Are we all fucked?

[astfgyl]

Have to admit lads I do enjoy the odd 5 page battle. I've been a participant in a few but it's no craic when it turns sour lads

[Thorn]

I love coming into this thread and feeling like Dougal in Ted's thought bubbles on the beach

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Those battles all have one common denominator. What do you suppose that denominator is?

Kev?   

Look, if you're concerned about Dublin having too much immigration already, then looking at the demographics of London of all places and worrying that the same thing, whatever that actually is, is going to happen in Ireland too, well that's almost like a form of socio-political hypochondria. You're not here trying to persuade us to your side of things, I recognize and actually respect that. As it happens though, people who are in the business of winning over others, politicians, etc., they do spread that kind of "Look at Paris! Look at London! We will be next!!" fear sentiment, accompanied by whatever latest horrific filmed crime is doing the rounds, because they gain from it. Without that fear, they lose a large part of their votes. For all the faults of mine you point out, I think I almost never do the "leftist" equivalent of that; I don't worry the US is headed for civil war, or that France is becoming a fascist nation, etc. (Maybe I do it a little about the climate though.) I never had a bad word to say about ordinary people who voted Leave in the Brexit referendum. I understand and sympathize with people who voted Le Pen rather than Macron. Those who don't simply don't know about, because they ultimately don't give a shit about, working class and rural British/French people. I'm not a socialist out of ideology. I'm a socialist because I grew up poor in a rich town, so I've known all about disparity for as long as I can remember. I side with the underdog, always have, always will. Wherever they're from. And I do my best to stay focused on what is happening rather than on what someone is trying to make me fear might happen, whatever their political persuasion.

[The Butcher]

I think we can all agree on some level that endless growth is the stem of the issue. Like it or not, migration allows the endless growth cycle to continue as it compounds everything. Natural birth rates reflect reality. At what point is artificially increasing the population enough? How many millions. At some point it does stop. So why not now why not when natural growth is saying stop. Forget environmental goals, forget trying to decrease farm outputs.

[astfgyl]

Well the stupidity of reducing herd size here while Brazil expands is pretty special for sure.

[hellfire]

I think we can all agree on some level that endless growth is the stem of the issue. Like it or not, migration allows the endless growth cycle to continue as it compounds everything. Natural birth rates reflect reality. At what point is artificially increasing the population enough? How many millions. At some point it does stop. So why not now why not when natural growth is saying stop. Forget environmental goals, forget trying to decrease farm outputs.

Well put. There are other things that could be tackled with regard to the birth rate. A lot of women just want to work and have a career and good for them. A lot are just not in a position to. When you have couples working two jobs to scrape by then options are limited. If birth rate is such a problem incentive having kids. I'd agree that the only real winners there are large companies who enjoy keeping the unit cost of labour down. It's effectively a ponzi scheme.

[The Butcher]

Well the stupidity of reducing herd size here while Brazil expands is pretty special for sure.

I do hear the argument of why Europe is allowed to push ahead with it's concrete jungle while we point/wag the finger at Brazil etc but at the end of the day, that's a race to the bottom type argument, or a race to eradicating the "lungs" of the Earth. Europe should have marshall plan in terms of planting trees/plants etc and maybe it could start to gain some credibility. But yes 100% it seems bonkers to replace to go from our high quality beef farming to import "beef" with little to no traceability from over 5000 miles away.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

I don't know what the future beef import plans are, but as far as "replacing" our own produce goes, we've imported a significant fraction of the beef we consume for decades, even when domestic stocks were large enough to supply our own demand a hundred times over. That's part of the resource irresponsibility of a capital based economy: as long as capital is expanding, don't worry about the material resource cost. I was reading the other day that we export 90% of our dairy produce, so if some form of maximum self-sufficiency is a direction to go in, that alone would sort out ~90% of the numbers of dairy cows.

[astfgyl]

Or could we be leading exporters and mitigate that in some other way? What will likely happen is we'll still sell what we have and end up eating shite in its stead. Cricket burgers and that bollix.

[astfgyl]

The report also provides a retrospective examination of the extraordinary level of fiscal support Government provided during the pandemic. At €48 billion, or over one-fifth of GNI*, the scale of this intervention was unprecedented. The robust economic recovery and the absence of any significant 'scarring' suggests that this approach was the appropriate course of action.

Yeah we're fucked. Where's the money for the cost of living crisis that hasn't even kicked in yet? Oh that's right, transferred into the accounts of various billionaires through massive corporations. 13 trillion and counting but don't worry, there's no scarring. You'll just be hungry and cold for the winter with electricity brown and blackouts. Hooray! Thank god Putin popped up to take the blame for what's coming. I fuckin called this in 2020 and I know fuck all. These tossers are paid with your money to make this much of a fuck of spending your money and your kids future money and still get to not be in prison. Wow, what a wonderful world. Here's hoping they'll bring the state pension up by a fiver a week to alleviate the pain they've caused saving the elderly only to freeze and starve them 2 years later.     

Reading that statement is like someone trying to tell me that the dog I'm looking at is a horse.

It wouldn't even be so galling if there was anything to show for the money, and don't start with the "it could have been so much worse if we didn't etc" because that is not provable. At least we have lots of perspex in place to do absolutely nothing in the future if anything happens and those floor signs telling us where to stand and which door to go in or out were surely worth every penny. Also we got to pay for several shots of a questionable vaccine which may or may not do anything and we're going to do it again this winter and be told it was free. And the advertising, don't forget you wouldn't have known you were in danger without the advertising! Talk about pissing down our backs and telling us it's raining.

Imagine what could've been done with 48 billion euros if there was a genuine desire to improve anything.

Unreal. Jesus wept in his imaginary kingdom.

https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/5e588-minister-donohoe-publishes-annual-taxation-report/

[Ollkiller]

On immigration. Been good for us so far anyway. I grew up in the 80s. Craic was good in a way but Ireland was an awful shit hole and the food options were beyond shyte. Way better food options now and have loads of mates from other countries. Now at the same time people should be able to talk about immigration policy without the hysteria.

As regards money. System is rigged. Always has been. Either you properly tax corporations at a rate of about 40 percent everywhere in the world thereby guaranteeing good standards of living for everyone or you have a revolution. The EU or America print money all the time for bullshit like quantitative easing or whatever. Why not print money to make housing a human right, thereby giving housing to all removing the 30 year noose around everyone's neck (and this could be done quite easily btw). And leaving people to buy all the corporations products with more buying power anyway. The system (and unrifled capatalism) is rigged in the long run to keep the masses down.

[astfgyl]

Yes agreed on all that.

[Caomhaoin]

Do you think food options being better is down to immigration? I like you was brought up on chips and sausages, stew etc, but I never tasted anything polish until my ex mother in law cooked every Sunday for me from about 2010-2012.

I'd love to have the 30 year load of shote to go away, but you're wishing for big government, essentially socialism. Ask anyone who has lived in a socialist country (that same polish auld one told me) and they'll tell you the realities of it, albeit they did have gaffs without the 'if you don't pay the mortgage you'll see who owns the house'.

Careful what ye wish for boyz.

[astfgyl]

There has to be a happy medium surely. I wouldn't be up for communism but were my taxes spent on the betterment of my own country I'd be interested in that. I don't mind immigrants either but it's obviously silly to have them here not working and too many at once is thick as well

[Ollkiller]

Maybe it's a hybrid of capitalism and socialism. Let capitalism go on but tax corporations properly to fund the social issues.