vote United Left Alliance joe higgins Today

The Waltzing Consumer wrote: »

No offense, but the policies of FF/FG/LAB created full emploment and one of the best standards of living in the world during the boom times. The recession has reduced that significantly, but they achieved it and showed it was possible.

Between them they created a massive bubble economy that saw a huge transfer of wealth from working class people to the super rich over a 20 year period - and as a result - crashed the economy in such a way that it could take a generation to recover.

The Waltzing Consumer wrote: »

All you guys will achieve is some bizarre attempt to be the USSR. What do you think people will pick?

I am not interested in creating a USSR - I am interested in creating a democratic socialist society.

As regards what people will pick - well people have annihilated FF and by Christmas they will be gagging to do the same to FG and LP.

The Waltzing Consumer wrote: »

Okay, it's hard not to sound bad, but that is not an answer. There is zero possibility of Ireland seizing Microsoft or Google or eBays assets and freezing their accounts, end of discussion. Oh yeah can really see the public service running payPal and Google :P Seriously, do you guys think that is a real answer? It's cuckoo stuff. It has zero credibility.

A couple of points -
1. I never said anything about the 'public service' running anything - senior 'public service' management in Ireland are about as useful a dose of piles.
2. Microsoft have just invested over $500million in Ireland, much of it in research and development - do you seriously think they are going to walk away from that investment because they have to pay a few exxtra points on their corpo tax - when they would still be paying more pretty much anywhere they would move - have to completely train 2,000 new staff all the logistics etc. - the same applies to eBay and Google.

The policy of consecutive government of almost complete reliance on multi-nationals is extremely short-sighted and leaves the workers in this country exposed to the anarchy of the world market - ask anyone who worked in Dell. Michael Dell shut down an extremely profitable facility in Limerick in order to increase profits by 3% in Poland (and receive massive EU handpouts in the process). The Dell plant could have and should have been taken into public ownership, preserving all the jobs and providing badly needed technology products for this country - and they could have been produced at a significantly lower cost because such a plant would not have had to produce a massive profit. Instead the Irish taxpayer now has to fork millions €150-€200million a year in welfare payments.

The Waltzing Consumer wrote: »

Ah, but to be a champagne socialist, it must be a dream. They must have gotten some funny reactions when they knocked on Polish and Russian peoples houses here looking for votes and reminiscing about the good old USSR. :pac:

It's amazing to me how extreme in its beliefs the middle ground in Irish political opinion actually is.

Why are you so shallow as to equate WWII era soviet union fascism with contemporary Irish socialism?

You win anyway, when the results are published tomorrow you will be happy. No change will have been effected. Happy days for you.