Anything better for Ireland

Mario007

When i was watching the six one yesterday, the reporter started complaining about An Board Snip suggesting some agencies be merged etc. She gave the example of graffiti removing workers being forced to be laid off and replaced by people who are doing community service. Hearing her speak one would think that graffiti removing was the most important issue nowadays. What i want to say is that she went on into a rant about poor graffiti removers being laid off and that it would cause huge logistic problems to get people to supervise the people doing their community service. I mean that is just ridiculous, in my opinion, and its thanks to people thinking this way that I'm afraid most of An Board Snip wont be implemented.

Permabear

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jeckel

donegalfella wrote: »

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you do understand what cyclical means, don't you? it's actually the consumption that comes first, people work so that they are able to consume, if consumption wasn't needed there would be no need to have the paycheck.

Demand for what? Nintendo Wiis, mobile phones, Mars Bars, and Ferraris? Did these products just drop from the heavens so that employers could begin "facilitating" demand for them?

clearly you're not overly farmiliar with the history of consumerism. someone invented those things or their predessors, someone else wanted them, the transaction was facilitated, so in effect, yes, fell from the sky.

In other words, a free-market society needs to have mechanisms to preserve law and order, and the institutions that undergird and preserve freedom. Fair enough. Can you tell me how much spending that should amount to?

less than this government spends, money is being overspent, that's hardly in doubt. that doesn't mean that the things that the money is being spent on is a bad idea. baby, meet bathwater.

Permabear

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turgon

jeckel, your getting stuck with the chicken and egg. What your trying to argue is that entrepreneurs are really not that useful; or within the realms of our metaphor, we have no need for chickens to make eggs.

jeckel wrote: »

clearly you're not overly farmiliar with the history of consumerism. someone invented those things or their predessors, someone else wanted them, the transaction was facilitated, so in effect, yes, fell from the sky.

So your of the opinion that if I invent something or innovate, its not my work, it just came out of nowhere

Spiritoftheseventies

Sand wrote: »

I think we need to found a new political party. Whose with me?

how would this new political party differ from parties we already have. What would be their charter?

jeckel

turgon wrote: »

No? Celtic Tiger?

drop the ?'s and i'ld agree, there wasn't one. there was a half decent production economy made look good by an ever inflating housing bubble.

Perhaps a better question is what we think shouldn't be liberalized

answering a question with a question? you're the one pushing liberalisation, what would you want liberalised? when you start repeating the empty arguments of others and throwing around a few buzz words, you make it feel like work.

jeckel

donegalfella wrote: »

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nothing, that's just stupidity.

jeckel

turgon wrote: »

we have no need for chickens to make eggs.

no, i'm saying that the chicken and the eggs are fine, the nest that holds the eggs the chicken lays is a luxury, at best.

So your of the opinion that if I invent something or innovate, its not my work, it just came out of nowhere

no, don't put words in my mouth. i say that the innovators in production sectors are usually the employees, not the employers. the employers simply facilitate. would you disagree? can you provide examples?

Permabear

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turgon

jeckel wrote: »

drop the ?'s and i'ld agree, there wasn't one.

Can I just confirm, for the sake of clarity, that you believe there was no economic boom?

jeckel wrote: »

you're the one pushing liberalisation, what would you want liberalised?

I would seek privatization of many state "assets" such as transport services, gas retailers etc etc. Myself and donegalfella disagree on the scale of privatization - I believe we should keep "networks" like gas pipes; train tracks and roads (albeit tolled) within government control (or at least local authority control) whereas donegalfella doesn't.

I would also be for the privatization of healthcare, albeit with the possibility of compulsory insurance for all.

I would seek a huge reduction in social welfare. In the long run many of the benefits - such as child benefit - which does nothing only expropriate money off those without kids to transfer it to those with - would be scrapped. This would involve a huge increase in personal responsibility. Specifically speaking about child benefit: In a perfect world the universal provision of abortion* would be introduced a year before child benefit would be scrapped for all new applicants. It would be made very clear: you want a child you pay for it.

I would be against things like governmental sports grants. If you want to set up a sports club you should attract enough members to fund it; you shouldn't expect those who dont play sports to pay for those who do.

