Is FG worse than FF?

mike65

Agree with all that, FG have had the luxury of seeing the economy boom while the government gets it in the neck, getting elected would nearly be a bad move for them.

Mike.

nesf

bk wrote:

But where are they going to get all the money to do this if they aren't going to raise taxes?

Exactly. If they didn't pledge to keep the same tax rates, or lower them further, then it might make more fiscal sense.

rkeane

FG/LAB would be an economic disaster for this country, for all their faults the current government are far superior policy wise. Enda Kenny would be an embarrassment as taoiseach........he comes accross as pretty thick!

bk

nesf wrote:

Exactly. If they didn't pledge to keep the same tax rates, or lower them further, then it might make more fiscal sense.

But, you see then the problem is I wouldn't vote for them as I believe in our low tax economy.

And that is a problem I see, FG/Labour are promising a lot of things that sound like they will cost a lot of money. But given their pledge not to raise taxes, then that makes me suspicious that:

A) They are going to break their pledge and raise taxes.
They aren't going to really implement most of these expensive policies.
C) They are going to increase our national debt to pay for these policies.

I can't really think of any other answer to my question.

And that is a problem I have with FG/Lab, they promise a lot in their policies, but they don't seem to give any indication on how they plan to fund any of this.

At least FF's policies like T21 and extra hospital beds have at least some explanation on how they will be funded.

I'm not saying that FF/PD policies are better, they just seem to be better planned, better thought out and based in reality, which makes me think they are more likely to happen.

nesf

bk wrote:

But, you see then the problem is I wouldn't vote for them as I believe in our low tax economy.

See, my issue is that people want a low tax economy and high tax services. You can have one or the other tbh.

bk

nesf wrote:

See, my issue is that people want a low tax economy and high tax services. You can have one or the other tbh.

And I actually agree with you, you can't have it both ways. But the problem I'm having is that it seems FG/Labour want it both ways. They are sitting on the fence saying that they are going to spend a lot of money on health, crime, infrastructure, etc. but at the same time they say that there not going to increase taxes.

Like you, I don't believe both are possible, therefore if they get into government somethings going to have to give and before I decide if I'm going to vote for them or not, then I'd like to know what will give.

Will they give us a high tax economy and high tax services or low tax economy and low tax services?

If they were honest and gave us a clear answer to this, at least then I can make a decision on how to vote, based on my beliefs. At the moment I've no idea what they will do and that makes me uneasy.

MontgomeryClift

bk wrote:

But, you see then the problem is I wouldn't vote for them as I believe in our low tax economy.

You do realise that in Ireland tax as a percentage of GDP is only at the OECD average? It reached a low of over 28% in 2002 and has been rising since then to (I think), about 32% or more, which is like the 1990-2000 levels.
http://www.finfacts.com/irelandbusinessnews/publish/article_10003606.shtml

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/6/1/33826979.pdf

But that's unnecessary information, because taxes in Ireland were high in the early 90s when the economic situation began to change. Tax cuts in the late 90s were made possible as a result of economic growth. They were not a cause. But income tax cuts did manage to halve economic growth from 10% to 5% by unleashing inflation.
http://www.ictu.ie/html/publications/ictu/Tax%20Cuts%20did%20not%20Create%20Celtic%20Tiger.pdf

http://www.esri.ie/irish_economy/

And price inflation increases the tax take as VAT, which is comparatively high in Ireland at 21%, so the tax cuts and the resultant inflation just raise more tax on spending, which creates a dependency on consumerism and penalises those on lower incomes.

InFront

bk wrote:

And I actually agree with you, you can't have it both ways. But the problem I'm having is that it seems FG/Labour want it both ways. They are sitting on the fence saying that they are going to spend a lot of money on health, crime, infrastructure, etc. but at the same time they say that there not going to increase taxes.

Like you, I don't believe both are possible

Do you accept that this government have a history and a reputation of wasting money unnecessarily, or not? Do you accept they have a deserved reputation for wasting resources?

Spending isn't the problem with this government. It's spending with positive effect.

ballooba

Interesting article here:
http://www.finfacts.com/irelandbusinessnews/publish/article_10008761.shtml

bk

InFront wrote:

Do you accept that this government have a history and a reputation of wasting money unnecessarily, or not? Do you accept they have a deserved reputation for wasting resources?

No I do not.

