Budget 2009

NYC353

Deleted User wrote: »

The credit crunch caused by Sub prime lending in the U.S was never predicted by commentators here.

However, the credit crunch is not the cause of Ireland's problems. Yes it exacerbates it but since 2002 our economy has been built on building houses to meet demand created by an influx of workers to build houses. See anything wrong with that? It was an economy feeding on itself while exports and manufacturing suffered

Our democratically elected government deliberately fueled that false economy to win the election in 2007.
All the credit crunch has done is exposed their incompetence

jimmysull

beatman91 wrote: »

Well I say we deserve this, I personally didn't vote for them but most of the people here did.

Actually most people voted against the current government.
FF 41.6% + Greens 4.7% + PD 2.7% = 49%
Therefore 51% voted against them.

One of the anomolies of democracy I guess

beatman91

jimmysull wrote: »

Actually most people voted against the current government.
FF 41.6% + Greens 4.7% + PD 2.7% = 49%
Therefore 51% voted against them.

One of the anomolies of democracy I guess

Goodman, lol

Still a lot of people are happy with them

Gandalf23

Deleted User wrote: »

We don't have a financial version of the patriot act in operation here.
For sure the Irish central bank and the regulator would have been aware of the nitty gritty of Irish lending and would have reported to the government on this.

Do you seriously believe that the Government DO NOT have access to information that the rest of us dont have?

Because they do.

And a significant amount of the current economic mess we now find ourselves in WAS fairly widely predicted by many economists and commentators.

Deleted User wrote: »

However in a climate up to this year where said banks were making billions in profit and whose balance sheets were full and healthy,they did not have the tools to foresee what was going on behind closed international doors ie those crazy derivitives which were the uiltimate bomb that went off under international bank to bank lending and the cause of this crisis.

It is very naive to believe that the Irish banks thought all was rosy in the garden.

A close friend has a high position in an Irish bank and this person has known the banks were potentially in trouble for the last FEW YEARS. If you think about it in hindsight its obvious ... massive lending fueled by an unsustainable property bubble ... lending to developers to allow the purchase of vastly overpriced land in a time of decreasing property values and negative equity... etc etc etc.

This was all predicted and obvious. How could things have been any different?

Deleted User wrote: »

Theres no way one could have expected speculators to bid up oil by 300% in little more than a year.

Again, this was predicted and not wholly unexpected. Similar has happened in the past. In fact, I think David McWilliams or George Lee might even have had an RTE 1 programme called "Oil Shock" a few years ago about this.

Its almost funny now to listen to the FF fanboys and apologists try to say "oh, this was all so unexpected". Did ye all have your collective heads buried so deeply in the sand that you really didnt have any clue this might have even the slightest chance of happening?

Really, did ye?

faceman

NYC353 wrote: »

However, the credit crunch is not the cause of Ireland's problems. Yes it exacerbates it but since 2002 our economy has been built on building houses to meet demand created by an influx of workers to build houses. See anything wrong with that? It was an economy feeding on itself while exports and manufacturing suffered

In part is was. Banks had easy access to cheap money which is longer available.

Credit Crunch aside, heres my 2c on the Budget. Note that i was a thicko in school so feel free to take it with a pinch of salt!

I believe it was an awful budget. Not because taxes went up but because there was no incentive to stimulate econmic growth. It purely seemed to be set to just bridge the gap between spending and receipts. The only 2 areas that were half ar$ed "targeted" (and i use that term very loosely!) were the property market and, er, companies who can make your home energy efficient! maybe they kept a bucket of sand in the dail for the Finance minister to stick his head in?

Aside from the the obvious issues such as the "Lenihan Levy" which hits all regardless of circumstances there are some other issues:

VAT increase is anti consumer. Duh you might say. But we will never recover from it. Why? Remember when McCreevy decreased VAT a few years? Yep, he put it back up the following year because many businesses did not pass on the 1% reduction to consumers. Therefore its a fair assumption to think that if we reach a stage where we reduce VAT again, it wont be passed on to consumers by many businesses.

Rent Relief untouched? Are renters impervious to inflation? Are they flush with cash that they can safely absorb a 1% increase in income tax and a 0.5% increase in VAT?

