Tag Archives: Anything Good In The…

90428077

Ireland’s economic transformation in the course of the past thirty-five years was remarkable in many ways. Up until the early nineteen-eighties, Ireland’s income per person was one of the lowest in Europe, right alongside Greece’s. Unemployment was well above sixteen per cent for much of the nineteen-eighties.

The country’s income began to hurtle upward after 1995. Dell, Intel, and Microsoft joined Apple in Ireland. Large pharmaceutical firms also came…

Hurrah!

…But, alongside this “real” economy, Ireland developed a fantasy one, based on exploiting accidental quirks in European and global markets.

Oh.

This helped fuel a local housing and finance bubble that exploded, causing long-term pain…

Nnngggh,

But both before the financial bubble and afterward, Ireland’s primary global sales pitch was that the country offered multinational firms a twofer: you can get your tax avoidance and a qualified, English-speaking workforce all at the same time.

G’wan the twofer.

…Ireland’s modern growth came at a relatively benign time in the global economy. Economists and pro-trade activists called it “The Great Moderation.” The world was going to be more global, richer, happier. Everybody was going to look a lot like Ireland. In that world, who cares if some countries turn a blind eye to tax-avoidance schemes? We’ll all be richer in the future and can sort the grubby business out later.

Stop now.

….A secure Ireland, one that will be economically healthy for years to come, needs to be built on a “real” economy, one based on strong investment in innovation, manufacturing, and valuable services that other people want to pay for. It needs to be based on things done in Ireland, by people who live in Ireland—who pay Irish taxes.

FIGHT!

How Apple Helped Create Ireland’s Economies Both Real And Fantasy (Adam Davidson, The New Yorker)

Rollingnews

Ogilvy Ad - Marketing mag - Jan 2015-1

“Presenting the issue as a genuine problem, not as a suggested Troika tax, would have had a far greater chance of success…. Not spending time in the middle of Political chaos…..”

An ad placed by Ogilvy Mather advertising (Dublin) in this month’s Marketing magazine.

John Gallen writes:

Finally someone in the ad industry is having a go at Irish Water’s disastrous and arrogant communications strategy….

FIGHT!

Marketing.ie

David Ogilvy?

 

kilkenny

Um.

Depends.

Paedophiles in Ireland will pair up to apply for Irish marriage licences and adopt children.
Paedophiles will move into Ireland and gain residence here from all over the world, plenty already have. And we have enough of our own home grown , not all in the church – in fact there was ever only a minority there!

They will have everything organised through their paedophile rings here in Ireland and worldwide.  This is the downside of the proposals to get marriage for gays in the upcoming referendum in the Spring.  The paedos can pose as innocent gay people wanting to marry , get married and then apply for babies to the Adoption Board. They can then groom such kids as their sexual slaves over their lifetimes. It’s simply too horrible to contemplate, let alone to describe and write about.

So here we are facing the prospect of horrific sexual slavery for many children in Ireland, only this time blessed by the State and by the people in upcoming referendum . The referendum will trigger legislation that cannot exclude anybody from marriage on any grounds whatsoever.
The law is indeed an ass, nothing can be done about this, not even the Adoption Board can be notified or they , the State and the gardai could be sued.
It’s an open door that could spell disaster for thousands of children in this country over future years, God help them.

Right so.

Paedophiles Set To Pose As Gays To Marry And Adopt Kids (Kilkenny Journal)

cugpo

Cú Chulainn in the GPO, Dublin

Depends.

Vincent Boland writes:

…In some ways, the climate in which it is being marked could hardly be better. The Good Friday agreement has brought a fragile but enduring peace to Northern Ireland. Political relations between Dublin and Belfast are workmanlike, and between Dublin and London excellent. The Republic has moved past the worst phase of its financial crisis. A big party 18 months hence ought to be a moment to celebrate some good things.

Yet Irish society has emerged from the past six years of hardship more divided than when it entered the period of austerity. As Philip King, a broadcaster and musician, says: “The house [of Ireland] is still standing but it is in very bad shape. The country is psychologically banjaxed.” The 2016 commemorations and those that will follow over the next few years, he suggests, “offer a series of great opportunities to reinvigorate ourselves, to reproclaim Ireland”.

It is doubtful whether anything so ambitious can happen. Between now and Easter 2016, the country will be in election mode – and all the parties want to be on the reviewing podium come the commemorations. That is especially the case for Sinn Féin, the former political wing of the IRA. But all the parties see themselves as the heirs of 1916.

There is a magnificent sculpture in the GPO depicting the dying Cúchulainn, a mythological Irish hero celebrated by both republicans and unionists. Perhaps he will eventually inspire the nation.

A shambles marks the centenary of the Rising that divided Ireland (Vincent Boland, Financial Times) – behind paywall

ucc express

Splutter.

Megan Killan writes:

I picked up the latest copy of the UCC [University College Cork] Express today. It has an article by Elaine Healy-Rae, attacking Gerry Adams and making the claim that Adams “as a man, and as a party leader, has gotten away with too much.” While that claim might be true, the author’s second name might indicate that she’s not writing from an entirely neutral point of view.

Fight!

UCC Express

dublin

The city is finding a new way to exist — neither ostentatious with wealth nor bowed down under debt. A hugely popular bike share program has replaced the “beamers,” craft beer is gaining precedence over elaborate cocktails, and Dublin restaurants are undergoing a creative renaissance that prioritizes imagination and Irish ingredients over heavily stylized and overpriced dishes.

FIGHT!

36 Hours In Dublin (New York Times)