Let's grab this golden chance - David McWilliams - is FF cunning enough?

Yixian

Daithinski wrote: »

Trinity Ranks 169 in the world.

It barely makes it into the top 50 in Europe. (#49)

Times Higher Education Supplement Global Ranking 2009
43rd overall globally, 13th in Europe and 1st in Ireland, up from 49th globally in 2008; 32nd for Arts and Humanities globally (up from 37th in 2007)

Whitefield Consulting Worldwide - European MBA Rankings 2007
16th in Europe and 1st in Ireland

nyarlothothep

Hmmm, nah, I think this is a pipedream, nothing more, London will still be a hub of finance with social/corporate inertia etc. Besides the UK will protect its interests. There are three things I find distasteful with the article (1). The begging bowl mentality it espouses, its time for Ireland to develop its own industries, (2). The ends justifying the means, these salaries, bonuses included are outrageous, its time to clean up the corruption with a global effort (3). that last comment about Englands loss is Irelands gain is immature and backwards.

Yixian

I'm a medical student, I graduate in 2013 and other than doing a masters in tropical medicine in London I have every desire to move to Dublin asap to live and work. Of course, I'll have the benefit of an almost free flat in central London I can hop over to whenever I want due to some personal luck but I can tell you, of the two cities it's pretty obvious which is the more pleasant and has a higher quality of life and that's Dublin.

London is really great if you have a crapton of money, but then so is almost every European capital, and I know where I'd rather raise a child..

Have a look at some of the development and framework plans for Dublin. The Metro (Metro North and Interconnecter) are confirmed to be going ahead and they, along with a lot of the new city quarters, will open in 2016. Dublin is a great city now and there's a lot to get excited about in the future too. Defo.

murphaph

Yixian wrote: »

London is really great if you have a crapton of money, but then so is almost every European capital.

I don't get this point at all. Dublin is another expensive European capital! except without the great transport etc.

murphaph

Yixian wrote: »

Have a look at some of the development and framework plans for Dublin. The Metro (Metro North and Interconnecter) are confirmed to be going ahead and they, along with a lot of the new city quarters, will open in 2016. Dublin is a great city now and there's a lot to get excited about in the future too. Defo.

The national development plan 2000-2006 was supposed to see motorways from Dublin to all the major cities completed. None have yet been completed (aside from the short M1/N1 corridor to the border) and it may well be that the M7 slips into 2011 before completion, ie, after the end of the current NDP! What on earth inspires you with so much confidence that these projects will be completed on time? Iarnrod Eireann haven't even applied for the Railway Order (railway equivalent of planning permission) yet and Metro North is being held up by ABP. These are both major projects and not one spade of soil has been moved yet. It's nearly 2010. I promise that NEITHER project will open for business in 2016.

Liam Byrne

Yixian wrote: »

everything else about it [Ireland] is perfectly suited to growth and prosperity, with the exception of infrastructure which will improve with the Metro.

Ireland's infrastructure will not "improve with the Metro".

Ireland's infrastructure would improve with direct - and affordable - rail links between every city in the country.

Fratton Fred

Yixian, you miss out one or two major points. Firstly, these guys do have a crpton of money, they also like their trips abroad, nipping over to Dubai, New york or Hong Kong at the drop of a hat. I can't see them waiting around for 15 years to take the one hour journey out to an airport that flies you to the US or any dodgy backwater Ryanair fancies. Where do they take their clients for entertaining? Their box at Stamford bridge or their new one at the Carlisle Grounds. The west end is currently showing Mama Mia, Les Mis, Phantom etc, in Dublin you can watch Twink in panto.