I could go on. I still cant fathom how Lenihan expects this budget to boost the economy in any way.

jimmysull

NYC353 wrote: »

since 2002 our economy has been built on building houses to meet demand created by an influx of workers to build houses. See anything wrong with that? It was an economy feeding on itself while exports and manufacturing suffered

A bit like a governemnet sponsored pyramid scheme then?

NYC353

jimmysull wrote: »

A bit like a governemnet sponsored pyramid scheme then?

lol

Yes but they also moved the bulk of the tax base onto that "pyramid scheme" so when it collapsed it brought everything down with it!

and no contingency plan!

and when it collapses they increase tax on families direct AND stealth

Gandalf23

Gandalf23 wrote: »

Do you seriously believe that the Government DO NOT have access to information that the rest of us dont have?

Because they do.

I seriously believe that they do not and did not have access to the nitty gritty of U.S toxic mortgage backed derivitives,the bulk cause of the current mess yes.

And a significant amount of the current economic mess we now find ourselves in WAS fairly widely predicted by many economists and commentators.

Thats simply not the case.Irish banks were making billions up to their last set of accounts untill,the U.S sub prime crisis imploded their ability to access international funds.
For sure they will have a doubling or trebbling of their impaired loans now due to the fact that ,the takers of some of these these loans are suffering an income crisis caused by a snowballing international downturn arising out of the credit crunch.

It is very naive to believe that the Irish banks thought all was rosy in the garden.

A close friend has a high position in an Irish bank and this person has known the banks were potentially in trouble for the last FEW YEARS. If you think about it in hindsight its obvious ... massive lending fueled by an unsustainable property bubble ... lending to developers to allow the purchase of vastly overpriced land in a time of decreasing property values and negative equity... etc etc etc.

Again,I present to you Irish bank profits to date and their stated position [at least in the case of BOI anyhow] that their loan book will remain 99%+ performing.

This was all predicted and obvious. How could things have been any different?



Again, this was predicted and not wholly unexpected. Similar has happened in the past. In fact, I think David McWilliams or George Lee might even have had an RTE 1 programme called "Oil Shock" a few years ago about this.

That programme was last year.They did not predict a trebbling of oil prices,they examined the possible effects of it.You are saying they predicted it.
Handy for your argument but untrue.

Its almost funny now to listen to the FF fanboys and apologists try to say "oh, this was all so unexpected". Did ye all have your collective heads buried so deeply up your own asses in the sand that you really didnt have any clue this might have even the slightest chance of happening?

Really, did ye?

I see you are going down the same road as you did the last thread

Poor debating style that.
In fact it's not debate at all it's just dross.

Gandalf23

faceman wrote: »

VAT increase is anti consumer. Duh you might say. But we will never recover from it. Why? Remember when McCreevy decreased VAT a few years? Yep, he put it back up the following year because many businesses did not pass on the 1% reduction to consumers. Therefore its a fair assumption to think that if we reach a stage where we reduce VAT again, it wont be passed on to consumers by many businesses.

Good point.

I know its only 0.5% but the psychological effect of this is massive. This will hit consumer spending on luxury items in a huge way.

The people to benefit most will be retailers in the North.

NYC353

Deleted User wrote: »

I seriously believe that they do not and did not have access to the nitty gritty of U.S toxic mortgage backed derivitives,the bulk cause of the current mess yes.

I think your argument with Gandalf comes down to whether or not the situation in Ireland is caused by the credit crunch or not. Not whether or not it was foreseen.

I honestly believe Ireland was heading for recession before the credit crunch. The signs were there. Secondhand properties had stopped selling and were falling in value in autumn 2006. Manufacturing jobs )including where I worked were being lost and exports were suffering.
BUT we were "protected" from visibility of it because property development jobs were still in place even though they were unsustainable.

Yes the credit crunch accelerated it but it didn't cause it

BlaasForRafa

Gandalf23 wrote: »

Good point.

I know its only 0.5% but the psychological effect of this is massive. This will hit consumer spending on luxury items in a huge way.

The people to benefit most will be retailers in the North.

And internet shopping. As it is if I see something I like in the shops I'll look online and usually see it for less and normally from outside the state. This vat increase will only reinforce this.

dresden8

NYC353 wrote: »

I think your argument with Gandalf comes down to whether or not the situation in Ireland is caused by the credit crunch or not. Not whether or not it was foreseen.

