The Luck of the Irish Runs Out 809
theodp writes "Looks like threatening to take their ball and leave paid off for US tech firms. The Irish government announced plans this week to tap the welfare state and working class for much of the $20B in savings they've pledged to find over the next four years, but the austerity measures will not touch large businesses like Microsoft, Intel, Google, HP, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Pfizer, which created jobs and fueled exports in Ireland after being lured by low corporate tax rates. More than 100,000 Dubliners took to the streets to protest the bailout plan, calling for the Irish government to default on the country's debts, and demanding an immediate election. 'We should default,' said a retired union worker, 'the idea that the workers of this country should pay for the gambling of the billionaires is disgusting.'"
Defaulting is worse! (Score:3, Insightful)
Going default will be a short-lived remedy. The country will go back to 1990 in terms of market appeal and productivity. And yes, if the big tech companies leave, the hope of reacquiring a high-tech knowledge industry will go away as well.
Re:Defaulting is worse! (Score:5, Informative)
Going default will be a short-lived remedy. The country will go back to 1990 in terms of market appeal and productivity. And yes, if the big tech companies leave, the hope of reacquiring a high-tech knowledge industry will go away as well.
Paul Krugman's latest column [nytimes.com] addresses this. The main point is that Iceland let the banks default, while Ireland took the banks debts as public debts and guaranteed it. In the end, Iceland has recovered while Ireland's people have to bear the burden due to austerity measures.
Re:Defaulting is worse! (Score:5, Informative)
The debts involved are massive, too.
From this article [nytimes.com] (though note it was written back in September):
"Under the current program, we estimate that each Irish family of four will be liable for 200,000 euros in public debt by 2015."
Ouch.
Re:Defaulting is worse! (Score:5, Informative)
Each American family of four is liable for about $200,000 in public debt.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Defaulting is worse! (Score:5, Insightful)
That is why I figure the USA will default in 5 years, 10 tops. The only thing really keeping us afloat is the Fed printing money as fast as the presses will run and using it to buy our debt, basically making the money worthless. Then figure in the retiring boomers, huge masses of working poor that are only kept afloat by social programs, and the cost of two endless wars? Yeah I give it a decade tops. Enjoy it while you can folks, because from the looks of it another worldwide great depression will soon be upon us. The only question is whether we will learn from our mistakes and put heavy regulations on the banks like we did during the last one, or if those that believe in the free market fairy will win out. Without control free markets quickly end up corrupted when too much ends up in the hands of too few, just as we have now.
So what part of that list of woes is due to "free markets"? The Fed printing money? Retiring baby boomers? Social programs? Two "endless" wars (one which is in the process of ending, I might add)? None of those items are due to free markets. Four words describe globally the bank/real estate problem: "private profit, public risk". It's not a free market when you can pass on risk of your investments to the public.
Having said that, I don't know if you're accurate in your prediction of default. The US is a big train and there's still a window for improvement of US government finances both in the next two years and in the presidential term after that. Still, if we get another G.W. Bush or Obama, I'd have to consider default in the next ten years a real possibility.
Re:Defaulting is worse! (Score:4, Insightful)
Four words describe globally the bank/real estate problem: "private profit, public risk". It's not a free market when you can pass on risk of your investments to the public.
Sounds like the only possible "free market" is in a classless Marxist utopia, then. Since in any society dependent on investments from rich capitalists, the latter will manage to make deals like in Ireland: No, either you pay, or I take my investment somewhere else. Which is, of course, the kind of market people usually refer to when talking about free markets.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
These are two distinct problems.
The one you refer to is international corporations moving to places with low taxes (hello Google). Lets call this #1.
The other one (#2 and IMHO worse) is politicians being scared into propping up banks that have mis-speculated. Which is the main probem of the Irish:
The government has foolishly guaranteed for the banks' debts.
Only now, when the massive impact from #2 becomes obvious, Ireland briefly considered changing #1.
Re:Defaulting is worse! (Score:5, Interesting)
People always seem to drag this one out, but fail to understand what Mussolini meant by corporatism. Fascism is at its core a merging of Nationalism and Syndicalism. The corporation is a syndicate, which is a vertical trade union in which binds management and labor together. Its more like a guild.
Each "corporation"/syndicate/guild elects deputies to the Chamber of Deputies, who are there to represent the interests of the industry as well as to speak on its behalf as experts in the field. Thus members of the transportation syndicate, who would include workers from railroads, airlines and the shipping industry, would be responsible for crafting the legislation that the executive committee, and ultimately the dictator, would be responsible for signing off on. This avoids the problem of having lawyers with no concept of how things work writing laws with regards to agriculture, communications, etc.
Under Fascism there would have been no Ted "series of tubes" Stevens. The election for telecommunications representatives to the chamber of deputies would have been democratic through all levels of membership, from cable monkey to executive. The best people would be chosen to represent the interests of the guild and people with no clue get no say.
Honestly, having read extensively treatments on various political ideologies in the left, right and center, by those who adhere to them as well as by those who critique them, the picture I got of fascism honestly doesn't sound half bad compared to some of the other harebrained bullshit people have come up with in the past.
Re:Defaulting is worse! (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, first remember that National Socialism isn't Fascism. It's just similar. Italian Fascism was an attempt to regain the prestige of the Roman Empire combined with an odd form of Syndicalism which was influenced by the fact that Mussolini grew up in a Communist household, his father being an active party member. Mussolini's paper, Il Popolo, began as a Socialist paper that went more Syndicalist and finally, after WWI, became the nucleus for Fascist ideology.
The Nazis are almost irrelevant to a discussion of Fascism in Italy. Mussolini was in charge of Parliament by 1922, while Hitler was in prison after the attempted rising in Munich. In Rome at least, possibly other cities in Italy as well and I just didn't notice, manhole covers and other public infrastructure items bare the SPQR (Senatus Populusque Romani) marking, which was re-introduced by Mussolini, iirc, as part of his bid to draw a link between himself and his movement and old Rome. Even the fasces themselves were the Roman symbol of authority, identifying the consuls at the time, being carried before them in procession by their retinue of lictors.
Fascism isn't just a synonym for "really bad right-wing thing" which many, in some sort of post-Trotskiest mindset, want to believe. Hitler wasn't a fascist, neither was Francisco Franco. just saying.
