Rumour I’m hearing from Irish journalists and others is that the Irish government is saying they’ll quit the Euro rather than give up 12.5% tax.
That has to be the shortest economic suicide note in history.
The insanity of neoliberalism looks like it is going to bring a country down.
Let’s just hope everyone else learns.
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Well that is the choice that Sovereignty permits I guess
Not a chance. Government doesn’t have the mandate and we’re weeks/months away from a GE.
As to the corporation tax – I’m actually quite sympathetic to arguments for raising it, but you have to come up with a model for Irish economic growth that isn’t dependent on significant FDI inflows if you do.
If we ditch all the ideology, isn’t the simple truth that Islands are by definition uneconomic unless they are large enough to have critical mass? This applies to Ireland, Jersey, Hong Kong, Cayman, Sicily, Anglesey – all of them. The costs of importing basic goods to islands and then exporting finished items rules out manafacturing.
So, the only choices in the long term are poverty (I think its fair to say Ireland was an example of this in the entire modern period until the 1980s and Anglesey and the Shetlands still are), or you make a living by getting money from elsewhere: historically, islands got a lot of wealth from fishing, for example (e.g. Jersey, the Azores). Of course, all Islands have always been staging posts for smugglers as well.
But isn’t the simple truth that in the modern world, unless you can attract corporate activity and be an “international finance centre”, then you have to be dependent either upon grants (Corsica, Sicily etc) or else the natives live on the poverty line scratching out a living from tourism.
Of course, in a few years some islands may be able to make money out of tidal power or wind power, but that’s not here yet.
@mad foetus
yes, so we have to subsidise. Fine. I have no problem with that. Lets pay it from taxation. Again, that’s totally fair. Bu thet tax abuse is not. That is another story altogether.
So we have two options. One honest, legitimate and accountable. The other underhand, abusive, illegal and at cost to the poor people of the world.
why don’t we choose the legitimate one?