I honestly believe Ireland was heading for recession before the credit crunch. The signs were there. Secondhand properties had stopped selling and were falling in value in autumn 2006. Manufacturing jobs )including where I worked were being lost and exports were suffering.
BUT we were "protected" from visibility of it because property development jobs were still in place even though they were unsustainable.

Yes the credit crunch accelerated it but it didn't cause it

No, actually Black Briar has convinced me. The Irish property bubble could have kept going on forever and would never have corrected itself.

Of course this would have been the first bubble where this ever would have happened, but hey, we had Cowen and Lenihan to guide us through it. And we all would have owned rental properties, and rented them to each other.

The joy.

Gandalf23

Deleted User wrote: »

Thats simply not the case.Irish banks were making billions up to their last set of accounts untill,the U.S sub prime crisis imploded their ability to access international funds.
For sure they will have a doubling or trebbling of their impaired loans now due to the fact that ,the takers of some of these these loans are suffering an income crisis caused by a snowballing international downturn arising out of the credit crunch.
Again,I present to you Irish bank profits to date and their stated position [at least in the case of BOI anyhow] that their loan book will remain 99%+ performing.

It is the case and to believe otherwise is naive in the extreme. Do you really believe that the Irish bank CEO's and the banking regulator were telling the whole unvarnished truth?

Your reference to 99%+ performing is also inaccurate.

Deleted User wrote: »

That programme was last year.They did not predict a trebbling of oil prices,they examined the possible effects of it.You are saying they predicted it.
Handy for your argument but untrue.

The programme predicted a potential GREATER than trebling of oil prices.

Deleted User wrote: »

I see you are going down the same road as you did the last thread

Poor debating style that.
In fact it's not debate at all it's just dross.

I think its fair that I challenge anything on these boards I believe to be inaccurate or untruthful.

Is that the thread where you say negative equity is not a bad thing? And where you say there is a direct correlation between the price of a barrel of crude oil and pertol prices at the pumps? The increase of 8c in petrol yesterday (as the price of a barrel of crude continues to fall) sorta blew your argument away a bit didn't it?

And as for me talking dross, I'm prepared to let people reading this decide who is talking dross :D:D

Gandalf23

NYC353 wrote: »

I honestly believe Ireland was heading for recession before the credit crunch. The signs were there. Secondhand properties had stopped selling and were falling in value in autumn 2006. Manufacturing jobs including where I worked were being lost and exports were suffering.
BUT we were "protected" from visibility of it because property development jobs were still in place even though they were unsustainable.

Yes the credit crunch accelerated it but it didn't cause it

Well said.

dresden8 wrote: »

No, actually Black Briar has convinced me. The Irish property bubble could have kept going on forever and would never have corrected itself.

Of course this would have been the first bubble where this ever would have happened, but hey, we had Cowen and Lenihan to guide us through it. And we all would have owned rental properties, and rented them to each other.

I lol'ed!!!

I really did :D:D:D:D

dresden8

dresden8 wrote: »

No, actually Black Briar has convinced me. The Irish property bubble could have kept going on forever and would never have corrected itself.

It's gas but nowhere in this thread or elsewhere did I state that or anything like it..

Gandalf23 wrote:

I think its fair that I challenge anything on these boards I believe to be inaccurate or untruthful.

Is that the thread where you say negative equity is not a bad thing?

I said two things. 1. That it was nothing to worry about if like the 99% of bank customers you can continue to pay your loan and 2.I said it was an overplayed soundbyte which it is given the former-neither of which you were able to reasonably dispute other than of course resort to pegging abuse at me.

And where you say there is a direct correlation between the price of a barrel of crude oil and pertol prices at the pumps?

I spoke of Heating oil and petrol and diesel actually.Heating oil is heading way down now as much as it went up when oil prices went up.

The increase of 8c in pertol yesterday sorta blew your argument away a bit didnt it?

No I still expect petrol prices to fall further if oil prices stay down.The 8c extra in tax has no effect on the corelation.
Mind you I'm not surprised that you've introduced a misnomer.

NYC353 wrote:

I honestly believe Ireland was heading for recession before the credit crunch.

A slow down ie 1 or 2% growth and not a recession.The credit crunch made it a recession as banks weren't able to increase that busness's overdraft limit or give that car loan or fund that new business idea or help grow an existing business.

