TOPIC:

John Teeling on the radio not 5 minutes ago said:

"The future is in exports. We cannot survive trading amongst ourselves."

As I said, the numbers are very crass! But definitely, I don't see why people can't export and sell locally.

The beer revolution is steadily gaining ground. Here in Limerick there's hardly a pub without a wheat beer, even including the 'old man' pubs so that's a good start I suppose - all demand driven of course!

"Tube":1h4qacaf wrote: John Teeling on the radio not 5 minutes ago said:

"The future is in exports. We cannot survive trading amongst ourselves."[/quote:1h4qacaf]

Let's not forget that there's a difference between exporting product and letting foreign companies importing Irish products get away with murder/ force Irish companies into inequitable agreements when they imply that Irish companies can't do it on their own and need the investment from foreign companies to survive. (There's a difference between exporting products and selling economic sovereignty.) -To go back to our long standing difference of opinion on free trade and allowing foreign multinationals to impose an East India Trading Company-like rule upon you through economic agreements. <!-- s:wink: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_wink.gif" alt="" title="Wink" /><!-- s:wink: -->

(Just in case this was going to be a long walk back to that conversation I decided to take the short cut.)

Adam

&amp;quot;Biertourist&amp;quot;:jtcmat1p wrote: Let's not forget that there's a difference between exporting product and letting foreign companies importing Irish products get away with murder/ force Irish companies into inequitable agreements when [/quote:jtcmat1p]
Yeah, but we're only talking about exporting or not exporting in this case.

I would share John Teeling's opinion that in the medium to long term companies will need to start exporting. Worst case scenario companies producing good beers can't compete with all the other companies producing good beer. Too many fish in a small pond. Not quite so bad is companies producing good beer just can't expand market share, and hit a growth brick wall.

There was a time when Galway Hooker got all my beer money. Not so any more. As I have a tendancy to share the love, they only get around 20% of my beer money now. That's an 80% drop in tube revenue for them which could have serious implications.

I'm probably 10 days too late for this discussion but here's my two bobs worth.
There's certainly plenty of room for hundreds of small Irish breweries - like there was until 100 years ago. I would think that most small breweries currently have supply problems, rather than demand problems.
If beer buying patterns are going to solve economic crisis, which I believe is a very realistic option, the key is to get a large portion of the population to get a bit nationalistic/ecofriendly about their buying habits. Lots of people (under 40s) are open to changing taste habits - (just look at the wine revolution of the naughties). I've heard many, many conversations like "Have you tried that xxx Belgium beer in yyyy cheap grocery store". Punters are exploring the cheap foreign beers available in the off licence, but they don't seem to think of this option in their 100 year old traditional pub.
Here's an interesting example. I started my beer appreciation in the 1980s in Australia with fosters when everyone was drinking it. Within one week of that company floating on the international stock market, I went to my local pub and was chastised for ordering that foreign shite beer. I looked around and everyone in the pub had changed brands overnight. I'm not sure what exactly provoked the disgust people felt that the national icon company had sold out. I always supposed it was a talk-back radio show, or such.
Anyways, never before have Irish people been so aware that every persons daily spending choices control the fate of the countries economy.
Perhaps a marketing loyalty campaign like a non-profit association administering a logo on beer labels that indicates the product is 100% Irish with profits remaining locally. The logo could have a slogan like "Drink for Eire" with a cartoon of a fat freckly Irish head on it. This buy local logo idea has been used for food and other goods in many countries.

Its amazing to imagine that one simple cultural change could catapult Ireland's fate from long haul recession to back on level track in a few years (without austerity measures). We're one of the biggest beer drinking nations in the world and 99.9% of the profits are distributed internationally. The recession busting opportunities are astounding. How many billion Euro would remain local if 50% beer was bought from Irish owned companies. This target is under current levels in America, Australia, Canada, Germany, most of Europe - even Ireland 30 years ago. Of course this would require diabolical growth levels from all Irish microbreweries.
If people only knew they could drink their way out of unemployment, emigration, loss of sovereignty, and tax increases they would probably be only too happy to oblige.

I have a major problem with the bullshit economic models which suggest that there must be year on year growth.
It's the reason we are where we are. There is no reason that a business cannot make a local market, supply that local market, using local base ingredients and using local labour and keeping money in local economies, based on the sound economic principal that a producer is a real capitalist and not this Keynesian shite that has us where we are today.

A sound capitalism needs to base itself on production, not on borrowing and consumerism, consuming is the dangerous end of the wedge, producing is where it's at for sound economies, look at Germany, they still produce, which makes them stronger than anyone in Europe, all of the powerhouse economies produce, Ireland...basketcase because we bought into the whole idea that consumption drives economies....only in so far as it builds credit bubbles.