Re:Defaulting is worse! (Score:5, Insightful)
moving the capital around has everything with free markets, but exclusive deals, special treatments and subsidies for the chosen do not. Bailouts are such cases. Some failing bank or a car manufacturer gets bailed out, but your favorite bakery at the corner does not. Free market is a fair judge, treats all the same and the winners and losers are decided only by their merits, not by who they know.
Re:Defaulting is worse! (Score:5, Insightful)
moving the capital around has everything with free markets, but exclusive deals, special treatments and subsidies for the chosen do not. Bailouts are such cases. Some failing bank or a car manufacturer gets bailed out, but your favorite bakery at the corner does not. Free market is a fair judge, treats all the same and the winners and losers are decided only by their merits, not by who they know.
The back and forth in this thread really just shows that a "free market" is an illusory concept. It is useful to a limited degree, but you have to keep in mind that it is not possible in real life.
Once you throw government into the mix, you necessarily limit the freedom of the market. But, without a government, you don't have the structure to set up anything resembling a "free market".
The other point that seems to have been missed is that, although you are right in saying that the Irish situation is not due to a real "free market", the term "free market" is what is thrown about to keep the proles in line.
Re:Defaulting is worse! (Score:5, Insightful)
The back and forth in this thread really just shows that a "free market" is an illusory concept. It is useful to a limited degree, but you have to keep in mind that it is not possible in real life.
It's not a very useful concept when used to argue we should remove trade barriers, which it is used all the time to do so.
That, right there, is the real problem. It's not that corporations can make special deals with governments, there is functionally no way for any country to stop other countries from doing that. There is no way to solve that problem, ergo, that can't really be the problem. If houses you build keep falling down, the problem to investigate is not gravity.
The solvable problem is that they then can continue to operate and sell in the US while not paying any taxes here.
We need to get rid of the idea of 'corporate' taxes where profit can mysteriously move from place to place and they pay taxes somewhere we've never heard of. (And they're way to easy to avoid altogether.)
We should tax them when they pay workers, in the location those workers are. We should tax them when they sell goods, in the location those goods are sold. (Or, easier, when those goods are imported.) We should tax their capital and real estate, in the location that capital and real estate is. We should tax their corporate dividends, in the location that stockholders live.
Fuck asking where the company, an entity that is an artificial creation, 'lives'. Tax the things that physically exist where they actually are and tax the money going in and out where it's actually going in and out.
Re:Defaulting is worse! (Score:4, Interesting)
The back and forth in this thread really just shows that a "free market" is an illusory concept. It is useful to a limited degree, but you have to keep in mind that it is not possible in real life.
I see the usual disagreement, but I don't see the "back and forth". The free market is an asymptotic idea. Here's how I see it. I consider a market "free", if it is close enough that the market and its participants behave as if the market were free. For example, if one trader gets a very slight tax break (say 0.1% less taxes paid than its competitors), then a market is still free (that is, there's no significant change in the market from this advantage). But suppose a trader pays 50% less of a very substantial tax load. Then that's a significant advantage which can lead to things like persistent monopolies or great wealth concentrations. The market is no longer free due to this substantial distortion.
Once you throw government into the mix, you necessarily limit the freedom of the market. But, without a government, you don't have the structure to set up anything resembling a "free market".
The presence of a government does not in itself limit the freedom of a market, especially if the market wouldn't exist without the government.
The other point that seems to have been missed is that, although you are right in saying that the Irish situation is not due to a real "free market", the term "free market" is what is thrown about to keep the proles in line.
As I said before, I don't care about such rationalizations past the consumption of my time in listening to them.
Re:Defaulting is worse! (Score:5, Insightful)
I swear, 99% of arguments against free markets are really arguments against fascism (a form of socialism, where profit is appropriated by corporations rather than ruling party members), which is the OPPOSITE of a free market. It's like saying how terrible a color white is because it is so dark and nasty, and it absorbs all the light. When anyone points out that they are describing the color "black" then they say, oh, well, there is no such thing as white anyways, so we should start off with a baseline grey, which apparently won't change color and turn black like white does, except that in reality, it is closer to black, so it will get that way much faster.
If you want white, pick white, and keep it as clean as you can. Just because you can never get it perfectly clean doesn't mean that the concept or idea of the color is any less valid. It is the same way with the free market. Sure, it is never going to be absolutely free, but it is far better than ANY other system, which is by definition NOT free. Understand that free markets are not just about removing regulations, they are about removing SUBSIDIES as well. Those evil banks that everyone loves to hate so much are totally dependent on subsidies at this point. A free market will wash them all down the toilet, with the fittest honest bank now able to step up and place the highest bid on thier capital, and expand. If they become corrupted, then they will fall, and others will step up to take their place. This is the way it was in the US right up through 1913, and that principle took us from desolate backwater devoid of rich resources other than lumber and fish to industrial superpower. Any nation which followed any other path wound up like any of the South American or African nations.
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Fascism has _always_ been a flavor of socialism.
There are three indisputable examples of fascism in history (Italy, Spain and Germany).
In every case it was the government taking over the corporations, not the other way around.
Your teachers lied to you.
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Re:Defaulting is worse! (Score:4, Insightful)
1) Payroll taxes
Um, no. Unemployment insurance is about it, and that's capped at $434 a year, so isn't that impressive a tax. A tax of $1.19 a day is probably less than what the employee wastes in going to the bathroom.
2) Sales and use taxes
The Federal government does not collect sales tax or use tax.
3) Import/export duties/tariffs
We have almost no import and tariffs, and none at all on companies that are 'outside the US', but somehow manufacture all their stuff here, like Microsoft.
4) Income tax
Foreign businesses that employ Americans do pay income tax, correct.
Your score: 1/4.
Better luck next time.
Any tax dinged against a business MUST be passed along to the consumer,
No it doesn't. The price that customers are charged has NO BEARING on the taxes assessed against it.
You have no clue how supply and demand works, do you? Businesses charge the amount they can. If they can charge more and make the same profit, they will, if they have to charge less to make a profit (by selling more), they will.
In your universe, apparently, businesses sit there going 'Well, we're making 10% profit, and even though we could raise prices 5% more and make 15% profit, we're not going to....Oh no, they just raised taxes 5%, we better raise prices 5% to get back to our 10% profit.'
Do you have even the simplest grasp of how businesses operate? Businesses do not pick a 'profit level' and operate there, moving up and down in response to costs.
