Spare a thought for Paddy

BrownianMotion

ardmacha wrote: »

Now the reduced salaries are still adequate, but if you bought have house at an inflated price you are in a hard place.

Exactly! Good to see a vocal public sector supporter make this point.

So this is not another public versus private battle, the issue here is that Barry is an idiot who entered the property market at the top and his now failing to realise it was this decision that is causing him financial hardship rather than the State.

Had he waited and rented he would have a much better standard of life now even taking into account the recent cuts.

Welease

BrownianMotion wrote: »

Exactly! Good to see a vocal public sector supporter make this point.

So this is not another public versus private battle, the issue here is that Barry is an idiot who entered the property market at the top and his now failing to realise it was this decision that is causing him financial hardship rather than the State.

Had he waited and rented he would have a much better standard of life now even taking into account the recent cuts.

Don't be so ridiculous... This is Ireland.. No one here is ever responsible for any decision they make..

It's the fault of
a) The Government
b) The Bankers
c) Public Sector
d) The Developers
(delete as applicable)

ParkRunner

BrownianMotion wrote: »

Exactly! Good to see a vocal public sector supporter make this point.

So this is not another public versus private battle, the issue here is that Barry is an idiot who entered the property market at the top and his now failing to realise it was this decision that is causing him financial hardship rather than the State.

Had he waited and rented he would have a much better standard of life now even taking into account the recent cuts.

Good post! Those stuck in negative equity (in both the public and private sector) and unable to make repayments are going to have to be assisted through social welfare/tax relief or some other mechanism rather than maintaining wages at the level required to meet the extortionate repayments. Either way we are all going to be paying for it, public or private, one way or another.

View

EF wrote: »

Your ever increasing taxes are being spent less on public sector wages and more on trying to regenerate private sector enterprises and more on paying the social welfare that those who have lost their jobs are entitled to..as well as on interest on debt repayments.

Public sector wages are a large part of the expenditure of every Government department. Those wages increased at a rate way above those of the private sector in the past decade. As we now see, the tax-payer can't afford to pay the bill for those increases. Stop trying to blame the unfortunates who find themselves on the dole for this mess.

EF wrote: »

But my basic point is that you can expect to pay lower taxes when those on social welfare find themselves employment, rather than continue to primarily expect the public sector wages to drop every few months.

We have been experiencing price deflation - in other words prices have been getting cheaper. There is absolutely no reason why public sector wages shouldn't fall in such an environment.

A much simpler solution to this issue is the one used in most other countries (e.g. The US, Canada etc). There, during economic recessions, public servants are laid off just like their private sector counterparts. Maybe we should benchmark layoffs, rather than just pay increases?

ardmacha

Those wages increased at a rate way above those of the private sector in the past decade.

They didn't. As discussed on this forum before percentage increases over the decade were the same.

We have been experiencing price deflation - in other words prices have been getting cheaper. There is absolutely no reason why public sector wages shouldn't fall in such an environment.

True. But there has been no suggestion of linking the decreases to the deflation, such a link would have greatly improved the industrial relations atmosphere.

Maybe we should benchmark layoffs, rather than just pay increases?

As the majority of public sector activities are not cyclical this makes no sense.

View

ardmacha wrote: »

They didn't. As discussed on this forum before percentage increases over the decade were the same.

All posts that I have seen on this topic showed public service pay increases being above those of the private sector. If I recall correctly the benchmarking pay rises were paid out during the post-dot com recession at a time when many people in the private sector were more at risk of getting laid off than getting a pay rise. Benchmarking though didn't apply to lay offs though, did it?

ardmacha wrote: »

As the majority of public sector activities are not cyclical this makes no sense.

Government revenues are cyclical. They are dependent - to either a greater or lesser extent - on the state of the economy as they tax company's profits, have employment based taxes, turnover based taxes (i.e. VAT on normal sales, Stamp duty on property sales) etc.

Hence, the countries I mentioned cut pay-roll expenditure by laying people off. If they don't have the revenue to provide a service they do not do so.

We, on the other hand, have a large number of people who adhere to a nonsense idea that we should continue to spend money that we don't have because we are a "special case" and apparently basic economics doesn't apply to us.

ei.sdraob

im after learning that my relative is loosing her job, she has a kid and mortgage (the family will help out of course)


but that just further highlights how deluded this "Barry" guy is
he should be happy that he still has a secure job

while the public sector are moaning and striking about cuts, people out there are getting 100% cuts

the PS are asking why there is no sympathy for them, the general feeling it seems is "cup the **** on, you could me much worse"

Sleepy

EF wrote: »

Good post! Those stuck in negative equity (in both the public and private sector) and unable to make repayments are going to have to be assisted through social welfare/tax relief or some other mechanism rather than maintaining wages at the level required to meet the extortionate repayments. Either way we are all going to be paying for it, public or private, one way or another.

Why?

Unless they've lost their job and are currently in receipt of welfare, there's no reason for the state to be involved in people's personal mistakes. If you bought a property for more than it's worth, tough luck, you're going to be living in that house you expected to flip quickly for a profit for a few decades more than intended. If you can't meet the payments, hand back the keys, come to arrangement with the lender regarding settling the rest of your debt and rent somewhere until you're free of that debt. Maybe next time you consider buying property you'll make sure you don't over-extend yourself...

