David McWilliams sprouting nonsense again

Fred Cryton

This time he wants the Irish state to somehow obtain Equity options in the multinationals, and use that to build a sovereign wealth fund


He thinks because these companies pay less than a 12.5% effective corporation tax here, they would willingly give us the difference as equity.



Let's pull this apart for a moment.


Why would they do this? No-one gives away an equity stake in their business without a very compelling reason to do this. Is he seriously suggesting we can threaten these companies into giving us their wealth?



Secondly, in very few places do companies actually pay the full headline corporation tax rate. Many big companies in France for example, pay an effective rate of only 6%, compared to a headline rate of 30%+.


McWilliams showing himself up again as a populist charlaton and chancer. Just as Trump is what stupid people think a successful businessman looks like, McWilliams is what stupid people think an economist looks like.



If the Irish State wants an ownership stake in these companies, it can go out and buy it like everyone else.

Piriz

can you add a link to his comments?

Fred Cryton

Paywall
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/david-mcwilliams-it-s-time-for-a-new-irish-economic-model-1.4276819?mode=sample&auth-failed=1&pw-origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.irishtimes.com%2Fopinion%2Fdavid-mcwilliams-it-s-time-for-a-new-irish-economic-model-1.4276819

CBear1993

Fred Cryton wrote: »

This time he wants the Irish state to somehow obtain Equity options in the multinationals, and use that to build a sovereign wealth fund


He thinks because these companies pay less than a 12.5% effective corporation tax here, they would willingly give us the difference as equity.



Let's pull this apart for a moment.


Why would they do this? No-one gives away an equity stake in their business without a very compelling reason to do this. Is he seriously suggesting we can threaten these companies into giving us their wealth?



Secondly, in very few places do companies actually pay the full headline corporation tax rate. Many big companies in France for example, pay an effective rate of only 6%, compared to a headline rate of 30%+.


McWilliams showing himself up again as a populist charlaton and chancer. Just as Trump is what stupid people think a successful businessman looks like, McWilliams is what stupid people think an economist looks like.



If the Irish State wants an ownership stake in these companies, it can go out and buy it like everyone else.

What’s your opinions on Paschal Donohoe as a finance minister? Listened to McWilliams podcast two weeks ago and he didn’t seem to have much time for him as far as economics were concerned, but a nice fellow

Rodney Bathgate

Has Ruth Coppinger died and been reincarnated as David McWilliams?

donvito99

David McWilliams - the man famous for predicting 2 of the last 28 recessions.

Silentcorner

Only in Ireland would that man make a living...what is it with us and spoofers!!!

one world order

Trump is a successful businessman and a very good leader for a country. Ability to renegotiate trade agreements, stop manufacturing jobs offshoring abroad, reduce regulations on small businesses, tax incentives for startups, tax rebates for creating jobs, etc.

McWilliams is a media guy and so talks nonsense. If a multinational had political interference taking a slice of equity ownership, they would leave Ireland, maybe head back to the US where their corporation tax was cut from 35% to 21% and so are more competitive on the international stage than before.

CBear1993

David has a big enough following. Lots of people pay €5/10+ per month on his Patreon platform from what I see and hear. He also does economics course on there which he advertises on podcast

SHOVELLER

A Garda Inspector tells McWilliams that Rovers fans organised and took part in the Love Ulster riots. He not only believes this laughable nonsense but he prints it.

I get the impression that this happens a lot with him. People of that ilk tend to believe their own hype after a while. Another example would be Eddie Hobbs.

SHOVELLER

one world order wrote: »

Trump is a successful businessman and a very good leader for a country. Ability to renegotiate trade agreements, stop manufacturing jobs offshoring abroad, reduce regulations on small businesses, tax incentives for startups, tax rebates for creating jobs, etc.

:D:D:eek:

Fred Cryton

CBear1993 wrote: »

What’s your opinions on Paschal Donohoe as a finance minister? Listened to McWilliams podcast two weeks ago and he didn’t seem to have much time for him as far as economics were concerned, but a nice fellow

Donohoe is a pharamacist by training right?



Most Irish politicians are of poor calibre when it comes to economics, there's not a single TD with an expertise in the subject as far as i'm aware.



What's important is can they make good evidence based judgements when the data is put forward by the team around them.

antimatterx

Fred Cryton wrote: »

Donohoe is a pharamacist by training right?



Most Irish politicians are of poor calibre when it comes to economics, there's not a single TD with an expertise in the subject as far as i'm aware.



What's important is can they make good evidence based judgements when the data is put forward by the team around them.