BUT we were "protected" from visibility of it because property development jobs were still in place even though they were unsustainable.

Rising interest rates,the stupid debacle of the uncertainty over stamp duty accellerated what would and you are right have happened anyway.
Demand would eventually have to equal supply and prices cannot rise forever.
It wouldn't have bollixxed the economy in the way a restriction in lending which started in august '07 and really got going from january '08 did though.

NYC353

Deleted User wrote: »

A slow down ie 1 or 2% growth and not a recession.The credit crunch made it a recession

So there's the difference of opinion:

You believe Bertie and the Brians that we would only have had a soft landing or "slowdown". I don't!

How can you continue to believe them? They have got their numbers wrong wrong and wrong again. Your 1% or 2% growth was pie in the sky
We were heading for a crash long before this credit crunch even appeared.

The credit crunch just brought it earlier

Gandalf23

Deleted User wrote: »

It's gas but nowhere in this thread or elsewhere did I state that or anything like it..

Yes. You did. And you continue to say exactly that.

Deleted User wrote: »

I said two things. 1. That it was nothing to worry about if like the 99% of bank customers you can continue to pay your loan and 2.I said it was an overplayed soundbyte which it is given the former-neither of which you were able to reasonably dispute other than of course resort to pegging abuse at me.

I cant believe you are still arguing that negative equity is "nothing to worry about if like the 99% of bank customers you can continue to pay your loan".

This argument is simply stunning in its depth of ignorance and arrogance.

Deleted User wrote: »

I spoke of Heating oil and petrol and diesel actually.Heating oil is heading way down now as much as it went up when oil prices went up. No I still expect petrol prices to fall further if oil prices stay down.The 8c extra in tax has no effect on the corelation.
Mind you I'm not surprised that you've introduced a misnomer.

You argued that falling crude oil prices would mean falling petrol prices at the pumps. This is the link to the thread for all to see where you said exactly
that.

Well guess what? The price of crude oil is falling, and the price of petrol has increased by 8c as of midnight.



As I said earlier, lets let the readers decide who is talking shite here.

NYC353

NYC353 wrote: »

They have got their numbers wrong wrong and wrong again.

In fact they have got their numbers wrong for the next 12 months too.
But don't take my word for it, wait for the tax receipts reports over the next couple of months

nhughes100

Lenihan and FF better hope that the price of oil doesn't start to jump again, I thought 8cent was a bit excessive but predicted a rise in petrol but not diesel as a token green gesture. I thought putting up VAT was a cute was of putting up practically everything without using as many words, two regressive taxes increased along with the levy. Some commentators seem to think that the 1000 euro increase in the tax band will more or less equate to covering the levy for the low paid/minimum waged.

I could not believe there were social welfare increases, that department is more of a black hole then Health for money. A euro a day for pensioners, they may as well not have bothered. Lots of this money will go to struggling builders in the form of social, affordable, rent schemes etc etc etc.

I have to challange some of the remarks above who said the poor pay for the rich in tax, it really is totally inaccurate. 1% of the taxpayers pay about 20% in tax according to Mary Harney this morning, and as has been correctly pointed out the more you earn the more as a percentage of your income you pay in tax. It goes without saying that the more money you have the more you will pay in direct and indirect taxation. The VRT & VAT you pay on a car, stamp duty, electronic goods, tolls, fuel, clothes etc. In any case Corperation tax is a huge earner for the government much more so then Joe six pack.

Every housing bubble bursts, fact. We were led to believe that ours was a mere re-adjustment, indeed there are posts on this board from FFr's that wanted us to believe that a re-adjustment in the construction sector could not be a recession. People have to take some personal responsibility, if you've never managed to save a penny in your life how could you even consider taking on a 100%+ mortgage for 40 years? It almost became fashionable to be in massive debt.

The public sector weren't really taken on, I would have put a stop from this day forth to permenant and pensionable and put anyone recruited from here on in on contract. No detail has emerged yet on redundancy packages.

With regard to 3rd level fees believe me, you'd want to multiply that 1500 euro by 10 to even come close to the cost per student. And yes you do get the capitation fee paid if you're on a grant, it's paid by your local vec so most students don't get it in time for registration but if you qualify you will get it back eventually.

