Categories
Politics Technology

Apple Pay?

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Apple and their ilk – remember it’s not so long since Microsoft was Ireland’s favourite taxpayer – save billions a year simply by offering to create employment here. While it would seem to make a lot of sense for a small country to buy jobs at the cost only of tax revenue that it would not have received anyway, it’s a pretty Faustian pact. For a start, what Apple is offering is not actually that great – just a few thousand jobs, and not necessarily quality, high-earning ones that feed skills into the economy. (That 200 at the new giant data center? Mostly maintenance.)

But worse, we are aiding and abetting an act which even if not illegal (as the European Commission believes), is certainly immoral. Apple is just creating artificial transactions between artificial sections of its own corporation. On paper this makes profit in Ireland; in reality of course the only transaction that has occurred was on a spreadsheet in Cupertino. The service we are offering our corporate clients is basically to act as if this is all somehow legit.

In doing so we are not merely competing with other countries. We are helping undermine the legitimate ability of countries to tax. In this race to the bottom, the only winners are the wealthy. Minister for Finance Michael Noonan claims that taxing Apple now would harm our reputation. But which reputation – the one of being a pushover for a handful of jobs? The one of being a country that sides with big business against the interests of our neighbours and of democracy itself?

Consider what harm this does to the reputation we do want: of a knowledge-based economy that pulls in investment thanks to a talented and educated workforce. There is some truth in that on the ground; people are working hard here to innovate and create businesses. But we are providing the perfect opportunity for competitors to say “That’s all bullshit, companies invest in Ireland because it’s a tax haven.”

And it isn’t easy to gainsay that view, because there’s truth in it too. The more government policy depends on low tax for foreign investment, the less we need bother with the education and infrastructure that would otherwise be the lure. (And which, we might mention in passing, would also stimulate domestic business.) The story about talent and education becomes just shtick, a hollow patter to distract from the financial shell game.

And this devalues us; not just as a place to do business, but as a country and as a people. It devalues our talent. It devalues the Masters degree I worked damned hard for. Indeed it devalues the very companies that invest here, because obviously they’re in it for short term balance-sheet gains rather than a long term investment in place and people.

Low corporation tax has been a useful tool, but that’s all it was ever meant to be – a way to help us transition from being an underdeveloped and largely agricultural economy into a diversified social democracy. The tool has now outlived its usefulness. There is no future in being the Cayman Islands of the EU.

Categories
Politics

Let The Clusterfuck Commence

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Categories
Humour Politics

“No Means Yes” – Taoiseach

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Categories
Humour Politics

An Aqueous Solution

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Categories
Politics

Fianna Fáil Walkout May Mean New Election

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Just to let you know there’s a new Phoenix out.

Categories
Cosmography

Idealism

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Categories
Cosmography

And We’re Back In The Room

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That’s better. My apologies; following an entry titled ‘Last Post’ with the sudden and total disappearance of this blog may, just possibly, have created a misleading impression. Don’t worry. The blogging will continue until morale improves.

The fact is I’d decided that, as I am pretty much specialising in creating and hosting WordPress sites these days, it was kind of embarrassing that my own blog was still hosted by someone else. Up to now it’s been a free WordPress.com site. This is a fantastic service if you just want to blog, but if you install WordPress on your own server you can create a really capable website. Which is exactly what I’m doing for a lot of people these days – in fact I’m on the verge of officially launching it as a business. More of this… shortly.

Anyway I hit a snag while changing the domain name I.doubt.it to point to the new version, which meant that most readers could see neither. It was a simple problem, but I’d no time to fix it because it happened just before I left on a visit to the Netherlands to see the big Heironymus Bosch exhibition. Of this too I hope to speak in the near future.

But for now, a happy Paddy’s Day to all of you in places where it’s still Paddy’s Day. Here in Ireland it’s been over for some hours, and I’m off to bed.

Categories
Politics

Last Post

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We live in strange times, when you realise that one of the better possible outcomes of this election would be Gerry Adams as Taoiseach.

But there are so many ways it could be worse than that. Worst of all would be a return to power of Fianna Fáil. And the return of Ireland to the zero-sum game that most of last century was wasted on, where people give their loyalty to parties for much the same reasons they give it to football teams.

So I cannot bring myself to vote for the coalition parties just to keep FF out. That would be to join in the zero-sum game. There is a real chance in this election of bringing in a government that includes neither of the big two conservatives, for the first time ever. That would really be something.

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Even if it had to include Labour, yes. Indeed that may be their only hope for salvation as a party. (If the question is not theoretical – there will be precious few Labour TDS after this collaboration with the punishment regime.) Their choice will be to join with Sinn Féin and other groups on the (very) broad left, or forever be seen as the condom Fine Gael use when they fuck us.

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Second only to the return of FF, the worst possible outcome of this election would be if people believed that the ritual sacrifice of our poor to the austerity gods returned prosperity to the land. In fact our economy is so naked to outside forces that government action has very little to do with its ups and downs – as FG will be only to happy to explain themselves if they’re in power when everything tanks again, in a year or two. So even if you think this is a recovery, it’s not a good reason to reward the parties. They didn’t start it, they can’t keep it going.

The worst outcome wouldn’t be a FF/FG alliance. Sure that wouldn’t be stable – how could it be, when these parties are defined by not being each other? – but it would change the game forever. And it would be so funny.

I think there is a real possibility now of government without FG or FF, and I urge you to vote that way.

But even that isn’t my dream outcome. What I’d really like to see is a government entirely composed of non-party candidates. Ideally, of people who’ve never even stood for election before.

Political experience is what got us where we are now.

Categories
Cosmography Humour Politics

One Year On

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Categories
Cosmography Politics

Fast Forward

A lot has happened since I last wrote. I fell in love, I lost my memory, and I represented my country as a cartoonist at the European Parliament. Had quite a nice Christmas too. I really don’t know how I’ll find time to tell all these stories.

For the meantime, here’s a selection of cartoons I assembled for the Cartooning for Human Rights event:

http://spacelab.ie/lightbulb/