Donohoe studied Economics and Politics. I think he's our best finance minister in a long time. You could argue he has cost him a lot of money going into politics, as he became a Director at Procter & Gamble in his 20s. He also gave up job security.

Richard Bruton also has an economics background, and would have been finance minister instead of Noonan (a teacher like) if he didn't attempt to become FG leader.

Silentcorner

antimatterx wrote: »

Donohoe studied Economics and Politics. I think he's our best finance minister in a long time. You could argue he has cost him a lot of money going into politics, as he became a Director at Procter & Gamble in his 20s.

Richard Bruton also has an economics background, and would have been finance minister instead of Noonan (a teacher like) if he didn't attempt to become FG leader.

Donohue is actually impressive, I didn't know that about him, that is public service.

antimatterx

Silentcorner wrote: »

Donohue is actually impressive, I didn't know that about him, that is public service.

Indeed, he has a very impressive background and I think he is a very safe per of hands to have control over finance.

He should probably be the next FG leader.

The J Stands for Jay

one world order wrote: »

Trump is a successful businessman and a very good leader for a country. Ability to renegotiate trade agreements, stop manufacturing jobs offshoring abroad, reduce regulations on small businesses, tax incentives for startups, tax rebates for creating jobs, etc.

LOL

aido79

donvito99 wrote: »

David McWilliams - the man famous for predicting 2 of the last 28 recessions.

How far back are you going with 28 recessions?

Outkast_IRE

aido79 wrote: »

How far back are you going with 28 recessions?

For the David McWilliams haters on this forum , dont apply logic. Rather than engage in a lively debate most of them will just say the idea doesnt work and leave it at that.



To be honest by starting threads like this they are actually doing him a favour and advertising his article. Its hidden behind a paywall that 99% of the country wont be able to access but these lads have brought attention to it.

ExMachina1000

Fred Cryton wrote: »

This time he wants the Irish state to somehow obtain Equity options in the multinationals, and use that to build a sovereign wealth fund


He thinks because these companies pay less than a 12.5% effective corporation tax here, they would willingly give us the difference as equity.



Let's pull this apart for a moment.


Why would they do this? No-one gives away an equity stake in their business without a very compelling reason to do this. Is he seriously suggesting we can threaten these companies into giving us their wealth?



Secondly, in very few places do companies actually pay the full headline corporation tax rate. Many big companies in France for example, pay an effective rate of only 6%, compared to a headline rate of 30%+.


McWilliams showing himself up again as a populist charlaton and chancer. Just as Trump is what stupid people think a successful businessman looks like, McWilliams is what stupid people think an economist looks like.



If the Irish State wants an ownership stake in these companies, it can go out and buy it like everyone else.

Never a truer word written

wally1990

antimatterx wrote: »

Donohoe studied Economics and Politics. I think he's our best finance minister in a long time. You could argue he has cost him a lot of money going into politics, as he became a Director at Procter & Gamble in his 20s. He also gave up job security.

Richard Bruton also has an economics background, and would have been finance minister instead of Noonan (a teacher like) if he didn't attempt to become FG leader.

I actually quite like Paschal, I find him a easy and interesting listen.

At a basic level, I think he has great common sense to our economy and overall economics and really has our finances at heart.

Now... I can't say that for many others at all, but paschal I do like.

I listen to the Mcwilliams podcast, and do agree with another poster he is a bit of a '' media'' guy with these' great ideas'

I like Mcwilliams too, but don't necessarily agree with everything.

EmptyTree

aido79 wrote: »

How far back are you going with 28 recessions?

To a time before recessions began

Silentcorner

I think he is from a very insular part of this country and he never manages to beat that insular mindset it always gets the better of him....he can be interesting at times, but I'd trust my tea leaves quicker than his economic predictions.

Chinasea

I try hard each time to listen to what he has to say. I drift, I loose I interest. Paid fence sitter.

Give me Karl Dieter anyday. Come back please. We need you urgently.

jam_mac_jam

donvito99 wrote: »

David McWilliams - the man famous for predicting 2 of the last 28 recessions.

He is an economist not a fortune teller.

He was one of the few who warned us about relying too much on property and in that I think he has been proven right.

I don't agree with him on many of his points but I think there is a misconception of what an economists job is.

FVP3

donvito99 wrote: »

David McWilliams - the man famous for predicting 2 of the last 28 recessions.

FFS. The phrase should go the other way. As in "predicted 28 of the last 2 recessions". Obviously

As you phrased it he would have to be 300+ years old to have failed to predict 26 of the last 28 recessions, and incredibly optimistic about the economy

( and yet, 7 thanks for that).