Ok, maybe with a bit of work Dublin wil rise to meet their needs and wishes, but I can't see Citigroup breaking their lease on a state of the art 40 storey building in Canary Wharf to move into a building site in D4, just to get around a one off bonus tax. Dublin is a lovely city but it is completely different to London, Paris or Frankfurt.

ei.sdraob

Rebelheart wrote: »

That was the most myopic, most mé féiner idea David McWilliams has ever had. It can be summed up thus: while the Brits are (belatedly) clamping down on the obscene bonuses in the finance industry for the wider good of social justice, little Paddy will get in there and undercut them and keep standards low for much longer. Well done, David! Just how long does he think it will take before the same problems in the financial industry are repeated once again by the same get-rich-quick bankers who can only see as far as this year's bonus and distorting the books in order to increase their bonuses? It's so obtuse it defies belief that McWilliams has proposed it..

well considering he was a banker himself

what do you expect?

:pac:

woodseb

Liam Byrne wrote: »

1) We supposedly had regulation.
2) Taxing these pricks more will just make them want more bonuses and commission, which will make things worse
3) We've gambled enough on bad foundations to date, without basing our recovery on these pricks too

maybe you can take your head out of your ass and realise that there are many 'pricks' working in that industry from dublin already and contributing plenty of tax with no inherent risk to the economy

basing a large trading floor/hedge fund in ireland doesn't put any extra risk in this economy but brings over lots of high earning (read high tax payers) to the country.

there are many places like bermuda and cayman who have benefitted from a similiar strategy

murphaph

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Ireland's infrastructure will not "improve with the Metro".

Ireland's infrastructure would improve with direct - and affordable - rail links between every city in the country.

Silly me, I thought Dublin was a (critical) part of Ireland. Is Germany's infrastructure not improved when they build a new U Bahn in Munich or Berlin?

Fratton Fred

woodseb wrote: »

maybe you can take your head out of your ass and realise that there are many 'pricks' working in that industry from dublin already and contributing plenty of tax with no inherent risk to the economy

basing a large trading floor/hedge fund in ireland doesn't put any extra risk in this economy but brings over lots of high earning (read high tax payers) to the country.

there are many places like bermuda and cayman who have benefitted from a similiar strategy

Would that be the Caymen and Bermuda that have been slated by the G7 for being tax havens? The last thing Ireland needs to do is piss off the eurozone countries by creating another tax haven in europe.

woodseb

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Would that be the Caymen and Bermuda that have been slated by the G7 for being tax havens? The last thing Ireland needs to do is piss off the eurozone countries by creating another tax haven in europe.

that is one of the downsides of it but there's no reason why some scheme can't be structured on an income tax basis over the very top level of earners to make it beneficial for the exchequer

i don't think it will happen on any major scale btw, the tax in London is only a once-off and those affected will find ways around it. The City will remain front and centre.

what i reject is the suggestion by a few that basing a load of investment bankers over in ireland will somehow bring down the economy. there are literally thousands of investment funds based in ireland already with no interest or exposure to ireland

Fratton Fred

I don't think it would be a bad thing, I just can't see it happening, at least not on a grand scale.

Vodafone have just moved their global HQ into London and I believe one of the reasons was that it was easier to attract the right calibre of staff.

MI5

Imagine all those new bankers in Dublin, donning the Arnotts geansai, when football championship comes round. Standing there in the hill with the Dubs supporters, watching Kerry playing ducks and geese with them :D

Better then any bonus.

woodseb

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I don't think it would be a bad thing, I just can't see it happening, at least not on a grand scale.

Vodafone have just moved their global HQ into London and I believe one of the reasons was that it was easier to attract the right calibre of staff.

yeah, it could work by attracting the more mobile trading ops of a company over to ireland , many big banks' back offices are already over here and you won't have a problem attracting trading talent for a few years if you talk to their wallets

i think investment banking has to stay in london though for the reasons you said above that they need to have the access to the corporate clients all the time and all the entertaining etc

Shadowed

I think McWilliams is bang on the money with this one. A number of large multinationals have already moved their corporate headquarters out of London over the past 18 months because of the increasingly non-competitive UK tax regime. A few of them moved to Ireland, while the rest headed for Switzerland. While it would be hard to foresee a wholesale relocation of investment banks to Ireland if we were to see a few high profile ones move here then others would follow and inevitably tax receipts would rise. It is not a me feiner idea and nor is it a brit whippinge exercise. It is purely pragmatic and could be enhanced by introducing a non-dom rule akin to the one the UK is currently eroding. Such a rule may not be populace pleasing but it would attract talent and capital here in the same way it did in the UK.


