Is the cost of living really that high in 2009 ?

thebman

jimmmy wrote: »

For your information, DVD players have come down in price. Even video recorders before that...I remember in the eighties and nineties they were much much more. Even a humble radio ......something which would cost 40 euro now would have cost 100 pounds 20 years ago.
A McDonalds hamburger was about 70 pence in 1980 ....the equivalent of an hours work ( gross pay ) in a shop for most basic staff ( like who would be on the minimum wage now ). A public servant ( on the average public sector wage ) could buy something like 28 McDonalds hamburgers for his hours work ( gross pay ) now.

Great stuff, completely irrelevant to the cost of living though.

DVD players have come down in price as have all electronic players. DVD players are now going out of production to be replaced by Bluray players which are expensive and downloadable content. What is your point, do you have one? The price of a DVD player is irrelevant to this thread and completely off topic as is the price of a McDonalds hamburger.

Don't know why you keep talking about it TBH. How much is rent/mortgages, milk, basic food stuffs like fruit/veg/meat, transport etc... and you know the other things people actually need to live!! That is the cost of living, screw a DVD player, who the hell needs a DVD player to live in 2009? Has someone become dependent on one? Would someone die if they didn't watch a DVD a week or something? I'm not getting my recommended daily allowance if that is the case. :rolleyes:

jimmmy

thebman wrote: »

Great stuff, completely irrelevant to the cost of living though.

Not really. I also compared other things people spend money on eg milk , cars, petrol, bicycles, electronic goods, white goods ( eg fridges ), clothing, toys, holidays etc.

What an someone can find for the equivalent of an gross weeks Irish p.s. persons pay , has never been better value, has it ?

A weeks Irish p.s. wages would never have bought as much 10, 20 or 40 years ago in Ireland, would it ?

thebman

You'd be better of factoring in the cost of DVD's Vs. VHS casettes or DVD rental Vs. VHS rental if you want to compare time periods like that and luxury purchases.

People should only be buying a DVD player once. Every games console is also a DVD player (except the Wii) and every Pc can play DVD's. The reason DVD players have gone so cheap is because there is no demand because almost everyone has one and almost everything is one. Bluray is be taking over in the next couple of years from DVD anyway so you might want to compare Bluray prices to DVD prices since the time period you are comparing to had DVD as a still emerging technology same as Bluray is today.

ardmacha

A weeks Irish p.s. wages would never have bought as much 10, 20 or 40 years ago in Ireland, would it ?

All manufactured goods tend to get cheaper, and electronics doubly so because of Moore's law. What doesn't get cheaper is services, compare the cost of a haircut in 1980 with one today or going to the dentist. Compare the cost of posting a letter or buying a newspaper or taking a taxi.

jimmmy

ardmacha wrote: »

All manufactured goods tend to get cheaper

And firms which cannot manufacture as competively go bust or relocate.
To the consumer it means joe bloggs ( say a public servant on average p.s. wage ) can and does buy much more than ever.

ardmacha wrote: »

What doesn't get cheaper is services

Some types of services ( if they can be called that ) do eg certain food services eg McDonalds, or airline travel. In 1980 it cost hundreds of pounds to travel return to England by airplane. It cost £ 13.50 to travel by rail within Ireland for a journey thats only 25 euro now. Yet wages have increased out of all proportion. I remember in the eighties the cheapest return fare to Australia was 900 pounds return ( not euro )...now it is advertised for as little as 660 euro by the same airline. Then you would be saving for months if not years for it....now it costs less than a return flight to England did in the eighties, in real terms.

Niall Keane

I’m not 100% on this. But isn’t dole calculated on a certain group of items considered essential for a basic existence. So many loaves of bread, litres of milk etc.? (I know even a packet of cigarettes and a pint) I believe that supplementary welfare payments made up any shortfall.
So in 1994 the dole given to a single male was approx £52 or €66. Now it’s approx €210 I believe. If nothing more has been added to the essential list, here I’m not sure; wouldn’t this make the increase in the real cost of living approximately 320% in those 15 years? Even with a 5% drop in costs since last year that still leaves an increase of 304% since 1994.

