Fiscal Compact Treaty

Your voting intention on the Treaty Referendum

  • Yes

    Votes: 6 66.7%

  • No

    Votes: 3 33.3%
  • Total voters
    9
  • Poll closed .
Bar the Bull said:
But we do have competitiveness issues.

So you're wrong. And I am right. We can close the thread now.
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We have massive competitiveness issues - our corpo tax rate is masking major anti-competitiveness with local taxes ie. rates and city and county council contributions, rents and the elephants in the room of public sectors costs and pay rates. The clock needs to be reset by being turned back in these areas by about 33%. No spineless Irish Government will have the nads to do this so we will flounder in stagnation for around 15 - 20 years to catch up through inflation. I'd jump only I cannot find a building high enough...
 
clivex said:
Thats spot on benny but the one big issue for failed economies coming out of the euro is that businesses and banks would bé brought down overnight given that their borrowing would bé in the euro currency
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Default, partial at least, would need to accompany the exit from the single currency.

On the subject of Ireland's competitiveness, what Bar said, basically.

One reason the UK's bond yields are so much lower than others' is that much of our debt is very long dated, and therefore doesn't need rolling over in the short term. Plus, QE has meant there is a massive buyer of last resort in the gilt market, and one which isn't price sensitive. This has played a part in keeping yields low too, as has the fact our deficit reduction policies are seen as credible by the markets.
 
Mobile and internet costs, energy prices, local taxes, public sector pay...

I don't see how devaluation would solve any of those issues except maybe the last one, but hasn't there already been a lot of progress on that one? Is devaluation not more likely to push up manufacturing costs rather than reduce them?


Addendum: I mean in the small open economy that is Ireland, where many of the exported products contain imported intermediate prodcuts and raw materials
 
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FFS

Can someone tell me in clear terms, as an englishman, should I convert my last few schekels into gold.



And before anyone thinks I'm thoughtless about those families struggling to make ends meet - I care very much. But, my feeling is that smaller countries would do well to endure the initial shock of leaving the 'GERMAN' euro and re-establish their own trading terms.

This was not my belief 3 years ago and it will be interesting to see how Greece plots its more independant course.


MR2
 
The point is that smaller economies are often at the mercy of stronger forces.

The Swiss, for example, are unhappy at the moment that their currency is overvalued owing to the weakness of the euro.
 
Often is different to never though isn't it?

But the Greek, portugeese and irish economies were not so much at the mercy as having snouts in the trough of larger economies until it all came home to roost

Works both ways

I have zero sympathy for Greece Monty. In fact they have done very well by virtually dictating that a mass of their debt is written off... so that they can continue to retire at 60, pay no taxes and sit around pissed on ouzo
 
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Often is different to never though isn't it?
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I suppose it is, so allow me to rephrase: "smaller economies are at the mercy of stronger forces". Hardly controversial.

But the Greek, portugeese and irish economies were not so much at the mercy as having snouts in the trough of larger economies until it all came home to roost
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You'll have to back that up
 
Not so much rephrased as completely rewritten

Its easy enough to back up. Those failed economies rode on the back of a euro supported by the germanys of this world and when they overborrowed it was back with the begging bowl expecting debt to be written off or bailed out

Monty. Quite simply the only sympathy shiuld be for the german (and a few other northern states perhaps) tax payer here. They aree ones footing the bill. How would you feel if we we had been dragged into this and were continually bailing out these states? Especially one that continues to undercut jobs here by having a ridiculously low corporation tax?
 
Not so much rephrased as completely rewritten
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Come off it.

Its easy enough to back up. Those failed economies rode on the back of a euro supported by the germanys of this world and when they overborrowed it was back with the begging bowl expecting debt to be written off or bailed out

Monty. Quite simply the only sympathy shiuld be for the german (and a few other northern states perhaps) tax payer here. They aree ones footing the bill. How would you feel if we we had been dragged into this and were continually bailing out these states? Especially one that continues to undercut jobs here by having a ridiculously low corporation tax?
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Your miserable attitude belongs in a past most of us have moved on from, including your own Chancellor of the Exchequer who had this to say a few years ago:

"A generation ago, the very idea that a British politician would go to Ireland to see how to run an economy would have been laughable. The Irish Republic was seen as Britain’s poor and troubled country cousin, a rural backwater on the edge of Europe. Today things are different. Ireland stands as a shining example of the art of the possible in long-term economic policymaking, and that is why I am in Dublin: to listen and to learn" .....

"The new global economy poses real long-term challenges to Britain, but also real opportunities for us to prosper and succeed. In Ireland they understand this.
They have freed their markets, developed the skills of their workforce, encouraged enterprise and innovation and created a dynamic economy. They have much to teach us, if only we are willing to learn".
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That was too rosy a view, but to call Ireland a failed economy is simply wrong. The German banks which were flush with cash were happy to lend to Ireland banks and to fuel the Irish property bubble. Obviously the Irish economy has suffered a severe, and mainly self-inflicted setback, but the Germans are going to get all their money back, whether they deserve to or not.
 
Ireland and others had to bé bailed out. That is failure pure and simple. If it had been a business it would bé in administration. Failure

As for miserable attitude, i wonder whether german and other tax payers who dare to resent handing over there taxes to wasteful greeks would appreciate beinbg called that ?
 
I never said the Germans showed a miserable attitude, I said you do, and always have, where things Irish are concerned.
 
Is it true, the Germans are already printing deutsch-marks?

Quick intake of breath. That is one solution to euro turmoil, if each country at
0:00 on a particular date issues its own new currency. Unbelievably, there is no plan for a country to leave the euro and therefore, surely, the euro is doomed.

My best guess is six months from now. It would take that amount of time to print enough currency for a country the size of Germany.

I'll start the ball rolling - FRIDAY 9TH NOVEMBER.

MR2
 
Clive,

Any chance you could let me know the amount of €€€ German's have given away to keep Ireland and Greece 'afloat'?
 
Bar,

I heard it from a source I trust a several months ago and he did say '6 months' but that it had been put on hold after Greece seemed to falling into the 'euro slavery' line. My suspicious view of our Aryan kin is that they will have started again.

Anyone know the suppliers of the dyes used in printing money, they may be worth a small investment seeing as I realised I could only scrape enough together for one Krugerrand.

MR2
 
Sorry, to poke a little fun at our close neighbours across the Irish Sea but I will be amused should you all take the treaty very seriously, spending hours agonising over the un-imponderables of national economics, and then find out it was a waste of time anyway.

Please, hurry and make up your minds to re-join the pound after a century long sojourn into independence - you know it makes sense.

The Scots wish to leave the pound is a good yardstick, name one Scottish Nationalist who has had the right idea?

I'm sure you will be able to, but when you see people drowning in a river - its always best to find out how they got there in the first place before diving in to save them!

MR2
 
You speak as if Britain is a tower of strength....

Osborne is leading Britain into a dark, dark place with his 101 economics..
 
Thats pure conjecture and frankly dark places are reached by living way beyond means, not by close management. Whilst many economists might quite rightly believe that the the austerity should be loosened a bit, this is hardly out of control.

Monty. You are wrong about the scots nats. They actually want to leave the union and stay within the £. Ridiculous of course
 
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