Bill Clinton famously said that when it comes to elections "It's the economy stupid," and whatever you may think of his many faults, on that particular issue he was absolutely spot on.

If anything, Clinton was underplaying the significance of the economy. In truth the word economy doesn't do justice to its importance, after all the economy is really people, the people that make it up. The economy put simply is the productive people in a society.

That's why the disastrous news from Pfizer this week is especially shocking and ominous for Cork. It is not simply the loss of 180 jobs and the probability of many more to come, it is the nature of the jobs that are being lost, the circumstances in which they are being lost and what it tells us about our economy.

These jobs are the type we are supposed to be attracting, but instead we are losing them. Why? Because we are too expensive. The principle problem with the Irish economy is that the vast bulk of it isn't Irish. Multi-national corporations to a large extent operate outside of the economy of any one nation. They are driven purely by greed and as soon as any particular economy is no longer of use to them, they will move on somewhere else that is.

So we should not really be shocked by Pfizer. There is no long-term future for our economy from courting this type of investment which simply wants to avail of our low taxes. In the long run Cork must develop a strong, indigenous economy of its own. Not a false economy based on property or a fleeting economy based on tax breaks but a strong indigenous economy that cares about the people who live here.

Until that happens, we will continue to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

Comments (1) »

dsfsd
written by asdf, September 23, 2008

needs to be fleshed out but well written

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