"What i reject is the suggestion by a few that basing a load of investment bankers over in ireland will somehow bring down the economy. there are literally thousands of investment funds based in ireland already with no interest or exposure to ireland[/quo"

I agree with the above post as what most fail to recognise is that all the UK investment banks/funds managers/promoters etc already use Irish domiciled vehicles which are very effectively serviced from Ireland. This is something that we need to grow on especially seeing as there are already 10K people working in the IFSC.....adding to this number could only be good for the economy.

Rebelheart

Just on this general issue of multinational finance corporations moving to Dublin, did anybody read O'Toole earlier in 2009 on this issue. He referred to Dublin as "the Potemkin village of contemporary capitalism", and put a good case forward to defend his view:

'Why is Dublin the Potemkin Village of contemporary capitalism, full of fronts with very little behind them? Because we have deliberately constructed an environment in which the description of our capital city by the Liberal Democrat spokesman Lord Oakeshott as “Liechtenstein on the Liffey” is not unjust. A globalised brand of cute hoorism has been created by State policy.'

Full article: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0217/1224241277965.html

I had to look up what a Potemkin Village was, and here it is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potemkin_village

Shadowed

Rebelheart wrote: »

Just on this general issue of multinational finance corporations moving to Dublin, did anybody read O'Toole earlier in 2009 on this issue. He referred to Dublin as "the Potemkin village of contemporary capitalism", and put a good case forward to defend his view:

'Why is Dublin the Potemkin Village of contemporary capitalism, full of fronts with very little behind them? Because we have deliberately constructed an environment in which the description of our capital city by the Liberal Democrat spokesman Lord Oakeshott as “Liechtenstein on the Liffey” is not unjust. A globalised brand of cute hoorism has been created by State policy.'

Full article: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0217/1224241277965.html

I had to look up what a Potemkin Village was, and here it is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potemkin_village

As fond as I am of O'Toole he sometimes doesn't get the full gist of economics and tax. Brass plating is not what is being advocated here. Also, if a company only brass plates in Ireland and tries to self assess under the 12.5% trading rate good luck when its audited. I remember that article and I think that the 'trading' company point is often missed. What I think (and thankfully I can't see into McWilliams head!) he means is to have fully operational companies operating here.

Fratton Fred

Shadowed wrote: »

I think McWilliams is bang on the money with this one. A number of large multinationals have already moved their corporate headquarters out of London over the past 18 months because of the increasingly non-competitive UK tax regime. A few of them moved to Ireland, while the rest headed for Switzerland. While it would be hard to foresee a wholesale relocation of investment banks to Ireland if we were to see a few high profile ones move here then others would follow and inevitably tax receipts would rise. It is not a me feiner idea and nor is it a brit whippinge exercise. It is purely pragmatic and could be enhanced by introducing a non-dom rule akin to the one the UK is currently eroding. Such a rule may not be populace pleasing but it would attract talent and capital here in the same way it did in the UK.


"What i reject is the suggestion by a few that basing a load of investment bankers over in ireland will somehow bring down the economy. there are literally thousands of investment funds based in ireland already with no interest or exposure to ireland[/quo"

I agree with the above post as what most fail to recognise is that all the UK investment banks/funds managers/promoters etc already use Irish domiciled vehicles which are very effectively serviced from Ireland. This is something that we need to grow on especially seeing as there are already 10K people working in the IFSC.....adding to this number could only be good for the economy.