College fees: the removal of the current situation of blanket fee paying. Go over to the UCC forum and see all the "I didnt go to college all year and I still didnt pass LOL" posts. People dont care about college because its not costing them anything. Im saying this as someone starting back to college in September so if this was introduced I would be hit. Im not too certain on the alternative. Ideally banks would provide special student loans that are paid off upon getting a career, but otherwise I might favour a government based loan system. Interest rates dependent on results (higher results = lower rates) would encourage a merit based society where hard work is - shock horror - rewarded.



*controversial, so I dont like bringing it up. Im for people to have the choice on it but if push came to shove and my girlfriend got pregnant I would probably seek an adoption instead. However that doesnt mean I want to force everyone the route I favour, and thats where I differ from a lot of people.

Spiritoftheseventies

jeckel wrote: »

no, i'm saying that the chicken and the eggs are fine, the nest that holds the eggs the chicken lays is a luxury, at best.





no, don't put words in my mouth. i say that the innovators in production sectors are usually the employees, not the employers. the employers simply facilitate. would you disagree? can you provide examples?

. i say that the innovators in production sectors are usually the employees, not the employers. the employers simply facilitate. would you disagree? can you provide examples?
Well look at someone like Bill Gates. He produced a piece of software that has provided limitless employment. I think what is at issue here is the wage differentials between Employers and employees and i think that is what causes a lot of the problems.

turgon

jeckel wrote: »

no, don't put words in my mouth.

You said

"someone invented those things or their predessors"

So, the thing was invented by someone.

"in effect, yes, fell from the sky. "

This thing you claimed had fallen from the sky. But yet you also were adamant someone had invented it.

Spiritoftheseventies

Mario007 wrote: »

When i was watching the six one yesterday, the reporter started complaining about An Board Snip suggesting some agencies be merged etc. She gave the example of graffiti removing workers being forced to be laid off and replaced by people who are doing community service. Hearing her speak one would think that graffiti removing was the most important issue nowadays. What i want to say is that she went on into a rant about poor graffiti removers being laid off and that it would cause huge logistic problems to get people to supervise the people doing their community service. I mean that is just ridiculous, in my opinion, and its thanks to people thinking this way that I'm afraid most of An Board Snip wont be implemented.

Yes thats an intereresting issue. Graffitti artists/sprayers providing employment for grafitti removers. as such should we get those who put up the graffitti to remove it themselves or leave it to the experts who are trained to do it.

jeckel

donegalfella wrote: »

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i agree, i never said consumption comes first is an complete explanation of the economic system, it is however the foundation. it is better for the economy as a whole to be hard on the facilitators, who are easily replaced, than on the consumers who are irreplaceable.

Let's see—Nintendo created the Wii,

the creation and marketing of the wii was consumer driven, the console market is huge. it can largely be traced back to the 1980's in the stand alone arcade machine which was very strictly pay for play consumerism. in the immortal words, "please try again"

turgon wrote: »

Can I just confirm, for the sake of clarity, that you believe there was no economic boom?

read my post, where was i unclear? the so-called "celtic tiger" is over stated, it didn't exist. the economic boom was a half decent production economy, which is real generation of wealth, hugely augmented by the inflation of the percieved value of property, which is not real wealth, it exists solely in the mind of the observer. the actual value is the cost of the actual production materials.

the question of weather or not privatisation works is entirely down to how you place a value on a state asset. basically, it always seems to work out at cheap and ****e privatised or a bit more expencive an a bit less ****e public.

hard balance to strike, but TBH, i think you'll always get exactly what you pay for.

P. Breathnach

turgon wrote: »

Few suggest they be protected. I suggest they simply be not abused.

You mean they should be protected from what you define as abuse.

jeckel

turgon wrote: »

You said

"someone invented those things or their predessors"

So, the thing was invented by someone.

"in effect, yes, fell from the sky. "

This thing you claimed had fallen from the sky. But yet you also were adamant someone had invented it.

as far as the facilitator is concerned, it fell from the sky.

some guy invented it, the company buys it and sells it to another guy for a profit, the company just facilitate the transaction so, as far they are concerned, it might as well have fallen from the sky, it doesn't matter to them where it came from.

it's more complex than that, of course, but it boils down to the fact that there is an irreplaceable and necessary inventor, an irreplaceable and necessary consumer and an unnecessary and replaceable facilitator.

he need for the facilitator only arises due to the structure of society (banking, money, planning laws, mass transport, law, order etc.,) so they are the ones whos interest society best serves. even the briefest glance at the evolution of modern society tells us this.