That is just insane. It's not even a simplified version of economic theory. It's an economic theory designed by a second grader.
Income tax on dividends hurts mainly small investors relying on it for their retirement, who hold (per the last figures I saw) over 90% of stocks.
If you want to assert that that's a bad idea, I will not object.
Re:Defaulting is worse! (Score:5, Interesting)
another G. W. Bush or Obama
I'd say the chances of this are pretty likely. Barring a major upset, Obama will get the Dem nomination and the GOP will likely pick someone that makes GWB look like Einstien. I wouldn't be suprised to see "we must stand by our North Korean allies" Palin get the nod from the GOP.
Re:Defaulting is worse! (Score:4, Interesting)
another G. W. Bush or Obama
I'd say the chances of this are pretty likely. Barring a major upset, Obama will get the Dem nomination and the GOP will likely pick someone that makes GWB look like Einstien. I wouldn't be suprised to see "we must stand by our North Korean allies" Palin get the nod from the GOP.
Modded troll by some wingnut, but you're definitely right. Who thinks Obama is not going to get the Dem nomination? And, looking at the current crop of GOP candidates, we are likely going to wind up with someone like Palin. Gingrich thinks he is a serious candidate, but he would now be considered too "rational" and "nuanced" for the GOP. The current two-party plan is to keep the nation divided into two camps and have each side scared shitless of the incompetent fucker on the other side so that they feel like they have to vote for the least of two evils "just this one more time".
In short, we are doomed.
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
Definitely sounds like the 2012 elections. ;_;
Re:Defaulting is worse! (Score:5, Interesting)
Except our mess very much isn't just the GWBs/Obamas of the US. We're in what, 13T(rillion) of debt right now?
The problem is that the baby boomer generation promised itself SO MUCH, we're going to go bankrupt from entitlements. Social Security is a small part of it. The real meat is Medicare. And that's not all LBJ. For instance, after Bush barred seniors from going to Canada/Mexico to appease the drug industry, he and Ted Kennedy (I think) pushed Medicare Part D to appease the huge senior lobby. This was called the single most financially irresponsible piece of legislation in history and will cost $10 Trillion dollars looking forward. The debacle shows how much the dear leaders here are really for free market, how dare people shop for cheaper drugs! /s
Looking forward, at current tax rates, we'll have a total of $50 Trillion dollar gap between revenue coming in and revenue going out. By 2030, the Federal Government will have little more revenue than to pay entitlements and interest on debt, nothing for it's official functions.
And is this surprising in a country where most government workers (including Army, USPS, many suburban Teachers depending on their local contracts, etc) work 20-25 years and can then retire on half pay and full health insurance the rest of their lives. How many private sector jobs let you start at 18 and quit with by 43? Yeah.
Most of my numbers came from David Walker, former US Comptroller General from 1998 to 2008, America's head accountant, appointed by both parties to various positions. Many of them came before the 2008 disaster although he was warning of a bubble iirc. It's probably worse now.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7461407498377956300# [google.com]
Anyway, I don't blame politicians except for bending to their constituencies. I blame following our democratic tendencies instead of our republican (small r) one starting with the 17th amendment. The People wanted entitlements, they got them.
Re:Defaulting is worse! (Score:5, Insightful)
Borrowing from social security to pay for non-social-security-related expenses is like borrowing from your kid's college fund to pay for a new deck. Yes, you've increased your wealth in terms of material assets, but it's not like you can liquidate the deck to pay back the college fund later. So, the government has to borrow to pay back the cookie jar. The debt isn't reduced, it just gets muddled.
As to your response re: teachers, you seem to harp on one part of a list to try and make the person you're replying to sound dumb. Soldiers, civil servants at various levels, etc, can start at 18 and retire after 20 years. And not all of those soldiers get shot at. Desk clerks, supply sergeants, etc, can all retire after never having seen action. Of course, there is a chance they could be made to if the situation were dire enough.
Federal dollars do go to the states to pay for education, so teacher salaries are going to be a part of that. However, it's likely not statistically significant, but to say that its not at least a little bit related is just being sloppy at best.
Frankly, this country has been on an unsustainable path since Andrew Jackson was President. We've finally reached the breaking point because we can't expand anymore. We've propped up all the countries we could expand into in order to get cheap labor and a new market without having to spend on infrastructure or let them vote, but they're realizing that they don't really need us anymore. We've spent too much, borrowed too much and let it get out of control.
It's gotten to the point where no one on the left or the right really has the will to do anything about it, or a plan that's worth a damn if they do. Combined with lowered standards in education (my mother is a public high school teacher and has been for the last 15 years or so. New requirements that all students graduate in 4 years have created a situation where now teacher's aren't allowed to give any grade lower than a 40 and grades have been readjusted to a 10-point scale, making it practically impossible to fail no matter what. She's so angry about it she's about ready to just give up and go find a new job that doesn't suck (AB from an ivy league school and a MA in her subject, she's not going to be hurting to find work)), this is pretty much the death knell of America.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So what part of that list of woes is due to "free markets"?
"huge masses of working poor" would be the main one you missed.
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The fiscally responsible thing to do is to make the banking industry pay back in full what the government has had to pay out plus some. And not just the TARP money, all of the money that they lost on behalf of other people. Will it happen, in a word no, the Republican party is just way too opposed to any sort
Re:Defaulting is worse! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Defaulting is worse! (Score:5, Insightful)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3e/Zimbabwe_%24100_trillion_2009_Obverse.jpg [wikimedia.org]
Re:Defaulting is worse! (Score:5, Informative)
That is why I figure the USA will default in 5 years, 10 tops.
This keeps getting repeated and it keeps being wrong. The US CAN'T default on it's debt. Our debt is denominated in US dollars, which means the US government can always make payments, either through raising taxes or inflating the currency.
The only thing really keeping us afloat is the Fed printing money as fast as the presses will run and using it to buy our debt, basically making the money worthless.
So then, there must be rampant inflation then correct? According to economic indicators our currency has been strengthening recently, and inflation has been low to non-existent. In fact it has been too low which has worried some that we would enter a deflationary period.
Then figure in the retiring boomers...
Yeah, who will be taking their SS money and dumping it back into the economy. Sure it will stress the SS program but that money isn't evaporating into thin air. It will be re-entering the system.
huge masses of working poor that are only kept afloat by social programs
Mainly because we don't have a real education system in place for people to gain new skill sets. There's a reason why we rank far below other developed nations in education.
and the cost of two endless wars?
