The return of Declan Ganley

meglome

loldog wrote: »

Remember this?

.

Where are the forced abortions, EU army, €1,85 minimum wage... blah blah blah. People showing they are sore losers is a little funny but mostly tiresome.

nesf

loldog wrote: »

Remember this?

.

Yup, we've had the best year for Foreign Direct Investment (i.e. job growth due to Foreign companies coming in) in seven years this year despite the worldwide recession. So eh, if one wants to use trivial causalities we could say the Yes vote encouraged these companies to come.

RandomName2

nesf wrote: »

Yup, we've had the best year for Foreign Direct Investment (i.e. job growth due to Foreign companies coming in) in seven years this year despite the worldwide recession. So eh, if one wants to use trivial causalities we could say the Yes vote encouraged these companies to come.

Apart from the massive net loss of jobs from multinationals. But hey! At least they aren't afraid of us being euroskeptic (if they ever were) :rolleyes:

Scofflaw

As usual, we're in correlation versus causation territory, with the addition of not bothering to discriminate on details. Declan Ganley said "bad stuff will happen if we vote Yes" - we voted Yes, and bad stuff is happening. That it's nothing to do with the Yes vote, or with anything in Lisbon is one point that seems to be blithely ignored - that the specific claims made by Ganley haven't come to pass is another. So Ganley makes a series of specific predictions, which don't happen, but when other unrelated bad stuff happens, people say "ooh, that Declan Ganley was right all along".

We're seeing the same effect with economic pundits. People here have already claimed that the (mistaken) figure of 6% for bailout interest vindicates Morgan Kelly, who said that it would be north of 7%. How is that supposed to work? The guy bases a case on a specific figure, but a completely different figure vindicates him?

These forums remain a powerful source of education - mostly about human psychology, admittedly.

cordially,
Scofflaw

RandomName2

Scofflaw wrote: »

As usual, we're in correlation versus causation territory, with the addition of not bothering to discriminate on details. Declan Ganley said "bad stuff will happen if we vote Yes" - we voted Yes, and bad stuff is happening. That it's nothing to do with the Yes vote, or with anything in Lisbon is one point that seems to be blithely ignored - that the specific claims made by Ganley haven't come to pass is another. So Ganley makes a series of specific predictions, which don't happen, but when other unrelated bad stuff happens, people say "ooh, that Declan Ganley was right all along".

We're seeing the same effect with economic pundits. People here have already claimed that the (mistaken) figure of 6% for bailout interest vindicates Morgan Kelly, who said that it would be north of 7%. How is that supposed to work? The guy bases a case on a specific figure, but a completely different figure vindicates him?

These forums remain a powerful source of education - mostly about human psychology, admittedly.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Quite frankly I don't remember anybody suggesting that the economy would get worse if we voted yes. Coir made some crazy claims concerning min wage, and others talked about worker rights, but nobody talked about a negative affects to the economy (and if they did they would have been wrong, at least in the short term).

The point was that architects of the treaty claimed specifically that the economy would improve if we voted yes; notionally in relation to the 'goodwill' of European governments and multinational perspectives concerning Ireland's relationship with Europe.

De Rossa's bizarre anecdote concerning the German citizen who hoped the Irish voted 'no' because she was fed up of Germany giving money to Ireland. That is if this irate German citizen ever existed :rolleyes:

One could claim that the current ECB bailout is necessary for our economic future, and that the other European states would have been too pissed off to allow this come to pass if we vetoed Lisbon. It doesn't bear too much weight as you would have to come to the conclusion that the European governments would, in a fit of pique, let the euro collapse.

None of this does have much relevance to the attributes of the treaty itself, merely the manner in which the campaign by the yes side was managed. I will insist that the onus was on the yes side to behave properly due to the very fact that they were in a dominant position viz-a-viz the formation of the treaty, national government ratification of the treaty, national governmental pressure on the electorate, international governmental pressure and ratification, national media bias (of individual presenters and reporters), available capital to spend on advertising and canvasing, etc.

Naturally if the No side were in a reverse position one cannot assume that they would behave any better; but that in many ways is a bit of a silly conjecture due to specific causation (the no campaign was led by organisations like Coir due to the very fact that there was no political core to the campaign) and the fact that this concept doesn't exonerate the yes side anyway.

Wibbs

RandomName2 wrote: »

De Rossa's bizarre anecdote concerning the German citizen who hoped the Irish voted 'no' because she was fed up of Germany giving money to Ireland. That is if this irate German citizen ever existed :rolleyes:

She may not have, but if this crisis deepens and her pocket is hit, she may well exist soon enough.

RandomName2

Wibbs wrote: »

She may not have, but if this crisis deepens and her pocket is hit, she may well exist soon enough.

German distaste for bailouts was quite palpable during the Greek affair. Presumably they are no happier now, but must suck it up; the abuse of their currency by others now hurts them. They quite rightly might not see much justice in that.

K-9

RandomName2 wrote: »

Quite frankly I don't remember anybody suggesting that the economy would get worse if we voted yes.

The point was that architects of the treaty claimed specifically that the economy would improve if we voted yes; notionally in relation to the 'goodwill' of European governments and multinational perspectives concerning Ireland's relationship with Europe.

De Rossa's bizarre anecdote concerning the German citizen who hoped the Irish voted 'no' because she was fed up of Germany giving money to Ireland. That is if this irate German citizen ever existed :rolleyes:

The thing is, I don't think anybody made an issue of how bad things were going to get in relation to the markets and I doubt anybody mentioned the IMF and EU funds. The IMF may have been mentioned in relation to economic discussion, but not Lisbon.

Lisbon feels like 10 years ago now given the change in circumstances and economic context.