The Public vs. Private sector "civil war" is an illusion...

hatrickpatrick

I'm someone who's very interested in politics generally, so I watch a lot of news and political programs - prime time, frontline, documentaries, Dail reports, and indeed anything else which happens to be on. I'm not saying I watch them obsessively or anything but if I'm browsing and I come across one I'll certainly watch it. I also visit a lot of forums like this one.

I'm getting more and more pissed off every time I see a discussion about Ireland's economy turn into people from the public sector and people from the private sector just standing up and bashing eachother back and forth. Is this what politics has turned into in this country? As someone who's also interested in US politics I'd have to say I find it worse than the financial left/right bickering you get in the States.

"The other sector" is NOT your enemy. We are all Irish people and we have ALL been screwed over and dropped in it by a corrupt and incompetent government along with a corrupt and incompetent banking system. And it occurs to me that this big divide is actually working out very well for our government - instead of us concentrating our rage and bitterness against the people responsible for it, we're concentrating it on the people who we perceive to be in a "nicer" sector of employment. Doesn't anyone realize how ridiculous it is? I bet the government is absolutely DELIGHTED at the way things have turned out. As the public vs. private debate widens, the public criticism of the government dwindles. And it's my firm belief that we shouldn't take the pressure off this government for one single second.

So seriously folks, next time you're about to launch an attack on either sector, stop and seriously think about it for a second. We're all Irish men and women, we've all been sold out by our broken political system and we're ALL ****ed economically unless we sort that out fast. There's nothing whatsoever to be gained from wanting to hurt anyone because "why should they have it better than me" - either public workers who have their jobs guaranteed or those private workers who are lucky enough not to have taken pay cuts. All we're doing is diverting the attention away from those who deserve to be publicly impeached for their behaviour in relation to our economy. The last thing we need now is a sort of "economic civil war" whereby we go at eachother instead of those responsible. Don't take this as a joke or anything but the last time we had a real civil war in this country, the only people who benefited from it were the British government who no longer had to worry about us opposing them since we were so busy opposing eachother. To quote Humphrey from Yes Minister - "Well it kept them busy didn't it, saved us from having a policy about them!"

Don't play into the government's hands and blame the wrong people for this.

I'm not in full time employment right now by the way, I'm a student. And one of my parents works in a public sector company whilst the other works in the private sector. So you can't accuse me for one second of being biased in one direction or another. The only people I see as "the enemy" are the political elite who have caused this mess.

Rujib1

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I'm someone who's very interested in politics generally, so I watch a lot of news and political programs - prime time, frontline, documentaries, Dail reports, and indeed anything else which happens to be on. I'm not saying I watch them obsessively or anything but if I'm browsing and I come across one I'll certainly watch it. I also visit a lot of forums like this one.

I'm getting more and more pissed off every time I see a discussion about Ireland's economy turn into people from the public sector and people from the private sector just standing up and bashing eachother back and forth. Is this what politics has turned into in this country? As someone who's also interested in US politics I'd have to say I find it worse than the financial left/right bickering you get in the States.

"The other sector" is NOT your enemy. We are all Irish people and we have ALL been screwed over and dropped in it by a corrupt and incompetent government along with a corrupt and incompetent banking system. And it occurs to me that this big divide is actually working out very well for our government - instead of us concentrating our rage and bitterness against the people responsible for it, we're concentrating it on the people who we perceive to be in a "nicer" sector of employment. Doesn't anyone realize how ridiculous it is? I bet the government is absolutely DELIGHTED at the way things have turned out. As the public vs. private debate widens, the public criticism of the government dwindles. And it's my firm belief that we shouldn't take the pressure off this government for one single second.

So seriously folks, next time you're about to launch an attack on either sector, stop and seriously think about it for a second. We're all Irish men and women, we've all been sold out by our broken political system and we're ALL ****ed economically unless we sort that out fast. There's nothing whatsoever to be gained from wanting to hurt anyone because "why should they have it better than me" - either public workers who have their jobs guaranteed or those private workers who are lucky enough not to have taken pay cuts. All we're doing is diverting the attention away from those who deserve to be publicly impeached for their behaviour in relation to our economy. The last thing we need now is a sort of "economic civil war" whereby we go at eachother instead of those responsible. Don't take this as a joke or anything but the last time we had a real civil war in this country, the only people who benefited from it were the British government who no longer had to worry about us opposing them since we were so busy opposing eachother. To quote Humphrey from Yes Minister - "Well it kept them busy didn't it, saved us from having a policy about them!"