Gumbo

jimmmy wrote: »

And firms which cannot manufacture as competively go bust or relocate.
To the consumer it means joe bloggs ( say a public servant on average p.s. wage ) can and does buy much more than ever.



Some types of services ( if they can be called that ) do eg certain food services eg McDonalds, or airline travel. In 1980 it cost hundreds of pounds to travel return to England by airplane. It cost £ 13.50 to travel by rail within Ireland for a journey thats only 25 euro now. Yet wages have increased out of all proportion. I remember in the eighties the cheapest return fare to Australia was 900 pounds return ( not euro )...now it is advertised for as little as 660 euro by the same airline. Then you would be saving for months if not years for it....now it costs less than a return flight to England did in the eighties, in real terms.

no difference now, im saving since xmas to get money up for a week in Majorca in September :mad:

jimmmy

lucky you. many people will not be going on holidays anywhere this year, now having lost their job, lost business, or being on a 3 day week etc Be thankful you can get flights abroad for less than the equivalent of a weeks wages.

Gumbo

jimmmy wrote: »

lucky you. many people will not be going on holidays anywhere this year, now having lost their job, lost business, or being on a 3 day week etc Be thankful you can get flights abroad for less than the equivalent of a weeks wages.

can you prove this???????
if i could get flights for a weeks wage i'd be laughing and wouldnt need to save at all!

until you can prove your facts, you should politely shut up imo.

i posted up here exactly how much i earn to show the real cost of the pension contributions and levies to the typical worker, not this made up figure you plucked out of your left ear.

your right, many people are not going away this year, but many many more are going away this year, so no point using something to argue if you wont accept the opposite side of the argument too.

my mate has 2 kids, his own house, on the dole and going to peurtoventura next week for 10 days, my brother works for ADT, he is going away in july to kusdasi, just 2 examples of private sector and unemployed people going away.

jimmmy

kceire wrote: »

can you prove this???????

very easily.
www.ryanair.com Mind you, as prices vary during the year, and sometimes they have promotions like giving thousands of flights away for almost nothing, you would be best to plan well in advance...oh, and shop around. There are plenty of bargains to be had.

kceire wrote: »

your right, many people are not going away this year, but many many more are going away this year, so no point using something to argue if you wont accept the opposite side of the argument too.

lol lol. My point was that many many people are going away this year...holidays were never cheaper compared to say the average p.s. gross wage. Look at what one can get for 966 euro. Never before in history, or nowhere else in the world by p.s. there, can such value be had.

Gumbo

jimmmy wrote: »

very easily.
www.ryanair.com Mind you, as prices vary during the year, and sometimes they have promotions like giving thousands of flights away for almost nothing, you would be best to plan well in advance...oh, and shop around. There are plenty of bargains to be had.



lol lol. My point was that many many people are going away this year...holidays were never cheaper compared to say the average p.s. gross wage. Look at what one can get for 966 euro. Never before in history, or nowhere else in the world by p.s. there, can such value be had.

so you can get flights away for less than a weeks social welfare payments too. i dont see you hammering down that point......

jimmmy

But its unclear what the average social welfare payment is....it depends so much on personal circumstances etc. However, it is known what the average p.s. wage is...the cso has confirmed it as 966 p.w.before tax. This is a good benchmark for wages nowadays....indeed some in the public sector would even claim that private sector wages are higher ! Imagine getting 28 McDonalds burgers for the equivalent of an hours gross pay - I remember the day when many people worked for an hour to earn enough to buy a McDonalds hamburger, and it was looked on as a great treat. What other group of 300,00 plus people in the world gets an average of 28 hamburgers an hour gross pay ?

P. Breathnach

jimmmy wrote: »

But its unclear what the average social welfare payment is....it depends so much on personal circumstances etc. However, it is known what the average p.s. wage is...the cso has confirmed it as 966 p.w.before tax. This is a good benchmark for wages nowadays....indeed some in the public sector would even claim that private sector wages are higher ! Imagine getting 28 McDonalds burgers for the equivalent of an hours gross pay - I remember the day when many people worked for an hour to earn enough to buy a McDonalds hamburger, and it was looked on as a great treat. What other group of 300,00 plus people in the world gets an average of 28 hamburgers an hour gross pay ?

