If the answer is ‘shop local’, why are we in the EU?

[PhoenixIreland]

They're damn hypocrites, like all the Irish employers. They'll whine "Shop Local" but they don't "Employ Local".

Thats because Poles work hard and Irish people are lazy...or so the narrative among businessmen goes....

[Big Bobo]

Thats because Poles work hard and Irish people are lazy...or so the narrative among businessmen goes....

ie Poles are less likely to know their rights

[eskerman]

I saw this item about Carrick-On-Shannon Chamber of Commerce trying to respond to the economic downturn.

The initiative is fair enough so far as it goes. But there seemed to be a break between the call to train and upskill, and that relating to folk actually spending. I mean, is the real problem for retailers not simply prices being too high. What training do they think is going to make up for that?

The other little aspect to it is the call to ‘shop local’ which many towns have come out with at present. Again, I don’t see how this helps in any substantial way. I mean, if shopping local could power our national economy, why did we join the EU?

Is the key to our immediate problem not simply ‘cut prices’? And, to help that along, should shoppers not ignore the incestuous call to shop local, which can only serve to give a trickle of business to local retailers that might delude them into thinking they don’t need to cut prices.

I mean, all this ‘shop local’ stuff reminds me of the blockage in the property market at present. The main reason for a downturn in demand is just that prices are too high. People will buy houses, groceries and clothes to beat the band once they’re cheap. And retailers won’t need to band together with embarrassing calls to ‘shop local’, as if the only way they could see of keeping their prices at present levels was to rob their neighbours.

I popped into PC World yesterday at Liffey valley for a little browse, had been in PC world in Manchester during the week, the prices just got the better of me so I wanted to do my comparason. I asked the shop manager why the Irish Website was still not completed and working, followed by another question about why the prices between UK & Ireland were so different. Answer: well our rents and overheads are so different compared to UK stores and that included London, as prices in PC World are as per the website quoted prices...BUT not in little old Ireland, yet again we are all paying the high price for companies struggling to do business this side of the Irish sea, this is the real price we all pay as our bubble expands to all the high-street stores. Car dealers cant compete even with the criminal VRT charges imposed when importing cars from UK...many are in far better condition, driven on good roads and in the main serviced by attentive owers.

I make no apology but I will never shop local unless i have little choice, I will look for the best deal around and I will continue to do so in my own personal protest against our dictators in Leinster House..well should I say puppet dictators, the real ones are hiding as usual, "one or two have resigned from boards I understand recently"....

[PhoenixIreland]

ie Poles are less likely to know their rights

Yes, when they say work harder they really mean "don't create a fuss/easier to walk all over because their in a more vulnerable position"

For the same reason they want us in debt they want foreign workers: control

[Colada]

Yes, when they say work harder they really mean "don't create a fuss/easier to walk all over because their in a more vulnerable position"

For the same reason they want us in debt they want foreign workers: control

Absolutely right.
Whats worse, at least one major airline won't even give its foreign employees a permanent position. They're all contractors - easily abused, more easily dismissed.

I don't think I need name that airline!