Don't play into the government's hands and blame the wrong people for this.

I'm not in full time employment right now by the way, I'm a student. And one of my parents works in a public sector company whilst the other works in the private sector. So you can't accuse me for one second of being biased in one direction or another. The only people I see as "the enemy" are the political elite who have caused this mess.

Some people on here, believe we need to reduce costs right throughout the economy, public and private. That's part of their solution to get the country moving again. Right or wrong, it's their opinion on how to go forwrad.
Others however, believe the opposite. Cutting pay etc, will cause deflation, etc and make the situation worse. Right or wrong, who knows.

You however, propose we all join hands and get angry, upset, indignant, bitter at the bankers, politicians etc,. What will that achieve?
It's a bit like Rome burning while Nero fiddled.
Anger etc, at bankers and politicians is not a policy.

seamus

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

we're ALL ****ed economically unless we sort that out fast.

Exactly. Isn't that what we're doing?

Don't play into the government's hands and blame the wrong people for this.

How does shouting about "we were screwed over by the government and banks" help sort out our economic woes? How does blame fix anything.

I'll think you'll find that the main reason the public sector have been getting such stick is *because* we've all been saying, "we need to sort this **** out fast", while the unions have been saying, "Ah hang on now, we didn't make this mess, leave us alone. We'll reform ourselves over the next ten years, that'll fix the economy".

Eliot Rosewater

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

"The other sector" is NOT your enemy..

No? Despite the fact that if the public sector get what they want - pay to stay the same - its going to be the private sector footing the bill?

The interests of the public sector and the private sector are diametrically opposed when it comes to key issues on how to fix the country.

InReality

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

No? Despite the fact that if the public sector get what they want - pay to stay the same - its going to be the private sector footing the bill?

The interests of the public sector and the private sector are diametrically opposed when it comes to key issues on how to fix the country.

Public sector pay is about 1/4 of the problem this country faces.
Banking Sector / Property / Nama is 1/2 the problem.
Investment / Employment / taxation policy make up the rest .

nesf

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

The interests of the public sector and the private sector are diametrically opposed when it comes to key issues on how to fix the country.

The interests of public sector unions may be but generalising to cover the entire public sector is a bit much to be honest.

Pharaoh1

The fundamental point about public and private is that it is a deliberate policy of the state to treat these groups differently in several different ways.
The divide is not artificial nor is it a recent development but economic circumstances have brought the differences into sharp focus.

Until these fundamentals are changed the divide will continue to exist.

The state pension system is an obvious example. How you contribute to it and how and at what age you benefit from it is entirely dependent on which group you belong to.
If a private sector employee volunteered to pay PRSI, superannuation and pension levy they simply would not be allowed into the system.

Equally if a public sector worker decided they only wanted to pay PRSI only they would be precluded by law from doing this.

Given that the pension benefits for both come out of the same pot (current expenditure) and the contributions from both go into the same pot (current revenue) it prompts the question about why both groups cannot contribute and benefit on the same terms.

Note that I'm not saying that one group currently benefits more than the other just that there are completely different rules for each.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Eliot Rosewater

nesf wrote: »

The interests of public sector unions may be but generalising to cover the entire public sector is a bit much to be honest.

I admit that generalizations rarely help. However, I cant say that the opinion amongst unionized public servants is that much different to the bosses. In my personal experience members are showing a general reluctance to part ways with the Union, which is in effect giving the Unions the stamp of approval. Additionally we have had many public servants on here who seem to begrudge their wage decrease despite the fact that in the "good times" they were treated very well, and that the cost of living has decreased.

pah

Nobody likes paycuts. It means you get less money. Simple, But

I think PS workers need to look at the bigger picture. €1.3 Billion had to come from the PS to address the deficit.

I know the arguement is that "we didn't cause this mess etc..."

But it had to be sorted and it has (for the next 12 months at least:eek:)

If PS workers want their unions to do something constructive then I'm sure they have the political clout to put the Govt under pressure for a General Election. The alternatives don't inspire confidence but they couldn't be any worse than the muck that's been in there for the last decade.

I'm very thankful to have a secure job and can't begin to imagine what it must be like to be out of work in these times.:(

woodseb

It's not the government's fault
It's not the private sector's fault
It's not the public sector's fault

It is ALL our fault - we chose democracy and chose our government - so lets stop whining and get on with tackling the issues as they face us and move on.