In short I thought the budget should have cut back a lot more on spending especially in social welfare, I think regressive taxes are not good as a whole and as a principal I don't think people earning minimum wage should pay income tax. I didn't see anything that will stimulate the economy and I thought his figures on unemployment predictions will be well out(I think closer to 10%)

Gandalf23

NYC353 wrote: »

So there's the difference of opinion:

You believe Bertie and the Brians that we would only have had a soft landing or "slowdown". I don't!

How can you continue to believe them? They have got their numbers wrong wrong and wrong again. Your 1% or 2% growth was pie in the sky
We were heading for a crash long before this credit crunch even appeared.

The credit crunch just brought it earlier

Bullseye!

Mr.Micro

I agree with the arguments of Gandalf23. The price of oil for anybody who can read or hear is predicted in the long tern to rise and rise, the huge demand in developing countries such as India and also China with its massive economy.


As for the banks according to Black Briar making billions up to recently. Can one believe anyhing the banks say after they had to go in the dead of the night to the Government to ask to be saved.

Even now that they have got the bailout, how much of their debt have they really revealed? It would take an army of trained regultors years to go through their books.We have the Monopoly guy or a Colonel Mustard lookalike as our inept regulator. It was all a bubble ceated by the banks internationally and they were all sucked into the sub prime scam. Ireland should have had a big property down turn 5 years ago as booms come and go in cycles. This time we missed the bust as the whole scam was manipulated.

Historically there has always been boom and bust and the recent debacle here and worldwide proves that, no matter how much manipulation the greedy banks cause. I see no offers of resignation or sackings from the Financial regulators office or any of the CEO s at the big banks. At least in the UK many of the CEO s at RSB and Lloyds TSB have or will resign shortly with no golden payoffs, as it should be, the shame. Here in Ireland they have the gall to continue as normal. They should be sacked now.

is_that_so

Deleted User wrote: »

I don't think an FF candidate on my ballot paper got a number from me for various reasons and I'm not whinging about this budget..

It was all they could do in the unforeseeable circumstances.
For sure we could argue that they should have been slashing spending long before there was an international crisis.But they are no different than Irish people as a whole in that respect really.
Many Irish households would be in deep deep trouble if they got hit with a sudden 30% rise in expediture/fall in income.
Not enough of them plan.Too many of them like the government live for the now.
They forget the rainy day.

I'm not surprised governments are any different and I'm not falling for the faux shock of opposition parties.
If they were in power they'd have varied the nature of the mess but they'd still have a mess.

Governments are expected to plan and tbh that's a pretty tawdry defence of any government.

After all they did the "we have experience" nonsense at the election. There is no denying we are in a bad place which has been made worse by the current global problems but it has been exacerbated by what has happened in the last ten years for which FF hold pretty much all the blame.

The argument about what others might or might not have done in this context is rather pointless. The Government had a chance to be radical and instead they used an axe rather than a scalpel to skin us.

gabigeist

nhughes100 wrote: »

The public sector weren't really taken on

I concur doctor.
I appreciate that it is only hearsay but there is talk that the 10% cut in ministers pay will actually mean that their 11-15% increase will become a 1-5% increase instead. |Also, whether public sector parking spaces will be levied at €200 per annum is doubtful.
If anyone can shed light on these points it would be welcome!

NYC353

is_that_so wrote: »

There is no denying we are in a bad place which has been made worse by the current global problems but it has been exacerbated by what has happened in the last ten years for which FF hold pretty much all the blame.

The problem for FF here is that they have nowhere to hide except behind the global credit crunch.
They deliberately fueled an unsustainable property market to where property prices were in excess of 500 times monthly rent. (Global average is about 225). By doing this they made everything 'look' rosy in the garden to win the 2007 election but when the crash came it was much much worse than it should have been.

The difference this time is they have to clean up their own mess. When they overheated the economy from 1977 to 1982, they were in opposition when FG had to grapple with the tough decisions.

Could you imagine the howling from the FF benches yesterday if R Bruton was delivering a tough budget, they would have blamed him for the complete mess created by Bertie's pro developer regime

Gandalf23

Gandalf23 wrote: »

Yes. You did. And you continue to say exactly that.

I see so ,you don't know the difference between me saying that I don't believe Irish property prices or demand is then main reason for our current mess and me saying something you and dresden atrribute to me ie that the property bubble will continue ad infinitum..
You don't see them as two completely different statements?

