. It's a moot point how much of a tax haven we are really certainly others in Europe and the EU are also deserving of that label if not perhaps more so.
 
i don't think i've seen *quite* enough hot takes on the significance (or lack thereof) of a shinner shouting 'up the RA', on twitter.

I think we need way more reference to Fine Gael being blue shirts and Fianna Fail being into the gun running for the IRA as late as the 70s. For balance like, seeing as we all love balance. :D
 
It's ending anyway Apple does the double Irish that is they are not only based here but the bremuda triangle or some place like that as well anyway the whole process that they took advantage of was announced to finish some years ago in advance. I think it's suspected that they may use the US as their tax base instead and especially if Mr Trump can lower the US rate. It's a moot point how much of a tax haven we are really certainly others in Europe and the EU are also deserving of that label if not perhaps more so.
So your conclusion is we should stop talking about, stop thinking about it and definitely should never do anything about it because it's all ending anyway and there are definitely no other ways or lengths they will go to to avoid paying taxes and please stop looking at them. Yes? Ok, that's clear.

All hail our tech masters who have bestowed the gift of data centers upon our ignorant island, we're lucky to have them.
 
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Interesting listening to Richard Boyd Barrett this morning, he seems very unlikely to entertain a broad left coalition, and I can see a lot of the other independents following suit.

only quoting you for context, seems he might have reflected on it somewhat :) this statement is about 24hrs later.

Asked about the prospects of a minority Sinn Fein-led government, Mr Boyd Barrett said: “It wouldn’t be sustainable for very long but I still think it’s worth exploring if we could do something to urgently address the housing crisis, some of the problems in the health service with the desperate waiting lists, some of the issues around climate change and the cost of living.

“I think anything that could give expression and delivery to the sentiment that people expressed at the ballot box during the election would be worth exploring and I am absolutely keen to do it and People Before Profit are absolutely keen to try to do that.”
 
i don't think i've seen *quite* enough hot takes on the significance (or lack thereof) of a shinner shouting 'up the RA', on twitter.

Whatever becomes of govt in the next weeks its not the worst thing to have a bit of a public laundry session on the complexity of being 'Irish' or what elements make us up that goes beyond the autocue version that has been used in the dail for years. The hot takes have me off twitter even for work tbh. Brid Smith was great on breaking down the Up the ra moment into components on the radio a few nights ago though.
 
Yah. Worth a shot, I think this election shows a lot of people under 40 agree with this as well. Perhaps foolishly, but I doubt it, the planet isn't exactly managing full-on capitalism very well.

"Less revenue for the exchequer" isn't necessarily the case though, I don't accept it's as simple as that and I don't think globalism can or should be just turned off like that. We live in a world that's the richest its ever been, it's both hugely unequal and hugely interconnected. Plus if you're not taxing the companies that are here the exchequer isn't actually getting any revenue.

re: this or the next election, a left wing government can make changes without having to go full communism, all economies are mixed economies ultimately.
Have to stop you there, you're not actually suggesting that somehow Ireland would be just as wealthy a country without MNCs? Whatever about the fairness of it the economics of the situation is pretty clear.
 
Have to stop you there, you're not actually suggesting that somehow Ireland would be just as wealthy a country without MNCs? Whatever about the fairness of it the economics of the situation is pretty clear.
What is your measurement for a wealthy country?
 
Right yeah, I agree so and without multinationals in Ireland we would most likely not be as wealthy.
 
The economics of the situation is that Ireland has enjoyed half a decade of strong GDP growth after several years of hard austerity and we should probably continue to vote in Fine Gael as a reward for a job well done. The system is working as intended.
 
No we should hopefully get a compassionate government who will put the revenue collected from that strong economic performance to better use.
 
I think we are fake rich at the minute. There is money, there are jobs. Housing, transport are affordable if you have two salaries generally, unless you would like to join the stick circle in north leitrim. A&E nurses publish a waiting list per regional hospital every day as a peaceful action to show how under resourced they are.

We are around the tenth numerically richest countries in the world, but that is just numbers if you cant get security from your income. It could be any number really, its just a matter of the money being useful or not.

