From: Brian O'Donoghue (Brian.ODonoghue at domain kbs.ie)
Date: Mon 01 Jul 2002 - 11:29:48 IST
[There are two choices, have a part of a say inside Europe a body with
enough
Trade Strength to stand up to the rest of the world, or be subservient to
the US where enough money can push through any crazy law.]
Give it a rest, it may have escaped you, but Ireland has a very, very
serious drink problem... and still everywhere you look in the Capital you
find advertisements for Guiness, Baileys, Whiskey of every description, now
call me a paranoid, but could the dicotomy in public interest here stem
from... an interest groups perhaps? Say an extremely powerful lobby like
the drinks industry? No surely not.
[If you think Ireland as a
nation could do any such thing, then break out or GDP and population stats
and look again.]
I just love this attitude, unfortunately though contrary to popular belief,
all the money and affluence that is in this country stems from the damn hard
work of the people in it and the low tax regieme we have created for
ourselves and a German/Swedish model of taxation which would surely be
imposed by the much vaunted French 'tax harmonisation' would be a mini
disaster for the Irish economy, it would be quite easy for core EU countries
to have a single tax rate across the EU because preipheral countries like
Ireland would no longer be so attractive to invest in and yes the entire
point of having an Irish parliment and state is that we may affect
meaningful change, not so we can rest on our laurels... feel sorry for
ourselves and say ... 'sure were too small', look at the state of Israel,
just about the same population, but I don't think anyone is accusing it of
impotence do you?
[If you think Ireland could fight and anti-trust of privacy
viloation against something that has been passed in the US congress, you're
dreaming.]
Yeah I love it, if at first you don't succeed... give up.
[If you don't like Europe, then ask to give any subsidy, which the
EU have provided and you have used, back.]
Give me a break... Ireland is a 'NET CONTRIBUTER', and before you go
toughting the poor paddy line, what about the 15million people of East
Germany and the shattered economy that had to be absorbed, for your
information the south of Italy is not flush with money, and as far as I know
French farmers are still bleeding as much out of the EU as they can.
Par example the NDP, is always pictured with a slogan that read "Part funded
by the EU", yeah to the tune of 5%... 5% give me a break 5% is a Bertie
bowl, it's purely an exercise in public relations. I just can't get over the
attitude of people who think that somehow, all this money the Irish have
suddenly found has magiced itself out of the benavolent ether of the EU....
sorry kids not the case, as benavolent as former Impreialist countries are I
doubt the growth of the Irish economy is high on thier list of priorities...
somehow. Still though if you want to believe that all this success that
this Republic enjoys has been handed to us, perhaps that says alot about how
you derive your success, personally I derive mine by hard work, but you say
tomatoe I say tomatoe you know?
[Ireland is better off on the inside than on the outside.]
Really, you think that for example Ireland would be what financially worse
off in NAFTA? I don't think so somehow, and please don't make the argument
of how Ireland is culturally closer to Europle, because that is not the
case, for example the British ruled the Island for 600 years and Hitler
threatned to "Bomb the cabbage pot off the face of the planet" or some other
such giration... and guess what which president was it that allowed Gerry
Adams visa "quite publically" into his country? When was the last time
France, Germany or another European country did thing one to resolve the
Anglo-Irish conflicts? Never is when.
Unfortunately for me the EU is a euphamism for Gross Deutschland.
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