No argument there. The money that was spent on those two conflicts alone could have done much more good here in the US.
Yeah I give it a decade tops. Enjoy it while you can folks, because from the looks of it another worldwide great depression will soon be upon us.
You're a little late to the party on that one. So far it has mainly been a recession. The US is in a recovery, albeit a slow one.
The only question is whether we will learn from our mistakes and put heavy regulations on the banks like we did during the last one, or if those that believe in the free market fairy will win out. Without control free markets quickly end up corrupted when too much ends up in the hands of too few, just as we have now.
People like to think a free market is like nature, where survival of the fittest would yield the best companies. However this is naive. Companies will influence the market much like humans influencing their environment. Humans alter their environment, wipe out all competitors for resources, and any possible predators. Companies in a pure free market would act in the same regard. Eventually you would end up with one or a handful of companies that would completely dominate the market.
You will always need to control greed.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
as Peter Schiff describes that currency war, it's the only war that is all about shooting at your own troops. After all every single holder of nation's currency is robbed off his purchasing power and becomes poorer.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Lowest inflation in 50 years
"Lowest", except for inflation in the cost to eat (food), stay warm and move around (fuel).
Those luxuries are now ignored when computing the official inflation rate because (drum roll please) they were inflating too fast.
No "inflation" figure that excludes the costs of eating and staying warm can be taken seriously.
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You are correct but that post is a bit misleading.
My understanding is that the Treasury orders the production of coins and bills, but they are not money at that time (i.e. the treasury is not permitted to just use the new coins and bills). Instead the Federal Reserve purchases the bills at production cost from the treasury, and then it is money.
My understanding is that it is also responsible for introducing and removing coins, although these it purchases at face value from the treasury. Never the less, doin
Re:Defaulting is worse! (Score:4, Interesting)
Going default will be a short-lived remedy. The country will go back to 1990 in terms of market appeal and productivity. And yes, if the big tech companies leave, the hope of reacquiring a high-tech knowledge industry will go away as well.
Paul Krugman's latest column [nytimes.com] addresses this. The main point is that Iceland let the banks default, while Ireland took the banks debts as public debts and guaranteed it. In the end, Iceland has recovered while Ireland's people have to bear the burden due to austerity measures.
Iceland didn't let it's banks default as part of an act of clever crisis management even if that's what the members of the firmly right wing Icelandic independence party will confidently tell you. What happened was that a series of governments (dominated by the independence party) and stuffed full of free market fundamentalists sat around from the mid-nineties to 2008, deregulating everything, letting the banks grow at a fantastic pace and crippling the various organizations that were supposed to regulate the financial industry. For years they just held their ears shut singing: "lalalalalala... I can't hear you!" whenever somebody criticized the state of the icelandinc banks and the fact that they had become 12 times the size of the national GDP meaning that the state was therefore unable to back them up in a crisis. By the time the crisis finally hit the Icelandic government was completely bowled over. The Independence party had by now formed a coalition with the Social Democrats who proved just as useless as their right wing coalition partner and did little other than watch while the Independence party (who also dominated the central bank) fumbled about and caused things to fall apart. There were no emergency plans in place, nobody had anticipated this. After all, the infallible all-knowing free market should not act like this should it? They finally decided, at the climax of an epic panic attack, to nationalize the most endebted bank, Glitnir [glitnir.is], which caused the whole icelandic banking sector to collapse like a row of dominos. Krugman (probably unintentionally) gives you the impression that the Icelandic Government that presided over the 2008 collapse allowed the banks to default by clever design when in reality they simply "pulled a Homer" a phrase which wikipedia defines as: "to succeed despite idiocy". Like Mr. Krugman I pity the Irish for their successful efforts to postpone the pain by a couple of years because it made the problem exponentially worse.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Not at all. When you "bail out" a car company, a lot of people's jobs are saved and a lot of products get manufactured. When you bail out a bank, nothing gets produced and a lot of money goes into the pockets of a small number of people.
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I would strongly disagree.
Like it or not, but when bank goes bankrupt, lot of shit hits the pan. I know "modern human" should despise banks, and I don't like them, but saying that services what bank provides - mostly short term credits and credits for production - are not worth saving is living in "la la" land. Yes, some banks goes bankrupt and nothing wrong with that, but if all sector slips underwater - it is a problem.
Are banks stupid and arrogant? Yes. Did their speculations wasted world economy? Yes. C
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You say the government created the Great Depression as some kind of argument that "paying people to dig ditches" didn't get us out of it. The government did create the Great Depression by letting people borrow unlimited amounts to spend on credit-inflated stock and the rest of an inflated economy (including hugely inflated liquor during the concurrent Prohibition). But that is totally irrelevant to the fact that "the" government got us out of the Great Depression. You tacitly concede that the government got
Re:Defaulting is worse! (Score:5, Interesting)
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During the Clinton years, the U.S. was actually repaying its debts.
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That was during a perfect storm of an exploding US technology-driven expansion: we didn't start any wars so could downsize the military, we had a new conservative congress that was eager to show it was thrifty (for a few years at least), and a president who was shrewd enough (or too embedded in scandal to go against it) to roll with the semi-mandate that that new congress had.
With the retiring baby boomers, increasing global competition, and a generally stupid voting population; we're probably not going to
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During the Clinton years, the U.S. was actually repaying its debts.
- biggest lie.
Clinton didn't 'repay' any debts, he REFINANCED them.
There is a difference.
Not so fast... (Score:3, Insightful)
Going default will be a short-lived remedy. The country will go back to 1990 in terms of market appeal and productivity. And yes, if the big tech companies leave, the hope of reacquiring a high-tech knowledge industry will go away as well.
The main problem is the fact that big companies now are so powerful that they can hold entire tax systems hostage... they can play countries out against each other.
But instead of having a single EU corporate tax system (which imho would make sense), we have all kinds of other silly EU rules... and corporate taxes keep dropping in a futile attempt to lure more big business.
Governments should realize that big companies won't leave overnight. It'll take a little while to move people and offices.
At the same tim
Re:Defaulting is worse! (Score:4, Informative)
"You really think the European HQ of companies are getting moved to shangai... ?"
No, they'll move to Luxembourg, like Ebay, Paypal, Amazon, iTunes already did.
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How many of those tech companies do it about the "high tech knowledge" in Ireland in the first place ?