Let's face it, in hindsight the prudent thing for any government be they FF or anyone else would have been to save the government surpluses for our 'rainy day' and reign in economic growth but they instead gave it back in higher wages, lower taxes, higher social welfare.......any govt that did not follow these policies would have been voted out and replaced by the opposition:rolleyes:

InReality

Up to 2004 things were more or less ok.
Then health and SW spending rocketed up.

Its not true to say that all govts would have do this , sure even a different taoiseach or finance minister might have been enough.

I think public sector workers appear not to appreciate the
guarenteed job , and private sector workers seem to forget that when the good times come back , their pay will increase a lot faster than a PS worker.

Its swings and roundabouts , neither job is automatically better.

simplistic

Its the usual case of " let the slaves fight the slaves".

Mcloke

woodseb wrote: »

we chose democracy and chose our government

Well now I will start to accept I live in a democracy when people stop voting for one party or the other because they are ** family or their grandad voted ** so they do etc etc. I find it ridiculous...you know you have a brain of your own to make a decision of your own with :rolleyes:

seamus

Mcloke wrote: »

Well now I will start to accept I live in a democracy when people stop voting for one party or the other because they are ** family or their grandad voted ** so they do etc etc. I find it ridiculous...you know you have a brain of your own to make a decision of your own with :rolleyes:

So....you will accept democracy when everyone stops using their vote howsoever they wish?

woodseb

Mcloke wrote: »

Well now I will start to accept I live in a democracy when people stop voting for one party or the other because they are ** family or their grandad voted ** so they do etc etc. I find it ridiculous...you know you have a brain of your own to make a decision of your own with :rolleyes:

democracy's a bitch when you don't agree with the result isn't it?

rumour

woodseb wrote: »

It's not the government's fault
It's not the private sector's fault
It's not the public sector's fault

It is ALL our fault - we chose democracy and chose our government - so lets stop whining and get on with tackling the issues as they face us and move on.

Let's face it, in hindsight the prudent thing for any government be they FF or anyone else would have been to save the government surpluses for our 'rainy day' and reign in economic growth but they instead gave it back in higher wages, lower taxes, higher social welfare.......any govt that did not follow these policies would have been voted out and replaced by the opposition:rolleyes:

I will add to this,

How many Finnoula's and Seamus's came out of AIb or BOI saying "**** them i'll get a mortgage somewhere else". Sure most of the nation did this for the last decade. They went straight down the road to Bank of Scotland or wherever. Result Irish banks had no choice but compete or face a takeover from international banks. Anyone who tried to stop us getting on the property ladder was culled. The politicians (we now say are incompetent) gave us exactly what we wanted. Who can honestly say they would have voted for a government that proposed limiting your credit. Implying you were not trust worthy? Honest answer who would have voted for that?

Time to accept personal responsibility and get on with it. The lesson surely is to vote for someone who is proposing something sensible. Fortunately and hard as it is for some people the majority of the country are coming to terms with this. We behaved like spoiled irresponsible children for the last ten years, time to get serious.

siochan84

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I'm someone who's very interested in politics generally, so I watch a lot of news and political programs - prime time, frontline, documentaries, Dail reports, and indeed anything else which happens to be on. I'm not saying I watch them obsessively or anything but if I'm browsing and I come across one I'll certainly watch it. I also visit a lot of forums like this one.

I'm getting more and more pissed off every time I see a discussion about Ireland's economy turn into people from the public sector and people from the private sector just standing up and bashing eachother back and forth. Is this what politics has turned into in this country? As someone who's also interested in US politics I'd have to say I find it worse than the financial left/right bickering you get in the States.

"The other sector" is NOT your enemy. We are all Irish people and we have ALL been screwed over and dropped in it by a corrupt and incompetent government along with a corrupt and incompetent banking system. And it occurs to me that this big divide is actually working out very well for our government - instead of us concentrating our rage and bitterness against the people responsible for it, we're concentrating it on the people who we perceive to be in a "nicer" sector of employment. Doesn't anyone realize how ridiculous it is? I bet the government is absolutely DELIGHTED at the way things have turned out. As the public vs. private debate widens, the public criticism of the government dwindles. And it's my firm belief that we shouldn't take the pressure off this government for one single second.

So seriously folks, next time you're about to launch an attack on either sector, stop and seriously think about it for a second. We're all Irish men and women, we've all been sold out by our broken political system and we're ALL ****ed economically unless we sort that out fast. There's nothing whatsoever to be gained from wanting to hurt anyone because "why should they have it better than me" - either public workers who have their jobs guaranteed or those private workers who are lucky enough not to have taken pay cuts. All we're doing is diverting the attention away from those who deserve to be publicly impeached for their behaviour in relation to our economy. The last thing we need now is a sort of "economic civil war" whereby we go at eachother instead of those responsible. Don't take this as a joke or anything but the last time we had a real civil war in this country, the only people who benefited from it were the British government who no longer had to worry about us opposing them since we were so busy opposing eachother. To quote Humphrey from Yes Minister - "Well it kept them busy didn't it, saved us from having a policy about them!"