Guell72

ei.sdraob wrote: »

im after learning that my relative is loosing her job, she has a kid and mortgage (the family will help out of course)


but that just further highlights how deluded this "Barry" guy is
he should be happy that he still has a secure job

while the public sector are moaning and striking about cuts, people out there are getting 100% cuts

the PS are asking why there is no sympathy for them, the general feeling it seems is "cup the **** on, you could me much worse"

You never know. If shes any good she'll get another job easily. And redundancy on top, and then the dole for a while too. What field is she in? Has she prepared herself in case she needs to find another job?

ei.sdraob

Guell72 wrote: »

You never know. If shes any good she'll get another job easily. And redundancy on top, and then the dole for a while too. What field is she in? Has she prepared herself in case she needs to find another job?

she'll be fine the family will help out

what im trying to say (as per my OP) is that on one hand there are hundreds of thousands of people loosing jobs altogether, on the other hand you have the likes of "Barry" moaning and writing to the papers about a few percentage cuts while still having a safe job, Barry should be happy and keep quiet as he could be much worse off

ParkRunner

Sleepy wrote: »

Why?

Unless they've lost their job and are currently in receipt of welfare, there's no reason for the state to be involved in people's personal mistakes. If you bought a property for more than it's worth, tough luck, you're going to be living in that house you expected to flip quickly for a profit for a few decades more than intended. If you can't meet the payments, hand back the keys, come to arrangement with the lender regarding settling the rest of your debt and rent somewhere until you're free of that debt. Maybe next time you consider buying property you'll make sure you don't over-extend yourself...

I would agree with you if it was only a small number of individuals involved but the last thing the banks need right now is a few thousand empty properties that they have to sell. With an economist's hat on it might make sense to force people out of their homes and drive down the price of property but politically you know it's not going to happen

ardmacha

Barry should be happy and keep quiet as he could be much worse off

How dare he complain. Just as people who are mugged should be happy and glad that they are not raped and murdered. And the Irish unemployed should be glad they don't live in Haiti and ..........

ei.sdraob

ardmacha wrote: »

How dare he complain. Just as people who are mugged should be happy and glad that they are not raped and murdered. And the Irish unemployed should be glad they don't live in Haiti and ..........

perhaps if out public sector spend more time working and less time complaining and striking there be more respect for them

bamboozle

ardmacha wrote: »

How dare he complain. Just as people who are mugged should be happy and glad that they are not raped and murdered. And the Irish unemployed should be glad they don't live in Haiti and ..........

i think the point being clearly made is this guy Barry is in a very lucky position compared to many of his peers, he has a guaranteed job with a good pension, he will never have to worry about losing his job, about how he will pay mortgage, feed wife and kids, yes it is unfortunate that he will now have to reduce his monthly outgoings but compared to 440k plus in this country he's in a very very lucky position.
He should have a bit of sympathy with the many unemployed here and shelve his myopic beliefs that this state is obliged to provide him with a cushy lifestyle.

Guell72

ardmacha wrote: »

How dare he complain. Just as people who are mugged should be happy and glad that they are not raped and murdered. And the Irish unemployed should be glad they don't live in Haiti and ..........

Excellent analogy. Couldnt have put it better.

ei.sdraob wrote: »

perhaps if out public sector spend more time working and less time complaining and striking there be more respect for them

The vast majority of the moaning is the private sector moaning that the public sector are better of than them.

ParkRunner

ei.sdraob wrote: »

perhaps if out public sector spend more time working and less time complaining and striking there be more respect for them

If only public servants had enough time to be posting over 16 posts per day but the demand for their services is just too great in these tough economic times!

ei.sdraob

EF wrote: »

If only public servants had enough time to be posting over 16 posts per day but the demand for their services is just too great in these tough economic times!

if only they were able to automate so much of their work and then sit around staring at black and white console waiting for batch jobs to complete

actually thats worth a thread of its own, how better information management can help some parts of the public sector, there was an interesting chapter in this book about a system that helped enormously in hospitals (no not PPARs)


look at the bright-side (beside revenue not working too hard) all these work-stoppages would endup as useful datapoints for some economists to measure the productivity (or lack of) in the public service, which will result in interesting papers and articles down the road

ParkRunner

ei.sdraob wrote: »

look at the bright-side (beside revenue not working too hard) all these work-stoppages would endup as useful datapoints for some economists to measure the productivity (or lack of) in the public service, which will result in interesting papers and articles down the road

This is pretty much a typical private sector response. Pay economists way above average rates to produce a report that will demoralise public sector workers and produce no tangible results as the government have already produced and shelved their own similar reports with the ultimate goal of softening up the public for public sector paycuts (followed by private sector paycuts) rather than meanigful reform, which is what is actually needed.

View

EF wrote: »

This is pretty much a typical private sector response. Pay economists way above average rates to produce a report that will demoralise public sector workers...

Offhand, I can't recall when I last heard someone in the Private Sector going on about being "demoralised".

