What to do about ireland
satansbed
Posts: 2,139
well what are your thoughts, should we be bailed out by the eu, should we take the bailout, how can we sort out the mess of our public finances, anyone have any ideas??
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"..That's One Happy Fuckin Ghost.."
“..That came up on the Pillow Case...This is for the Greek, With Our Apologies.....”
Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. - Louis Brandeis
I've read that and for the most part it's drivel
Ireland is a small country that will never have a large manufacturing industry, to give up or low corporate tax rate now would be lunacy. Foreign direct investment has actually been increasing during the recession and is our only way out, secondly given us money and then saying you can have this money, but you have to take away the only means you have of paying us back, is bad for both sides. thirdly the article is full of incorrect facts and anti irish bigotry
this is completely wrong. http://www.google.ie/intl/en/jobs/ if you look hear there is hardly any clerical jobs. same with apple, same with facebook, same with microsoft, same with ibm same with zyanga, same with activision.
and then here she shows an Irish profit maker leaving Ireland for a lower European tax country.... the lack of a consistent argument is incredible
the duo might be relieved that the Greens handed the notice so it's a good excuse to dissolve the cabinet and pass the hot potato on to some other eejit as the poor plain people of direland probably wouldn't vote for FF ...
back in 1997 or so when the Celtic tiger was a mere cub, a friend fresh out of UL told me that it was only the borrowed money going around so it shouldn't last long. amazing how the greed kept it going for so long, too long. far too long.
back to The Poor Mouth, eh?
. . . from mid-west, poor old plain choc donut that's me
Neil Young with Pearl Jam RDS '95 Three Fish NY & Seattle '99
i agree with what your saying, but the greed didn't really take over till around 2005, i read a good article on how we where actually a really good economy then but after that we let it be led by a property boom which is the reason we are where we are, il try and find it, i think it was the economist
>
...a lover and a fighter.
"I'm at least half a bum" Rocky Balboa
http://www.videosift.com/video/Obamas-Message-To-American-Indians
Edmonton, AB. September 5th, 2005
Vancouver, BC. April 3rd, 2008
Calgary,AB. August 8th, 2009
>
...a lover and a fighter.
"I'm at least half a bum" Rocky Balboa
http://www.videosift.com/video/Obamas-Message-To-American-Indians
Edmonton, AB. September 5th, 2005
Vancouver, BC. April 3rd, 2008
Calgary,AB. August 8th, 2009
property prices started faster in mid-1995. investors started buying, inflating property prices, plain people of ireland tried to buy before it's too late, 100%-mortgage, ...
early in the 1990s they said when you buy a house the price should be about 3 times of your salary, with 10% for the deposit. that was still possible with average income until probably 1998? i think in 2001 some economists said the boom would end in 2002 - as the housing price was over inflated already. but the people still kept at it so the "boom" continued... kept borrowing from the future forgetting the bubble would burst someday...
you could blame Bertie and Brian Cowen then the finance minister, but it looks like everyone wanted the boom to last forever and the only way was to keep going,... until Lehman Bros busted, or something.
so what's up in Greece and Iceland now? sort of "business as usual" for majority of people, right?
yeah promote Guinness! and Tayto, irish cheese, Leprechaun museum, ... export and tourism ...
and irish rugby
Neil Young with Pearl Jam RDS '95 Three Fish NY & Seattle '99
>
...a lover and a fighter.
"I'm at least half a bum" Rocky Balboa
http://www.videosift.com/video/Obamas-Message-To-American-Indians
Edmonton, AB. September 5th, 2005
Vancouver, BC. April 3rd, 2008
Calgary,AB. August 8th, 2009
some goat milk cheese and artisan cow milk cheese are "award-winning" ... they say.
come & try!
Neil Young with Pearl Jam RDS '95 Three Fish NY & Seattle '99
but the boom was managable at that stage and was left out of control afterwards
>
...a lover and a fighter.
