Bono could start by paying his taxes!

Noo.. Save the Wale’s!!

Damn Roxy Blue, ya beat me to it.

The map also has the USSR, a divided Germany and Czechoslovakia. It’s a snapshot of the Cold War when the phrases were coined.

Hey Neil, Iran was actually very friendly with the West until the Shah was kicked out by Khomeni and the other religious nuts in the late 70′s. This map is obviously more than 30 years old and refers to the old Cold War state of the world with USSR, East Germany etc still shown on the map :-)

Also when the shah was in control Iran were the shining light of the middle east for arts education and progression. how things can change eh.

Just got an image in my head now of a Trocaire Box with a kid on the front saying ” Hey mister giv uss some money”

19th least corrupt country in the world.FACT

Really nothing to be celebrating there martin

There are different ways of defining and measuring corruption.

“In effect, the Irish state didn’t just tolerate corruption, it actively managed and encouraged it. Even debating the merits of the form of corruption embodied by Social Partnership shows how instrumental ethics replaces real values when the cancer of corruption metastases. Social Partnership is simultaneously a collusive cartel, a conduit for influence peddling, a vehicle for patronage and a price-fixing mechanism. Its goal is to preserve the status quo of wealth and income distribution, skewed in favour of the Partners.

It should come as no surprise that in 2011, Ireland ranked 19th in the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index (CPI) – the lowest of all small open economies in the Euro Area, bar Estonia and Cyprus. As the Moral Sages of our Left ardently decry market economics, its flagships – New Zealand (ranked 1st in the world), Singapore (5th), Switzerland (8th) and Hong Kong (12th) – are less corrupt than the Social Partnership-governed Ireland. In Political Risk Services International Risk (PRSIR) rankings, Ireland is placed between 26th-31st in the world – alongside Uruguay, the UAE, Botswana, Israel and Malta. The only euro area country that scores below us for overall political risks is Estonia.

Higher corruption overall is associated with a significantly lower quality of economic institutions. The correlation between the CPI score, the Economist Intelligence Unit Country Risk Assessment score, the IMD World Competitiveness score and the PRSIR score is in excess of 0.9 or, in statistical terms, nearly perfect. This shows the costs we pay for corruption in terms of economic institutions quality.

In 2011, in Ireland, trust in the Government as measured by the Edelman Trust Barometer – another metric of democratic institutions quality that correlates strongly with CPI – stood at 20%, against an average of 52% for the 23 countries surveyed in the report, making Ireland the lowest ranked country in the study. On the back of 2011 elections, the reading rose to 35% in 2012 and remains significantly below the 43% global average. As of today, of all institutions of the society – private and public – the Irish Government has the lowest trust of its people compared to businesses and NGOs, and equivalent to that of the Irish media.”
Dr Constantin Gurdgiev

As a nation we’re less than 100 years old, so we’re young ( although not as young as India, Pakistan, or the many Africian nations established during the great Imperial shrinkage ).

Its much easier for them to look at the headline, look at the map, ignore the text and blame Enda Kenny for doing this to us…

Were you not giving out about not getting enough wedding presents the other day Bernie ? we’re either 3rd world or we’re not ….

cant be, banannas dont grow in Irl!!!

But you will find we were the biggest exporter of bananas in the world……

Its not… ugh… please reread the artical(or even read it)…

article*

By the “developing” / “developed” definitions, we’re already in the “developed” camp; we have (officially) low infant mortality, an established middle class, a comprehensive ( on paper ) social services system and national education system, democratic rather than military rule and a very high level of medical services ( to those who can afford it ). If only we could get the hot and cold water coming out of the same tap…

Now , Now, the story is really more about the etymology of term “third world” in that the popular understanding refers a socioeconomic classification but this piece point out that its true origin was to refer to cold war political allegiances .We all know that the popularised economic term is now outmoded but Michael had to use it to point out the changing meaning over time . BTW, what do you mean “discredited”? was there a secret laboratory set up that found the term “third world” has no scientific merit ?!? Did Mr “third world “give false information to a tribunal? MMM .No ,I think this is a slightly whimsical demonstration how a commonly “understood” term was actually developed to depict something else entirely .i.e. So, in summary your point is moot and you should be disappointed in yourself for not being able to understand the true meaning of the piece!

Apparently it also didn’t like punctuation, sentence structure or paragraphs.

I’m sure you had something interesting to say about Irish politicians being corrupt, but this story relates to Cold War political maps.

Scroll back up and read the full article.

Now that you have read the entire article, I’m sure you can see how your rage at the current government is not warranted on this article.

Right. That’s that covered.

Now for the questions.
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