In the Private Sector, you may get laid off, you may resign and/or join someone else, you may even moan and groan but it is rare that anyone spends their time complaining that something "will demoralise private sector workers".

ParkRunner

View wrote: »

Offhand, I can't recall when I last heard someone in the Private Sector going on about being "demoralised".

In the Private Sector, you may get laid off, you may resign and/or join someone else, you may even moan and groan but it is rare that anyone spends their time complaining that something "will demoralise private sector workers".

All well and good if the private sector workers who have lost their jobs are happy to spend their time collecting the social welfare they are entitled to claim, I have no qualms about that.

I would hazard a guess though that private sector workers are demoralised to some extent by the threat of losing their jobs and/or severe paycuts, not that it is something I would ever wish upon them, and any glimmer of willingness to concede towards this goverment is not something I would recommend to be honest. e.g. potential reforms in the public sector led to paycuts, a lack of being demoralised in the private sector will inevitably lead to increased taxes. Watch this space

View

EF wrote: »

I would hazard a guess though that private sector workers are demoralised to some extent by the threat of losing their jobs and/or severe paycuts,

I did not say people in the private sector are not demoralised by losing their jobs etc. I said they do not go on about being demoralised. There is a difference.

MaceFace

View wrote: »

I did not say people in the private sector are not demoralised by losing their jobs etc. I said they do not go on about being demoralised. There is a difference.

Agreed, and once you become demoralised, your productivity suffers. If you have the threat of redundancy hanging over you, a loss in productivity is the last thing that should happen.

This whole public sector vs private sector is just one big argument about one thing - the public sector thinks they should be immune from any pain of the recession and the private sector thinks no one should be immune.

Guell72

View wrote: »

Offhand, I can't recall when I last heard someone in the Private Sector going on about being "demoralised".

In the Private Sector, you may get laid off, you may resign and/or join someone else, you may even moan and groan but it is rare that anyone spends their time complaining that something "will demoralise private sector workers".

I think the venom directed at the public sector, or even people who earn a nice wage, by most of the private sector is evidence enough of the lack of happiness of private sector workers. They are not unhappy because they are getting cuts or anything. They are unhappy at the thought that someone else might be better off than them. Begrudgery is a very good guage.

The_Honeybadger

Guell72 wrote: »

I think the venom directed at the public sector, or even people who earn a nice wage, by most of the private sector is evidence enough of the lack of happiness of private sector workers. They are not unhappy because they are getting cuts or anything. They are unhappy at the thought that someone else might be better off than them. Begrudgery is a very good guage.

You're probably right, however some people are also concerned at the level of borrowing the government are doing and the future of the country under the crippling debt we are running up. It's not all begrudgery, although it is certainly widespread, but that is human nature and is very unlikely to change while we have such dire unemployment problems.

Sleepy

What's wrong with begrudging someone an unfair share of something you have an interest in?

The_Honeybadger

Sleepy wrote: »

What's wrong with begrudging someone an unfair share of something you have an interest in?

I think he means that some people won't be happy until the PS are put on the breadline and are all working for minimum wage because many of them earn good money and may doing better than themselves. Some of the comments on these forums do go a little far tbh, but I don't see a problem questioning if we are getting value for money as taxpayers. I think its clear we aren't in some cases.

Stark

Guell72 wrote: »

I think the venom directed at the public sector, or even people who earn a nice wage, by most of the private sector is evidence enough of the lack of happiness of private sector workers. They are not unhappy because they are getting cuts or anything. They are unhappy at the thought that someone else might be better off than them. Begrudgery is a very good guage.

The main venom is against the unions imo, who in a time when the country is ****ed will still hold the country to ransom and drive it further down the ****ter in order to avoid feeling the pain of economic reality. You only need to look at Greece to see where that plan gets you.

Of course, naturally Barry's going to attract some ire as well. While whinging from someone in the private sector might be harmless, Barry and his friends have a lot more power to do damage to the country because they're not happy with what they've got.

astrofool

EF wrote: »

(followed by private sector paycuts)

And how will the government implement private sector pay cuts? Some sort of wage cap perhaps?

ixoy

Guell72 wrote: »

They are not unhappy because they are getting cuts or anything. They are unhappy at the thought that someone else might be better off than them. Begrudgery is a very good guage.

Well, for those venting at the public sector, it is because of the perception that the public sector is better off at the expense of the private sector. If the public sector are to kept at a certain level, number and employment wise, the money must come from somewhere and it's going to be increased taxes, reduced benefits, or cuts in infrastructure projects - all of which nobody wants when they're getting less already as it is. And that's before we get to the terrifying mounting debt situation that people will be burdened with for decades to come to manage this (and the various other financial messes).

WalterMitty

Im unemployed at moment. I have an honors degree and capable of doing many of the jobs in the public sector from clerical work to policing to accountancy(part qualified). I would do any full time job in public sector now for 25% less than they currently get paid . I actually got onto several panels for public sector jobs but positions never opened up. Due to medical reasons i havent worked at all in past few years so it's near impossible to get in anywhere in private sector or public sector at present. A job in public sector would also help me with my medical condition as less hours than private and more flexibility and sick days tollerated compared to private.