Primetime 24/11: Since when is 55,000 not a good wage?

The_Honeybadger

RodgerTheDoger wrote: »

I am just going to put my own opinion in the mix.
I have not read every post on this thread but I am getting the idea from most of the comments.

Firstly I think the comment was that someone on 55K a year not being able to afford another cut in salary was from a school teacher on the Gerry Ryan show - He commented that due to his over inflated mortgage etc... He really could not afford to be on anything less than 55K therefore could not take a cut.

I think regardless of what we say and even what we do their will be cuts (There has to be) in all areas of the Irish economy. The unfortunate thing about this is, it is no longer in our own hands.
Ireland are in for the biggest economic re-adjustment of any other country.

The argument that "Well my mortgage" or anything you are still paying off from the boom will not matter. You will simply be a casualty of the economic process.

The idea of what people think is a good wage or even what they think they are entitled too will also not matter. As a nation what commodities do we have to offer? What can we sell to make money from other nations?

What we have is services, internal and external.
We are now somewhere in the region close to twice as expensive as Britain which is a very dangerours scenario to be in.

The money paid to anyone providing a servies whether it be public or private will eventually fall to the level which is compariable to what people are willing to pay. If the country is making 1/2 what they took duing the boom eventually peoples salaries will be cut by 1/2 or half the work force needs to go. If you argue we cannot do that what about education or healthcare etc.... We will have to do without - We do not have the money to support our current infastructure.

55k is at the moment would put you in the top 20% pay bracket.
In 1980 it would have probably put you in the top 2 %, where do you think the economy is going to go from here?

Excellent post but it is human nature to defend what you have, this will not be done easily but the costs in this country must be tackled with everybody putting their shoulder to the wheel. While it must be terrifying for those with big mortgages to be facing cuts their may be no options left. Perhaps the best thing may be for the Gov to bring in their savage budget and then leave as I don't think people will pull together until we have new leadership.

ronbyrne2005

mickeyk wrote: »

Excellent post but it is human nature to defend what you have, this will not be done easily but the costs in this country must be tackled with everybody putting their shoulder to the wheel. While it must be terrifying for those with big mortgages to be facing cuts their may be no options left. Perhaps the best thing may be for the Gov to bring in their savage budget and then leave as I don't think people will pull together until we have new leadership.

A fund could be set up by gov to prevent any PS worker who takes a paycut from losing their home due to that paycut.

The_Conductor

ronbyrne2005 wrote: »

A fund could be set up by gov to prevent any PS worker who takes a paycut from losing their home due to that paycut.

How do you determine that the paycut was the straw which broke the camels back? Any of a number of other factors could be at play- the most probable of which is a partner/spouse loosing their job, and what was once a 2 income household now depending on a single income.

Its not a workable theory. In any event- imagine the media hysteria about the government cossetting public sector workers and insuring their houses weren't repossessed- while private sector workers were not afforded an identical concession. There would be absolute war.

The_Honeybadger

ronbyrne2005 wrote: »

A fund could be set up by gov to prevent any PS worker who takes a paycut from losing their home due to that paycut.

Good in theory but it would be totall unworkable in practice because of a number of factors. Firstly it would descriminate against those who have lost their jobs entirely, it would also be open to all sorts of abuse and chancers trying to get away with paying less and it would result in all sorts of legal hassle as everybodys situation is different. Best solution would be for banks to write down some of the value of homes that were clearly overpriced, but that wont happen as that would mean more government money to plug yet another hole in the bank balance sheets. The little guy will be hung out to dry and the government or the banks wont give a damn as long as they have their monster salaries and pensions

RodgerTheDoger

ronbyrne2005 wrote: »

A fund could be set up by gov to prevent any PS worker who takes a paycut from losing their home due to that paycut.

You could call this darwinism economics, again it's not a good prospect to be in and no matter how unforunate it is, it's just the reality of the situation.

This fund, where are you proposing we get this money from?

RodgerTheDoger

mickeyk wrote: »

Excellent post but it is human nature to defend what you have, this will not be done easily but the costs in this country must be tackled with everybody putting their shoulder to the wheel. While it must be terrifying for those with big mortgages to be facing cuts their may be no options left. Perhaps the best thing may be for the Gov to bring in their savage budget and then leave as I don't think people will pull together until we have new leadership.

I agree with this, the government I feel is rotten to the core! I actually do not think they are capable of looking beyond what they know and all the know is how to waste money when times are good.
They have no real experience in dealing with a country when times are hard.

erictheviking

RodgerTheDoger wrote: »

They have no real experience in dealing with a country when times are hard.

A lot of people on here don't seem to be old enough to remember the fact that times were hard pre 1990.
I think they have had plenty of experience. Apart from the last 15 years or so times have always been hard.

nouveau_4.0

ronbyrne2005 wrote: »

A fund could be set up by gov to prevent any PS worker who takes a paycut from losing their home due to that paycut.

This is a joke right?

waffleman

erictheviking wrote: »

A lot of people on here don't seem to be old enough to remember the fact that times were hard pre 1990.
I think they have had plenty of experience. Apart from the last 15 years or so times have always been hard.