We also have largely awful transport networks outside the pale, so one oil shortage and a huge rafts of jobs become more or less unreachable overnight.

This fake rich comes from FDI which only is here at the behest of shareholders, who technically could be us but largely isn't. Any of the big 6-7 economies has a big change and they will fuck off overnight and we know that. Think about how many (around 150 i think) companies re-headquartered here or amsterdam post brexit. WE might never be this rich again, its a boom, a blip. If aren't using the fake rick to setup for a long term crazy tough century. Ploughing into car dependence every day, setting up fuck all that doesn't depend on oil and yanktech. Its fake rich, fake money, the debts will still be real after the boom. the inflated prices will be meaningless, negative equity all over the shop, it is built into the 'rich' we are experiencing now.
 
No we should hopefully get a compassionate government who will put the revenue collected from that strong economic performance to better use.
Sure but to do that we'd actually have to tax that economic performance.
 
We do. Apple are the single biggest tax payer in this country. Of course proportionately they pay very little but to say we don't do well out of them is just plain wrong.
Apple are the richest company in the world and their European base is in Ireland, they'd fucking want to be the biggest tax payer in Ireland. If you think it's a good thing to be beholden to the whims and charitable payments of Silicon Valley that's fine, personally I have issues with that kind of precarious arrangement, not to mention that we do it by fucking over so many other countries in Europe.


I think we are fake rich at the minute. There is money, there are jobs. Housing, transport are affordable if you have two salaries generally, unless you would like to join the stick circle in north leitrim. A&E nurses publish a waiting list per regional hospital every day as a peaceful action to show how under resourced they are.

We are around the tenth numerically richest countries in the world, but that is just numbers if you cant get security from your income. It could be any number really, its just a matter of the money being useful or not.

We also have largely awful transport networks outside the pale, so one oil shortage and a huge rafts of jobs become more or less unreachable overnight.

This fake rich comes from FDI which only is here at the behest of shareholders, who technically could be us but largely isn't. Any of the big 6-7 economies has a big change and they will fuck off overnight and we know that. Think about how many (around 150 i think) companies re-headquartered here or amsterdam post brexit. WE might never be this rich again, its a boom, a blip. If aren't using the fake rick to setup for a long term crazy tough century. Ploughing into car dependence every day, setting up fuck all that doesn't depend on oil and yanktech. Its fake rich, fake money, the debts will still be real after the boom. the inflated prices will be meaningless, negative equity all over the shop, it is built into the 'rich' we are experiencing now.

Agreed. Money in global capitalism is fluid and can and will drain out of Ireland if it suits the market.
 
The economics of the situation is that Ireland has enjoyed half a decade of strong GDP growth after several years of hard austerity and we should probably continue to vote in Fine Gael as a reward for a job well done. The system is working as intended.
Dude, your sarcastic ranting makes it really difficult to understand what you mean a lot of the time :/
 
Apple are the richest company in the world and their European base is in Ireland, they'd fucking want to be the biggest tax payer in Ireland. If you think it's a good thing to be beholden to the whims and charitable payments of Silicon Valley that's fine, personally I have issues with that kind of precarious arrangement, not to mention that we do it by fucking over so many other countries in Europe.
Okay I'm playing devil's advocate here to a large extent but I'm not sure we're fucking over the rest of Europe so badly. The UK fecked off, the Netherlands and Luxemburg have similar tax setups to ours. Germany runs a massive trade surplus to the detriment of it's closest neighbours, the EU torpedoed Greece when they had the gall to elect a left government and tried to stand up to austerity. But ultimately at the end of the day Apple and most of the rest of these companies are American and it is really Americans that lose out and US loopholes that allow them to not pay their fair amount of tax. If Ireland gets a small portion of what that fair share ought to be (small but significant to a tiny country such as ours) as well as a shit tonne of jobs and internal demand, what harm?

As to the precariousness of the arrangement, Apple have been here 30 years. It's not all that tenuous unless we were to suddenly go after them in a big way. Why not leave the international community, particularly the US, do that instead? And if we get to keep the 13bn while appearing to uphold their interests all the better!
 

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