FVP3

Anyway its a bit odd that people hate on McWilliams who was successful in predicting what was going to happen in 2008, while eulogising the "proper" economists who did not.

Mr Meanor

FVP3 wrote: »

Anyway its a bit odd that people hate on McWilliams who was successful in predicting what was going to happen in 2008, while eulogising the "proper" economists who did not.

To be honest an awful lot of people from all walks of life knew the 2008 recession was coming long before he said anything, they just chose not to see it or in some cases, if they could, insulated themselves from it.

Manach

Mostly in agreement with OP. Companies run on profits for their shareholders, with any pretence of being caring/value signalling being a facade to gull consumers into a mis-placed sense of virtue. These companies would leave Ireland overnight if they got a better deal, hence the low taxes with high taxes on the workers who do not have that mobility.

purifol0

FVP3 wrote: »

Anyway its a bit odd that people hate on McWilliams who was successful in predicting what was going to happen in 2008, while eulogising the "proper" economists who did not.

Many people tried to warn us about the banks in 2008 and they were shouted down and in some cases publicly ridiculed.

Prime example Morgan Kelly

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_Kelly_(economist)

There was so much money at stake, no one on the make was going to inform Joe Public.

CageWager

This is hardly something to get worked up over. The chap is throwing out some creative ideas, some big picture thinking. Same goes for moving Dublin port that he’s always going on about. Maybe some of it would work, some of it wouldn’t, but at least he’s coming the table with ideas. I‘d venture that expansive thinking is something we have sorely lacked in this country since time immemorial.

purifol0

Few weeks ago on his podcast McWilliams was advocating borrowing more into the national debt and insisting that it could be paid off easily because of inflation. Now I don't know as much about economics but if theirs that much inflation what happens to anyones who isn't rich or lucky enough to own property and land. Your cash savings suddenly ain't worth what they used to

Fred Cryton

CageWager wrote: »

This is hardly something to get worked up over. The chap is throwing out some creative ideas, some big picture thinking. Same goes for moving Dublin port that he’s always going on about. Maybe some of it would work, some of it wouldn’t, but at least he’s coming the table with ideas. I‘d venture that expansive thinking is something we have sorely lacked in this country since time immemorial.

How about suggesting stuff that actually makes sense and is workable...such as reducing the high marginal income tax rate and freezing/reducing the bloated social welfare budget.

Fred Cryton

Fred Cryton wrote: »

How about suggesting stuff that actually makes sense and is workable...such as reducing the high marginal income tax rate and freezing/reducing the bloated social welfare budget.

How about we collect the (extremely reasonable) taxes from corporations...

CBear1993

And make c*nts go to work that SHOULD be at work of any sort instead of lay abouts doing wee cash jobs here and there when they aren’t pissing about collecting their dole. You’d soon see less young lads entering the drug trade too as they’d have to get out and get a job with no dole to keep them afloat until a job comes up for the local dealer

Silentcorner

Deleted User wrote: »

How about we collect the (extremely reasonable) taxes from corporations...

We'd be far better off building an economy on indigenous companies like the rest of the developed world instead of depending on foreign corporations and tax scams....

ExMachina1000

What about Jonathan Sugarman. Where did he ever go

Fred Cryton

Deleted User wrote: »

How about we collect the (extremely reasonable) taxes from corporations...

We do. These companies pay all the taxes they are legally required to pay to the Irish state.

Fred Cryton

Fred Cryton wrote: »

We do. These companies pay all the taxes they are legally required to pay to the Irish state.

Nonsense.

Silentcorner

Silentcorner wrote: »

We'd be far better off building an economy on indigenous companies like the rest of the developed world instead of depending on foreign corporations and tax scams....

I totally agree.

purifol0

ExMachina1000 wrote: »

What about Jonathan Sugarman. Where did he ever go

He was a whisltblower, you don't think RTE would give him a platform do you. Like everyone else who goes against the establishment he has to take to social media and earn a crust in the private sector.

blanch152

CBear1993 wrote: »

What’s your opinions on Paschal Donohoe as a finance minister? Listened to McWilliams podcast two weeks ago and he didn’t seem to have much time for him as far as economics were concerned, but a nice fellow

McWilliams is the guy who dreamed up the bank bailout, gave the idea to Brian Lenihan in his kitchen, which later resulted in this country bankrupting itself.

If I hear him suggest something ever since, my initial reaction is to consider the opposite idea to be better.

blanch152

Deleted User wrote: »

How about we collect the (extremely reasonable) taxes from corporations...

What do you mean by that?

