Bailing out the Irish with 7billion quid

[gratedenini]

Todays topic on 5 Live regarding Britain lending 7 billion quid to bail em out of this economic crisis.

I`ve only been to Ireland a few times..first time ages ago when i found it all very quaint and a bit "behind the times" sort of.. but the last time I went I was quite shocked at all the building work, the huge houses,the investment and how expensive it was.

I took this as a result of Ireland going into the Euro etc and thought..wow this must be great for them.

However, its obviously gone proper tits up eh.

I dont know enough about the real ins and outs of the fiscal situation (maybe our 2 resident incumbents will enter and go into all that stuff above our heads eh )

So, should we?

Absolutely afaic.

I think we have moral obligations if nowt else and therefore should help them out.

However, after listening to the various parties this morning on the radio...I`m not sure if it will solve the problem by just tossing brass at em.

den

Edited November 22, 2010 by gratedenini

[loscfestivals]

Portugal look like going the same way too.

Are we going to do this to every EU country that comes calling or just pick and choose?

End of the day we can't afford to run our own country without making sacrifices but assumably the consequences of not helping out are considered worse than loaning them £7bn as the Tories wouldn't help anybody out if it didn't benefit them.

Plenty of Companies I deal with have moved to Ireland over the years, wonder how much revenue we've lost to them from them undercutting everybody else on tax issues?

I still think we should help them by the way, the links between the two countries are strong financially and otherwise. Just begs the question where do we draw the line because you can bet that a few more will be wanting help in the near future, and we can not afford to give it.

[The Nal]

UK don’t have a choice, this commitment has already been signed. Not only have the UK signed up to the 7 billion, as its part of the EU anyway, the UK have offered Ireland further cash, bilaterally, as have Sweden and Denmark.

We have too many big US companies here for it to all go to the wall, the rest of Europe knows that.

Edited November 22, 2010 by The Nal

[eFestivals]

Portugal look like going the same way too.

Are we going to do this to every EU country that comes calling or just pick and choose?

ultimately, just pick and choose - Portugal and Ireland can afford to be bailed out. If the same problem hits Spain then the whole of the Eurozone is f**ked, 100%.

Plenty of Companies I deal with have moved to Ireland over the years, wonder how much revenue we've lost to them from them undercutting everybody else on tax issues?

This!!!

The price of saving Ireland cannot be f**king over the rest of the countries in the EU. If it happens, then the whole of the EU is dead, and Ireland will be back to square one anyway.

So Ireland is going to have to agree to raise it's corp tax for a bailout, else it won't get saved anyway.

[The Nal]

So Ireland is going to have to agree to raise it's corp tax for a bailout, else it won't get saved anyway.

[eFestivals]

Theres zero chance of a corporation tax increase. It would be suicide for the EU. Absolute madness to suggest it. They'd be off to Casablanca and India in a shot as the cost of having to relocate in another European country, hire, train and get English speaking staff wouldn't be worth it. Why do you think we're being treated so well by the EU?

There's almost no companies that have been attracted to Ireland which would have done anything aside from remained in the EU.

If your corp tax rates went up to 20% then it's exceedingly unlikely that any company would leave Ireland, as they'd very likely pay the same or more at where they moved to, plus they'd have all the costs of relocating.

There's already quite a few options within the EU of lower corp tax rates than Ireland offers - if these low rates are as important to those companies as you're suggesting then Ireland are f**ked even if their rates stay unchanged!!!

As for the benefit these low rates have brought Ireland, the reality is that they've brought just about no benefit - the extra employment has been minimal, because most of these relocated companies have an office employing a very small number of poeple - and very few of those employed are Irish nationals, as the employees have arrived with the company office. Meanwhile, the tax rates have been lowered for true Irish companies, so for each extra Euro raised from a company entering Ireland the same has been lost from companies already there.

As a policy the low corp tax rates have failed - the need of the bailout proves that beyond all doubt. The low corp tax rates were introduced to try and stop this happening when the writing was on the wall 4 years ago, and the fact it's happened anyway is proof that it's failed.

The Irish govt has nothing to lose by raising them, aside from the loss of support of the corrupt people that have been the beneficiaries of all that Ireland has been doing.

[The Nal]

There's almost no companies that have been attracted to Ireland which would have done anything aside from remained in the EU.

[eFestivals]

HP threatened to leave Ireland on Saturday if the corporation tax went up, as did another two companies who I forget. Dell have movied manufacturing out of Ireland (5% of all exports), went to Poland and then moved most of what went to Poland was moved out (and out of the EU) to China after 6 months, and as far as I know China aren't in the EU.

mercenary companies such as Dell are mercenary companies - as Dell gets to show, low rates did f**k all for you, and did f**k all for Poland too.

And if HP are going, then you are only going to be suffering what you made the UK suffer when you leeched them from the UK. So why do you think that Ireland should be immune from the effect of corp tax when Irish corp tax policy effects other counties?

But anyway, all you appear to have for HP is their Irish operation. Their Europe operations are run from Switzerland.

Yeah right, Serbia, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Macedonia. War torn, uneducated and non English speaking, third world in parts some of them.

they probably speak better English in Cypress than they do in Ireland.

But that aside, it gets to show that low corp tax doesn't have the effect you claim for it.

And company threats like these are often just empty threats anyway - many of the companies that said to the UK "cut your corp tax rates to the same as Ireland's else we're off" are still here.

Are tax rates to be dictated to countries now by corporations? f**k are they. If we start down that road, we're all f**ked, not just Ireland.

Very small amount of people? Wrong. Google it.

most of the companies attracted in the last few years by the low corp tax rates (since the world economy went tits up) opened an administrative office only, as their company headquarters in name ("for tax purposes") but not reality. The people employed in those offices are mostly people moved to Ireland by that company from wherever the company office was previously.

