General election 2020 (7 Viewers)

[7 - No tomorrow]

Brid Smith was great on breaking down the Up the ra moment into components on the radio a few nights ago though.

Brid's always quality on the Late Debate

 

[hermie]

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.

It's incredibly disingenuous to call us fake rich. It's to our shame that so many people are struggling in spite of that wealth but let's not pretend otherwise. It's about the distribution of wealth not the lack of it.

 

[ann post]

It's to our shame that so many people are struggling in spite of that wealth but let's not pretend otherwise. It's about the distribution of wealth not the lack of it.

This is fake rich dude.

 

[hermie]

Eh not it isn't. Fake rich would be outwardly giving the impression of wealth despite not having any. We're almost the opposite. We're still little old Ireland on the international stage, going cap in hand to Europe complaining about how Brexit will ruin us.

 

[Lili Marlene]

Dude, your sarcastic ranting makes it really difficult to understand what you mean a lot of the time :/

What I wrote there is the argument that things are working as intended, it is not a rant but a succinct summary of how on paper things are fine if people believe that GDP is a good measurement of anything. And many people believe that GDP is a very good measurement.

The sarcasm, some would call it irony, is that clearly things are not great or we wouldn't have major housing, health and homeless crises and be voting for a completely different party.

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?

Yeah no worries, i'm game to think out loud about this.

I suppose the harm is to the poor throughout the entire of Europe, including Ireland. and also, as you point out, to the poor in America as well. I mean, that's a lot of harm to overlook just to line the pockets of a few billionaires in America.

Maybe if people could afford somewhere to live in Ireland it would be a different situation but there is no incentive for the market to provide that so it won't happen unless a government forces it. 10,000+ homeless at home and no sign of that going away, there's the 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!

If by "going after them in a big way" you mean actually getting them to pay even the highly reduced tax rate we are supposed to be charging them then I think we have a fair indication that as a society we're just bowing to the rich, accepting they are our betters, forever above laws and morality, and the 3000+ children that are homeless are going to stay homeless thank you very much.

 

[ernesto]

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!

Pretty sure Germany has been on the cusp of recession the last 6 months

 

[hermie]

Pretty sure Germany has been on the cusp of recession the last 6 months

Most of the rest of Europe is struggling. The difference between them and us? Multinationals. You know what else the rest of Europe has that we don't have, the far-right on the rise.

 

[ann post]

Eh not it isn't. Fake rich would be outwardly giving the impression of wealth despite not having any. We're almost the opposite. We're still little old Ireland on the international stage, going cap in hand to Europe complaining about how Brexit will ruin us.

How big is our national debt?
It’s just over €200 billion. On a per capita basis that’s the third highest in the world, eclipsed only by the US and Japan. It equates to €42,000 for every man, woman and child in the State or nearly €90,000 for every worker in the economy.
As a ratio of Government income, a metric that international investors and bond markets keep a close eye on, it stands at 252 per cent. Having such a massive debt leaves the State extremely exposed to another global downturn.

 

[hermie]

What I wrote there is the argument that things are working as intended, it is not a rant but a succinct summary of how on paper things are fine if people believe that GDP is a good measurement of anything. And many people believe that GDP is a very good measurement.

The sarcasm, some would call it irony, is that clearly things are not great or we wouldn't have major housing, health and homeless crises and be voting for a completely different party.



Yeah no worries, i'm game to think out loud about this.

I suppose the harm is to the poor throughout the entire of Europe, including Ireland. and also, as you point out, to the poor in America as well. I mean, that's a lot of harm to overlook just to line the pockets of a few billionaires in America.

Maybe if people could afford somewhere to live in Ireland it would be a different situation but there is no incentive for the market to provide that so it won't happen unless a government forces it. 10,000+ homeless at home and no sign of that going away, there's the harm.


If by "going after them in a big way" you mean actually getting them to pay even the highly reduced tax rate we are supposed to be charging them then I think we have a fair indication that as a society we're just bowing to the rich, accepting they are our betters, forever above laws and morality, and the 3000+ children that are homeless are going to stay homeless thank you very much.