Permabear

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jeckel

donegalfella wrote: »

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do me a favour, talk to me about your thoughts, not some authors. your opinions are far more important and interesting than ayn rands and i really don't want to get into a debate about the intellectual excrement of a woman who has trouble spelling her own name.

Isn't it amazing how technological development just sort of happens, all on its own, without anybody really actually doing anything other than "facilitating"?

who said that nobody does anything except facilitate? the facilitators (retailers, transport, manufacturing advertising etc.) facilitate, which, while it is an essential service, has become over priced and over consuming. the individual elements of it are utterly replaceable. it needs to take more responsibility in the society than it presently does.

should i use smaller words or something, what is it that's confusing you?

Permabear

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sceptre

You two are getting a little personal. I'm blaming one of you more but you're both facilitating it.

Here are some nice small words, given that the length of words used is on the table:

Be nice and polite to each other or get out.

I don't think that short sentence can be misunderstood, even the two two-syllable words. Please take it to heart.

jeckel

donegalfella wrote: »

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the constant drive toward reductionism, eh. the problem isn't with the individual factory worker, the issue is the overall impact of the factory as a unit. the factory worker does have to contribute but he isn't the entire unit.

let me use a hypothetical, in random factory A, the the company as an entity takes 75% of the profit, the upper management 20%, the middle management and administration 3% and the worker 2%. yet between them, the company and upper management only contribute 80% of the effort toward generation of the profit.

although they gain 95% of the benefit, they contribute only 80% of the work, clearly they are offsetting 15% of their dues. this is fine for business, there has to be a certain incentive to offset risk. this model works well in private enterprise.

however a state is not a private company, there is no risk to offset, no need for incentivisation and no requirement for an offsetting of dues.

to my mind, at present, the country is being run on a corporate model, ireland inc as they kept calling it a while ago. where the pool then retracts by 5 or 6% and the economy and upper management demands that they should take any less than 95% of that hit, it just winds me.

and no, ayn rand just annoys me, i've read essays and synopsis and stuff, i wouldn't imagine it a good idea that i read her book, i'ld have a stroke or something. i hate argueing with dead people.

Somethingmore

From the general tone of the replies there are a lot of people who feel angry and pushed around by the current situation we are in. Things are not going to get better anytime soon IMO. The people in charge who created the false economy which is partly to blame for the current situation are still in charge, in fact Mr. exMinister for finance has been rewarded for his blundering exploits.

I genuinely do not believe that this government has what it takes to bring this country through this recession and make the changes that are required all the way to the top, changes which are essential to steer this country back on track. As has been pointed out and I agree completely FG would not do much better at handling the situation either. Please do not get me wrong I'm not out for "blood" or anything like that FF has done some good things too there was a boom however exaggerated, it did happen and peoples live did get better, but in doing so it has left us in a situation where existing policies and loyalties are not in the interests of the people.

With the proposed reduction in Garda stations and the willingness of the government to simply axe essential resources (I'm speaking of REPS of course . . no matter how daft it was) to its people who need it most with little or no warning. I believe we as a people will need to learn to stand together and stop being pushed around.

irish_bob

Somethingmore wrote: »

From the general tone of the replies there are a lot of people who feel angry and pushed around by the current situation we are in. Things are not going to get better anytime soon IMO. The people in charge who created the false economy which is partly to blame for the current situation are still in charge, in fact Mr. exMinister for finance has been rewarded for his blundering exploits.

I genuinely do not believe that this government has what it takes to bring this country through this recession and make the changes that are required all the way to the top, changes which are essential to steer this country back on track. As has been pointed out and I agree completely FG would not do much better at handling the situation either. Please do not get me wrong I'm not out for "blood" or anything like that FF has done some good things too there was a boom however exaggerated, it did happen and peoples live did get better, but in doing so it has left us in a situation where existing policies and loyalties are not in the interests of the people.

With the proposed reduction in Garda stations and the willingness of the government to simply axe essential resources (I'm speaking of REPS of course . . no matter how daft it was) to its people who need it most with little or no warning. I believe we as a people will need to learn to stand together and stop being pushed around.

i dont see a problem with closing many rural garda stations and i especially see no problem with closing many rural schools

Somethingmore

And I understand we cant spend money we don't have, I just mean it may require that we look out for each other more so that we have been doing.