Moving a head office may not involve moving many people though. I think Vodafone employ something like 6,000 people in Newbury, but only around 200 are moving into their new place in Paddington.

Shadowed wrote: »

As fond as I am of O'Toole he sometimes doesn't get the full gist of economics and tax. Brass plating is not what is being advocated here. Also, if a company only brass plates in Ireland and tries to self assess under the 12.5% trading rate good luck when its audited. I remember that article and I think that the 'trading' company point is often missed. What I think (and thankfully I can't see into McWilliams head!) he means is to have fully operational companies operating here.

check out Round Island One for a cute bit of brass plating. helps explain Ireland's amazing GDP as well.

babytooth

Money talks and bull**** walks....

These guys will move to where they can make the most money, regardless of restaurants / west end etc....

Look at NYC. The hedge funds left to move 1 hour away in Connecticut for tax reasons. Several high net worth individuals have left both NYC and NY state due to the high tax reasons.

If they earn 10mm a year (conservative amount) and the tax goes from 40 - 50% - they lose 1mm, thats a nice chunk of change.

We speak english and share the same time zone of London, but major pluses over some of the other European cities....

Its a good idea, promote ourselves to high net worth people and attract a decent tax base.

seclachi

Looks like a nice opportunity alright, and a bit of payback for the money thats been flowing out of Ireland to the UK.

Question is, what does Cowen actually have to do to capitalise on it ? More than likely nothing, if they`ll come they`ll come, there isnt enough time to slap up more buildings or try and create more financial graduates. He could really chance his arm and try reduced tax on bankers bonuses, but people here would go bananas.

TheCandystripes

mcwilliams is off his rocker. ireland is a backwater, it reflects in the mindset of the people and the look of the country. its an ok place but not attractive. switzerland just has more of an it factor and has much better location.

Shadowed

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Moving a head office may not involve moving many people though. I think Vodafone employ something like 6,000 people in Newbury, but only around 200 are moving into their new place in Paddington.

Yes, but firstly 200 people paying Irish tax in a multinational HQ would be better than a HQ in Bermuda or the likes. Also, what I assume McWilliams is speaking about is not HQ's that can feasibly be ran by a handful of people but full operational FS companies whereby a number of highly paid individuals would work and pay tax here.

check out Round Island One for a cute bit of brass plating. helps explain Ireland's amazing GDP as well.

Re the Microsoft article that you linked one positive thing that the Irish government is attempting to do is promote Ireland as a location for holding IP - they introduced a new capital allowance scheme for doing so last year. Also, however agast the US may be about income generating IP being located in Ireland, the IRS is far more concerned about IP being licenced out of Bermudian entities in particular. I fail to see what the problem is with IP being licenced out of Ireland is when tax is being paid on the profits here. Also, an amount of IP is developed in Ireland by companies that are US parented - should that be developed elsewhere to avoid inflating GDP??

MikeC101

TheCandystripes wrote: »

mcwilliams is off his rocker. ireland is a backwater, it reflects in the mindset of the people and the look of the country. its an ok place but not attractive. switzerland just has more of an it factor and has much better location.

While your "Ireland is bad and crap and the people are too and I'm from France" schtick is getting a little old....

There are obvious reasons why Dublin is a potential destination:
Same timezone as London - this definitely comes into play with various currency markets closing at different times, and we're in a good timezone for this.
Same language - obvious reasons.
Decent supply of staff, wage expectations have dropped.
Good structure in place already - there's a lot of potential support staff here, we've been dealing with all the outsourced back office.
Regulation is a bit more lax than most of the financial capitals.
And as stated a lot of these guys can spend a few days here, fly elsewhere for deals, shopping, holidays, and they will if it makes financial sense. Regardless of the "it factor"

I wouldn't advocate us pinning any huge hopes on this being a big earner, but I don't see any reason not to encourage it.