One of the random bits of work that I did a couple of years ago was a study for the Welsh Development Agency examining the Irish and Scottish strategies for promoting their technology industries and seeing which bits were relevant to Wales. This involved digging a bit under the bullshit that the Irish government spouts about how great it is to have companies like Dell, Apple, and Google there. It turns out that, for the most part, they weren't attracting high-tech jobs. They were attracting minimum wage
This is why (Score:2, Insightful)
the mobility of capital is a good thing.
Re:This is why (Score:5, Insightful)
According to whom?
Surely it's not the workers, because when Big'n'Big Co pulls up their tent pegs and moves shop, all the workers are suddenly unemployed.
It's probably not the consumer, because when Big'n'Big Co finds a way to half their cost of production, it's not guaranteed to drive prices down. Why bother cutting prices and taking a bigger market share when you can just shovel up a pile of cash big enough to buy your competitors (or a controlling interest in their stock)? Hell, why not just collude with your competitors to keep prices artificially inflated - then everyone's happy!
Surely then, it is the desperate - those poor starving people in $Third_World_Nation who desperately need employment of any sort. Except that, after their standard of living starts to rise, Big'n'Big Co just moves on to the next shithole and leaves the desperate unemployed too.
Well fuck, if it's not the middle class or the lower class, who the hell is left? :P
Oh, right, the bourgeois. Well, as long as they're doing all right, everything is just peachy! Hurray for Capitalism!
Re:This is why (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, that's already outlawed. So your argument is that we need more cops then ? I don't understand.
You're purposefully misunderstanding. Anyone living in 2010 knows very well that regulation has been essentially shredded in favor of exactly the kind of practices that grandparent described. Where it's still outlawed, the regulator monitoring is usually crippled by legislation purchased by Big'n'Big Co.
Cases to point: microsoft, banking system.
Well fuck, if it's not the middle class or the lower class, who the hell is left? :P
Oh, right, the bourgeois. Well, as long as they're doing all right, everything is just peachy! Hurray for Capitalism!
And since this mobility first started, we moved from 1950's to 2010. Are you seriously claiming either the lower class or the middle class is worse off ?
This is just blatant trolling. The reason why standard of living has moved up is because science has progressed to the point where we can produce things needed to raise standard of living far more efficiently. If Big'n'Big collusion and significant income variance had been shrunk to reasonable size, average standard of living would be MUCH HIGHER.
So yes, in comparison of 2010 without flaws, and 2010 with flaws is indeed obvious. If you want to argue that 1950 vs 2010, we can just as well start praising benevolent North Korean leaders, who made sure that their standard of living of their people is better then in 1800.
Which is the whole bloody point, and to miss it, you have to make a real effort.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm arguing that extremes of any of the above are harmful, and when these extremes and their lackeys attempt to justify themselves through obvious strawman arguments, they're still wrong.
Tell that to the Irish who will have to emigrate (Score:5, Insightful)
Tell that to the people who will have to emigrate from Ireland in search of work. A bit of a sore point I believe because of history.
100 years ago, they travelled to the USA. Now they'd probably not be allowed entry because the USA frowns upon economic migrants.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Dude, There aren't any jobs here either. Most of us will have to live in the nest our rich shit into.
It depends. (Score:3, Interesting)
The capital deployed into a productive venture is a good thing. Speculative hot money pushed around various parts of the world does not accomplish anything except causing mayhem everywhere and enriching hot money pushers. And this is THE problem we suffer today. Too much hot money bumping around and too little capital willing to go into productive businesses (maybe except China).
Back to Ireland. They are now forced to do draconian austerity measures on everyone except the banksters and to accept "bailout
Denial... (Score:2, Insightful)
'We should default,' said a retired union worker, 'the idea that the workers of this country should pay for the gambling of the billionaires is disgusting.
Yes, the "billionaires" lead the whole pack, and all that. However - not many of the proles stop to look around and wonder what brings the semi-dream around them while it lasts - but they do enjoy it. And cherish promises.
That doesn't go only for the Irish of course.
People would protest against raising corp. tax (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, left-wing parties are likely to do well in our next election, but no-one sensible here, left or right, wants to raise the corporation tax rate. These companies provide our jobs.
If a raise would be announced, ordinary people here would really start to protest.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:People would protest against raising corp. tax (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually education is being given more preferential treatment in cuts being minimised compared to even healthcare.
It's likely to be relatively unaffected by the cuts in government spending. Admittedly that means kids still going to school in rotting >century old buildings and temporary pre-fabs, but the level of people's education is not likely to drop. Quite the reverse given the fear of joblessness.
Re:People would protest against raising corp. tax (Score:5, Insightful)
These companies provide our jobs.
If all the jobs in your country, or even a significant majority of them, are provided by international megacorporations and conglomerates that can and will move them elsewhere if it benefits them, and use them as blackmail material to get the laws they want, then you've got bigger problems than whether to lower taxes or not.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They could go back to subsistence farming, even abandon the euro and go to a bartering system, but that is not the model they have decided to go with. Ireland decided to attract top-level business from all over the world via a highly educated workforce and a business-friendly environment.
Yes this means working to remain competitive, but I don't think throwing a successful business model out in a tantrum is going to help them long term. The Irish banking crisis was not caused by low corporation tax, it was b
Re:People would protest against raising corp. tax (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Look, left-wing parties are likely to do well in our next election, but no-one sensible here, left or right, wants to raise the corporation tax rate. These companies provide our jobs.
If a raise would be announced, ordinary people here would really start to protest.
Ireland is not the US, where lower-middle class working people will protest on the streets saying that Mario Antoinette should have more cake.
It's not the country's debts. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the private bank's debts.
For some unknown reason the Irish government decided to guarantee all debts by banks in Ireland including banks that are owned and run by people who are not Irish or based in Ireland. These debts were not sovereign debts until the Irish government decided to unilaterally back them without any good cause. They did this back in 2008 [wsws.org] and it's only now that they massive amount that they've basically handed over to private investors is becoming apparent.
It's pretty nuts that private investors had hoped to make money by investing in Irish banks - but now that they're actually facing losses the people of Ireland are going to step up and cover all these debts. So for the private investors it's a case of head I win, tails you lose - where there is no risk of the private investors losing any money - and no chance for the public to get a share of the profits that banks were making in the good times.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"Unknown reason"? It's called FMI and EU pressure.