I'm sure you are now going to sprout at me about e-voting, pars, etc. But as a person who works in IT myself, I can tell you that such failures certainly aren't unusual in major capital spending and it wouldn't be any different for FG/Labour. When you spend billions every year, there are going to always be some inefficiencies. I see that every day myself in big multinationals.

rkeane

BK,

They (FG/LAB) are itching for power.....they would destroy the prosperity we now have. FG/LAB have made many claims about how they are going to fix the health system....they haven't explained how they are going to do that without raising taxes. I think by election time the Irish people will realise just how good we have it and keep FF/PDS.

bk

MontgomeryClift wrote:

But that's unnecessary information, because taxes in Ireland were high in the early 90s when the economic situation began to change. Tax cuts in the late 90s were made possible as a result of economic growth. They were not a cause. But income tax cuts did manage to halve economic growth from 10% to 5% by unleashing inflation.
http://www.ictu.ie/html/publications/ictu/Tax%20Cuts%20did%20not%20Create%20Celtic%20Tiger.pdf

Ah get off it, your seriously expecting me to take a document like this written by the congress of trade unions seriously??

Nearly every economist, both national and international agree that low corporate tax rates created the celtic tiger. I see it myself every day, I work for a large US IT multinational (and most of my friends do also in other companies) and I can tell you, they would never have come to Ireland if it wasn't for the low tax rate.

Microsoft, Dell, IBM, Intel, Google, etc. all setup their European HQ's here in Ireland because of the low tax rate, along with a generally pro-business government and well educated English speaking population.

InFront

Upon being asked whether he accepted that the government had a reputation of overspending,

bk wrote:

No I do not.

I'm sure you are now going to sprout at me about e-voting, pars, etc.

I could, yes. But why not just stick to one thing at a time. The first NDP. Do you know when it was to be completed by, and do you know what it was supposed to cost, and do you know what it has turned out to be, and do you want to be reminded?

Here it is anyway. It was launched in 1999, and the government had until early 2006 to complete it. It was supposed to have cost €6 billion but will actually be about €20 billion by the time the inter-urban motorways are complete - now scheduled for - 2010.

Is that a level of overspending that would be tolerated where you work? You say that you see these kind of inefficiencies every day with the big multinationals, is that not just a big fat lie?

nesf

InFront wrote:

Is that a level of overspending that would be tolerated where you work? You say that you see these kind of inefficiencies every day with the big multinationals, is that not just a big fat lie?

Firstly, it's pointless asking whether that level of overspending would be tolerated since companies are very different beasts to governments in how they get to go around their business.

Secondly, if you do not believe that there can be large inefficiencies in large companies then you are naive and/or have little or no experience in working for or with them.

InFront

Actually, the poster said he saw these kind of inefficiencies every day where he works. I can only presume he means a government department.

Large overspending, yes. Large enough to the tune of 14 billion euro and 4 years over schedeule, no.

bk

InFront wrote:

Here it is anyway. It was launched in 1999, and the government had until early 2006 to complete it. It was supposed to have cost €6 billion but will actually be about €20 billion by the time the inter-urban motorways are complete - now scheduled for - 2010.

I'll readily admit that initially there were major problems with the NRA, most road projects were coming in way over budget and over schedule.

But now that has been fixed. Most road projects are coming in on budget and far ahead of schedule. This is due to a vast improvement in project management at the NRA. There was a problem and now it has been fixed under the current government. But will you give them any credit for that?

InFront wrote:

Is that a level of overspending that would be tolerated where you work? You say that you see these kind of inefficiencies every day with the big multinationals, is that not just a big fat lie?

ROFLOL, are you really so naive?

I've seen companies where you could fire half the staff and the customers wouldn't know any different. Time and time again I've seen IT projects that cost 10's of millions to develop get quietly shelved because they don't work. Overspending is rampant in the business world, you just don't hear about it as it is hidden behind gross margins and "business" expense and the big companies don't really like to talk about it.

bk

InFront wrote:

Actually, the poster said he saw these kind of inefficiencies every day where he works. I can only presume he means a government department.

Nope, see it all the time in large US multinationals, Irish financial companies, etc.

nesf

InFront wrote:

Large overspending, yes. Large enough to the tune of 14 billion euro and 4 years over schedeule, no.

Um, as I said you can't really directly compare the two. The best you could do is a very rough analogy but countries and companies most definitely operate according to different rules and structures.

InFront

Ive seen companies where you could fire half the staff and the customers wouldn't know any different. Time and time again I've seen IT projects that cost 10's of millions to develop get quietly shelved because they don't work.

Who said anything about millions?

Firstly, you're saying that you see projects 14 billion euros over budget, and 4 years over schedeule every day?
Secondly, does anybody get fired for that?

