General election 2020 (3 Viewers)

[ann post]

Howlin won't back any candidate in Labour race

Brendan Howlin has announced that he is stepping down as leader of the Labour Party in the next few weeks.

www.rte.ie

First leader to step down

Its hardly a step down in fairness.

 

[hermie]

Highly-paid is all relative. I know a fair few Spanish and Italian people who live in Dublin who would rather be back home but there's no work there. They can just about get by in a house-share working for a tech company here but they're not exactly making enough to save and a lot of them are on very precarious contracts. Freedom of movement often just boils down to freedom of cheap labour with little protections.

Yep there's 50% youth unemployment in Spain and Italy are in the grips of another recession. But we should tell the multinationals to go fuck themselves.

 

[Lili Marlene]

Yep there's 50% youth unemployment in Spain and Italy are in the grips of another recession. But we should tell the multinationals to go fuck themselves.

Instead we're telling our European neighbours to go fuck themselves and bowing to every demand from Silicon Valley oligarchs over fear of capital strike. God, so proud to be Irish right now.

 

[ann post]

Tiny theory that the new Labour leader will surprise us all.

Except me.

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

Tiny theory that the new Labour leader will surprise us all.

Except me.

What's the scuttlebutt, Ann?

 

[hydromancer]

Instead we're telling our European neighbours to go fuck themselves and bowing to every demand from Silicon Valley oligarchs over fear of capital strike. God, so proud to be Irish right now.

Well as I said earlier this is hardly a something unique to Ireland I think Amazon avoids paying tax through Luxembourg for instance. It's more the sort of thing that you would expect more from a micro state really which we are not that's not that I approve of it of course but it's an issue around the world. I'd agree it's a danger to rely to much on tech giants or try to turn Ireland into California one thing we lack actually is manufacturing.

 

[ann post]

What's the scuttlebutt, Ann?

Well they need a Mary Lou type rebirth, if they don't know by now the current front bench is kinda toxic, they have zero track with anyone under 35 who isn't a FF's lefty bestie, another man just wont save the party without actually being james connolly, so the smart money is on.. well I'm not fucking naming them because they are young enough to find the post.

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

they are young enough to find the post.

If this is you referring to yourself in the third person, I am equally horrified and impressed

 

[egg_]

Highly-paid is all relative. I know a fair few Spanish and Italian people who live in Dublin who would rather be back home but there's no work there. They can just about get by in a house-share working for a tech company here but they're not exactly making enough to save and a lot of them are on very precarious contracts. Freedom of movement often just boils down to freedom of cheap labour with little protections.

Look outside your circle. I know a shitload of Portuguese, Italian, Romanian, Hungarian and especially Polish people who are working solid decently-paid middle-class jobs in software in Dublin. Just because you don't know them doesn't mean there aren't thousands of them in the city, probably tens of thousands. Them coming here and buying houses increases demand and drives up prices. That's what Silicon Valley's presence in Ireland is causing. I don't want them to go back to where they came from, they're my people and I like them. I don't want the tech giants to leave. Please don't take away freedom of movement @Lili Marlene

 

[Lili Marlene]

Look outside your circle. I know a shitload of Portuguese, Italian, Romanian, Hungarian and especially Polish people who are working solid decently-paid middle-class jobs in software in Dublin. Just because you don't know them doesn't mean there aren't thousands of them in the city, probably tens of thousands. Them coming here and buying houses increases demand and drives up prices. That's what Silicon Valley's presence in Ireland is causing. I don't want them to go back to where they came from, they're my people and I like them. I don't want the tech giants to leave. Please don't take away freedom of movement @Lili Marlene

House prices are not as high as they are in Ireland because of a supply and demand problem, this is known and agreed upon by all but the biggest real estate developer scammers. We've posted a huge amount of links explaining this throughout the thread.

