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Comment by rusk | Hacker News Reader

Official Ireland were dragged into this kicking and screaming. There really wasn’t much choice involved - unless the OECD brass were thinking in generous terms towards Ireland. If anything I’d say the timing of this is in part what drove Brexit - this has been coming for a few years now and “City”* of London is one of the worlds biggest hubs for processing funny money.

* This is the somewhat cryptic name for the financial services enclave in the middle of London City.

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The "City of London" (also referred to as the square mile), whose proper name is "City of London Corporation" is a roughly square mile in the centre of London that closely matches the area of the Roman settlement of Londinium. Given it's age and heritage it has many foibles; it is its own ceremonial county, it has its own police force, it has quixotic ownership of lands (and sometimes even entire towns) outside its own borders (the city of Londonderry / Derry in Northern Ireland used to be wholly owned by the City of London, hence the name Londonderry). The City of London is a strange and almost anachronistic collection of a few dozen blocks surrounded by the much larger Greater London. Read up on it, it has some very interesting and strange history.

> hence the name Londonderry

This explains far more than just the name … thanks!

I used to live and work in the city and loved telling people about the dragons guarding the city borders and the often weird and funny traditions. As much as the city is a hub of corporations it's actually far from the soulless place many make it out to be, and there is lots of interesting history there if you care to look. My favorite gateway drugs to learning more about the city of London are probably CGP Grey's videos:

The (Secret) City of London: History Edition: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc

The (Secret) City of London: Government Edition: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z1ROpIKZe-c

It's not just a financial services enclave. The City of London proper is a whole other thing unto itself. For an interesting read, check out what it takes to become the Lord Mayor of the City of London. Quite a trip.

The OECD has zero legal power however. It's just a "thinktank", they have no way to enforce anything they come up with.

I'm sure soft power pressure from the EU was a big factor in this, sure. But they weren't forced to as such.

It doesn’t have any enforcement power, but this is an agreement that Ireland have had to sign up to out of political necessity. It’s not the OECD forcing Ireland, it’s the other OECD members.

Yeah, the idea of OECD “brass” made me chuckle.

Excuse me? are there not senior officials [0] in these organisations that convene these things, set timelines and such? I’m sorry if I am using some definition of the colloquially term “brass” that you are not familiar with.

You condescending fool.

EDIT [0] https://search.oecd.org/about/structure/

This fool has been well aware for decades that they have various deliberative and measuring staff but no ability to order anyone* around.

The world needs organizations like the oecd but they hardly have “brass” like, say, the EU does, much less national governments.

* ok, if your job is to track, say, land usage and you don’t do your job you have a boss who can presumably fire you but that’s about as exciting as it gets.

Not as smart as you thought, eh

I have reverse Dunning-Kruger

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