Edited November 22, 2010 by eFestivals

[Alcatraz]

The simple fact is, we can't afford not to bail them out

[eFestivals]

The simple fact is, we can't afford not to bail them out

Absolutely.

But there's zero point in bailing them out if they won't increase corp taxes, as it will achieve nothing at all. Ireland has to pay it's way from now on (which it cannot do with corp tax rates at the level they are - if it could, we wouldn't be here now), else all we'll be doing is bailing them out again and again and again.

[The Nal]

Absolutely.

But there's zero point in bailing them out if they won't increase corp taxes, as it will achieve nothing at all. Ireland has to pay it's way from now on (which it cannot do with corp tax rates at the level they are - if it could, we wouldn't be here now), else all we'll be doing is bailing them out again and again and again.

[eFestivals]

Short memories lads, the UK got a bailout in 1976.

First “loan”. A bailout means we get the money and the IMF come in and dictate what we do to bridge the gap. Not happening here.

perhaps not this week.

But it's coming, I guarantee, because...

The whole reason for this is simple by the way: Ireland invests too much in property, house prices are high so we build more houses to lower the demand and prices, global property market goes tits up, Ireland goes tits up.

Its nothing to do with corporation tax and the calls to raise it are absolute madness.

It's way more than just a property bubble, it's a country that's been living beyond its means. The problem has become visible via the banks (and so your linking of it to that bubble), but only because the Irish govt has been able to shift its budgetary failings into those banks.

However you want to look at it tho, it's money that gets paid back one way or another by Ireland eventually. Which means cut backs in spending and tax rises to get back to something that has balance, and if you don't want to see that achieved by a raising or corp tax then it falls instead onto you and other individuals in what they pay in personal taxation.

There's no population in any country that in the long term is going to agree to huge personal taxation so that foreign corporations can run off with your tax money. If a national govt won't do it by choice then sooner or later a revolution of some kind will force them to.

[Radar]

Short memories lads, the UK got a bailout in 1976.

[The Nal]

perhaps not this week.

But it's coming, I guarantee, because...

It's way more than just a property bubble, it's a country that's been living beyond its means. The problem has become visible via the banks (and so your linking of it to that bubble), but only because the Irish govt has been able to shift its budgetary failings into those banks.

However you want to look at it tho, it's money that gets paid back one way or another by Ireland eventually. Which means cut backs in spending and tax rises to get back to something that has balance, and if you don't want to see that achieved by a raising or corp tax then it falls instead onto you and other individuals in what they pay in personal taxation.

There's no population in any country that in the long term is going to agree to huge personal taxation so that foreign corporations can run off with your tax money. If a national govt won't do it by choice then sooner or later a revolution of some kind will force them to.

[llcoolphil]

As a policy the low corp tax rates have failed - the need of the bailout proves that beyond all doubt.

[llcoolphil]

We're the only country in Europe who have falling labour costs, GDP is growing at 2 to 3% and we have a surplus of about 6% in our balance of payments. We're still earning, unlike other countries that are f**ked. Dont get me wrong, this is far from ideal and Im not defending Ireland. Just pointing out some positive facts, and there arent many, granted.

[Binky]

ultimately, just pick and choose - Portugal and Ireland can afford to be bailed out. If the same problem hits Spain then the whole of the Eurozone is f**ked, 100%.

[Snufflebutt]

Dear Santa for christmas please

[Pogues Mcgogues]

Wouldn't it be so much easier if the UK and Ireland were just all the one country?

Dunno if anyones ever thought of that before?

[eFestivals]

It will be Portugal next and it will be Spain after that and both will get rescued

the EU doesn't have the money to rescue Spain, the amount needed is way beyond what's possible according to the experts. If Spain gets targeted by speculators who are speculating on a sovereign default, then those speculators are going to walk away very rich indeed.

But defaulting is what's actually needed anyway. No economic system can work if there's ultimately no failures.

And along with removing moral buzzard for real hazard, another part of the equation here is that the rich have walked off with too much of the money for the rest of the economy to be able to function properly - so it needs to be got back somehow, and via a sovereign default is the swiftest and most effective, if painful for real people. But until there's a real re-balancing of the world's economies we're stuck in a vicious circle.

[eFestivals]

Apart from the fact that they have a balance of payments surplus. This is a purely banking crisis (hence why they've been trying to get the lending directly to the banks for the last seven days)

Nothing here can be considered in isolation from the other parts of the equation.

[Uncle Liam]

The Eurozone was always liable to be f**ked in the bad times. Its just taken nearly a decade for these times to happen. The Euro makes infinately more political than economic sense, this week is a perfect example of this - in a few days we're going to have Angela Merkel having a say in Irish domestic policy. Its a Europhiles wet dream.

[Snufflebutt]

And as well she might, seeing as its a lot of German money being used to clean up the mess made by the Republic of Ireland.

[Uncle Liam]

When a corporation goes under, it is placed into administration and doesnt have full control over what it does as a business.

The Irish Republic has pretended to run itself like a corporation so therefore, now that i has effectively called in the international equivalent of the administrators, why shouldnt it lose some of its sovereignty?

And anyway, its not like Ireland was complaining at the loss of sovereignty (all blessed with those wonderful referendums, joys of democracy eh?) when it was raking the cash in now, was it?

ETA: Its widely accepted that the bailout is needed. The Irish Republic has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is incapable of running its economic affairs effectively With the European economy so dependent on the Republic of Ireland, and the amount of money being thrown about, I think its perfectly acceptable and legitimate for other states to step in to make sure that this doesnt happen again.

Edited November 23, 2010 by Uncle Liam