Why it won't affect the companies.. (Score:2)
Tech jobs are the only jobs that are still available in Ireland. We went from 4% unemployment to 12% in 2 years. [rant]There's a levy on the wages already, they argued that we had one of hte highest minimum wages in Europe.. but we also have one of the highest costs of living.. they're raising t
Re:Why it won't affect the companies.. (Score:5, Informative)
The rich aren't paying 40% tax! The top tax rate is 41% but this is only paid on income over €36K (single) or €45K (married) or €73K (married both working).
But when you factor in people's tax credits and various tax reliefs, the statistical data for workers in Ireland shows that income tax peaks at about 20% of income. Those with a *lot* of income who would in theory be affected more significantly by the 41% tax rate actually pay tax advisors and use various schemes so that at the top end, the income tax proportion drops below 20% again!
Most workers pay almost no income tax - as you pay none at all up to something like €17K (when you factor in tax credits). Median income is about 20K, and ordinary workers would pay a max of about 10% effective tax rate. On an above-average income, I pay about 12% total in tax.
10% is the tax rate some countries charge the low paid! (as opposed to 0% here!)
We do have many other taxes, but that's to make up for low income tax.
Of course all this is only valid until the budget on 7th December.
Re:Why it won't affect the companies.. (Score:5, Insightful)
No one ever 'generates' a lot of money, certainly the government mints print it but for every one else making s lot of money is all about being greedy. Paying very little for something and then putting a huge markup on it and selling (importing cheap junk), employing people where you have to capital to buy equipment and they do no and basically selling they're labour for much more than you pay for it, inheriting large sums of money and buying up all the income produce property you can, gambling with other peoples money at financial institutions, oh wait, they is always prostitution they certainly do generate money with their assets but they are the only ones (Psychopath pimps still take the lions share, hmm, much like the rest of the economy).
Human society is a function of all humanity, those that profit most by it should pay the most for the benefit they gain, of course being greedy, they just want more. You neither read, write nor even speak without the support of the rest of humanity. It is time to put a stop upon preying upon the rest of human society and start working together for mutual benefit.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Marxist much?
Without capital there are no jobs, people with capital are the ones that do in fact provide jobs by using the capital to organize tools/land/labor into a system that adds value to the society in total.
Saying something to the tune of "importing cheap junk" is completely blind to the fact of how difficult it actually is to set up a working business, to meet the payroll every month, to keep the business afloat by somehow ensuring that business stays cash flow positive.
If you are not a gov't create
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You make compelling, but misguided statements regarding the view of the "business man". Certainly there is value in what you say about the inventor and scientist. I even agree that a businessman is important for the building of order from chaos in the beginning steps of a market. You I miss in your statement is that the society does not hate the business man for making money, he/she angers the populous when greed is applied to the model.
Most people would like to be rich, to have wealth. Many work such t
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And I am not talking about the gov't created financial monopolies, that are subsidized and stimulated and maintained and bailed out by the gov't, the monopolies protected by the gov't, gov't who kills the competition by everything in their arsenal, including the regulations such as the 'Patriot Act' (many don't understand what this means, but that regulation is killing a lot of competition to the financials, it forces the hedge funds/banks/insurance companies to be CIA/IRS spies, it costs a lot of money to
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
To be honest, during the golden 60ies in the U.S. the top tax rate was 91%, and the country was wealthy and strong.
To be able to earn such a big income means that there are lots of external factors you can make use of, as in a stable society, a well maintained infrastructure, a strong military and low crime. And the more money you make, the more you use this infrastructure. People at the top easily forgot how much the country is supporting them, they live under the surreal impression that somehow they pay f
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Is there any actual evidence that the world needs these executives, or that they need to be paid what they are? The ratio between the pay of CEOs and their workers has sky-rocketed in recent decades, but in that same period the economy has stagnated and most people are worse off. They get paid what they do because they've convinced people that they're worth it, not for what they actually do.
There were operating systems before Bill Gates, his accumulated wealth is merely at the expense of everyone else. A fa
Re:Why it won't affect the companies.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of that money comes from countries where income tax is well above 50% (or even 72% in Denmark).
Yes even the Danes that don't use the Euro have pledged a substantial guarantee.
In the mean time two of the countries with the highest taxes, Denmark and The Netherlands, have the lowest unemployment of the Union, around or even below 5%.
The implied claim high taxes destroy the economy is yet to be proven.
Re:Why it won't affect the companies.. (Score:5, Informative)
We've about 900.000 people on Medical Disability in NL, that's roughly 6% of the population and 12% of our labour force. You can stop wondering why our unemployment is so low, because it isn't. Start wondering instead why our taxes are so high....
Re:Why it won't affect the companies.. (Score:5, Interesting)
The implied claim high taxes destroy the economy is yet to be proven.
That, my friends, is the one truth that the millionaires and billionaires want to keep out of the public debate at any and all cost. Roosevelt called these people "economic royalists" and he was right. Every country that has high marginal taxes on large profits and large incomes and sticks to it has a strong and stable economy. When you embrace the insanity that Reagan and Thatcher brought to the world, you get bubbles followed by crashes. It happens every single time it's been tried, but it's wildly profitable for the uber-rich and the hell with everyone else, right? Then they go around and spend some of that money convincing all you free market libertarian or conservative types to vote against your own economic interests. Religion, marginalizing certain groups or points of view, extreme nationalism all get trotted out to make the uneducated or the delusional vote for policies that directly hurt them. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes even the Danes that don't use the Euro have pledged a substantial guarantee.
We may not use the euro, but our currency is still closely tied to it, being a small country with a lot of euro-neighboors and all.
In the mean time two of the countries with the highest taxes, Denmark and The Netherlands, have the lowest unemployment of the Union, around or even below 5%.
In Denmark we have quite a notorious unemployment-regime in place. Basically you're eligible for social security the moment you loose your job here, however, you need to send about 4 job-applications a week to stay eligible for social security, and willingly accept any and all jobs that comes your way (shrimp-picker, anyone?), otherwise you loose the right to social security. It
Luck of the International Bankers continues (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Luck of the International Bankers continues (Score:4, Insightful)
Should be the more appropriate headline here.
Yeah, in the USA we bailed out the banks. Could have bailed out the homeowners and thereby saved both them *and* the banks, But no, we only look after the big boys here.