Don't play into the government's hands and blame the wrong people for this.

I'm not in full time employment right now by the way, I'm a student. And one of my parents works in a public sector company whilst the other works in the private sector. So you can't accuse me for one second of being biased in one direction or another. The only people I see as "the enemy" are the political elite who have caused this mess.

^ The most sensible thing I have read on boards.ie throughout this whole ridiculous public v private "debate". Thank you hatrickpatrick.

I thought after you posted this the dissing and bashing would stop but nope it seems some people just have issues and are going to moan on like a long playing record about a certain sector anyway. :rolleyes: Stop posting sweeping statements, stop complaining about the other "enemy" sector. It's nearly Christmas. Buy each other a drink, bitch in unision about our overpaid Mr Blobby's, Biffo and Lenihan in the pub , shake hands, make peace move on.....

starbelgrade

rumour wrote: »

I will add to this,

How many Finnoula's and Seamus's came out of AIb or BOI saying "**** them i'll get a mortgage somewhere else". Sure most of the nation did this for the last decade. They went straight down the road to Bank of Scotland or wherever. Result Irish banks had no choice but compete or face a takeover from international banks.

And I will ask you this.. how many did? Backing up an argument with what is even less than anecdotal evidence hardly adds to the debate.

rumour wrote: »

Time to accept personal responsibility and get on with it. The lesson surely is to vote for someone who is proposing something sensible.

Like?

rumour

starbelgrade wrote: »

And I will ask you this.. how many did? Backing up an argument with what is even less than anecdotal evidence hardly adds to the debate.

I ask a question and you ask me one back .
However if you examine the share prices of the banks from around 2004-2006 it is obvious something was going on. Look at the market share of the major banks.

Did our exports increase?, did manufacturing increase ten fold? The government were warning we needed to change tack, well I remember Mary Harney doing it, why? Where was the additional money coming from that we were all borrowing against.

If you looked around you find that RBS (BoS) business was growing and growing in Ireland with massive profits. How did they do this if not by obtaining Irish customers. All this at the expense of Irish banks. Additionally how were they able to provide cheaper credit? We know now.

Back then I do believe the Irish Banks were behind the trend and only found out about the mechanisms to provide cheaper credit late in the game (that is opionion). However they had too, otherwise they loose market share and share price tumbles( again opinion but markets generally operate like that) leaving them wide open to a hostile takeover. Meaning all the deeds of property held by Irish banks fall into foreign hands. That would be a catastophic mess. Can you imagine how the government would manage to borrow from abroad while at the same time trying to plead with foreign banks to ignore our laws and not reposess houses. Where would that scenario end.
I asked for a relatively modest mortgage in early 2004 and was refused by both of the major Irish lenders. I took it no further, that was at about 4 times my salary with a 15% deposit.
In 2007 I asked for a loan of 1.2 million well over ten times my salary and all sorts of vehicles were put in front of me to achieve this. The manager when I questioned him told me the rules had changed. I was even offered interest only with no deposit....I hadn't a hope of ever repaying the primary sum on my salary. I could just about repay the interest which was around 4%. Interest in the 80's was up around 8-9% if not higher, if it went there I couldn't afford it. The idea was to buy and sell but I thought the risk was to big as I had a suspicion something was seriously wrong with all this supposed wealth we had. I guess I chickened out, fortunately.Fact, if the slightest little thing went wrong I was screwed so I dropped the whole idea. Obviously many people didn't think about repaying their debts or were willing to gamble. Now they are crying because they lost. I do have sympathy but do not see a good solution. A solution that rewards incompetence or transfers the debt to the whole community is not fair. If that was the case I should have bought my 1.2m property and start screaming that everyone else needs to help me. Why is that right?

starbelgrade wrote: »

Like?

I don't know how to respond here, it's the question that gets me.

In the English language, the word like has a very flexible range of uses, ranging from conventional to non-standard. It can be used as a noun, verb, adverb, adjective, preposition, particle, conjunction, hedge, interjection, and quotative.

Can you be more specific.

Eliot Rosewater

rumour wrote: »

I don't know how to respond here, it's the question that gets me.