And thirdly, do you even agree that this gives the government a reputation for overspending and inefficiency?

ballooba

bk wrote:

But now that has been fixed. Most road projects are coming in on budget and far ahead of schedule. This is due to a vast improvement in project management at the NRA. There was a problem and now it has been fixed under the current government. But will you give them any credit for that?

It's easy to achieve targets if you set them ridiculously low. The only person your kidding however is yourself. The public is well aware of the fashion in which FF/PD are squandering our money, Thornton Hall is a particularly prominent and obvious example.

The ESRI has criticised the spending on the 3rd NDP where spending was ramped up around election time causing huge increases in prices and achieving poor value for money. The ESRI has also criticised the government for failing to learn the lessons from their failures in previous NDPs in drawing up the 4th NDP.

bk

InFront wrote:

Who said anything about millions?

Firstly, you're saying that you see projects 14 billion euros over budget, and 4 years over schedeule every day?

While I personally haven't seen a company waste billions, there are many examples, for instance:

Time Warners and AOL merger, two years after the merger they made a $99 Billion loss!!!!

Or HP's $25 billion purchase of Compaq.

Or IBM's $1 billion purchase of Informix.

Have you ever heard of a little company called Enron?

And as for the expensive failed IT projects I'm talking about, if you were to scale the companies involved up to the size of Ireland, then yes the loses would be comparable.

InFront wrote:

Secondly, does anybody get fired for that?

Rarely, sometimes the Director involved gets a nice golden parachute.

InFront wrote:

And thirdly, do you even agree that this gives the government a reputation for overspending and inefficiency?

Not particularly, I don't think they are any worse then other western governments and have been noticeably improving.

InFront

So the answer, after all, is no you don't see this every day.

So now do you recognise that the overspending in NDP 1 to the tune of 14 billion euro, and the fact that it is so overdue, is an example of an overspending government? Should we start talking about other projects yet?

You say they are improving, why is that? Give us examples of how this overspending has been offset by newer cases where they have underspent and come out before schedeule to the same degree.

bk

ballooba wrote:

It's easy to achieve targets if you set them ridiculously low. The only person your kidding however is yourself. The public is well aware of the fashion in which FF/PD are squandering our money

If the public are so aware as you claim, then why is FF still the largest party and why do they continue to do so well in polls?

Is it because that maybe not everyone agrees with you?

bk

InFront wrote:

So the answer, after all, is no you don't see this every day.

Ah FFS InFront, get off your high horse, you know exactly what I was talking about, stop trying to back out of it, you are wrong plain and simple.

InFront wrote:

So now do you recognise that the overspending in NDP 1 to the tune of 14 billion euro, and the fact that it is so overdue, is an example of an overspending government? Should we start talking about other projects yet?

First of all please supply some evidence (links) to this, I've never heard of it before?

How much was this due to inflation?

How much was it due to the very tough planning and property rights laws in Ireland?

How much was it due to the inexperience of the people involved in the NRA handling such large projects?

Would any of this have been any different had FG/Labour been in power over the last 10 years?

I honestly believe, no, the problems the NRA had were planning laws and inexperience, the same problems would have existed even if FG/Lab were in power.

Those problems have now been fixed in the NRA (though I worry that they will be repeated in the RPA), but you won't recognise that because it doesn't suit your political ideology.

rkeane

BK,

Its obvious that these guys are FG/LAB clowns....when was the last time u guys actually did well in government? FF/PD have helped Ireland to be the envy of the world.

sceptre

bk wrote:

If the public are so aware as you claim, then why is FF still the largest party and why do they continue to do so well in polls?

Is it because that maybe not everyone agrees with you?

I suspect so. It's only my opinion but I tend to assume that more than one John Q Public doesn't give a rats who's creaming or wasting as long as there are more sausages on his own table. Or the promise of more possible sausages on his table. That's why the American dream has lived on in the country to the west of us where so many people don't have any sausages. Personally I'd like our public representatives to hold themselves to higher standards, heck I'd like us to hold them to higher standards but I've long recognised that I'm in the minority there. Where the pigs have their noses in the trough, no-one really cares for whose benefit the farm is really being run.

sceptre

rkeane wrote:

Its obvious that these guys are FG/LAB clowns

I'd rather hope that your comment isn't directed at any of your fellow posters. In case, I strongly suggest reading the charter anyway. Twice.

rkeane

clown is a bad word?

rkeane

sry if i offended

ballooba

bk wrote:

If the public are so aware as you claim, then why is FF still the largest party and why do they continue to do so well in polls?

Is it because that maybe not everyone agrees with you?

There's only one poll that really matters... well actually two if you include TNS/MRBI.