Bite the bullet- time for the IMF

puzzled

After Reading about the social welfare family getting €4000 per month and many other obscene social welfare scams. Any doubts about the IMF have been blown away.
Our T.D's are only concerned about looking after there own well being and are either incapable or unwilling to make the hard decisions our country needs.
If the country keep going the way it is, the governments head buried in the sand, hoping for the best. We will we doomed for decades to come.
If the IMF come into Ireland they don't have to worry about the next election and can make the hard choices needed.
Would it not be better to get it over and done with and start rebuilding, instead of prolonging the slow death of the country.

brianthebard

What exactly do you think the IMF will do?

kraggy

Slash the numbers working in the Public Sector.

Halve Unemployment Benefit.

etc

I'm coming to the point where, at times, I wish they did have to come in. We need an almight kick in the arse.

Most of all, I'm can't figure out why there haven't been protests on the streets calling for an election. We are so apathetic we deserve hardship and misery for years to come.

mikemac

kraggy wrote: »

Halve Unemployment Benefit.

Unemployment benefit or Job Seekers Benefit is for people who made enough PRSI contributions.
If you're going to halve any chance you'll slash my PRSI contributions too?

Anyway maybe it's Job seekers allowance you need to focus on

kraggy

mikemac wrote: »

Unemployment benefit or Job Seekers Benefit is for people who made enough PRSI contributions.
If you're going to halve any chance you'll slash my PRSI contributions too?

Anyway maybe it's Job seekers allowance you need to focus on

They're not proportionally related.

UB increased in budgets when prsi contributions didn't always.

Riskymove

Just remember the IMF's focus will be on getting back any loan they give the Government, it will be about money not services

as well as cutting public sector and welfare (without any focus on needs of people) they are likely to Charge for water and other utilities, privitise assets etc


The IMF has come in for criticism for their approach and their effect on health services and poverty in a country

Wheely

Puzzled and Kraggy

Just wondering if either of you guys could give any examples of where the IMF went into a country and had any sort of positive effect. i.e allowed those countries to start re-building.....

Time Magazine

puzzled wrote: »

After Reading about the social welfare family getting €4000 per month and many other obscene social welfare scams. Any doubts about the IMF have been blown away.
...
If the country keep going the way it is, the governments head buried in the sand, hoping for the best. We will we doomed for decades to come.
If the IMF come into Ireland they don't have to worry about the next election and can make the hard choices needed.
...
Would it not be better to get it over and done with and start rebuilding, instead of prolonging the slow death of the country.

With respect, I don't think you really know what the IMF do. They're not the International Right-Wing Politics Agency. They're an international organisation who lend to countries to stop problems spreading to other countries, then do what they have to do to get that money back. If that requires right-wing policies, then so be it. But they're not just ideologues whose sole aim in life is to cut social welfare.

kraggy wrote: »

Slash the numbers working in the Public Sector.

Halve Unemployment Benefit.

etc

As above.

Riskymove wrote: »

The IMF has come in for criticism for their approach and their effect on health services and poverty in a country

For the most part, more than a decade ago. Policies can change remarkably in that time. Think how much American foreign policy has changed since Clinton in 1997. Was there much point in looking at Clinton's record when trying to predict Bush's actions? Will there be much point in looking at Bush's record when trying to predict Obama's actions?

Wheely wrote: »

Just wondering if either of you guys could give any examples of where the IMF went into a country and had any sort of positive effect. i.e allowed those countries to start re-building.....

Jordan.

puzzled

The country is broke, borrowing crazy amounts of money.
The social welfare payments along with the public Service are the only departments where large and realistic cuts can be made.
The government don't seem to be willing or able to do this.
If not the IMF then who?

Cannibal Ox

They'll come in with the EU, who'll be saving our asses from most of the antics that the IMF are better known for. Because we're an EU member state, our market won't be opened to all comers, our currency won't be devalued and it's impact on our sovereignty won't be as heavy as it would be if we weren't. It's most likely they'll slash public sector spending and try to increase taxes (neither of which we can't do ourselves). Nobody should be hoping for the IMF to do it for us, because while we might stumble our way through this recession and gradually (relatively) decrease our standard of living, the IMF would be a long, quick, fall and leave a lot of people in this country in a very immediate mess.

It's also embarrassing.

dan_d

We do not have the money to pay for public sector wages, social welfare, child benefit etc etc at their current levels.
The money is just not there. How can you give people what you just don't have?
From someone in the banking world that I know, if the IMF come in, they will in all likelihood cut the public service in half, raise taxes and slash everything else.
I certainly wouldn't hope for it, but somebdy somewhere needs to do soemething.

butterormayo

I reckon FF will make just enough cuts to keep the IMF away, but I'd be as worried about the EU bailing us out, if they do then its so long 12.5% corporation tax and loads of future investment with it.

NewDubliner

butterormayo wrote: »

I reckon FF will make just enough cuts to keep the IMF away,

That'll probably mean flogging off a Dublin-based asset or two to one of their oligarch croniies.

kelko

kraggy wrote: »

Slash the numbers working in the Public Sector.

Halve Unemployment Benefit.

etc

I'm coming to the point where, at times, I wish they did have to come in. We need an almight kick in the arse.