"I'm at least half a bum" Rocky Balboa
http://www.videosift.com/video/Obamas-Message-To-American-Indians
Edmonton, AB. September 5th, 2005
Vancouver, BC. April 3rd, 2008
Calgary,AB. August 8th, 2009
where should i go to bring in the idea of Irish Potato Cheese??? with a "2% of profit to the animal shelters" string firmly attached . . .
Neil Young with Pearl Jam RDS '95 Three Fish NY & Seattle '99
Fintan O'Toole does, and I'm with him all the way:
The Irish Times - Tuesday, November 23, 2010
The people must act or we will remain irrelevant
FINTAN O'TOOLE
Before an election, a civic movement has to create a critical mass around the idea of radical political reform
HAVING AN election after agreeing a four-year deal that will shape all key decisions is like debating which brand of condom to buy after you’ve become pregnant. It is a parody of democratic choice. Popular sovereignty has almost no meaning in Ireland right now. Its restoration is the precondition for a meaningful election.
We need a non-party technical administration to hold the fort while the people have their say on the four-year plan and on radical reform of our political system. Within that space, we need to make a collective decision on the International Monetary Fund-European Union deal.
The primary goal of the IMF-EU package to which any new government will be committed is not to stop Ireland spiralling downwards into economic depression. It is to ensure that Irish citizens cough up yet more money for the banks.
The process of converting bank debt into national debt is to be completed. Instead of the banks borrowing money from the European Central Bank at one per cent interest to fund their operations, the State (you and me) will borrow it for them at perhaps five per cent.
To pay for this, the poor and the vulnerable will be further hammered.
Welfare will be slashed, public health services will deteriorate, children, the disabled and the elderly will lose the already inadequate services that afford them some hope and dignity. But the €100 billion that is owed by the Irish to German banks and the €109 billion owed to British banks will be secured.
The consequences are entirely predictable. Mass unemployment and mass emigration will be locked in to an economy that, beyond the multinational sector, will not grow.
Poverty and inequality will increase sharply, with all the social and financial costs this implies.
The viciousness that is about to be unleashed is summed up in the idea of slashing the minimum wage. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the state of the public finances.
It is simply an opportunistic move to punish those at the bottom for a crisis whose real authors will sail blithely onwards. It is also based on another lie: that Ireland’s minimum wage is the second highest in the EU.
It is not.
In terms of purchasing power, it is the fifth highest in the EU. But many EU countries operate non-statutory minimum wages on a sectoral basis which are substantially higher than Ireland’s.
This strategy is to be tied up in secret negotiations by a government that has made itself an international laughing stock and that is now officially a zombie.
There is to be no argument and no pretence that the Irish people have any function except to bear the pain and assume the debts.
Democracy is to be neutered – the government we elect will be there simply to deliver a done deal.
What needs to happen?
First, the Government must go at once and be replaced in the short term by a technical administration (led by non-political people of integrity and competence) that will enter negotiations on the basis of the Irish public interest, not of continuing Fianna Fáil’s disastrous agenda.
Second, at least two alternative plans need to be prepared by the political parties and put to the people in a referendum, restoring the idea of popular sovereignty.
Third, before an election, a civic movement has to create a critical mass around the idea of radical political reform.
How can these basic needs be forced on to the agenda?
First, the people of Donegal South West have to refuse to vote for Fianna Fáil – at all. They can deliver a clear message that this Government has no mandate to conclude any deal.
Second, hundreds of thousands of people have to get out on the streets for the Irish Congress of Trade Unions demonstration on Saturday. Forget what you think about the unions – this is the one chance citizens have to demand a choice. Whether you agree with Ictu’s alternative plan or not, the idea that there should be a coherent alternative is crucial to the survival of our democracy. Without it, an election will be an empty ritual.
Third, in response to public requests, I intend to put up on my website (fintanotoole.ie) by the end of the week a list of 10 basic demands for changing our political culture and system.
