The R Word

Purple said:
The underlying problem is that we attracted those companies here by being a low-cost, low tax economy. Then for some bizarre reason thought that we could become a high cost economy and they would stay here. When did we forget that we took the jobs from people in the USA etc because they were paid more than us? Not those companies are leaving in exactly the same way they came and we have a problem with that. Why? We stole the jobs from someone else and now the next guy is stealing them from us.
The real tragedy is that we didn’t develop an indigenous high-tech manufacturing base (with a few notable exceptions like Trinity Biotech, Elan and smaller companies like Creganna Medical). There is no major economy in the world that does not have a strong high-tech engineering and science based manufacturing sector. Since the Second World War Germany, Japan, South Korea and China have all build their economy in this way. Why did we think offering cheap labour and stealing tax from Germans could was sustainable?
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Yeah, this absolutely nails it. All of the competitive advantages we had 10 years ago are gone. And instead of making a concerted effort to maintain those advantages, the government seems to have instead believed their own bullsh1T about our "young educated workforce" and "knowledge economy". Anyone that couldn't see through this vain, self-flattering delusion is probably starting to see through it now.

A friend of my dad's (a doctor in his early 60's) said to me about 2 years ago that the multinationals would never leave because they are too afraid to p1ss off the Irish government. The moment I heard that from a smart, educated professional, I knew we were screwed.
 
Indeed, I remember at the beginning of last year when there was uncertainty about Amgen opening their plant in Cork, many people were saying that they were delaying the announcement until after the general election as a favour to Fianna Fail.

We certainly have an inflated sense of our importance on the world stage!
 
Purple is on the ball there with his last few posts. We got to find a way to dig ourselves out of the hole we put ourselves in, and the first thing we need is strong leadership. We'll see exactly what type of leadership we have over the coming months. It's hard to be optimistic.
 
Treehouse said:
Yeah, this absolutely nails it. All of the competitive advantages we had 10 years ago are gone. And instead of making a concerted effort to maintain those advantages, the government seems to have instead believed their own bullsh1T about our "young educated workforce" and "knowledge economy". Anyone that couldn't see through this vain, self-flattering delusion is probably starting to see through it now.

A friend of my dad's (a doctor in his early 60's) said to me about 2 years ago that the multinationals would never leave because they are too afraid to p1ss off the Irish government. The moment I heard that from a smart, educated professional, I knew we were screwed.
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Spot on. I love the last bit! :D
 
jimbob1234 said:
guys / gals to be honest oil is going no where but up. 141 dollars this morning and counting. the worlds economies are fallign into recession, we will have stagflation everywhere.
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Surely a global recession is going to have a bad impact on demand for oil? I don't see the ever rising prices for oil that you seem to suggest. In fact I would be surprised if oil stays above $100 throughout 2009.
 
jimbob1234 said:
i understand that but the high tech companies wont be as badly affected as they were in 2001 when the dot coms collapsed. we survived that didnt we? and came back stronger
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We did come back stronger but with a different type of economic growth. The post-2001 boom was mainly a consumption led boom as too-low interest rates sent the housing market into overdrive. Credit fueled a huge spending binge which in turn fed into the government's spending plans. If we were only facing a global economic slowdown with the 2000 era economy (lower costs; lower private sector debt & a more diversified economy) then I would be a lot more optimistic.
 
Agree with Purple, Treehouse and others

Don't know if any of you saw a documentary ( prob primetime or similar ) about how Ireland / IDA lured all the multi nationals here in the past.

Basically the IDA ( think Padraig Whyte was director at time ) hired a marketing company to create a brand for Ireland and sell us to the world. They did a hell of a job! - We all know how they spun it - well educated young motivated workforce - cheap land and labour - perched on the edge of europe etc etc

Point is ( and well made above ) we have nothing to sell or spin now ! At least not without a complete re think and hopefully some very creative ideas.