Most of all, I'm can't figure out why there haven't been protests on the streets calling for an election. We are so apathetic we deserve hardship and misery for years to come.

what they should do is halve the numbers in public sector and slash the unemployment benifit
anybody notice that unemployment rate in northern ireland is 6%, half of the rate here , wonder would it have anything to do with 210 per week here vs £70 per week there on the dole , ?

Riskymove

kelko wrote: »

what they should do is halve the numbers in public sector and slash the unemployment benifit
anybody notice that unemployment rate in northern ireland is 6%, half of the rate here , wonder would it have anything to do with 210 per week here vs £70 per week there on the dole , ?

where do people get their ideas from?

what was our unemployment rate in the 1980s? what was the dole?

halving the numbers in the public service will really improve services in health, education, gardai etc

kelko

Riskymove wrote: »

where do people get their ideas from?

what was our unemployment rate in the 1980s? what was the dole?

halving the numbers in the public service will really improve services in health, education, gardai etc

as far as i remember it never reached over 300,000 probably because thousands emigrated , dole = is unemployment assistance , whatever the current name is , probably took 300 government special advisers to come up with it ,
so all the recruitment into health , gardai , teachers in the last 8 or 9 years have meant a hugely improved service , me thinks not

irish_bob

kelko wrote: »

as far as i remember it never reached over 300,000 probably because thousands emigrated , dole = is unemployment assistance , whatever the current name is , probably took 300 government special advisers to come up with it ,
so all the recruitment into health , gardai , teachers in the last 8 or 9 years have meant a hugely improved service , me thinks not

whenever talk of cuts come up , the left always screams about how this means cutting nurse and guard numbers and even though we are over nursed in this country , no one is talking about cutting theese roles , we are talking about surplus to requirement beauracrats whos only ever role was to vote FF

Riskymove

kelko wrote: »

as far as i remember it never reached over 300,000 probably because thousands emigrated , dole = is unemployment assistance , whatever the current name is , probably took 300 government special advisers to come up with it ,
so all the recruitment into health , gardai , teachers in the last 8 or 9 years have meant a hugely improved service , me thinks not

I asked about the "rate" not the figure

Riskymove

irish_bob wrote: »

whenever talk of cuts come up , the left always screams about how this means cutting nurse and guard numbers and even though we are over nursed in this country , no one is talking about cutting theese roles , we are talking about surplus to requirement beauracrats whos only ever role was to vote FF

and others always call for reductions in "bureaucrats" either ignoring or not realising the actual proportions of the PS

the entire civil service is about 10% of the PS

dvpower

Riskymove wrote: »

halving the numbers in the public service will really improve services in health, education, gardai etc

Of course cutting public service numbers will have an effect on services. I don't understand the position that some people have that we can make savings without cutting service levels.

The fact is that we simply can't afford the services that we currently enjoy.

Riskymove

dvpower wrote: »

Of course cutting public service numbers will have an effect on services. I don't understand the position that some people have that we can make savings without cutting service levels.

The fact is that we simply can't afford the services that we currently enjoy.

he said "halving" the numbers

I just wonder if people really think such comments through and what effect something like that would have

irish_bob

dvpower wrote: »

Of course cutting public service numbers will have an effect on services. I don't understand the position that some people have that we can make savings without cutting service levels.

The fact is that we simply can't afford the services that we currently enjoy.

you are wrong , thats the union line that cutting numbers and funding will reduce services , we can fire the spare pricks and we can reduce salarys without effecting services to the tax payer , take the special needs teachers , if all teachers took a pay cut , not only could we keep the special needs teachers , we could work on reducing class sizes but the teachers dont want that , for all thier wesel words , the choose high pay over reduced class sizes , always have done

d0gb0y

The IMF will not be coming to Eire even if the shower in power asked them to, why you ask?
......the euro, it will have to ok'd by the EU and ECB and I can't see them allowing the IMF in as it would have a massive effect on the euro.

gurramok

d0gb0y wrote: »

The IMF will not be coming to Eire even if the shower in power asked them to, why you ask?
......the euro, it will have to ok'd by the EU and ECB and I can't see them allowing the IMF in as it would have a massive effect on the euro.

Hence the ECB will do what the IMF will do. There is no way out, its either one or the other.

Bren Jacob

Sounds like the thinking of a fella who's voted for FF for the last 15 years and now that the dreams turned sour wants to lash out at the ordinary Joe soaps who played only a minor part in getting us into this predicament.
Iv said it before on boards (and been slated for it) but I'll say it again............if ever there was a country that got the government it deserved then Ireland is it!

puzzled wrote: »

After Reading about the social welfare family getting €4000 per month and many other obscene social welfare scams. Any doubts about the IMF have been blown away.
Our T.D's are only concerned about looking after there own well being and are either incapable or unwilling to make the hard decisions our country needs.
If the country keep going the way it is, the governments head buried in the sand, hoping for the best. We will we doomed for decades to come.
If the IMF come into Ireland they don't have to worry about the next election and can make the hard choices needed.
Would it not be better to get it over and done with and start rebuilding, instead of prolonging the slow death of the country.