The public service bashing thread is still available. Why move the issue over here?

Gumbo

jimmmy wrote: »

But its unclear what the average social welfare payment is....it depends so much on personal circumstances etc. However, it is known what the average p.s. wage is...the cso has confirmed it as 966 p.w.before tax. This is a good benchmark for wages nowadays....indeed some in the public sector would even claim that private sector wages are higher ! Imagine getting 28 McDonalds burgers for the equivalent of an hours gross pay - I remember the day when many people worked for an hour to earn enough to buy a McDonalds hamburger, and it was looked on as a great treat. What other group of 300,00 plus people in the world gets an average of 28 hamburgers an hour gross pay ?

exactly the same as a PS, not all of them earn 966e per week like you claim!

and for the maths professor in you, you cant buy anything on gross pay, so why talk about it! workers only ever see the nett pay of their wages, why cant you see that?

anyway back on topic, yes the cost of living is still very very expensive in Ireland!

Riskymove

jimmmy wrote: »

I remember the day when many people worked for an hour to earn enough to buy a McDonalds hamburger, and it was looked on as a great treat.

...in my day...we worked all day down the mines and when we got home our father would kill us.....etc;)

jimmmy

kceire wrote: »

exactly the same as a PS, not all of them earn 966e per week like you claim!

I said an average. I never claimed " all of them earn 966e per week "!

kceire wrote: »

and for the maths professor in you, you cant buy anything on gross pay, so why talk about it! workers only ever see the nett pay of their wages, why cant you see that?

As I explained earlier ( obviously you did not read all the posts ), its because net pay varies so much, depending on marital status , personal deductions etc. The cso does not have statistics on net pay in the public service, that I can find anyway. If anything net pay as a proportion of gross pay would have improved over the last few decades, I am sure you will agree.

Gumbo

jimmmy wrote: »

I said an average. I never claimed " all of them earn 966e per week "!


As I explained earlier ( obviously you did not read all the posts ), its because net pay varies so much, depending on marital status , personal deductions etc. The cso does not have statistics on net pay in the public service, that I can find anyway. If anything net pay as a proportion of gross pay would have improved over the last few decades, I am sure you will agree.

i agree there, as everybodies nett pay increased due to the budgets etc etc, but for instance my nett wages at the moment is lower than my nett wages this time last year to the tune of around 350-375 per month.

now im not complaining or moaning, i have never moaned about salaries etc but i have suffered like alot of people out there, of course not as much as people being let go and losing jobs, although it has directly affected me (My partnet is unemployed ). but dont forget there are people in BOTH sectors at the moment that havent suffered at all.

jimmmy

Fair enough kceire, I agree with everything you say there.

However, I know you say you " have suffered like a lot of people out there", but be thankful you still have a full time job ( many do not ), guaranteed sickies, holidays , pension etc...and more than likely flexitime etc.....and possibly a relatively short working week ? Be thanful you are part of an organisation of 300,000 plus people , whose average take home pay is € 966 per week ( as confirmed by their own Central Statistics Office ). To put this in perspective, one weeks average gross salary would buy a return flight to Australia ( now advertised at record low prices ), with a continental holiday thrown in....no other government in the world is known to have such high average pay.....so think of poor government employees in other countries worldwide - if not the taxpayers who support this government and its employees.

hellboy99

What exactly then does the non average (below €966 p/w) PS worker earn ?
I'm not working at the minute but when I was my average wage was just over €300 a week.

Gumbo

jimmmy wrote: »

Fair enough kceire, I agree with everything you say there.