50,000, not 100,000 (Score:2, Informative)
The Irish Times [irishtimes.com] and The Irish Independent [independent.ie] both claim 50,000.
Non-story (Score:4, Interesting)
Corporations are Assholes. (Score:5, Insightful)
As usual, many people are quick to defend these pricks, saying that if it weren't for them, everyone would be out of a job. Yes, the economy is in their power. Calling that a mutually beneficial relationship sounds like Stockholm syndrome.
If your very survival depends on receiving a living wage from a corporation that can simply choose to go away if it is asked to pay for the infrastructure it also uses, then you are not living a "dream" generously provided by altruistic corporations, but in slavery to organizations who can let you starve if they wanted to. Not only workers, even governments are forced to debase themselves before these corporations, lowering their living standard, their wage expectations, cutting their social system and their taxes bit by bit to compete with other countries that are forced to do the same.
Ireland, and the entire European Union at that, should make a stand against this and play hardball. The fact is that while corporations can move their production elsewhere, they do have to sell something eventually. A high-tech market requires a high-tech industry to flourish: If corporations leave the country, the economy goes to shit and nobody can afford the flashy gizmos these corporations are selling. Standardize the tax hike over all EU states, accompany it with an import tariff on technology not produced inside the country, and suddenly paying a little more corporate tax will seem like a much better alternative. The workers are not only their slaves, but also their customers.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You assume that the irish government is opposed to the tech companies. I doubt that. For some reason, this feels like on of the cases where a secret meeting ran roughly like this: "Hey, corporate guys. We here in the government would prefer to leverage the whole cost on the dumb sheeple, but we need a reason. The press is asking for corporate taxes to rise. Could you issue a press statement like the one we prepared here, so we can justify our actions? If you don't, we may actually have to raise corporate ta
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The OP used infrastructure in the literal, not social sense (as I read it). Way too often large corportations used roads, electrical gris, government serviecs (like police, fire, and public works) to establihs a business, but fail to pay any taxes into the local government. Sure, the people have a job and they pay taxes, but there is still a greater impact on the local or regional area and it is that impact being effected without dues pay. Microsoft pays not a whit of taxes in Seattle for the simpel fact
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"Here's my beef. A good portion, if not most, government spending is not directed to infrastructure"
Well at some point it was, because we drive on roads made and repaired by local municipalities and through local contractors. We use public water works brought to us by the acts of local and federal government. The roads are patrolled by law enforcement and even our legal system provides a basic security net for public defenders and prosecutors. Take these basic elements away, replace them with pure busines
If you really want to know, from The Economist (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.economist.com/node/17577107 [economist.com]
I watched a German documentary this morning about how the Euro was bad (German is not my mother tongue, but I am fluent and could understand everything). Some of the stuff in that was political dynamite: I don't think that politicians in Europe understand the powder keg that they are sitting on.
From the The Economist article,
The most concerned onlooker is Germany, which sees its credit lying behind the entire euro area. As ever, Europe’s biggest tabloid, Bild, captured the mood this week, asking “First the Greeks, then the Irish, thenwill we end up having to pay for everyone in Europe?
Oh, let's piss off the Germans . . .grand idea . . . in Europe, that always ends in tears.
Germany is not paying Europe's bills (Score:4, Insightful)
This is over-simplified. Germany might appear to be paying for Europe's bills, but how much of this "bailout" is going right back to German/US/etc. banks which would go bankrupt if the IMF / EU wasn't "bailing out" Ireland?
Follow the money, don't think just one move ahead. These bailouts are nothing more but the partial enslavement of Irish taxpayers in order to rescue foreign banks and governments.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't get the full picture.
Germany has been economically successful the past years, including living through the crisis fairly well, by a constant and pretty aggressive redistribution from the bottom to the top. Real wages (i.e. adjusted for inflation) have been falling for years, the number of people employed in part-time and low-wage jobs (there's no minimum wage in Germany, except for a few very small areas) has exploded. Millions of full-time workers don't earn enough to feed a family.
Now add the "p
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah but you're ignoring the fact that most of their problems right now are from backstopping the Irish banks. Banks that owe a lot of money to foreign banks, with hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign exposure to Ireland.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Short sighted of course. Germany's economy is very export driven. Bring the rest of Europe down and you will have no-one to trade with thereby destroying yourself.
Re:Default? Really? (Score:5, Informative)
Who would ever lend Ireland money ever again?
Good, then maybe it will force their politicians to actually make do a balanced budget rather than keep running a deficit, spending money they do not have, effectively using the country's future income to secure their own positions in elections.
Well, one can hope.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Government debt is also a useful tool (such as borrowing to buy infrastructure) but like any tool there are ways to abuse it. I wouldn't be so quick to throw it away.
As for making a balanced budget, that is the responsibility of the citizens to vote for reasonable candidates.
Re:Default? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
in democracy with deficits allowed you are doomed to wreck your economy, because in order to win the elections you got to promise a shitload of 'freebies' (which are not free at all), otherwise someone else who promises a lot will win. Sanity and economic soundness are not valued by the average voter so it's the race to the bottom.
as Tocqueville said
The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.
Re:Default? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Debt is not intrinsically bad. Anyone who believes this should spend some time playing Transport Tycoon - the best strategy in that game is to borrow right up to your limit, because a well run company will make much more profit from the capital investment than the cost of the interest. It's a very simplified economic model, but the point still stands. If a government borrows $n, has to repay $n+20%, and invests the money in infrastructure that generates $n+50% in tax revenues, this is a sensible and responsible thing for the government to do. This is why most companies have outstanding loans - they are making more money from the investment than they are losing from the interest payments, so repaying the loan would be a net loss.
The problem is not debt, but debt without a plan for repayment.
Re:Default? Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
Debt is intrinsically bad when it's gov't debt, because gov't is not supposed to be a business.
A business can invest money to generate some positive cash flow and then maybe even some revenue, gov't does not and shouldn't be expected to.
When gov't borrows to finance its programs, it means the same thing as taxes, only this is taxes + interest forwarded to the future generations of voters, which is theft, because those future generations didn't agree to any of it, and it would be best for those future generations to get their belongings and leave the country, rather than stay repaying the debts of their parents/grandparents.
Taxing consumption is the only true and honest way to fund a gov't, and gov't shouldn't be spending much on anything beyond basic protection against military invasion and a justice system *(and probably cops/prisons, to give teeth to the justice system.)