In the English language, the word like has a very flexible range of uses, ranging from conventional to non-standard. It can be used as a noun, verb, adverb, adjective, preposition, particle, conjunction, hedge, interjection, and quotative.

If your not going to make the effort to understand what other posters say, why should we take the time to read your posts? starbelgrades post wasn't ambiguous unless you wanted it to be ambiguous.

Perhaps less time trying to showcase your knowledge of linguistic terms and more time thinking about other peoples contributions would be energy better spent.

Oh, and if your going to try and impress us with nomenclature, at least ensure that you know how to insert a link properly (its not that hard). Your attempt to sound smart completely backfired, to be honest.

ghost_ie

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

No? Despite the fact that if the public sector get what they want - pay to stay the same - its going to be the private sector footing the bill?

The interests of the public sector and the private sector are diametrically opposed when it comes to key issues on how to fix the country.

In some cases it's the tax payer paying the private sector to a service at a greater cost. I refer to agency nurses, which the HSE relies on quite a lot due to the ban on recruitment. Not only does the agency nurse get paid more than her public sector equivalent but the agency takes a nice fee from the hospital too. It would make more sense to recruit more nurses. Of course, from a nurses's point of view it would make more sense to resign from a public hospital job and become an agency nurse.

Welease

ghost_ie wrote: »

In some cases it's the tax payer paying the private sector to a service at a greater cost. I refer to agency nurses, which the HSE relies on quite a lot due to the ban on recruitment. Not only does the agency nurse get paid more than her public sector equivalent but the agency takes a nice fee from the hospital too. It would make more sense to recruit more nurses. Of course, from a nurses's point of view it would make more sense to resign from a public hospital job and become an agency nurse.

The ban on receuitment wouldnt be an issue if the service was managed properly and they hired nurses instead of multiple layers of administration We shouldnt need to hire more people to cover mismanagement.

fly_agaric

Rujib1 wrote: »

It's a bit like Rome burning while Nero fiddled.
Anger etc, at bankers and politicians is not a policy.

A bit more (edit - well - probably a lot more!) public anger 1 - 1.5 years ago when the extent of the disaster was becoming clear would have been very good for the country (IMO).

The current bad rubbish could have been cleared out. I think it might have been worth the short-term instability.
We'd have a new govt. in power, which while it would also have to do nasty things, and may not be super-competent either, would at least have a mandate from the public and would not be restricted by the fact that its previous policies caused these problems.

This govt. do not want to admit their mistakes. (IMO) They do not want to make very radical changes that would decrease likelyhood of such a disaster happening to us again because that is also a form of admission of guilt. They content themselves with bookkeeping, putting on what they think is a good show for foriegners whose help is needed to prop up the state.

ghost_ie

Welease wrote: »

The ban on receuitment wouldnt be an issue if the service was managed properly and they hired nurses instead of multiple layers of administration We shouldnt need to hire more people to cover mismanagement.

+1

murphaph

ghost_ie wrote: »

In some cases it's the tax payer paying the private sector to a service at a greater cost. I refer to agency nurses, which the HSE relies on quite a lot due to the ban on recruitment. Not only does the agency nurse get paid more than her public sector equivalent but the agency takes a nice fee from the hospital too. It would make more sense to recruit more nurses. Of course, from a nurses's point of view it would make more sense to resign from a public hospital job and become an agency nurse.

Is there a stampede to do this? no, thought not.

ROS123

simplistic wrote: »

Its the usual case of " let the slaves fight the slaves".

I agree, that guy Noam Chomsky said the same only in adiffernt way. The guys at the top will never lose, goverment, bankers, senior civil servants, Union leaders, (put your own category in here) They will always look after themsleves, always, always, always, without exception. They are only too happy to see the little people fighting among each other. Thats the way it is... It will never change, get used to it....

Eliot Rosewater

ROS123 wrote: »

I agree, that guy Noam Chomsky said the same only in adiffernt way.

Chomsky is some man to be talking about "the man at the top," what with his net worth of 2 million dollars? Hes got to be one of the most ironic people Ive ever heard of.

ROS123

Doesn't mean what he says is wrong... He is obviously getting well rewarded for stating the obvious like all these 'gurus'...

Eliot Rosewater

Its means hes talking out of his ass. Charging a couple of thousand dollars to give a lecture? If thats his blueprint for the future then its a scary one as far as Im concerned. You've got to live a part of what you preach. He could easily donate his time for free for the betterment of his cause. Instead hes turned it into a nice money making enterprise. Im sure he feels well exploited by the system.

The living definition of irony.