Ireland has one of the highest proportions in the world of its tax receipts coming from corporations and one of the lowest coming from people on the average wage.

Them's the facts.

ToxicPaddy

As has already been said by a few here, I do like David McWilliams and some of his articles are an interesting read but I don't agree or believe everything he says.

There is definitely an element of sensationalist media attention grabbing comments sometimes from him but some of his income is derived from media outlets and that's how you grab headlines and get into those media outlets and get paid. Yes I know he's also a faculty member of at least 1 x university in Dublin, but I'm sure he also makes a tidy sum from the media outlets too.

This idea of going after multi-nationals for an equity share is pipedream stuff really though as while these multinationals have a nice setup in Ireland, they would shut up shop and walk away very quickly if the government started down that path which is essentially threatening their bottom line.

Yes it would be nice to get a few quid extra in taxes from them but having 50k fairly well paid of their employees with a good chunk of them on the higher tax bracket and spending their earnings in the Irish economy is not a bad alternative either.

washman3

blanch152 wrote: »

McWilliams is the guy who dreamed up the bank bailout, gave the idea to Brian Lenihan in his kitchen, which later resulted in this country bankrupting itself.

If I hear him suggest something ever since, my initial reaction is to consider the opposite idea to be better.

You need to go back and check the facts again.
McWilliams certainly did'nt 'dream up' the infamous bank bailout.
And he totally disagreed with NAMA.

Mysterypunter

I know nothing about economics, but if you spend more than you earn you will be in dept. In school I would be in the handball alley instead of the economics class, but this dude is always shouting the economy is going to collapse, and when it does he says he told us all, it was bound to happen. The problem I had with him was he is on tv and radio all the time with the one trick, and after 4 or 5 years of his predictions, it collapses once and he claims to be right. So I looked at some of his specific advice, and he told everyone to invest in the Argentinan economy as they were an example to the world. A month later their economy collapsed, people were living in cardboard boxes, and a trillion pesos was worth about 2 quid. He could not have been more incorrect if he told us night was day. From this I concluded he was a guesser, and put him in the same bracket as that ****ing conman Eddie Hobbs, wonder where he is now?

Silentcorner

I heard a great expression from an old school Labour politician years ago...I have used this one before.

"An economist is like a one eyed javelin thrower....they hit the mark every now and again but always they keep everyone on their toes"

completedit

The role of economists is not to predict the future.

Tony EH

one world order wrote: »

Trump is a successful businessman and a very good leader for a country. Ability to renegotiate trade agreements, stop manufacturing jobs offshoring abroad, reduce regulations on small businesses, tax incentives for startups, tax rebates for creating jobs, etc.

Boards.ie needs a "This is a load of bollocks" emoji.

Successful businessman now means rich boys running companies into the ground more than once.

yosser hughes

blanch152 wrote: »

McWilliams is the guy who dreamed up the bank bailout, gave the idea to Brian Lenihan in his kitchen, which later resulted in this country bankrupting itself.

If I hear him suggest something ever since, my initial reaction is to consider the opposite idea to be better.

You're not great on facts. Peter Bacon did that.
McWilliams is a self publicist and tends to exaggerate and 'simplify' but he's not the worst.

There's a long list of bluffers in this country who are still suckling at the teat of the taxpayer and suffered no consequences for their venal behaviour during the last bubble.
Micheal Martin and Eamon Ryan were in the cabinet back that approved the bank guarantee, look at them now.
The people in this country need to look at themselves too.

JohnnyFlash

antimatterx wrote: »

Donohoe studied Economics and Politics. I think he's our best finance minister in a long time. You could argue he has cost him a lot of money going into politics, as he became a Director at Procter & Gamble in his 20s. He also gave up job security.

Richard Bruton also has an economics background, and would have been finance minister instead of Noonan (a teacher like) if he didn't attempt to become FG leader.

Paschal Donohoe is from a traditional Northside working class family (unlike some of our most vocal ‘working class’ socialists). One of the first in his extended family to go to university, and graduated from Trinity with a 1st in economics and finance. Moved to the UK and became a director of P&G. It’s not an exaggeration to say he would be CEO of a multinational by now. A man of extraordinary intellect and integrity. Even his most vocal opposition critics like the lad

saabsaab

completedit wrote: »

The role of economists is not to predict the future.

Just as well. As someone once said they can only tell you why something went wrong only after it has.


I like McWilliams


'He was the first economist to see that the Irish boom was nothing more than a credit bubble and one of the very few to accurately predict it would all end in a monumental crash with bank failures, negative equity and rising unemployment and emigration'