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Are you gonna march on wednesday 22nd October?
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Ah manic, nice to see ya!!manicmonoliths wrote: »Just saw all the sabbats on Rte news!
Protest was mental today! The most fun I've had in a good while, despite the head injury
I'd actually like to reiterate your advice to anybody with a can of KALASHNIKOW in there hand right now... Quit drinkin it after a couple cans. My head is spinning and me hands are flying about the keyboard. And not in a good way :rolleyes:0 -
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I think the fees argument is going to rage on for quite a while, but we need to start looking at the bigger picture: the future of this country.
(apologies about the length of this post)
Contrary to the widespread opinion that the economic downturn is only going to last for a ¨year or two¨ and that all will be rosy again by the time most current freshers graduate, the fact of the matter is that this country is in big **** on the economic front. And that fact affects the vast majority of us.
Economics is a funny thing, and its very hard to predict what will happen. But it doesn´t take a Theoretical Physicist to see that our economic model just isnt right.
We are a services-based nation, our manufacturing base is tiny compared to the likes of Germany, the US, Russia etc. We have put all our eggs in the one basket. I know that there are exceptions such as Intel and Dell etc, but dont hold your breath as regards their future in this country.
And lets just look for a moment why those kind of companies invested here in the first place. Apart from the Corporation Tax incentives, the reason that this was an appealing place to invest was because we had relatively large number of technical graduates who were mostly unemployed, and the corporate cost base here was a lot lower than in many other places at that time.
Two decades or so down the line, lets review our situation. The economy has progressed due to the prosperity/employment these manufacturing/technical companies brought. Our minimum wage is now one of the highest in Europe. Business costs including purchase of land, wages, tax, transportation etc have sky-rocketed. Obviously the chief executives of major international firms are going to think twice about setting up here when they can do it ten times cheaper somewhere else (e.g. India, which like we had, have a vast number of graduates, cheap operating costs, political stability etc).
Down through the ages, the economic progression of a place has taken a very distinct course. People found a raw natural resource that they could exploit, be it gold, coal, oil, iron ore, fishing, agriculture etc, and they settled near it. Once the infrastructure to exploit that resource was in place, and there were people employed in that process, those people required services.
Hence the establishment of service-based businesses like Pubs, Clothes shops, Hardware shops, Barbers etc, the list goes on and on. Of course once those businesses were established they too required workers who in turn required services etc, and so the cycle continues. Then comes the need for house building and the need for trades-people etc etc etc.
But think about it, would it have happened the other way around? Would a town be established with something like an insurance company or at its core? Somehow i dont think so.
(Almost done
)
So now lets put this in the context of Ireland. Our options are somewhat limited by the fact that we dont have the vast amount of raw materials such as Canada or Russia etc. So lets stick to what we DO have.
We are an island and as such we are perfectly suited to research into the next generation of tidal-based power generation. We also have plenty of wind, so we could even start exporting electricity generated by wind turbines if an appropriate infrastructure was put in place.
Similarly, we have a relatively unoccupied radio-wave transmission spectrum which would enable hi-tech companies to experiment with the next generation of wireless broadband.
We also have a well-established pharmaceutical industry working on the medicines and vaccines of the future. This industry in particular is going to be absolutely HUGE in the years to come.
So now down to my main point (yes, there is one!):
Lets utilise the resources that we have at our disposal. We are an English speaking, politically stable, educated nation at the heart of Europe, conveniently located between North America and an ideal stop-over location in terms of air and sea transport.
We have many historic ties with countries such as the US, who would most definitely continue to invest here if they saw that our government had the foresight to invest in research, create a knowledge based economy and drive down operating costs.
This knowledge-based ecomony that everyone keeps harping on about will require competent, skilled and eager technical gradates.
To produce the right number of such graduates should be the aim the government. To move away from property and house building which generates NOTHING for the economy should be the aim of this government. To attract inward investment from large multi-nationals should be the aim of this government. Once this is done, the services industry will develop and prosper.
I fear for the future of this country, mainly because i know that none of the fat cats that govern this country will have the balls or the foresight to do take these measures. Also because a lot of people of my generation (19-25) believe they have a right to everything, especially the right to a good time while somebody else picks up the tab.
I also look at the kind of people that turned up for the protest earlier today. I was there, but not for the reasons a lot of other people were. A great help all ye with ¨**** Fees¨ banners were. No wonder the credibility of our generation is gone down the drain. Thats the kind of attitude and intelligent input you´d expect from the scumbags on either side of the Orangemen / Republican parades in the North.
Id say most older people were crying with laughter (or despair) when they watched the 6 o´clock news and saw some of the Hot-Shots that turned up for the protest in all their glory, topless in front of Leinster House holding brooms and cans of crappy Bavaria.
So at the end of this big long rant, where has all this hullabaloo got us? No where. Maybe they wont introduce fees, maybe they will. Either way we´re ****ed unless we open our eyes and take a long hard look at our desperate situation, and find the balls to act.
Thats my tuppence worth. Flame me or not, i dont give a **** either way.0 -
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Join Date:Posts: 7930
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What is the protest about? fees again?manicmonoliths wrote: »Yeah apparently there's an all-Ireland colleges protest happening in February next year. Should be great if today was anything to go by!
We actually got a complement off one of the more senior RTÉ correspondant's saying something to the effect of "if the students couldn't put on a decent rally about this, you'd be disappointed in the youth of the nation"PurpleFistMixer wrote: »the protest at least served to prove that students can organise themselves somehow into a semicoherent band of raving protesters, and not even break out into a riot.
Felt kinda chuffed...
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