Gov't IS consumption, any citizens benefits from gov't only as much, as he benefits from any other consumption. Gov't is consumption, and thus its income (taxes) should be proportional to other consumption that people are willing to spend on.
When gov't taxes production, it cannot be controlled, the only feedback mechanism, by which a growing gov't system can be stopped (if it's taxing production) is basically loss of jobs and of productivity, which implies reduction in production and wealth and destruction of economy. In that case the gov't usually switches to acquiring debts, which shouldn't be allowed.
Gov't with a debt, is a gov't that cannot be afforded by its country current and especially future.
Consumption based taxes would provide gov't with enough money to finance the minimum required spending, while also creating a feed-back mechanism, necessary to control the size (budget) of gov't, because if people spend less on everything, they end up spending less on gov't, and this basically reduces gov't consumption just like all other consumption, and it is a good thing, needed to restructure a slowing economy.
Obviously all Keynesian shamans' brains explode at this very moment, but that's also a positive thing, we need their brains to explode, they have done enough damage.
The only way to get out of a recession is the way it was always done: stop spending, save money, rebuild savings, have a deflation by reduction of money supply, see prices for products and labor fall, use the saved capital to start new businesses, rehire people, start production.
The gov't wants to do it like so: print/borrow money, prop up spending on consumer goods produced in different economies, OK, so support economies of other countries while destroying the currency itself, and robbing everybody who holds it of purchasing power, do not allow the savings to be rebuild by low interest rates. Somehow hope that this will inflate another bubble that economy will somehow use to float on, but this new bubble obviously needs to be bigger than the previous one, that caused the last recession.
Every new bubble is bigger and will cause a bigger explosion, until the very bubble that will end up taking out the currency itself, as well as bankrupting the country and sending interest rates into the skies. Good luck with restructuring then, the pain will be enormous.
Oh, the next bubble to blow - US bonds. Then it's probably hyper-inflationary depression, because the gov't still relies on Keynesians like Krugman.
Re:Default? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Debt is intrinsically bad when it's gov't debt, because gov't is not supposed to be a business.
That sounds like you've bought into that position as an a priori assumption. While I'd agree that governments aren't businesses, to say that all government borrowing is therefore bad is foolishness. The purpose of good borrowing is so that investment can be made so as to increase income in the future that will repay the debt and ensure more money to do other things with. When applied to a government, the purpose has got to primarily be to invest in steps that will lead to increased total tax take in the future, generally through increasing overall economic activity in some way.
This is all independent of how wisely governments in your locale are spending, taxing or borrowing. If you're going to make an argument, it helps to start out from an intellectually-sound basis, which saying that "government borrowing is bad" is not. Reality just doesn't allow for such simple distinctions, and any sane policy must be at least grounded in reality.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
None of gov'ts business, it's not what the gov't is for - creating factories/hospitals/etc. I can't believe this is even an argument.
Gov't is a monopolistic structure by default, which is incapable of any sort of competition and thus does not follow the rules of price discovery through trade.
Gov't funding in itself is anti-competitive in nature, as gov't gets its funding by force. You can't build anything of use if it's all dictated by gov't, gov't cant't build independent structures in the market that are
Re:Default? Really? (Score:5, Funny)
How do you run a deficit without generating debt?
Leprechauns
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Who would ever lend Ireland money ever again?
Who would ever lend insolvent banks money again? It's not Ireland that went bust, it's Irelands banks. The Irish government just got suckered into backing them.
The answer is, of course, the next sucker. Which we have a financial system full of, as if anyone loses their money lending to bums, the taxpayers will get to pay for it...
But really, would you feel safer lending money to someone who will probably default in the near future as they carry unmaintainable deb
Re:Why are they broke in the first place? (Score:5, Informative)
No, they are broke because the government decided to cover the private bank's debt to the tune of a hundred or so billion euros.
Re:A parable on taxing the rich (Score:4, Insightful)
What it fails to mention is that most of the other 9 guys in the bar work for the 10th guy, and provided the labour that made him his riches. So he's magnanimous enough to pay about 60% of their bar bill, when all his riches came from the sweat on their backs?
The other guys should say "Hey, how come you can afford to pay more than half of our bar tab, when we are the guys doing all the work? Why the fuck are we lining your pockets when you work no harder than us?", and then kick him out of the bar and find another drinking buddy who will do the same job (managing their labour) for a fair wage, allowing them to split the $60 fairly between them, making them all significantly more wealthy.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Nothing bad will happen if corporate tax rates are raised in Ireland! That's just fear-mongering by the poor-hating conservatives!
The US has been doing that, *and* heaping on all kinds of other taxes, *plus* tons of regulation on manufacturing and business, along with increasingly-heavy emphasis on unionization with incredible pension and healthcare costs for ages now, and our economy, trade balances, and employment levels are just...oh, wait.
Never mind. Carry on.
Strat
Ireland has been the European experiment in being extremely 'conservative' and corporation friendly, extremely low taxes, friendly regulation, etc. Look where it got them. Then take a look at fx Scandinavia.
It "got them" all those corporations into their country and employing people, bringing in cash, and generally improving things for most of the people.
The fault is with idiotic and greedy politicians that can't run a capitalist economy effectively, combined with the impact of the domino-like economic failures caused by the collapse of socialistic governments in Greece, Portugal, etc.
By "Scandinavia", I assume you mean Sweden? Sweden isn't quite the paradise that most think. It suffered mightily in the '90s.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Sweden and the rest of the Nordics. Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland.
Some of it may be cultural and come from having pretty homogenous societies as far as social norms go, but IMO I've always considered our societies to be proof positive that many neoliberal claims of why "Socialism" won't and can't work are overhyped.
It's certainly not paradise and has its issues, but I wouldn't want to switch -- and it seems to me that the people who are most ideologically bothered by how we do things up here to be those
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
China made a really bad mistake in that regard. They bought bonds issued by the US government rather than hard assets with their piles of USD from their trade imbalance. Now everyone knows that in the long run you are better off buying the the business (i.e. stock) rather than loaning the business money for operations. Not to mention in the case of dollars the US is running the printing presses overtime and full on right now. Holding a lot of dollars just doesn't make a lot of sense right now.
I think now th
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That's funny because if it's so bad how do you explain that after Argentina defaulted that it now has the second highest per capita GDP in Latin America?
buddy, you don't know what you are talking about (Score:4, Insightful)