I agree with you. Just to clarify one thing, I think going after them could be something as simple as rhetoric. If they feel unwelcome in the country they will piss off. And take with them not only tax revenue and internal demand but most importantly jobs. Absolutely hold them to account but no need to say we don't want them here or, worse yet, would be better off without them. Because that's farcically untrue.

 

[hermie]

Eclipsed by the US and Japan. Do you think they are poor countries?

 

[ernesto]

Most of the rest of Europe is struggling. The difference between them and us? Multinationals. You know what else the rest of Europe has that we don't have, the far-right on the rise.

the entire rest of Europe have a far-right rise? How do you qualify that?

we have a far-right movement here aswell anyway. It’s just that our fairer electoral system keeps that small group of pricks out

 

[ernesto]

Eclipsed by the US and Japan. Do you think they are poor countries?

The middle of America is Piss poor.
You know yourself. See Bernie’s slogans. Massive divides and technically rich countries have third world slumps throughout them

 

[Lili Marlene]

I agree with you. Just to clarify one thing, I think going after them could be something as simple as rhetoric. If they feel unwelcome in the country they will piss off. And take with them not only tax revenue and internal demand but most importantly jobs. Absolutely hold them to account but no need to say we don't want them here or, worse yet, would be better off without them. Because that's farcically untrue.

Yeah I know what you're saying, i'm just not sure I actually agree with that. Certainly, if they walked out tomorrow we'd be fucked for sure, but I think the housing situation is just the biggest indicator (another being the huge mental health issue throughout the country) that turning everything into a market at the behest of multinationals does as much harm as it does good.

We should absolutely be looking to the Nordic countries for ways to alter our economy to suit the people more than the multinationals. I don't think economic isolation is an answer, or even a possibility, but less dependence over the medium term should be a goal.

 

[hermie]

The middle of America is Piss poor.
You know yourself. See Bernie’s slogans. Massive divides and technically rich countries have third world slumps throughout them

Yeah as Bernie constantly says, America is the richest country in the world so there is no reason why we cannot do X, Y and Z. Ireland is similar.

 

[ernesto]

Most of the rest of Europe is struggling. The difference between them and us? Multinationals. You know what else the rest of Europe has that we don't have, the far-right on the rise.

‘Germany runs a massive trade surplus to the detriment of it's closest neighbours’

You appear to be contradicting yourself here.

Germany’s GDPR only few 0.1% last quarter after Shrinking previously

So the rest of the EU is struggling yet Apple tax owed wouldn’t improve their economy?

youve lost me (not hard)

 

[ernesto]

Yeah as Bernie constantly says, America is the richest country in the world so there is no reason why we cannot do X, Y and Z. Ireland is similar.

I do not disagree

 

[hermie]

‘Germany runs a massive trade surplus to the detriment of it's closest neighbours’

You appear to be contradicting yourself here.

Germany’s GDPR only few 0.1% last quarter after Shrinking previously

So the rest of the EU is struggling yet Apple tax owed wouldn’t improve their economy?

youve lost me (not hard)

I think their trade surplus is in the region of €300 billion per year.

Germany poised to set world's largest trade surplus | DW | 21.08.2018

Germany is on track to record the world's largest trade surplus for a third consecutive year. The country's $299 billion surplus is poised to attract criticism, however, both at home and internationally.

www.dw.com

 

[Unicron]

we have a far-right movement here aswell anyway. It’s just that our fairer electoral system keeps that small group of pricks out

The fact that hardly anyone votes for the cunts is what keeps them out. If anything our electoral system should serve to aid fringe parties.

 

[ernesto]

The fact that hardly anyone votes for the cunts is what keeps them out. If anything our electoral system should serve to aid fringe parties.

I’m pretty sure It’s allowed us to have kept ending up with political
Parties that are so similar always is power

 

[egg_]

If by "going after them in a big way" you mean actually getting them to pay even the highly reduced tax rate we are supposed to be charging them then I think we have a fair indication that as a society we're just bowing to the rich, accepting they are our betters, forever above laws and morality, and the 3000+ children that are homeless are going to stay homeless thank you very much.

Do you think we'd have fewer people homeless if we had a reduced MNC presence here?