Yixian

Besides, Ireland doesn't lack an "it factor" that any other similar European nation has. It is well regarded and instantly identifiable the world over and cities like Dublin and Cork are still regarded as up and coming and vibrant.

Wasn't Cork recently voted into the top 10 cities to visit on earth this year by Lonely Planet?

TheCandystripes

come on its just reality. dublin would be boring to these people. dublin can't even compete with secondary brit cities let alone london. im just being real. i dont like british cities, the layout is horrible but these people are conditioned to love such things like 'diversity' and all that stuff, things that ireland lacks.

Yixian

TheCandystripes wrote: »

come on its just reality. dublin would be boring to these people. dublin can't even compete with secondary brit cities let alone london. im just being real. i dont like british cities, the layout is horrible but these people are conditioned to love such things like 'diversity' and all that stuff, things that ireland lacks.

What world are you living in? Have you ever even been to Dublin? Or a secondary Brit city?

I've spent plenty of time in both and I along with the billion tourists that visit Dublin each year, that don't visit secondary Brit cities, would agree, there's no contest. Do you have any idea how utterly dull most British cities are? Only Liverpool and Manchester can really compete with Dublin outside of London, and they still can't match it considering the vast amount of redevelopment and new projects in progress in Dub.

It goes for French cities too. Sure Paris and Marseilles are really up there, but Toulouse? Lyon? Both large wealthy cities but with sweet FA to do in.

There's tons to do in Dublin, even more so for the particularly wealthy, and anything there isn't already is in planning or development over the next 6 or 7 years.

Clearly you have some bone to pick..

And besides, look at Dubai, probably the most dull, lifeless city on planet earth, this is about money and that's it.



It's not the luxury market Dublin lacks, if anything it's the more independent, underground sort of scene. Smithfield has been a disappointing failure.. DCC really need to sort that out, Manchester, for example, clearly beats Dublin on that front. It's not really one that directly interests me but I recognise it brings a lot to a city.

TheCandystripes

ok my parents are irish but i was born and grew up in paris and coming back to dublin is just a bit of a let down but personally moving to paris to anywhere would be a let down so this is no insult against dublin. i like it but it lacks a lot and no way will it attract what mcwilliams hopes because i know for these people london has same effect on them.

by the way for record dublin can get better but i don't believe irish want it to be a modern capital. they want it to be like what that dubliners guy who died envisioned it to be. sorry more suited to dublin forum but just for record

Yixian

TheCandystripes wrote: »

ok my parents are irish but i was born and grew up in paris and coming back to dublin is just a bit of a let down but personally moving to paris to anywhere would be a let down so this is no insult against dublin. i like it but it lacks a lot and no way will it attract what mcwilliams hopes because i know for these people london has same effect on them.

These people go wherever the money is, frankly. If anything they'd be particularly suited to Ireland, what with the golf, yachting and hunting etc. and plenty of expensive trendy bars and few michelin stars in Dublin.

I have family in Marseilles and know France fairly well, Paris is obviously crammed with culture but you have to look at the drawbacks to those kinds of cities where Dublin can show it's advantages. Paris has a very high crime rate, not a lot of space and is pretty much fully developed. Dublin is growing, quickly, and by 2016 will have been redeveloped on a scale larger than almost any other European city in modern times. It's crime rate is low and there's tons of room to build.

You've got a Dublin Metro, Spencer Dock and Point Village opening by 2016, You've got the redevelopment of Philsborough, North Wall, Heuston, Grand Canal Quay etc. all developments you're never going to see in London or Paris, it's all been done. In Dublin you have the chance to see a small city become a large one - not many people get that chance.

I'd stick around if I was you.

MikeC101

TheCandystripes wrote: »

these people are conditioned to love such things like 'diversity' and all that stuff, things that ireland lacks.

Like hell they are. I can as easily claim they're conditioned to love *money*, to the extent that they work insane hours and burn out early in life. That's when they start doing the cultural stuff.