If people agree, they will be able to put their names to the demands, which include a €100,000 salary cap for public officials, a change in the electoral system, a shrinking and overhaul of the Dáil, and measures to kill the toxic three Cs: clientelism, cronyism and corruption.
What matters most is that we cease to be an invisible people. That our government is irrelevant is their fault.
That the people are irrelevant is ours.
Sovereignty belongs, not to the State, or the government, but to the people. We have outsourced it for too long to an incompetent, amoral and self-serving elite. Now we face the starkest of choices: use it or lose it.
Fintan O’Toole’s website is fintanotoole.ie.
He will discuss his book Enough is Enough at Triskel Arts in Cork on Wednesday evening and the Town Hall Theatre in Galway on December 1st
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/11/23/131547987/the-tuesday-podcast-too-big-to-save
Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. - Louis Brandeis
on serious note. yeah, Fintan O'Toole is clever, idealistic ... democracy? sounds good doesn't it. but who can trust the judgment of the plain people of direland? they played the part on the property boom (fooled into spending beyond their means, guilty!), loved Bertie when the boom seemed good going, ... only after it busted, boo FF. natural reaction, i suppose. majority of people are simplistic and opportunistic. yeah, i'm one.
hope it will be good turnout on saturday, without violence. oh please no violence.
Neil Young with Pearl Jam RDS '95 Three Fish NY & Seattle '99
Neil Young with Pearl Jam RDS '95 Three Fish NY & Seattle '99
debt repayment comes first, its part of the agreement they signed.
the irish people have every right to protest, they are getting effed in the a.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLniOkpl ... r_embedded
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
"On one side of this street, in 1913, James Larkin was arrested as he addressed the workers of Dublin who had stood up to claim their dignity as citizens rather than serfs. On the other side, in 1916, Ireland was declared to be a republic under the control of its own citizens.
Today, we gather here to reclaim that sense of citizenship. As the fate of our country is being decided, it is a case of mind over matter. They don’t mind, and we don’t matter. Our rulers have no shame, and they believe we have no voice.
They tell us we have no choice, that there is no alternative. A government with no mandate will do a deal with people we have never elected. On the one side, we will borrow yet more billions to bail out the banks. On the other, there will be war on the poor and the vulnerable: a savage assault on the minimum wage, cuts in welfare payments and attacks on basic services for the old and the young, the sick and the disabled. And this will happen while the elite that caused this catastrophe protects its own interests. Under the government’s plan, a single person earning €40,000 will pay exactly the same amount of extra tax as someone earning €300,000. This is not a plan to save Ireland, it is a plan to save the Irish elite.
If we really have no choice in all of this, let’s stop pretending that we are a democracy. Let us, as part of the austerity programme, cut two whole years – 2013 and 2016 – because otherwise we will mark those centenaries amid a mockery of their ideals, as a powerless people in a country of mass unemployment, mass emigration and growing poverty and inequality.
But we do have a choice. We can emerge from this crisis with a renewed sense of solidarity and justice and with a vigorous democracy in which power has returned to the people. We are here today to say that we are not economic units whose only function is to behave ourselves and pay off the gambling debts of our masters. We are not children who must take our medicine or be sent to bed without our supper. We are not subjects, we are citizens. And we want our republic back."
www.fintanotoole.com
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
one part of me initially thought that the IMF deal could be good for us, because it might involve a "audit" of our public spending, eg: there could be specific terms in the deal that forced us to sort the Public sector wage bill etc (eg Portlaois Hospital - 128 beds, 127 staff on "manager" salaries)....but alas, no joy. Just more Black Hole Banks being nationalised, more private debt being absorbed into the sovereign debt, and a government who dont seem to give a single fuck about their country, their reputations, their legacy, or the 90% of the population they are financially crippling.
Basically, the video with the robots has it 100% right.