Lol is all I can say to that.

I cant believe you are still arguing that negative equity is "nothing to worry about if like the 99% of bank customers you can continue to pay your loan".

This argument is simply stunning in its depth of ignorance and arrogance.

Nonsense.
A person who is able to pay their loan,shouldn't be worrying about temporary negative equity in this day and age.
They should be worrying about what the kids will say when they can't get the bouncy castle man booked because he's too busy to come for their kids birthday-Or in many cases,the face their kid will have when they have to cut back on that expense.Thats more the reality in todays Ireland actually.

You argued that falling crude oil prices would mean falling petrol prices at the pumps. This is the link to the thread for all to see where you said exactly
that.

Aye and it has.Prices at the pumps were up to €1.40 a few short months ago...
I also mentioned the steep fall in kero prices lately.

Well guess what? The price of crude oil is falling, and the price of petrol has increased by 8c as of midnight.

Rofl that has nothing whatsoever to do with the point I'm making.
They've dropped as much as 18c since oil started to fall and will probably drop further.

As I said earlier, lets let the readers decide who is talking shite here.

Aye.

mr micro wrote:

the price of oil for anybody who can read or hear is predicted in the long tern to rise and rise, the huge demand in developing countries such as India and also China with its massive economy.

Which is entirely different to it rising 300% in less than a year.No one predicted or could have predicted that..
They might have expected it to do that over the space of 10 years-which would have been plenty of time to have been implementing alternative energy plans.

Can one believe anyhing the banks say after they had to go in the dead of the night to the Government to ask to be saved.

In fairness I think I've done the argument as to what was the problem with Irish banks and all banks at that time.They couldn't get funding at all to lend on as the U.S Sub prime debacle had imploded.
People were trying to tell me here that it was the Irish banks fault that this happened when,we can now see that it was a general liquidity problem with banks throughout the UK and Europe.
They discovered that they capitalisation was collapsing around them when derivitives originally made in the U.S were discovered to be worth 10% of what they were supposed to be.

Gandalf23

Deleted User wrote: »

I see so ,you don't know the difference between me saying that I don't believe Irish property prices or demand is then main reason for our current mess and me saying something you and dresden atrribute to me ie that the property bubble will continue ad infinitum..
You don't see them as two completely different statements?

I think most people here can see what you think.

I for one can see it very clearly.

Deleted User wrote: »

Nonsense.
A person who is able to pay their loan,shouldn't be worrying about temporary negative equity in this day and age.
They should be worrying about what the kids will say when they can't get the bouncy castle man booked because he's too busy to come for their kids birthday-Or in many cases,the face their kid will have when they have to cut back on that expense.Thats more the reality in todays Ireland actually.

The level of arrogance and ignorance in this statement is really shocking. It shows a deep disregard for the many many people who are suffering and struggling to make ends meet.

If you really believe that "A person who is able to pay their loan,shouldn't be worrying about temporary negative equity" you demonstrate a deep misunderstanding of the reality of negative equity. Again, I ask you what of the person attempting to trade up, trade down, move to a different area, move abroad, sell an inherited house, etc etc etc. What about them? Or do you really believe that everyone who buys a house will live in it for 45 years? I would suggest that is the exception rather than the rule, and that most people would be concerned about negative equity. (And the fact you seem to blissfully ignore that most of the worlds leading economists would say negative equity is a bad thing ... not arrogant in the slightest to disagree with all of them!!!!).

Your opinion is especially disingenuous as you admit in previous posts that negative equity has been shown to last for over 10 years in other instances. "Temporary" ... ha!!! Lets see ...

Deleted User wrote: »

Aye and it has.Prices at the pumps were up to €1.40 a few short months ago...
I also mentioned the steep fall in kero prices lately.

You argued that falling crude means falling petrol at the pumps. Today crude is falling ... petrol is increasing. The link to the thread and your direct quotes are there for all to see.

You are wrong.

QED.

Deleted User wrote: »

Which is entirely different to it rising 300% in less than a year.No one predicted or could have predicted that..

This was predicted. Predicted by more than a few commentators. I believe Bertie said they should commit suicide.

Gandalf23

@ black briar ... this is a serious question. Can you not see the point of view of the vast majority of posters in this thread? Most of them seem to disagree with you. Are you so arrogant to say we are all wrong and you alone are right? Even when your arguments disagree totally with most economists and academics?

