=OBS= EstebanRey wrote:
spastic bullet wrote:
Small point of order here... GDP really only has a chance of working as a nation-to-nation comparison when you factor for the difference in population, which is significant in this case (15:1). In other words, you measure GDP
per capita.
GDP per capita
UK : $30,300 (Est. 2005)
RoI : $41,000 (Est. 2005)
Source:
www.cia.gov (CIA World Factbook)
Why don't we do it per dog or per pint of guiness sold, in fact any way of making it appear Ireland have a better throughput than the UK.
If you have a big business with lost of employees that makes a lot of money, and then a smaller business with less employees and less income; but a better income to employee ratio....would that make them leap frog the first business in the FTSE 100, I think not......
See, if you're saying what I think you're saying, I probably agree. As a metric of a nation's wealth and/or economic well-being, GDP is not the be-all and end-all. And as a metric of any particular citizen's worth -- economic or otherwise -- it's worse than useless.
I just didn't think at any point anybody really believed the RoI's raw GDP was the bigger of the two, so, because nobody else was making that clear, I did. Simple as.
I've already stated my views on this topic (mostly as responses), which are:
1. Scotland are not sponging gits; it was their North Sea Oil that kept the UK from going bankrupt in the 70s and still subsidises the UK economy to a significant extent today; and
2. It's a shame for ordinary English people who want to be able to express their Englishness without being called racist. I think it would be a good thing if they had a kind of devolved parliament of their own for solely English matters. To which I would append...
The respective histories of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales -- though intertwined -- are not symmetrical. This accounts for the "double standards" with regard to their respective nationalisms. When a bunch of arseholes in ginger wigs and kilts show up in Trafalgar Square every few years, sure they might annoy you, chat up your ladies
and puke on the pigeons, but do they call to mind any serious issues of your own sovereignty, whether in the past or an imagined future? Really, though?
It's hard to put yourself in those shoes because the Norman Invasion of 1066 was such a long fucking time ago, it's almost like it never happened at all. Basically, as the good kind of English, it comes down to this: if you really want your flagwaving and harmless nationalism, you are going to have to take it back from the kind of racist clowns who give it such a bad name these days. Maybe even the original racist clowns, who knows?
The Scots, Irish and Welsh can afford to be over the top with it
because they have no perceived outward aggression in their recent history. You are not so lucky. But you are lucky in other ways. Like getting to go to World Cups and actually watch your team.
Bah.
I have no strong opinions on whether the UK should stay together because I don't live there any more, and don't plan to again any time soon. Break up into seventeen thousand tiny gerrymandered statelets of varying legitimacy for all I care, just keep sending your best music and TV shows. You can keep your food, though. And Madonna.