However, I know you say you " have suffered like a lot of people out there", but be thankful you still have a full time job ( many do not ), guaranteed sickies, holidays , pension etc...and more than likely flexitime etc.....and possibly a relatively short working week ? Be thanful you are part of an organisation of 300,000 plus people , whose average take home pay is € 966 per week ( as confirmed by their own Central Statistics Office ). To put this in perspective, one weeks average gross salary would buy a return flight to Australia ( now advertised at record low prices ), with a continental holiday thrown in....no other government in the world is known to have such high average pay.....so think of poor government employees in other countries worldwide - if not the taxpayers who support this government and its employees.

why edit your post jimmy? are you just trying to provoke an argument?
dont forget that many do still have a full time job.
dont know what guaranteed sickies are, you've lost me on that one?
every working employee in ireland has holidays so dont see the issue there either?
short working week....well that depends, is mon-fri 9am to 5pm short?
i had a shorter week in my private sector job as we finished at 1pm on fridays.
flexi time? dont see the problem here, people on flexi time still work the same hours, so dont see the issue?
and the salary thing is done to death by now, your clutching at straws imo
and as i said in another post, you get me a holiday to OZ for my weeks salary and i'll bite your hands off for, it cant be done trust me, and until you can prove it, its another factless and irrelevent post.

hellboy99 wrote: »

What exactly then does the non average (below €966 p/w) PS worker earn ?
I'm not working at the minute but when I was my average wage was just over €300 a week.

according to the independent i earn the same as the average private sector employee.
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/irish-civil-servants-have-best-deal-in-eu-study-shows-1749381.html

hellboy99

kceire wrote: »

according to the independent i earn the same as the average private sector employee.
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/irish-civil-servants-have-best-deal-in-eu-study-shows-1749381.html

Nice wage, if I was still working and added my wage to my wife's wage it still wouldn't come to the average private-sector employee wage.

I know it's not nice to get a cut in your wages but at the end of the day a job and €38,000 is nothing to cry about, it sort of makes me want to give out about what I use to earn but seeing as I got by I didn't.

With average wages like €50,000 for public-sector workers and €38,000 and for private-sector workers we have a long way to go for the price of living to come down.

jimmmy

kceire wrote: »

dont forget that many do still have a full time job.

But hundreds of thousands from the private sector do not still have a full time job.

kceire wrote: »

dont know what guaranteed sickies are, you've lost me on that one?

They are sick days ....I remember seeing a report in one of the papers a while ago, showing the statistics for sickies taken from the public service and sickies taken in private sector ....no prize for guessing who was sicker ! On a seperate point, ask any self employed person if they get paid for sickies

kceire wrote: »

short working week....well that depends,

Is the average number of hours worked in the public sector not shorter than that in the private sector ?

kceire wrote: »

flexi time? dont see the problem here, people on flexi time still work the same hours, so dont see the issue?

Nice little perk enjoyed by a higher % of public sector people than private sector though.

kceire wrote: »

and as i said in another post, you get me a holiday to OZ for my weeks salary and i'll bite your hands off for, it cant be done trust me, and until you can prove it, its another factless and irrelevent post.

I never said I would get you a "holiday to OZ for your weeks salary"....I did say it was possible to fly to Oz return + have a few nights B+B for the equivalent of one weeks average gross public sector wage. ( € 966 ). Check the travel offers section in the papers, or search the net, and you can see I am right there too

To get the thread back on subject, do you really not think salaries nowadays buy a lot, relatively speaking ? ie the cost of living not really that high ? To me, it seemed higher last year, before sterling weakened versus the euro, before oil, rent, property, stg imports + interest rates came down..

P. Breathnach

jimmmy wrote: »

But hundreds of thousands from the private sector do not still have a full time job...

So unemployed people are private sector? Does that include people laid off from public sector jobs, and people who have come on to the job market and not found any job, and long-term unemployed?

jimmmy

P. Breathnach wrote: »

So unemployed people are private sector?

