The official AH budget discussion thread (Rules/useful links in first post)

anniehoo

What time is it starting at?

trout

anniehoo wrote: »

What time is it starting at?

the bitching?

already started I'm afraid ... we're into day 7 at least.

Agent J

Its like the whole country is bracing itself for one giant enema.....

phasers

They're probably gonna cut my college grant

It's a pity cos I was enjoying eating...

I always weirdly enjoy budget day though, it's like reverse Christmas

My name is URL

phasers wrote: »

They're probably gonna cut my college grant

It's a pity cos I was enjoying eating...

I always weirdly enjoy budget day though, it's like reverse Christmas

Christmas has sucked in comparison to the Budget for the last few years, this is gonna be more like a pikey's pancake tuesday

jumpguy

Budget? What's everyone worried about? We've done this twice now in the past 12 months. Lets look at the cycle.

1. In the run-up, industrial talks break down. Check.
2. During the budget, the government announces cuts and levies across the board, and bringing back fees that went with the Celtic Tiger. Also a speech about how we all must take pain, bla bla bla.
3. Certain interest groups go mental, the press slaughters the government.
4. Government make an embarrassing back-down.
5. Little changes, jobs are still lost, government continues to haemorrage money, we slowly edge to bankruptcy.

laugh

phasers wrote: »

It's a pity cos I was enjoying eating...

Think of the benefits, you will be able to wear childrens clothes.

dr.bollocko

Wazdakka wrote: »

Sweet jebus...
How had I not thought of that before now?

The budget coming out with all those unemployed keyboard warriors stuck hanging around boards instead of being able to work...

BUGGER THAT..
I'll be back in a week. Hopefully the front page will be down to three, bitching about the budget threads by then

That's why this is here! Trying to keep it to the one thread so it can be ignored if nobody wants to talk about it. It can also be discussed in a vaguely serious and helpful manner on the irish economy forum.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=1196

trout wrote: »

the bitching?

already started I'm afraid ... we're into day 7 at least.

Hehehe.
/beer nearly spat up but then I remembered there's a recession on.

phasers

laugh wrote: »

Think of the benefits, you will be able to wear childrens clothes.

I'm too tall for them!
Nothing is going my way today


Anyway, this might be a stupid question but: What would actually happen if Ireland went bankrupt? In real terms, how would it affect regular people?

Would loaves of bread suddenly cost 100 euro or we'd all become farmers or something?

Danbo!

dr.bollocko wrote: »

TBH I am also warming to Lenihan. Could be Stockholm syndrome. Might not last long.

Yeah I was thinking the same myself actually. Never voted FF in my life, but I hope to god no matter how bad it is tomorrow that it will be passed. Can you imagine if it doesnt and the govt collapse. Back to square one, let FG and Lab try their non-existant ideas for a few months, could get very messy.

I've taken a few hits now, income levy and pay cut etc.., but lets all take a few more eh? Its all over the news that the cost of living is dropping so wages should decrease in line with this. In the boom years wages went up alongside cost of living, they need to drop now too, its very simple economics!

Also, why do people not understand percentages? Im sick of people on 25-35k saying "its not my fault, the rich should pay as they have the money to spare." Well the guys on 100k dont live to the same standards as you, they have mortgages reflecting their salaries. What about people on the dole? To them, you're the rich, and you should pay, no? Its always about getting the guy with more money. We all pay a percentage of our wages to tax, so the more you earn the more you pay. Then you break a threshold, and you pay double the tax, so the rich are paying more as it is. Same goes for paycuts. If its 10% across the board, people will moan that the 100k guy is paying the same as the 25k guy, when clearly they are not.

Oh and for the record, im not on 100k and protecting my interests here, im in the 25-35 bracket too, but with a bit of sense.

dr.bollocko

phasers wrote: »

I'm too tall for them!
Nothing is going my way today


Anyway, this might be a stupid question but: What would actually happen if Ireland went bankrupt? In real terms, how would it affect regular people?

Would loaves of bread suddenly cost 100 euro or we'd all become farmers or something?

Stockpile baked beans and koka noodles now. Worry about the future tomorrow. Read the zombie survival guide. Hunt down david mc. williams.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Oh God am I looking forward to this . Sorry, but it's true. I'm also looking forward to the riots protests keyboard warrior moaning (yeah, that's the one!). But mostly because I won't be directly affected. I have two jobs and am not going to be directly effected by this.

You are the creators of your own demise.

I really he hope he does throw in a carbon tax. Looks like the one that would piss most of the idiots who love Ireland under FF off.

EDIT - Still gotta love the humour you're all taking it with!

dr.bollocko

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

Oh God am I looking forward to this . Sorry, but it's true. I'm also looking forward to the riots protests keyboard warrior moaning (yeah, that's the one!). But mostly because I won't be directly affected. I have two jobs and am not going to be directly effected by this.

I really he hope he does throw in a carbon tax. Looks like the one that would piss most of the idiots who love Ireland under FF off.