I'm glad you know people with solid jobs - so do I. I also know people who had to leave Ireland because there were no jobs in their field - I understand that the world of work takes all sorts and that there are levels of meritocracy, gumption, luck, ruthlessness, back-scratching and more to the job market. I work and have worked for multinationals myself for years, I know some lovely people through my work but look at the link johnny posted there on the last page and tell me this is all cool. Look at the homeless figures that are going in one direction and tell me that this is fine because we know a few sound middle-class people with good jobs.

Anyway, clearly at least a third of the country is feeling the pinch, whether on their wallet or on their conscience, and voted accordingly.

 

[hugh]

Yeah. Just wanna check ... nobody here is proposing we do away with the highly-paid jobs, or prevent highly-paid foreign workers coming here, are they?

No but the needs of people with highly paid jobs are not high up on my list of priorities and neither should they be high up on the governments.

 

[hugh]

International capitalism or neo-liberalism? I'm sure you'll say both but I would argue more the latter. And as egg was quick to point out, the less said about the influx of people the better. Let's not even go there.

I see them as pretty much interchangeable

 

[hugh]

I see them as pretty much interchangeable

Neoliberalism and international capitalism that is. Not, eh, people.

 

[hugh]

By the way, I don't think anyone is suggesting "telling the multinationals to go fuck themselves". We need them. For me anyway, it's more a case of (a) let's get them to actually pay the rate of tax they are supposed to paying (even Sinn Fein are not suggesting changing the 12.5%) and (b) let's figure out how to solve the conundrum of a society which on the one hand has unimaginably rich corporates operating within its territory and on the other massive amounts of homelessness and other social problems.

 

[ernesto]

By the way, I don't think anyone is suggesting "telling the multinationals to go fuck themselves". We need them. For me anyway, it's more a case of (a) let's get them to actually pay the rate of tax they are supposed to paying (even Sinn Fein are not suggesting changing the 12.5%) and (b) let's figure out how to solve the conundrum of a society which on the one hand has unimaginably rich corporates operating within its territory and on the other massive amounts of homelessness and other social problems.

move the big corps to the likes of Meath, Kildare and beyond into the midlands. get local businesses and dead towns flourishing again. build proper infrastructure for them and connect them all. build housing estates for them in the sticks and get that shite out of clogging up the city and put a bit of diversity and life back in to rural places.

 

[Cormcolash]

move the big corps to the likes of Meath, Kildare and beyond into the midlands. get local businesses and dead towns flourishing again. build proper infrastructure for them and connect them all. build housing estates for them in the sticks and get that shite out of clogging up the city and put a bit of diversity and life back in to rural places.

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[egg_]

this is known ... we've posted a huge amount of links explaining this throughout the thread.

This is known, wha? Hehe well I'm glad you and your associates are here to explain things to a simple country boy in a helpful manner

Look at the homeless figures that are going in one direction and tell me that this is fine because we know a few sound middle-class people with good jobs.

I really wish you'd stop preaching at an imaginary right-winger, and engage with what I'm actually saying. Your anti-MNC rhetoric is a little close to "tech giants are bringing in too much money and foreigners and making things too expensive for the rest of us". I just wanted to make sure that wasn't what you meant

 

[Space]

This is known, wha? Hehe well I'm glad you and your associates are here to explain things to me in a helpful manner


I really wish you'd stop preaching at an imaginary right-winger, and engage with what I'm actually saying. Your anti-MNC rhetoric is a little close to "tech giants are bringing in too much money and foreigners and making things too expensive for the rest of us". I just wanted to make sure that wasn't what you meant

Are the likes of the anti AirBnb protests in Barcelona and other cities where people can't afford to rent anti-foreigner in your eyes?

 

[egg_]

Are the likes of the anti AirBnb protests in Barcelona and other cities where people can't afford to rent anti-foreigner in your eyes?

No. Not at all. AirBnB is a totally different thing to people coming here to live

 

[egg_]

No but the needs of people with highly paid jobs are not high up on my list of priorities and neither should they be high up on the governments.

hmmm yeah that's fair, but I think it's reasonable for a government to prioritise keeping those jobs, no? Or creating more of them?