"TheBeerNut":36woh10v wrote: Which was the way it went in the late 20th century. The multinationals are now reaping what they sowed with that, with flatlining sales of mainstream beers in the developed world.[/quote:36woh10v]
And at the same time exports of American craft beers are growing in the order of 25% a year. Again, more free market economics and capitalism at its best.
The best thing the Irish Govt could do is to do less. Deregulate, de-red-tape and untax the industry and let the entrepreneurs do their thing. Historically the more the Govt got involved the bigger the (subsidised) turkey we ended up with.[/quote:36woh10v]
<Warning: Begin Super Rant>
I don't understand when people vote against their own best interests like this.
Letting small businesses grow and leaving them relatively unencumbered is a good thing but once they reach a certain size an influence consumers are negatively influenced and you start getting Corporations and Government forming unholy alliances.
Free Market turns to corporate take overs, consolidation of power, and soon a market held hostage by "too-big-to-fail", price fixing, and back-room deal with politicians that hurt the average person and consumer.
The dismantling of the Glass-Stegall Act in the US is one of the things that led to the current US Financial Crisis. The act itself was stood up after the Great Depression when an examination into the causes revealed that the mixing of commercial and investment banking represented a conflict of interest and led to wide-spread fraud? (Is it any wonder that history repeated itself after the regulation was dismantled in 1999 except with homes tied up in the mess this time?(Yea, deregulation allows mortgage-backed securities to be tied to sub-prime loans! The profit from sub-prime lending jumped after the regulation was dismantled in 1999 and the total percentage of sub-prime loans jumped from 5% to 30% of all home loans.)
Take your government health care system and open it up to the full "free market" and see what happens to your healthcare premium; double-digit growth in costs(Health Care Provider "profits") with no increase in coverage or quality until your priced out of the market. (America is a good lesson in what NOT to do here, take heed.)
If there aren't regulations, to ensure that the increased freedom comes with defined responsibilities and penalties for not meeting those responsibilities, you run into "rule of the strong" situations that do NOT benefit the citizen/consumer and rights are eroded.
Let's say for example the regulations governing the utilization of resources within a country are reversed, or somehow ignored. It's theoretically possible that a single government official could sign an agreement with a large multinational company granting that country's natural resources to said multinational with NONE of the benefit of that country's resources going to it's citizens. Let's say we're talking about the Oil and Natural gas reserves of Ireland with an estimated value between 450 billion and 2 trillion depending upon who you ask and when. (A minimum of 380,000 Euros per family) Oh, wait, this isn't theoretical??? This already happened and it's all been given to Shell, Mobil, and the Norweigan oil company? Crap!
[url:36woh10v]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76VOnzXQMsU&feature=player_embedded[/url:36woh10v]
What happened to article 10.1 of the Irish Constitution in all of this??
[i:36woh10v]"All natural resources, including the air and all forms of potential energy, within the jurisdiction of the Parliament and Government established by this Constitution and all royalties and franchises within that jurisdiction belong to the State subject to all estates and interests therein for the time being lawfully vested in any person or body."[/i:36woh10v]
-I guess the market is so "free" it doesn't have to be held to the whims of things like constitutions...
Or the "shining" example of true free market economics that is free trade; that's working out really well for Ghana, who's seen European subsidized imports destroying their local economy and making them perpetually dependent upon foreign companies and countries for even their food supply. <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="www.modernghana.com/news/81060/1/free-tr...-ghanas-economy.html">www.modernghana.com/news/81060/1 ... onomy.html
Polpot, aside, Thailand has done incredibly well shrugging off the recommendations of the IMF and World Bank and focusing on a "self sufficiency" economy and focusing on "gross national happiness" vs. "gross domestic product". There's something to be said for making economic decisions based solely upon what's best for the majority of the people in the country vs. based upon some broad dogmatic policy that has no basis in reality. ("Free market economics" and democracy often find themselves at odds, the real question is, which one should "win", when there's a conflict in between the two; the blind supporter of unencumbered "free markets", often seem to indicate they think that free market economics "trump" democracy; the banks sure do.)
Losing national sovereignty is a two step dance: one- give away national financial sovereignty, two- other real sovereignty follows with only a fake movie theater set of real sovereignty to remain.
100% freedom without boundaries, or laws, or responsibility == anarchy and "rule of the strong"$$ NOT a democracy.
Democracy =! capitalism, on the contrary a democratic system should take advantage of any available economic system as long as it's in the best interests of the people.
I'd trade the "free market" for a "responsible market" that supports the bests interests of people any day.
Shane, what's the name of the 100 million euro+ business that you own? If you don't own one, then why are you such an ardent supporter of an unregulated free market?
</End Super Rant>
Adam
