Cant we all just get along?

PeteSanchez

Private Sector workers jealous of public servants
Public servants angry at the government
OAP's laughing at us all

Cant we all just get along

Nidot

No would be the answer to that as we all have seperate conflicting agenda's

ardmacha

No would be the answer to that as we all have seperate conflicting agenda's

True. Some of us are trying to have an intelligent discussion based on facts while other people's agenda is just trying to stir shít.

Nidot

ardmacha wrote: »

True. Some of us are trying to have an intelligent discussion based on facts while other people's agenda is just trying to stir shít.

I wouldn't even have the **** stirring involved just that we all have our own perspective on the current situation we find ourselved in and this affects how we respong to others.

i.e. someone who is unemployed recently, a civil servant, an average private sector worker, a farmer, a banker and a politician would complete disagree.

It's all perspective really.

If we didn't disagree on things sure wouldn't this country be an awful bore.

Sleepy

I have to agree with Nidot:

The Public Sector either wants the Private Sector to pay more taxes or the Irish government to borrow indefinitely so they won't have to face more wage cuts / redundancies / reality.

The Private Sector want to see reforms / wage-cuts / redundancies in the Public Sector so public spending can come into line with current tax receipts and not raise taxes further for private sector workers who've already shouldered the majority of the pain in the recession. They want this, however, with no cuts to public services.

Both sectors vilify the bankers & politicians who "caused" this mess while not wanting to accept personal responsibility for the fact the majority of them willingly signed up to crazy mortgages to buy over-priced houses and splurged on their credit cards.

The bankers see these people as trying to deny them their 'entitlement' to pre-agreed bonuses that were legally agreed to in their contracts and stop them from fixing the banks by limiting their options when it comes to recruiting new staff.

The employed want social welfare cut to bring tax receipts into line with expenditurre and avoid more tax rises whilst recent additions to the live register seem to think welfare should cover their mortgages and those who've been receiving benefits all their lives will moan about 'dworkin class' being 'the most vulnerable' and despite living in deflationary times they shouldn't have to take a hit in their benefits.

The elderly are demanding that their "entitlements" aren't touched regardless of their capital wealth and seemingly are let away with this because our government are more interested in holding onto power than running the country.

Everyone's looking out for number 1. Any sensible proposals are being shot down as 'targeting the vulnerable' or 'ignoring the fat-cats that caused this mess'.

Nidot

Brilliantly put Sleepy,

The_Honeybadger

Great post Sleepy, no bias there just the truth.

I have often asked on these forums what people mean when they say "we all need to stand together as one", impossible when everybody's situation is so different, and the downturn effects them in different ways.

Sleepy

mickeyk wrote: »

Great post Sleepy, no bias there just the truth.

Thanks but I think there's probably plenty of bias that can be read into it. I'm an opinionated cvnt even when I'm trying to be balanced!

ei.sdraob

mickeyk wrote: »

Great post Sleepy, no bias there just the truth.

I have often asked on these forums what people mean when they say "we all need to stand together as one", impossible when everybody's situation is so different, and the downturn effects them in different ways.

Good post Sleepy you nailed it

add the farmers to the list too

as yet another group who wants to screw everyone else for their own gain, and by doing so eventually end-up hurting themselves

ardmacha

The Public Sector either wants the Private Sector to pay more taxes or the Irish government to borrow indefinitely so they won't have to face more wage cuts / redundancies / reality.

Perhaps they would like this, but most would settle for a government that had a clear analysis of the situation and who wasn't playing short term politics with their careers.

Both sectors vilify the bankers & politicians who "caused" this mess while not wanting to accept personal responsibility for the fact the majority of them willingly signed up to crazy mortgages to buy over-priced houses and splurged on their credit cards.

As noted in the paper this week, 41% of adults have no debt and of the others many only have old mortgages from the early 90s or very modest loans. The majority of people did not take part to any great extent in this party, although a sizeable minority did.

Sleepy

ardmacha, how many of those adults are in employment? I'd imagine rather a large chunk of those without debt are either retired or would never have featured in the property market / tax net anyway?

P. Breathnach

Sleepy wrote: »

Thanks but I think there's probably plenty of bias that can be read into it. I'm an opinionated cvnt even when I'm trying to be balanced!

I'm glad you said that. It saves me pointing it out.

I respect your honesty in recognising how hard it is to be unbiased.

Sleepy

If you'd like to edit what I posted to make it more balanced, P. Breathnach, you're more than welcome to do so. Perhaps our biases would level each other's out?