We are completely fucked, and the reason we had not yet revolted, tried to throw FF out by force, is the same reason FF won the election in 2008 - realistically the opposition parties are full of similarly callow, hapless, inept politicians of a similar breed. (there are some HUGE exceptions to this, men of character out there, eg Michael Noonan, Richard Bruton, Caoimhin O Caolain, John Bruton etc).
The feeling that I get around my part of Dublin is that deep down, we dont feel that Fine Gael, Labour, or anyone else is equipped to deal with a fuck up of this magnitude....we need to get our groove back
Yet still claims the authority to write the economic plan for the next four years.
This country is a joke.
Fianna Fáil slip to fourth in opinion poll
Fianna Fáil suffered a bruising tonight after an opinion poll put support at just 13%. The party is now in fourth place behind Sinn Fein at 16%, according to a Red C survey for the Irish Sun. Support for Fine Gael has fallen by 1% to 32% on a similar Red C poll carried out on November 21. Labour’s popularity has dropped from 27% on the previous poll to 24%. Support for the Greens remains unchanged at 3%.
The survey of 1,000 adults was carried out on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week, days after Sinn Fein’s by-election win in Donegal South West and in the wake of the €85bn bailout plan.
Red C also asked the participants who they would like to see as the next Taoiseach, with only 8% backing Brian Cowen. Eamon Gilmore stands at 41% and Enda Kenny at 25% to be the next leader of the country.
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
Labour has proposed cutting spending by €4.5 billion in its pre-Budget plans published today.
Capping public sector and political salaries at €190,000, creating a third tax rate of 48 per cent for top earners and increasing the tax on savings form part of the plan.
The party is proposing to create a €500 million jobs fund which, when set against economies of €5 billion, would result in overall spending cuts of €4.5 billion.
Party leader Eamon Gilmore said the proposals were a balanced approach that would tackle the national deficit while providing room for jobs and growth.
He attacked the Government’s plan to reduce spending by €6 billion in the Budget as “dangerous for Ireland” and an unacceptable risk to jobs and growth.
“The level of frontloading of cuts and tax hikes planned for the Budget is simply too much to swallow in one year. We cannot cut our way out of this crisis, we must also have growth,” he said.
The €6 billion sum was a “figure of convenience” and a product of a right-wing consensus in Ireland and Europe, he said.
Mr Gilmore described the deal with the IMF as a “sell-out” and said Labour, if returned to Government next year, would renegotiate it as soon as possible.
The party is proposing savings of about €5 million through political reforms, including the €190,000 salary cap on the Taoiseach’s salary and a commensurate further reduction of 17 per cent applying to ministers and ministers of state.
Ministerial cars would be pooled, and Garda drivers replaced by civilians unless security considerations apply.
The party says it would increase the annual tax on second home from €200 to €500, increase Dirt tax on savings to 30 per cent and cut personal tax credit by €250. Property-related tax reliefs would be abolished, yielding savings of €360 million a year.
The capital budget would be cut by €1.2 billion, but Mr Gilmore claimed this did not mean Metro North would not go ahead.
The public sector pay bill would be cut by €400 million, and €215 million would be saved by tackling welfare fraud and curbing spending on rent supplements.
Labour also says it can achieve almost €1 billion in non-pay savings next year while maintaining investment in education and front-line health services.
Resources would be prioritised for job creation and the public sector pay bill would be reduced by at least €1.4 billion over three years.
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
For what it's worth, I only buy the Irish version of everything I'm buying (if there is one)
Verona??? it's all surmountable
Dublin 23.08.06 "The beauty of Ireland, right there!"
Wembley? We all believe!
Copenhagen?? your light made us stars
Chicago 07? And love
What a different life
Had I not found this love with you
Now you've got Germany lending us money to pay themselves back and charge more interest in the process. Who said they lost the war, eh? Greece - tick, Ireland - tick, how many more countries to go?
Verona??? it's all surmountable
Dublin 23.08.06 "The beauty of Ireland, right there!"
Wembley? We all believe!
Copenhagen?? your light made us stars
Chicago 07? And love
What a different life
Had I not found this love with you