No, I said "hundreds of thousands from the private sector do not still have a full time job." Many people I know from the private sector ( who had what was thought to be permanent jobs ) are now unemployed, many I know are on a 3 day week, and many self-employed I know are making little or no money, are relying on savings and borrowings and charity from spouses, and are not entitled to govt handouts.
Most public servants ( who had what was thought to be permanent jobs ) are still employed a.f.a.i.k.....well those who are not on their big pensions from same jobs.;)

P. Breathnach

Come off it jimmmy. In previous discussions you have claimed that 1.8m people in the private sector have the same views that you have; you have suggested now that our unemployed people are private sector.

I have a more modest view of who I represent here: I represent myself, and put forward my own views (which views you have chosen to misrepresent). Why should I regard you as the representative of more than one person?

jimmmy

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Come off it jimmmy. In previous discussions you have claimed that 1.8m people in the private sector have the same views that you have;

Come off it PBreatnach ; I never claimed all " 1.8m people in the private sector have the same views that I have ". Get your facts right man.

P. Breathnach wrote: »

you have suggested now that our unemployed people are private sector.

I have not. Why do you not bother reading posts ? I said " "hundreds of thousands from the private sector do not still have a full time job." Many people I know from the private sector ( who had what was thought to be permanent jobs ) are now unemployed, many I know are on a 3 day week, and many self-employed I know are making little or no money, are relying on savings and borrowings and charity from spouses, and are not entitled to govt handouts.
Most public servants ( who had what was thought to be permanent jobs ) are still employed a.f.a.i.k.....well those who are not on their big pensions from same jobs. "

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Why should I regard you as the representative of more than one person?

You should not ; neither I or anyone else said you should.

BroomBurner

jimmmy wrote: »

I have not. Why do you not bother reading posts ? I said " "hundreds of thousands from the private sector do not still have a full time job." Many people I know from the private sector ( who had what was thought to be permanent jobs ) are now unemployed, many I know are on a 3 day week, and many self-employed I know are making little or no money, are relying on savings and borrowings and charity from spouses, and are not entitled to govt handouts.

Many of the people you know that have lost their jobs or are on a three day week don't account for the majority. The majority are still in employment. I guess maybe they just weren't good enough/properly qualified for anything. It's a shame they didn't take the opportunity to join the public sector, seeing as they would be underqualified for anything else. Or maybe they couldn't get through the exams. Maths is always a hard one, isn't it, Jimmmy? Enjoy my sh!t-eating grin there.

Anyway, back on topic, groceries are a little cheaper these days. Sure frozen pizzas cost next to nothing compared to what they were. Easter eggs are a good example of how cheap thigns are too. I'm not sure about services though, I'd say it might take a bit longer for the price of services to come back down.

jimmmy

BroomBurner wrote: »

Many of the people you know that have lost their jobs or are on a three day week don't account for the majority. The majority are still in employment..

You are right. Unemployment has not yet reached 50% of the workforce - nobody said it had. However, there is still a growing number of people unemployed / on a 3 day week.

BroomBurner wrote: »

I guess maybe they just weren't good enough/properly qualified for anything. It's a shame they didn't take the opportunity to join the public sector, seeing as they would be underqualified for anything else. Or maybe they couldn't get through the exams. Maths is always a hard one, isn't it, Jimmmy? Enjoy my sh!t-eating grin there. .

Maths may be a hard one for you ; I always enjoyed the subject I must say. Back to your main point ; there are not , nor ever were 1800000 vacancies in the public service.

BroomBurner wrote: »

Anyway, back on topic, groceries are a little cheaper these days. Sure frozen pizzas cost next to nothing compared to what they were. Easter eggs are a good example of how cheap thigns are too. I'm not sure about services though, I'd say it might take a bit longer for the price of services to come back down.

Some types of services are extremely low cost in this country, in terms of income....for example the public servant on average public service wage could buy 28 McDonalds hamburgers with the equivalent of one hours gross pay ( we will not say net pay, as tax deductions can vary, even though income tax is not exceptionally high at the moment ). Who said our public service was not bloated ? I use public service pay, as that is confirmed by the cso.

P. Breathnach

Remember this post from jimmmy?

This is not a public sector bashing thread, heavens no

K-9

Are images allowed on the politics board?

Thinking Groundhog day and Facepalm!