They have plenty of experience in how to screw over the working man. With everthing they have messed up they always seem to get that right. dont get it twisted this government allowed PS wages and bank lending get crazy - they don't care - it was just a matter of when it was going to go tits.

55k or 555k it doesnt really matter - if your mortgage is too big you're fecked (sucks to be you). The PS can protest all they want the cuts are coming and they may as well get used to it. You can't take knickers off a bare arse and Germany's Irish piggy bank is running dry pretty sharpish - then they wont need to worry about cuts because they wont get paid.

RodgerTheDoger

erictheviking wrote: »

A lot of people on here don't seem to be old enough to remember the fact that times were hard pre 1990.
I think they have had plenty of experience. Apart from the last 15 years or so times have always been hard.

I fail to see your point?
Managing an economy when things are hard and have always been hard is very different to managing an economy that has collapsed.

In the 80s very few people in ireland had a 10th of the things they have now... Having a car was a big deal, owning your own home was something only a small % of people could actually do.... but this was the norm, no one expected to go out and demand a job earning 55K a year.... Men and woman in their early 20s now see buying a new 4 bed house and having the new car in the driveway as something they get after about 2 - 4 years working...

Can you understand this?

For an educated country and a country that was doing so well with a population of only 4.3 million why do we need to borrow so much?

GREED and Incompetent government!

TCP/IP_King

jester77 wrote: »

It's not nonsense. I live in a city with good public transport that runs 24/7 and on time. ...

Well thats Germany for you. Unfortunately in Ireland you need a car, unless you live in a prison. I spent 6 weeks commuting in Dublin by bus/tram. It worked OK if you were going to places at the same time as everyone else and you were a single person living alone and didn't have to cross the city. Outside of that, you need a car.

TCP/IP_King

ronbyrne2005 wrote: »

A fund could be set up by gov to prevent any PS worker who takes a paycut from losing their home due to that paycut.

Your governmet has instituted such a fund - they call it NAMA.
Unfortunately you have to be in the circle to avail of it.

Gurgle

RodgerTheDoger wrote: »

Having a car was a big deal, owning your own home was something only a small % of people could actually do....

Thats not even remotely true.
Maybe in the towns/cities, though tbh I doubt that too.

Every family in the countryside had a car, most had a tractor as well.

Pretty much every house was privately owned. In most cases a rental house was a council house, we didn't have entire estates bought up for their rental yield.

In the 80s cars were kept going for longer (even though more modern cars have the potential to last much longer).

A mechanic was the guy who owned the local petrol pump, and he was the same guy who fixed your car (not his minimum wage apprentice billed at €60 per hour).

Houses were inherited or self-build on a site off the family farm.

kippy

Gurgle wrote: »

Thats not even remotely true.
Maybe in the towns/cities, though tbh I doubt that too.

Every family in the countryside had a car, most had a tractor as well.

Pretty much every house was privately owned. In most cases a rental house was a council house, we didn't have entire estates bought up for their rental yield.

In the 80s cars were kept going for longer (even though more modern cars have the potential to last much longer).

A mechanic was the guy who owned the local petrol pump, and he was the same guy who fixed your car (not his minimum wage apprentice billed at €60 per hour).

Houses were inherited or self-build on a site off the family farm.

I'd agree with that summation.........

RodgerTheDoger

Gurgle wrote: »

Thats not even remotely true.
Maybe in the towns/cities, though tbh I doubt that too.

Every family in the countryside had a car, most had a tractor as well.

Pretty much every house was privately owned. In most cases a rental house was a council house, we didn't have entire estates bought up for their rental yield.

In the 80s cars were kept going for longer (even though more modern cars have the potential to last much longer).

A mechanic was the guy who owned the local petrol pump, and he was the same guy who fixed your car (not his minimum wage apprentice billed at €60 per hour).

Houses were inherited or self-build on a site off the family farm.

Towards the end of the 80s more and more people had cars but not everyone - I am looking more towards the begining of the 80s or end of the 70s just before our economy started to pick up. I do not know what town you come from but having a car in the late 70s and early 80s was not something everyone had, and of those who had cars very few people had new cars (Actually thinking back I do not recall a single person I know owning a brand new car), people borrowing their brothers car or Dads car or a friends car was way more common. People had a realistic view on what they could actually afford.As for the houses, going back to the 70s / 80s a lot of young adults continted to live at home well into their late 20s - even 30s or simply moved away.A house being inherited would be fine if every family and 1 - 2 kids. My mother froms from a family of 14 -This I know is large but large familys in Ireland has always been the norm.The norm in the 70s / 80s was to buy what you could afford. People built up what they had, buying your counsil house was what a lot of people done when the could eventually afford it. And even then it was like a badge of honour that people where able to buy their counsil house.I have friends that where getting themselves into 270,000 euro of debit less than 12 months after graduating from UNI in 2005 / 2006 and 2007.

jmayo

Gurgle wrote: »

Thats not even remotely true.
Maybe in the towns/cities, though tbh I doubt that too.