This is not a personal attack on you ... please dont take it as such ... I would really appreciate a serious answer to my question.

FrankGrimes

I'm fully prepared to do my bit by taking an increase in taxes but I am disappointed that there's nothing to take more tax from the super-wealthy (besides the 1% levy) and I'm undecided on the commercial property tax cut, but I really thought this was the right time to address the poor return on investment offerred by the public sector.

That said, I fully appreciate Lenihan couldn't stand up and say 'X, Y, and Z jobs will be cut' as we need to remember public sector workers are people with bills to pay and that would be no way to treat them. But I really can't swallow the bitter pill of increased taxes unless we're looking to improve things on the cost outgoings side too, so I'd really like to see some really tough decisions being made in this area.

I'm not out to demonise public sector workers and say they're all slackers etc. - but I will say I think the sector is systematically flawed as it is setup in a way that doesn't lend itself to motivating staff to go the extra mile for productivity.

So let's focus on the system, not the people - what would you suggest to improve cost efficiency in the public sector?

For example, my girlfriend earns a large sum from overtime in the health care for any work after 5pm - why not just hire people who work from 5-11pm and pay them accordingly instead of the massive overtime?

Why not introduce a meritocracy whereby there is an incentive to deliver above and beyond the bare minimum?

What sort of more major changes would people propose? I'm aware there's a lot of 'we need to sort out the public sector costs' going on without a whole lot of detailed ideas on how that can be done.

Gone West

Does anybody have a list of the 41 state agencies that were axed?

Gandalf23

Gandalf23 wrote: »

I think most people here can see what you think.

I for one can see it very clearly.

You can't.
Deliberately misinterpreting my position on fuel prices for instance and ignoring the drop...

The level of arrogance and ignorance in this statement is really shocking. It shows a deep disregard for the many many people who are suffering and struggling to make ends meet.

If you really believe that "A person who is able to pay their loan,shouldn't be worrying about temporary negative equity" you demonstrate a deep misunderstanding of the reality of negative equity. Again, I ask you what of the person attempting to trade up, trade down, move to a different area, move abroad, sell an inherited house, etc etc etc. What about them? Or do you really believe that everyone who buys a house will live in it for 45 years? I would suggest that is the exception rather than the rule, and that most people would be concerned about negative equity. (And the fact you seem to blissfully ignore that most of the worlds leading economists would say negative equity is a bad thing ... not arrogant in the slightest to disagree with all of them!!!!).

Much melodrama there..

Your opinion is especially disingenuous as you admit in previous posts that negative equity has been shown to last for over 10 years in other instances. "Temporary" ... ha!!! Lets see ...

Nope I responded to your example of Japan.
Western Europe and Ireland has very little in common with there.

You argued that falling crude means falling petrol at the pumps. Today crude is falling ... petrol is increasing. The link to the thread and your direct quotes are there for all to see.

You are wrong.

QED.

Again you are repeating a misnomer.Taxes can rise but prices are falling.
Yesterday most pumps in Dublin were selling unleaded at 1.18.9.
Today a tax rise has put that at 1.26.9 which is still a lot lower than 1.40

Oh and while I'm here,I've some more good news for you.
Maybe they are doing that out of the goodness of their heart? Or perhaps it's another example of the obvious drop in refined oil thanks to the drop in crude.

I suppose the next thing you'll be telling me is thta Kero,Derv,Unleaded etc rose in price by huge amounts in the last year and that this wasn't because Crude rose?

Honestly?

This was predicted. Predicted by more than a few commentators. I believe Bertie said they should commit suicide.

Link to that comment please.

black briar ... this is a serious question. Can you not see the point of view of the vast majority of posters in this thread? Most of them seem to disagree with you. Are you so arrogant to say we are all wrong and you alone are right? Even when your arguments disagree totally with most economists and academics?

This is not a personal attack on you ... please dont take it as such ... I would really appreciate a serious answer to my question.

In fairness now I'm engaging in a discussion here.I think I'm making my points reasonably and will continue to do so.
How many posters I engage with here and the number of them who don't follow up points with me is not a be all and end all.
Thats what a discussion is all about.
If you don't like what I'm saying,thats fine but don't be using personal abuse as a last restort to declare that.