On a lighter note - the one thing the doom and gloom merchants don't make any allowance for is human resilience. The likes of George Lee et al cannot factor in the fact that entrepreneurial spirit might win out and screw up their predictions / projections. It is not a number so they cannot crunch it and therefore choose to ignore it.
 
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Not just have we nothing new to sell but countries from Central America to Eastern Europe have copied our IDA model exactly.
 
Afuera said:
Surely a global recession is going to have a bad impact on demand for oil? I don't see the ever rising prices for oil that you seem to suggest. In fact I would be surprised if oil stays above $100 throughout 2009.
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it will but it will take a global recession to kill that demand so it will be a while yet before the back of oil is broken
 
Wait till we get a few oil strikes on the Atlantic coast, then its happy days again so long as the crustys dont prevent us bringing it ashore.
 
csirl said:
Wait till we get a few oil strikes on the Atlantic coast, then its happy days again so long as the crustys dont prevent us bringing it ashore.
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Not an expert on this but the Cost of Drilling and Licensing impediments have kept this scenario as (no pun intended) a pipedream!
 
ccbkd said:
Not an expert on this but the Cost of Drilling and Licensing impediments have kept this scenario as (no pun intended) a pipedream!
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As the price goes up the cost of extraction becomes less prohibitive.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ccbkd http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?p=657275#post657275
Not an expert on this but the Cost of Drilling and Licensing impediments have kept this scenario as (no pun intended) a pipedream!

As the price goes up the cost of extraction becomes less prohibitive.
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And technological advances make it possible to extract the oil more easily. As oil shortage gets more pronounced, there is a lot more effort going into developing the technology to access previously inaccessable oil fields.

The gas field off the coast of Mayo that the shell to sea people are objecting to is a classic example of a fossil fuel reserve that has only recently become accessable and viable due to price increases and technology advances.
 
and what about the apes in mayo that delayed it being brought ashore for years. has anyone here been in LA, you can drive around the city and actually see the nodding donkeys pumping oil besides shops, houses etc
 
csirl said:
Wait till we get a few oil strikes on the Atlantic coast, then its happy days again so long as the crustys dont prevent us bringing it ashore.
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No benefit to the Irish economy if we strike oil

Fianna Fail will just sell it for a few brown envelopes like P Flynn did with the Corrib Gas

We need a better plan than an oil strike - LOL
 
Oil companies have approx 30 years of leases currently outstanding, they do not have the capability to even use up their current leases so drilling our way out of high oil prices is probably one of the greatest myths big oil preaches.
 
csirl said:
Wait till we get a few oil strikes on the Atlantic coast, then its happy days again so long as the crustys dont prevent us bringing it ashore.
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Yeah, I remember drilling a few dustbowls out there alright.

There will no doubt be a few small fields that will economically yield something, but there'll be no North Sea type bonanza.
 
uiop said:
why does the government give tax breaks for companies drilling out there when surely the economic pressures involved from global lack of supplies will get companies out there taking a risk anyway ?

Is there any scientific basis for assuming theres nothing major out there to be discovered ? Would that not be the same as saying that every part of it had been drilled/explored ?

ps are we in a recession or not ? :confused:
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Offshore drilling is horrendously expensive in itself, but before drilling starts there's already been very significant sums spent on satellite analysis, seabed geological surveys ec etc.
There's no doubt that some already-surveyed blocks will be getting closer to financial viability, almost by the day. I don't doubt some of these small fields will be developed using combined drillship/tanker technology, where a drillship goes onsite, drills the well, then the production unit fills the tanker, the well gets plugged & off you go.
But don't confuse that with finding another Brent or Forties field. They'd already know about fields that size if they were there.
 
Everyone knows the government gave in too easily to benchmarking and the public sector unions, we now have the highest paid public sector workers in europe about the same level of pay as the scandinavian countries, however the scandinavian countries can afford them because they have oil(norway) and stong home based scientific multinationals in denmark finland and sweden. We simply can't now afford to pay these wages and pensions, however once the government does not try and raise taxation to pay for this largesse like they did in the 80s we should be able to contain the problem
 
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