Every town in Ireland should come up with visions of the virgin mary in every tree, plant and animal and we should become a giant Lourdes with flashing lights. Introduce a visitors virgin mary tax

I fail to see the benefit from switching my casflow from one long-term asset to another. Besides, at the time of retirement I am suppose to eat spam or re-leverage?

Here's my idea: introduce a regressive income tax and attract talent and wealth instead of Chinese burger-flippers and Latvian 'builders'?

I like YMs idea although I think it would have to be worked on to some degree as a lot of Irish people think a pension is something the government gives you and I agree with the regressive tax but I would also jail a lot of the bankers and asset strip them in the process to lay ground rules for future bankers.

Why? Without question, bankers who broke the laws should go to jail. But most merely acted within the framework set by the govt and its agencies. Why jail someone for landing to builders if the elected govt promoted construction sector. If you want to lay clear ground rules, indiscriminate jailing does nothing of the sort. It only sends a confusing message.

The solution is to disband the Central Bank and Financial Regulator and set up a new, single body with joint functions, headed by an external well-paid, top-of-the-league talent (I would suggest Dick Fuld) with the entire body outside of the civil service structures.

Just because something is legal doesnt mean its above abuse or even that its ok to do i.e. alcohol in Ireland, perfectly legal and probably the most abused drug everyweekend.
When I said bankers I didnt limit the punishment to them, they were simply the people that came immediately to mind although I stand corrected.
Now I should have said FF, the central bank the Financial Regulator and the Developers etc etc I should have included them, but it didnt so I can only apologise for being potentially discriminatary towards one section of VIs.

I applogise for being ambiguous.

What I meant to say was that one should act within the framework of legislation and democratic processes. That is fundamental. Ad-hoc-post-hoc policing is the worst way to run a state. If someone broke the law - there is a legal process for those. If laws are bad - there is the process to change them. If the govt is bad there is a process to change it.

Yes you're right but the problems surrounding changing the government is the time involved and the damage they can do in the meantime. Therfore I would in changing a government change the law so that previous bad or out of date legislation may be corrected retrospectively.
This would allow meting out punishment for crimes which when committed were within the framework of legislation but obviously morally corrupt and wrong. In otherwords removing the "get out of jail free" cards from the system.
As Im sure you're aware we are governed within a totally one sided and corrupt system and personally I want to see previous practices punished regardless of how long ago they were committed and the removal of all the hiding places.

You can't change the rules of the game retrospectively just because you don't fancy the outcome. It is fundamental for any process to stick to the consistent application of written rule of law. States that don't operate on the basis of this principle are the states where one wouldn't fancy living - these are lawless countries and Mao's China is one that springs to mind. Saudi Arabia is another one - where outcomes of legal processes are determined on case-per-case basis depending upon who sits on what side of the bench.

Why don't we let the free market work? Let the market work and the economy will be up and running in no time.

We don't need scrapage schemes, tax incentives and more interference from incompetent politicians and their sycophant gombeen men

Somebody (D_E?) commented here that recovery is due in 2011 or so.

That got me thinking whilst walking up the deserted streets to the local shop for my sandwich.

What the F. is going to drive this recovery?

Irelands recent meteoric rise was based firmly on making houses and giving people Debt.
Those two foundations have been blown to pieces, which leaves what? eh?

Pharma - fucked, no new drugs, Generic for the next ten years.....
Oil/Gas - er. er. nope
Manufacturing. er nope.
IT - mmm possibly.... (a bit)
Electronics.. (currently on a barge to Poland)

So without debt supporting construction, and the MASSIVE overhang ov existing construction project, what is going to drive this recovery?

Fuck all.

Areas for growth investment

Biotechnology.
Multinational revenue optimisation services.
Agriculture and food processing industry (major shake up long overdue in agriculture)


The major problem that holds us back is debt servicing and taxation, that's an added cost to everything we do and needs to be checked.

Sex tourism. Sure we've all been ridden for years.

Now seen in the industry as a false dawn.


Getting more blood out of the stone is'nt an option



Food is Cheap. farming is massively subsidised.
If IRE is to revert back to farming, we will indeed go backwards. Rapidly



This holds us back from nothing, but means our net profits will be nought for generations to come.

We have nothing to offer (and never did really). thats our problem

Superpiper, this is something that has been swimming in my head for the past year....and I'm no closer than you are to coming up with an answer. The only thing I can think of that we can do is push our agriculture and work on Irish produce as a premium brand (something that I'm sure has been suggested before)

Intel had 14 reasons to locate in Ireland all those years ago, only one of those reasons remain

We sure are fooked

baddum tssschh