Every family in the countryside had a car, most had a tractor as well.

Pretty much every house was privately owned. In most cases a rental house was a council house, we didn't have entire estates bought up for their rental yield.

In the 80s cars were kept going for longer (even though more modern cars have the potential to last much longer).

A mechanic was the guy who owned the local petrol pump, and he was the same guy who fixed your car (not his minimum wage apprentice billed at €60 per hour).

Houses were inherited or self-build on a site off the family farm.

Actually what you state is not true either if you go back to the seventies, because not every family even in the countryside had a car.
They might have had a honda 50 and a tractor but that was it.
Tractors usually were considered more important on a farm than a car.

Back in late 70s, early 80s, I used to go visit relatives living in what would be termed nice middle class estate in Galway and not every house on the road had a car.

By the mid to late 80s yes alot more people had old bangers.

RodgerTheDoger

jmayo wrote: »

Actually what you state is not true either if you go back to the seventies, because not every family even in the countryside had a car.
They might have had a honda 50 and a tractor but that was it.
Tractors usually were considered more important on a farm than a car.

Back in late 70s, early 80s, I used to go visit relatives living in what would be termed nice middle class estate in Galway and not every house on the road had a car.

By the mid to late 80s yes alot more people had old bangers.

Agreed, I am from Donegal and this was the same there.Agreed, I am from Donegal and this was the case here too!

jmayo

RodgerTheDoger wrote: »

Agreed, I am from Donegal and this was the same there.Agreed, I am from Donegal and this was the case here too!

Methinks gurgle either came from really rich farming part of the country like The Curragh what with all the stud farmers and the like or else he grew up post 1985

He definetly didn't come from the West in the seventies with his above comments.

Riskymove

hmm all this competitive nostalgia reminds me of something.....

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
I was happier then and I had nothin'. We used to live in this tiny old house with great big holes in the roof.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all 'uddled together in one corner for fear of falling.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Eh, you were lucky to have a room! We used to have to live in t' corridor!
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Oh, we used to dream of livin' in a corridor! Would ha' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woke up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House? Huh.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Well, when I say 'house' it was only a hole in the ground covered by a sheet of tarpaulin, but it was a house to us.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
We were evicted from our 'ole in the ground; we 'ad to go and live in a lake.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
You were lucky to have a lake! There were a hundred and fifty of us living in t' shoebox in t' middle o' road.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Cardboard box?
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to 'ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick road clean wit' tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two wit' bread knife.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.
ALL:
They won't!

waffleman

Well 55k looks an even better wage today since they didnt cut public sector wages - they decided to cut the level of service instead. Cowardly cowardly stuff from our government. I think we need rescued from our own politicians and quickly.

The_Conductor

waffleman wrote: »

Well 55k looks an even better wage today since they didnt cut public sector wages - they decided to cut the level of service instead. Cowardly cowardly stuff from our government. I think we need rescued from our own politicians and quickly.

I agree it was cowardly by the government- however the 2 weeks unpaid leave does represent a 4% cut in the gross wage bill. Its clearly insufficient- it will be interesting to see how they make up the remainder that needs to be raised.

The_Honeybadger

smccarrick wrote: »

I agree it was cowardly by the government- however the 2 weeks unpaid leave does represent a 4% cut in the gross wage bill. Its clearly insufficient- it will be interesting to see how they make up the remainder that needs to be raised.

If the PS can all take 12 days leave without it having an effect on services what does that tell us? The whole idea is bizarre and idiotic as well as messy and unworkable. I doubt ebven the PS will be happy with it. Does this mean as well that someone on 100k will take the same cut as someone on 30k? If it does then the people earning 30k should be furious wit their unions. Give the high earners a substantial cut and low earners a very modest or no cut. Simple and effective, if the unions don't like it then tough, who actually runs the country?

waffleman

smccarrick wrote: »

I agree it was cowardly by the government- however the 2 weeks unpaid leave does represent a 4% cut in the gross wage bill. Its clearly insufficient- it will be interesting to see how they make up the remainder that needs to be raised.

i thought the unpaid leave is being deferred to be paid at a later date?

Well whatever way you look at it they didnt do the right thing which is cut out the dead wood pen pushers and dossers (not front line workers) and introduce a pay scale related wage cut for everyone

instead no-one wins as usual and now we will probably see decline in services

it's a shambles of a deal but i'm not surprised

Gurgle

jmayo wrote: »

He definetly didn't come from the West in the seventies with his above comments.

He sure did, and it certainly wasn't anywhere rich.
Late seventies though tbh, and as stated they were old cars and were kept going long after their best before date.
But certainly nearly every family had a car.

Gurgle

jmayo wrote: »

Back in late 70s, early 80s, I used to go visit relatives living in what would be termed nice middle class estate in Galway and not every house on the road had a car.

Why would they?
They lived in a town.

jmayo

Gurgle wrote: »

Why would they?
They lived in a town.

As kid played hurling, football on that street and there might be one car parked on road, rest in driveways.
Also was fairly empty in late 80s/90s when I was going to college there, but today there are cars parked everywhere.

Oh and it is still a town.