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Absolutely, sadly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Macy
And yes, the price of rail travel in Ireland is an absolute disgrace. The thing that ****es me off the most is that the cost of a single from Cork to Dublin is nearly the same price. How can they justify that, and why do people stand for it?
adam
Sounds fair to me ...and i say that as a guy on a modest salary who's taxing and maintaining two cars (both modest but perfectly efficient though)Quote:
Originally Posted by pete
Spot on. Due to drunken stupidity I ended up buying a single to Dublin from Cork after our game down there recently. €52 one way!! That's a whopping €4 cheaper than the return. :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by dahamsta
Then, to add insult to injury, the Irish Rail gobdaw on duty then told us that we wouldn't actually get on the train because Cork were playing in Croker that day and all the seasts were pre-booked. Essentially they ripped us off big time.
But, the Hobbsesque lesson is that we got the Aircoach from Cork to Dublin for €10. And I won't ever be travelling Dublin to Cork with Irish Rail again.
KOH
Am I the only one who thinks that he's turning into Ireland's very own Michael Moore, where the validity and relevance of his arguments is becoming ever more diluted by the fact that he's a smug, self-important ass?
I'm sure any readers of 'The Village' would agree. :)
eddie hobbs is saying things that the likes of george lee have been saying for years but he seems to be able to add that bit of humour to get his point across.A cute cork hoare alright!
The real ripoffs are
1) The hike in licence fee we'll all have to pay to get RTE to take him off the air (Remember how much it cost us to get Scrap Saturday binned)
2) The cost to the taxpayer of all these spin doctors employed to discredit Eddie Hobbs
I thought the shows were great tv but nothing really new in them just the way the info was presented.
Would have liked to have heard Eddie talking about the alternatives. Obviously we are getting ripped off, if the rip off stops how is the money going to be generated?
Wil he have a book coming out at Christmas called "I was thinking to myself" :DQuote:
Originally Posted by sadloserkid
Eddie Hobbs is brilliant - Conor74 absolutely hates him, so he must be doing something right.... :D
Ireland's needed someone like Hobbs for a long time. We're bullsh*tted by government spin artists every day, time we put a bit of spin of our own on the numbers. Fight fire with fire.
adam
Thats the politicians job.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dawn_Run
Nope. Read post #17. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by sadloserkid
Don't crucify Eddie cos he's got enemies in high (and low) places
Monday September 12th 2005
EDDIE Hobbs is no Mother Teresa. And as he said himself on radio at the weekend he is "no saint".
But the attempts by a convicted fraudster to sully the man's reputation are quite pathetic.
We should not go around "beatifying" Eddie Hobbs.
He helped to devise and present an ingenious TV show which confirmed suspicions that many people had anyway about inflated prices. His programme Rip-off Republic entertained and informed.
It also criticised the Government along the way by highlighting the extent to which people are being ripped off, not just by high prices, but by poor value for money in some public services.
Hobbs is a fantastic entertainer who brings an incisive wit to issues which can at times seem complex.
Not the grounds for beatification, but most definitely not the grounds for crucifixion.
Allegations printed in recent days suggest that in his former capacity as a financial adviser Mr Hobbs transferred money offshore for a client, some of which was undeclared for tax purposes.
The suggestion is that Mr Hobbs facilitated tax evasion while working for the Tony Taylor group.
Firstly, Mr Hobbs denies doing anything wrong.
Secondly, the client is quoted in one newspaper as saying he didn't tell Mr Hobbs that some of the money was undeclared income.
Thirdly, it was perfectly legal to move money offshore in this way at the time. Only the origin of the funds posed an issue.
Fourthly, the allegations form part of a complaint to the financial regulator about Mr Hobbs by the convicted fraudster, Tony Taylor.
The allegations against Mr Hobbs have nothing whatsoever to do with the bona fides of his criticisms of rip-offs in this country.
They do not take away in the slightest from what he has to say about vested interests, consumer rip-offs and high stealth taxes.
On the allegations themselves, assume for a moment that they were true, and that Mr Hobbs did help a client or clients move money in and out of what proved to be bogus non-resident accounts. If this practice made him in some way unfit to practice in financial services, then what percentage of the entire financial services workforce would have to clear out of it.
At the time Eddie Hobbs was not legally obliged to probe with clients the origin of funds or the status of those funds with the Revenue Commissioners.
The country had over 100,000 bogus non-resident accounts.
Sure half of AIB would have to leave the financial services sector if that level of ethical scrutiny was now applied, with the benefit of hindsight and several inquiries.
Inquiries which also showed that the culture of tax evasion was endemic at the time and despite arms of the State knowing about bogus non-resident accounts, nothing was done about them.
And of course we should bear in mind that the allegations, which are totally denied by Mr Hobbs anyway, are coming from a man who effectively stole his own clients' money.
Eddie Hobbs has done a fantastic, insightful and entertaining job with Rip-off Republic and before that with Show Me The Money. It's probably stretching things too far to say he has done a great service to the country as some of his many fans would suggest.
Nobody is above criticism, including Eddie Hobbs, but nobody deserves crucifixion just because they have angered politicians in high places and ex-cons in low ones.
Can you just link to that please Joe.
Nice to see FF spin doctors have finally woken up - obviously that party has no problem with the likes of Tony Taylor given some of their own members activities....
Amen to that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Macy