Monday

on the job

Today I am going back to work after a week in bed. I was up and about a good bit this weekend, although I am still a bit more tired than usual. Mostly, I'm back to normal and it will be great to get back to doing the things I normally do.

I'm one of those lucky/strange people who actually really likes her job. Plus, this week is the MOST fun week if you work in news: election time. Poor Jon will be left picking up more of the slack at home this week, particularly on Tuesday when I won't be home until the wee hours, but I find election week in the newsroom very energizing and fun. I used to love going to the newsroom on election day/night with my parents (my mother was a print reporter and my father was a TV reporter).

Viva democracy!

(PS: I'll be doing some research when I get time on Ireland's poverty rate relative to the rest of western Europe...)

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ireland used to be poor, but they've worked very hard to improve their economy. This blurb and lots more can easily be found in the CIA World Factbook online:
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/
Per capita GDP is 10% above that of the four big European economies and the second highest in the EU behind Luxembourg. Over the past decade, the Irish Government has implemented a series of national economic programs designed to curb price and wage inflation, reduce government spending, increase labor force skills, and promote foreign investment.

Anonymous said...

which isn't even the issue. The issue is one of tax efficiency: U2 is intelligently managing their tax exposure, to retain as much money as possible, with which they can then control the disbursement of those funds. Governments are epically, astonishingly, breathtakingly horrible and inefficient at spending our tax dollars (witness the current mess the Republicans have made of our budget). What possible justification could EVER be made for giving those clowns another nickel?

Egads.

Anonymous said...

I'm glad to read you're on the mend and back to work.
I bet it's an exciting week to work in News, especially in Tennessee.
I hope that the good citizens of all the states can see though all the Republican bullshit.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Really, who cares if Bono pays taxes, he's a rock star.

I was in Ireland recently and they're having an enormous business boom. Ireland is becoming a self-sufficient country, young people are not leaving as they once did. Everywhere you look, there is brand new business parks and construction. The computer industry is growing very quickly.

Anonymous said...

I'm the anonymous who posted the original GNI post and yes, Ireland has one of the highest rates of poverty in Europe. I think one of the only western nations with a higher poverty rate is.....USA.

Which still does not make Ireland or the US "one of the poorest nations in the west." High poverty rate does not equal "poor nation." And taxing alone cannot erase poverty, so U2's taxes (or lack thereof) are not going to help Ireland's poverty problem. If the wealth of the nation alone were enough, the US would not have a poverty problem. And we do.

So, anyway, my point is if you're going to be tossing out assertions as facts, at least make sure you have you syntax straight.

Anonymous said...

Are you serious? Who cares if Bono pays taxes because he's a rock star? How about Bill Gates or John Kerry or Britney Spears or any other millionaire? How about letting the rich keep their money because, hey, they're special, while the rest of us middle-class grunts pick up the burden?

Anonymous said...

"Ireland is consistently among a group of countries with relative income poverty rates considerably above the European Union average (though not as high as the USA). This has not changed over the course of Irelands recent economic boom, since our relative income poverty rates themselves have not fallen indeed they have generally risen over that period."

That is from the ESRI.ie (Economic and Social Research Institute in Ireland) website.

And this is from the Economic Policy Institute:
"Before taxes and transfers, the United States had one of the highest market-based rates of child poverty in 2000: 26.6%. Four other countries—New Zealand, France, the United Kingdom, and Ireland—had comparably high market rates of child poverty."

I don't mean to be a pain in the @$$ about it, I am just sort of annoyed when people toss off random "facts" that say one thing when they mean quite another. If you mean to say that Ireland has a high rate of relative poverty, or children living in poverty, then ok, say that. But if you mean that, but what you're saying is "Ireland is a poor country" then you are just wrong, because Ireland is not a poor country. You can't shorthand it and expect it to be correct.

Anonymous said...

Can we get back to the real point here? Bono and U2 paying taxes or not DOES NOT CHANGE any sort of poverty rate at all - relative, in total, whatever. Taxes don't make poverty go away, and to assume that they do is the worst sort of idiotic Nanny-state, the government-will-take-care-of-us foolishness.

Bono retains all of whatever credibility he had to start with, even after being smart about paying taxes (he's not doing anything illegal, folks), and lobbying his government (and others) on its spending priorities. These two facts are not contradictory.