My Grandfather Rode A Camel
My Grandfather Rode A Camel
Is Ireland ready for its gravy train to derail?
Imagine sitting in a pub, the roof is leaking, the jacks is backed up and the service is slow and unhelpful, but it’s always been this way and you’ve learned to not mind because it’s affordable. Now imagine a Billionaire walks in — behind him a gaggle of aides, cronies, and associates. The average wealth of everyone in the bar has just risen immensely. The pub owner quickly puts up the price of pints and proudly proclaims that the people in this bar have a higher average wealth than any of the neighbouring establishments. The barman tells you this fact over and over, beaming as droplets from the ceiling land between the half-finished pints on the bar. This goes on for a while and regulars begin to leave for new haunts — unable to afford the new prices or find a place to sit. After what seems like forever, the Billionaire gets a call, gets up, and leaves for home. The average wealth drops and the once-popular bar is silent. The leak has only gotten worse, many of the original patrons are gone, the ones remaining are not happy, and worst of all there’s a distinct smell of shite starting the waft across the silent boozer.
As of writing this article, Polymarket prediction market has Donald Trump at a 66.7% chance of winning the US Election on November 5th. While an online betting exchange isn’t quite a crystal ball, the returning populist’s impression on the electorate is impossible to deny. From dodging headshots in Pennsylvania to kicking it in Joe Rogan’s Austin dudebunker, Donald Trump has done everything possible to recapture the American public consciousness. On the other end of the pitch, a desiccated Joe Biden has found himself hung from the nearest coconut tree as his inner circle attempts to bind a human soul to the body of his extremely unpopular VP. The liberal media machine is in overdrive. A continuous air raid siren of girlbossification, histrionic op-eds, and allegations of fascism sounds like it’s 2016 all over again. But despite all that, it seems the MAGA horde is still rolling steadily toward D.C. through the thankfully fading glow of a weapons-grade Brat Summer. While nothing is sure, my money’s on a Trump sequel.
That would be bad news for Ireland. Not in the “orange man bad” sense, or because “orange man” is materially any different from Biden or Harris in ways that matter to most of the human race, but because “orange man” might call time on Ireland’s corporate tax gravy train. Ireland’s low corporate tax rate has enticed foreign multinationals like Apple, Google, and Facebook to set up shop here, claiming that Ireland, by way of R&D, is where they manufacture their product. Ireland derives 25% of its tax revenue from these corporations, with 10 companies accounting for half of that figure (40 Billion by the end of this year). To give you an idea of how reliant we are on this money, our nearest neighbour the UK collects five times less corporation tax per capita. This means Ireland might see a quarter of its revenue evaporate if Trump does what he’s saying he’s going to do and imposes a 20% tariff on European goods whilst simultaneously dropping the US corporate tax rate to 15%.
If the Irish government loses its corporate clientele, it loses its inflated GDP. The leprechaun economy we all supposedly enjoy would shrink like a leprechaun’s mickey after an ice bath in reality’s wheelie bin. Without the magic GDP figure to jingle at the Irish public like car keys at a screaming baby the spotlight would end up squarely on the poly-catastrophe the coalition has presided over. According to Simon Harris’ advisor, Stephen Kinsella a tech pullout would make “austerity look like an episode of Care Bears”, possibly more closely resembling an episode of Biker Mice From Mars. A loss of American political goodwill and tax revenue would see our unprepared and underdeveloped island set adrift without a plan B or the infrastructure to concoct one.
On the continent, real economies like Germany are already seeing major contraction. Deutschland’s lack of domestic startups, shortage of workers, and overreliance on the soon-to-be-banned petrol-powered automobile industry mean it has no insulation against US firms leaving for home and domestic firms leaving for China. A declining Germany not only threatens to drag the rest of Europe down with it as the Union’s economic engine stutters to a halt, but it also threatens to put paid to the pax-Europa that we’ve enjoyed for the past few decades. From the UK Riots to the rise of the AFD, unrest and political dissent are picking up steam in Europe, and a major downturn would surely dial up the Weimar-ness.
Even perpetually centrist Ireland will not escape the coming discord. In the event of major economic upheaval, it’s likely the anti-immigration unrest currently spinning away in the coalition’s microwave will explode, engulfing the island in a sort of militarised right2arson campaign. This could lead to a Sweden-style charge to the right from the coalition (or whoever) in an attempt to shift blame from driver to passenger after wrapping the country around a pole.
On top of all this, trust in the mainstream press has completely eroded in recent years, the sea of user-generated media and ‘misinformation’ leaves states helpless to control the narrative in the event of a downward spiral. This apparent collapse of legacy media’s primacy would be fully cemented by a Trump win — with television and newspapers provably no longer able to smother the tide of dissent. With X in the hands of a heavily red-pilled Elon Musk and companies like Meta increasingly hesitant to play ball with government censors, policymakers will have to rely on increasingly draconian legislation to jam the signal sweeping a changing Europe.
Dystopian visions aside for a second, if American money leaves Ireland, what’s left? A nation with 7 out of 10 young people living at home with their parents and considering emigrating? A country with woefully neglected public services, terrible transport, and now a failing asylum system and complimentary civil war? What do we have to show for all our Benjamins? Not enough. Unless we can begin the process of diversifying away from corporate tax revenue and American FDI we are doomed to dance to Washington’s tune until the music inevitably stops. Right now we’re sitting in that dilapidated bar, it’s still busy but between the recent Apple ruling and the prospect of a tariff-loving Trump Whitehouse, it won’t be long before the smell of shite starts to overpower the “isn’t this deadly?” sentiment of the powers that be.
While it’s not certain what the outcome of the US election will be, both sides have billed it, like the last one and the one before, as the FINAL showdown between good and evil. However for Ireland, much like in Alien vs Predator, whoever wins we lose. If feeding on Big Tech’s tax runoff stays as Ireland’s mono-industry we can expect to see the island completely terraformed into an unaffordable playground for global capital. Likewise, if that capital leaves under a Trumpist reordering of the American tax system, we can expect to go back to the bronze age. A new crash would see already reluctant lenders consulting entrails or tea leaves to decide who gets mortgage approval while asylum hotels in Ballygobackwards are put to the torch. The glass offices of Misery Hill and the docks around it would stand as ozymandian corporate carcasses, reminding a city of tents and bikesheds of the silicon golden age now past.
When the founder of Dubai, Sheikh Rashid, was asked what the future held for his influencer-infested slave state, he gave a pragmatic reply. "My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I ride a Mercedes, my son rides a Land Rover, and my grandson is going to ride a Land Rover…but my great-grandson is going to have to ride a camel again." Replace camel with ‘boat to Holyhead’ and you probably have a decent idea of the future of the Irish economic model if Trump successfully executes his plan to repatriate American business.