(btw - did you teach in a secondary school in Galway by any chance? Your username and some of your posts have made me thing you may have been a teacher of mine at times!)

ardmacha

Sleepy, I'd say your username suggests many former pupils to retired teachers!

P. Breathnach

If I had known that I would get involved in discussions like this, I would have been more careful about my choice of username! I know the true identity of only one person who posts in this forum, and I don't think I know Sleepy or ei.sdraob in real life. Can we leave it at that?

soden12

As a taxpayer I find it disgusting that the bankers who have been guaranteed by the gov can give themselves payrises, can continue to provide poor service whilst draining our childrens future prospects.

A pox on their houses.

stepbar

soden12 wrote: »

As a taxpayer I find it disgusting that the bankers who have been guaranteed by the gov can give themselves payrises, can continue to provide poor service whilst draining our childrens future prospects.

A pox on their houses.

The Government is guarenteeing you too Mike considering your assets (and liabilities) form part of the bank balance sheet.....

Head The Wall

stepbar wrote: »

The Government is guarenteeing you too Mike considering your assets (and liabilities) form part of the bank balance sheet.....

I can't wait for his april fools day post where he tells us how good the banking sector is. It'll make a change from his usual vitriol about the banks

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

changes

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

No mature country should ever have to resort to the sort of butchery and bandaging that this country has in the current (avoidable) predicament.

Its all fianna fail made in the last 15 years. Most public servants i speak to know that some sacrifices have to be made but they are angry and not willing to silently let it all pass by.

My feeling is that more public servants than not would be willing to accept the cuts and move on.

If the anger was at fever pitch throughout the PS things would be much worse.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

namenotavailablE

If Fianna Fáil had not bloated the public sector to its current level, and capitulated to every union demand for wage increases, there would be no need for retrenchment.

There are many more factors for the serious economic crisis apart from government mismanagement:

• Reckless lending policies by the banking sector in Ireland and many other countries (especially US)
• A tendency to focus on short term results without considering the long term impact of the action of such short termism. The mantra seemd to be 'book the profit and get the bonus now'. Hence NAMA, to a certain extent.
• Reckless borrowing / lifestyle spending by both individuals and businesses
• Inaction on creating a sustainable tax base / disproportionate reliance on hyper-activity in the construction sector
• Too many expensive tax breaks which prolonged an unsustainable level of construction in the building sector
• The apparent belief that the low interest rates were somehow here forever
• Ongoing global imbalances/ trade distortions whereby many major Western economies run deficits and economies (mainly China) refuse to allow their currency to reach its true market value. This results in ever increasing levels of national debt.

To blame solely the public sector is to miss many other factors.

ei.sdraob

namenotavailabl wrote: »

To blame solely the public sector is to miss many other factors.

no one is just blaming the public sector solely, we are well aware that there where many causes and variables

the rest of the actors have realized what went wrong and readjusted, whole economy (minus the PS and welfare) has went back about 6 years in the process

now the faster the public sector get back down to reality the better of they will be

go and read one of the parallel threads here to see how delusional some of its members posting here are, its worrying that people like that are in such positions of power in this country (and cant be removed)

namenotavailablE

Maybe so, but that wasn't evident from donegalfella's previous comment- he stated:

"If Fianna Fáil had not bloated the public sector to its current level, and capitulated to every union demand for wage increases, there would be no need for retrenchment"

It was for that comment (which I took to refer to the PS and unions as being the sole reason for our retrenchment ie but for these 2 sectors we would still be enjoying economic growth) that I made my own observation re other factors.

ei.sdraob

namenotavailabl wrote: »

Maybe so, but that wasn't evident from donegalfella's previous comment- he stated:



It was for that comment (which I took to refer to the PS and unions as being the sole reason for our retrenchment ie but for these 2 sectors we would still be enjoying economic growth) that I made my own observation re other factors.

look in the last decade welfare spending almost wentup 4fold mainly in order for FF to get releelected
PS spend went up almost by as much, for the very same reasons
in order to pay these 2 costs, FF did roll over for the unions and poured oil into the property market
the whole thing was a terrible feedback loop that has imploded now



yee either go back down to more sustainable levels by yourself (once again 2004ish will be fine), or yee can continue to piss of the public and wait for another body to come in and cut yee more (as is happening in greece)
either way the unions have lost this battle on many fronts and by continuing to **** around all they will accomplish is generate more bad will

people might have had some sympathy if the PS were getting paid less than average as is the case in most countries, but having the amount of waste exposed in likes of FAS and HSE is really ticking people off now


the Celtic kitty is dead and rotting, just move on for gods sake