I see your time in Berlin has taught you a bit about schadenfreude.

ejmaztec

Even the leprechauns have resigned themselves to only finding a crock o' **** at the end of the rainbow at this stage. In fact the rainbow itself's going to be seven shades of brown.

phasers

Fcuk off with your carbon tax, they should implement a scrappage scheme like they did in the UK

trout

Nope, there will be a carbon tax for sure, so the greens can feel that they've contributed something tangible.
They'll be first against the wall when the revolution comes. It will be a bamboo wall, self-renewing and quite carbon neutral. I'll shoot them with papier-mache blunderbusses loaded with balls of horse-sh1te.

Water charges too ... cos it's greener that way, and some other charges, levies and duties which won't be refered to as "tax" so that jargon spewin' politico-zombies can trot out the following line on a regular basis ... 'we live in a low tax economy'.

*mutters into beer*

fuppin' carbon tax. Unions will run amok over pay cuts, but fail to offer anything like a viable alternative. Then the finger pointing will start.

Ultimately, I fear, we are fooked. Even if swingeing cuts claw back 4 billion of yore Earth euros ... what about the other 20 odd billion that we're in the hole for?

Every time you turn around the deficit seems to grow.

*mutters into beer again*

dr.bollocko

trout wrote: »

jargon spewin' politico-zombies

Nice. Quoted for posterity so everyone'll know it was you when some lazy journo steals it.

Beasty

RTE News tonight is reporting that excise duty on alcohol is to be cut. Presumably the intention is that it will encourage everyone to get so p!ssed they won't feel the pain inflicted by all the other proposals

dr.bollocko

phasers wrote: »

Fcuk off with your carbon tax, they should implement a scrappage scheme like they did in the UK

Renault implemented their own. It might help stimulate car sales in 2010 however we don't have a native manufacturing industry so it might not be the best gambit they could take. VAT rate drop?

trout

dr.bollocko wrote: »

VAT rate drop?

That would be progressive, forward thinking, logical, economically sound, reasonable, easily implemented and well worth trying on the basis that it may generate far more VAT returns than the current practice of taxing the hole out of the economy. Greedy retailers who don't pass on the savings should be named and shamed, or shot at with balls of horse-sh1te and recorded for 6-One news.

For all those reasons it will never happen.

phasers

I don't think the current government have the words "Long Term" in their vocabulary

dr.bollocko

phasers wrote: »

I don't think the current government have the words "Long Term" in their vocabulary

Other than:
Long term recession.
Long term unemployed.
Long term in the opposition.

phasers

I just wish Enda Kenny didn't have such a punchable face, I almost like him less than Brian Cowen. Almost.

Agent J

Beasty wrote: »

RTE News tonight is reporting that excise duty on alcohol is to be cut. Presumably the intention is that it will encourage everyone to get so p!ssed they won't feel the pain inflicted by all the other proposals

That was my thought as well.

Me thinks we'll be reaching for the bottle by this time tomorrow..

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

dr.bollocko wrote: »

I see your time in Berlin has taught you a bit about schadenfreude.

No no no no no.... that was in place long before I got here!

Seriosuly, though, it's more a case of a large group of people who destroyed 15 years of perfect oppertunity for building a nation to be proud of, but instead destroying it employing as much fiscal sense as a five-year-old in a toy shop.

I know I get a lot of slack for disliking Ireland (which isn't nessecailry all true) but the mess the country is in compared with the idea of what it could have been if people hadn't been so ****ing greedy and nearsighted, coupled with a complete lack of accountability is galling.

Agent J

trout wrote: »

'we live in a low tax economy'.

*laughs*

I can see that being on a retro show for the 00s.

Remember when Ireland was a 'Low tax economy?'

IvySlayer

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

No no no no no.... that was in place long before I got here!

Seriosuly, though, it's more a case of a large group of people who destroyed 15 years of perfect oppertunity for building a nation to be proud of, but instead destroying it employing as much fiscal sense as a five-year-old in a toy shop.

I know I get a lot of slack for disliking Ireland (which isn't nessecailry all true) but the mess the country is in compared with the idea of what it could have been if people hadn't been so ****ing greedy and nearsighted, coupled with a complete lack of accountability is galling.

What mess? I'm sitting here in my comfy chair, posting on my laptop, with my fast broadband in my house, getting ready for bed for going to work tomorrow morning.

I'm ****ing happy. I'll be happy to take a pay cut tomorrow. At least I'll keep my one job.

You left the country, and you're mocking us about not standing up?

Keogg

phasers wrote: »

They're probably gonna cut my college grant

It's a pity cos I was enjoying eating...

I always weirdly enjoy budget day though, it's like reverse Christmas

Reverse Christmas is possibly the best description for this Budget I've ever heard, thanking it just wasn't enough:D
Happy reverse Christmas, here's a card with a blank cheque for you to give me something!

I'm also looking foward to it, I just want to see what everyone's reaction is going to be, it'll be priceless no matter what they do:rolleyes:. And I think it might be a little too extreme to be calling this the worst Budget thats ever going to have happened.. I mean, I wouldn't consider myself an expert in economics, but I know my history, and I don't think the world has quite gotten to the stage it was in after 1929... unless I really have been living under a rock...
As for lower alcohol prices, I'm all for drinking away my sorrows, while at the same time putting money into the economy!:pac:

Saibh

Might help if they did reduce VAT rates. The UK Vat rate 15% will change to 17.5% in January 2010.

Super-Rush

I don't know about the rest of ye but i'm voting no tomorrow.....What was the question again?