Budget 2010 and the "knowledge economy"?

Yixian

Trying to figure out whether or not the latest budget shows that the government is following through on it's knowledge economy promises or not.

R&D, science & tech and projects like "Spirit of Ireland" are basically the best opportunities for Ireland to trigger another, more sustainable boom imo, but if it's gonna work it's gotta be fast..

ei.sdraob

its all alot of lip-service and hotair from politicians

nothing is being done

AlekSmart

Just looking at the Paul Gogarty nonsense and it`s all too predictable aftermath,I`m now more certain than ever that we need a total shakedown of our system of Governance.

Just watching and listening to the antics of both Government and Opposition leaves me with a feeling of dread and hopelessness.

It is apparent to me that we have WAY too many Deputies and those we do possess are in many cases uniquely ill-suited for the job of running a Country.

Yixian

Ireland is fuuuucked without a knowledge economy brah..

onedoubleo

You ensured that the next generation would be the most educated in our history, we have sooo many engineers scientists lawyers etc.. graduating every year but there are no jobs for us.
I was in contact with MET looking to see what way to go because I am thinking of going into geophysics when I'm finished my degree and they just said that i should get my masters go abroad for a few year then come back and they might be able to employ me. But then again its not like we received a reminder that weather forecasting might be very important in the future.

Padraig Mor

Yixian wrote: »

Trying to figure out whether or not the latest budget shows that the government is following through on it's knowledge economy promises or not.

R&D, science & tech and projects like "Spirit of Ireland" are basically the best opportunities for Ireland to trigger another, more sustainable boom imo, but if it's gonna work it's gotta be fast..

Total spend on science, technology and innovation for 2010 was cut by €100 million (approx 15%) in the budget.

johnnyskeleton

onedoubleo wrote: »

You ensured that the next generation would be the most educated in our history, we have sooo many engineers scientists lawyers etc.. graduating every year but there are no jobs for us.

Just on this point, the government's idea of a smart economy was graduates in employment. This wasn't the science/engineering grads of a real high-tech economy (although engineers made a few pound on the sites), but rather a load of training people to go into sales, marketing, finance, accounting, law etc. If you look at Microsoft's operations in Ireland, they have moved from a programming orientated operation in the early 1990s to a predominantly administrative operation now.

Smart economy jobs in the government's understanding is tech support call centres. "Dey is not out pickin' spuds or layin' blocks but in them funny lookin' glass houses so dey must be smart wans fair enough" is the Bertie led concept of a smart economy.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

ejmaztec

If any teacher in any national school across the country knows anything about science, it's an accident.

stepbar

ei.sdraob wrote: »

its all alot of lip-service and hotair from politicians

nothing is being done

At the end of the day, if people themselves don't create the opportunities nothing will be done. Don't expect the Government to come along and create jobs.

thebman

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

One thing that annoyed me was in chemistry class we were told our homework was to memorise the periodic table of elements. Nothing causes one to dislike a subject more than pointless memorisation.

I dropped chemistry at first opportunity as a result of that stupidity. I much preferred physics as the teacher was a laugh and we actually learned things that seemed useful. Same with Biology although it had crap loads of memorisation, it was interesting information to know so I didn't really have to memorise it, I just remembered it.

I didn't take honours maths but I think the main reason for that was because my brother failed it and after seeing the time he put in to it and failed, I didn't want to make the same mistake. Also the ordinary level teacher was just a better teacher and I learned more at ordinary level about Calculus than I would have if I remained at higher level. Made the first year of college harder than it needed to be though given it was assumed everyone did honours maths and were told to just catch up.

It comes down to no measurement of how good teachers are in our schools IMO. The bad teachers aren't removed or assessed on performance. At least they weren't when I was in school.

ei.sdraob

stepbar wrote: »

At the end of the day, if people themselves don't create the opportunities nothing will be done. Don't expect the Government to come along and create jobs.

i expect nothing of the government, but please cant they stop ****ing around

i created a company and employment in so called "knowledge" economy

but the government are not helping if anything they are hindering business by (in my case):

* red tape and beuracracy
* stealth taxes
* keeping price of energy high via excessive regulation
* inadequate network infrastructure

stepbar

ei.sdraob wrote: »

i expect nothing of the government, but please cant they stop ****ing around

i created a company and employment in so called "knowledge" economy

but the government are not helping if anything they are hindering business by (in my case):

* red tape and beuracracy
* stealth taxes
* keeping price of energy high via excessive regulation
* inadequate network infrastructure

Well let me answer each of these in turn

* red tape and bureaucracy - To be fair, the process of opening a company is fairly simple. Ireland is in fact (on average) one of the easier places in the world to do business - http://www.doingbusiness.org/EconomyRankings/.

* stealth taxes - AFAIK incentives were given to new start ups in the interm budget. I'm not sure what stealth taxes you talk of to be honest

* keeping price of energy high via excessive regulation - In fairness, at least there are now options in the market which is a lot to be said compaired to a few years ago. Work is being done in this regard. We also have to be mindful of the fact the Ireland is a small country with no sustainable resources (i.e we aren't a Saudi Arabia). What we do have going for us is the potential for renewable energy. That will take time.

* inadequate network infrastructure - In fairness, in Dublin you shouldn't have a real problem accessing bandwidth (and I mean if you're serious about your business that's where you should be). Down the country in rural / satelite towns it's a bit hit and miss. It's a matter of doing the right research from the start.

If these are the only things hindering you in business then I suspect there's something else up.

ei.sdraob

stepbar wrote: »

* red tape and bureaucracy - To be fair, the process of opening a company is fairly simple. Ireland is in fact (on average) one of the easier places in the world to do business - http://www.doingbusiness.org/EconomyRankings/. .

ill see you open and run a business for few years, see what you have to say then

stepbar wrote: »

* stealth taxes - AFAIK incentives were given to new start ups in the interm budget. I'm not sure what stealth taxes you talk of to be honest

what good are these incentives to existing companies and tax relief is only up to a certain level with many strings attached. as for stealth taxes, the close/small company corporation tax surcharge brings effective corpo rate to well above 20%

stepbar wrote: »

* keeping price of energy high via excessive regulation - In fairness, at least there are now options in the market which is a lot to be said compaired to a few years ago. Work is being done in this regard. We also have to be mindful of the fact the Ireland is a small country with no sustainable resources (i.e we aren't a Saudi Arabia). What we do have going for us is the potential for renewable energy. That will take time.

the prices can go lower as fuel costs gone down, ESB is being prevented from offering a 15% cut

stepbar wrote: »

* inadequate network infrastructure - In fairness, in Dublin you shouldn't have a real problem accessing bandwidth (and I mean if you're serious about your business that's where you should be). Down the country in rural / satelite towns it's a bit hit and miss. It's a matter of doing the right research from the start.

broadband ROFL

im talking about huge amounts of reliable/fast connectivity, my company uses 2gbit and rising of bandwidth constantly, thats almost twice more than flows thru INEX, in US were paying 3$/mbit and have offers of 1.5$/mbit on new commits, the price in Ireland is in region of 20 to 100$/mbit and thats before crazy collocation fees