real ideas to lift the economy

Micullen

Hi folks.
Am new to this but here goes. Not only would legalisation help the countries financial situation but it would also help chronic pain sufferers. I have a very bad back at 40 years of age. I've been on morphine twice and have had to go through dt's after each 6 month stint. I found that canabis is much better and u don't get the the detox once the pain gets better.. Is there an organisation in action? Please let me know.. Thx

SubBusted

Fine all cyclists €100 for cycling on footpaths.

robp

meditraitor wrote: »

Very simple solution

We have some of the best agricultural land on the planet and its be under utilised because the farmers have got lazy on EU grants.

Modern agronomy has passed the Irish by, in most of the world they are developing foods,fuels fibre and any amount of raw materials with worse land than we have at our disposal.

We need to be a net exporter of agricutural based resourses, we should be as there is only 4m inhabitants and a shed load of good land but the EU have severley curtailed us by KEEPING the farmers with grants and the likes.

Irish farms are too small, farmers are too old and labour costs are too high and thus productivity is hampered. If small scale Irish farming wasn't propped as it is I predict the market would slowly and painfully correct these issues but they have such political power I don't see how that is likely.

MadsL

MagicMarker wrote: »

What ever happened with that campaign the government ran where the person with the best idea for saving money won 250k or something like that?

Thread here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=77530959

pog it wrote: »

The same McWilliams who backed the government guarantee?

Half of the story, had Lenihan acted on all McWilliams advice then the story would have been very different.

Icepick

Work for the Dole

mariaalice

The EC would never allow the government to do this let alone the moral and ethical problems.

Sell 200 Irish passports for 1 billion each... each of the passport holders has to have a residence in Ireland and live here for 3 months of the year for 10 years along with their family's ( massive lift to certain parts of the economy from having 200 very wealthy family's living here ) plus each passport holder has to invest a large amount of money in a non property wealth producing asset, could be anything, infrastructure or manufacturing or intellectual property it just couldn't be property.

200 billion to the government.
200 very wealthy people spending in the economy
A large and new source of of capital available to the non property sector of the economy.

Chris_5339762

€100 per year cycling tax.

Godge

mariaalice wrote: »

The EC would never allow the government to do this let alone the moral and ethical problems.

Sell 200 Irish passports for 1 billion each... each of the passport holders has to have a residence in Ireland and live here for 3 months of the year for 10 years along with their family's ( massive lift to certain parts of the economy from having 200 very wealthy family's living here ) plus each passport holder has to invest a large amount of money in a non property wealth producing asset, could be anything, infrastructure or manufacturing or intellectual property it just couldn't be property.

200 billion to the government.
200 very wealthy people spending in the economy
A large and new source of of capital available to the non property sector of the economy.

And who would want to pay 1 billion for an Irish passport? And meet all of the conditions you list?

mariaalice

Why would anyone pay 1 billion for an Irish passport because for the very simple reason that we have free right to live in any EC country including the UK, we take that for granted but the right to free movement in the EU and the right to resider in the UK is worth its weight in gold to some people in the world

Godge

mariaalice wrote: »

Why would anyone pay 1 billion for an Irish passport because for the very simple reason that we have free right to live in any EC country including the UK, we take that for granted but the right to free movement in the EU and the right to resider in the UK is worth its weight in gold to some people in the world

1. €1 Billion is a lot of money, the greeks would probably sell citizenship for €20m they are so desperate, so why pay so much for an Irish passport?

2. To have 1 billion to spare to throw away on an Irish passport, you would want to have at least 5-6 billion in cash plus a significant amount of assets beyond that. Still, let us just look at the list of billionaires.

According to Forbes, there are 1,226 of them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbes_list_of_billionaires_(2012)

Here is the current list

http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/

Have a look at it. How many would realistically want an Irish passport? How many could afford to pay €1 billion cash for an Irish passport? If you said that only those who were worth more than €10 bn were willing to fork out (10% of your net worth is a lot - imagine giving away 10% of your house), that only leaves you with 88 billionaires.

Let us exclude US, EU, Japan, Australia, Canada and Switzerland citizens from that list as they live in western democracies, can live in Europe for most of the year without citizenship and would therefore be extremely unlikely to pay €1 bn for Irish citizenship.

That leaves 36, the list is shortening. Even the 11 from Russia include those such as Usmanov who seems to have no problem spending much of his time in London. The Colombian might be interested, as might the Nigerian but it is hard to see any of the Mexicans, Brazilians and those from Hong Kong interested. The figures just don't add up for me.

antoobrien

MadsL wrote: »

Half of the story, had Lenihan acted on all McWilliams advice then the story would have been very different.

Lenhihan did exactly what McWilliams said two days after McWilliams said this:

The only option is to guarantee 100 per cent of all depositors/creditors in the Irish banking system. This guarantee does not extend to shareholders who will have to live with the losses they have suffered. However, it applies to everyone else.

And what did McWilliams say the following day

Finance Minister Brian Lenihan has made a wise choice. By coming up with a unique, Irish plan — guaranteeing all deposits — instead of importing a failed solution from abroad, he has instilled confidence in the Irish financial system.

Godge

antoobrien wrote: »

Lenhihan did exactly what McWilliams said two days after McWilliams said this:



And what did McWilliams say the following day

I agree, McWilliams is second only to The Two Brians in responsibility for the cute hoor Irish solution that backfired on their stupidity.

bbam

meditraitor wrote: »

Very simple solution

We have some of the best agricultural land on the planet and its be under utilised because the farmers have got lazy on EU grants.

Modern agronomy has passed the Irish by, in most of the world they are developing foods,fuels fibre and any amount of raw materials with worse land than we have at our disposal.

We need to be a net exporter of agricutural based resourses, we should be as there is only 4m inhabitants and a shed load of good land but the EU have severley curtailed us by KEEPING the farmers with grants and the likes.

Wow, where to start on that.
We indeed have pockets of real good land here, Meath, Kildare, Cork and the golden vale. These areas are heavily intensively farmed. Many other regions of the country the land is among the poorest in the EU. Stretches of Leitrim, Cavan, Sligo are poor, infertile and shallow clay soils, barly able to grow grass and probably best suitably to plantations.
Most farmers would rather that the subs from the EU had never happened as they have only served to suppress food prices and reduce the profits from average farms to nearly nil.
CAP under which the payments were brought in was devised to secure food production within the EU at low prices. With the exception of dairy on occasional years agriculture is a break even business.

Just to also show the value of farming the "agri-food" sector accounted for 10% of all employment in 2010. So it is indeed pulling its weight in the domestic economy. I can post a link later when I'm not on the phone to back up the data.

jank

Half income tax for all.

antoobrien

jank wrote: »

Half income tax for all.

already have that, about half the tax net don't pay any income tax.

bbam

jank wrote: »

Half income tax for all.

I'd fear that would bankrupt the country even more than at present. I doubt it would have people spend more, they would probably save more which wouldn't generate any economic activity.

Truthfully our economy is too small to support itself 4 million people just isn't enough people in an island to generate enough activity on its own. We need a global recovery to pull us along.

I think the only sector were ignoring is the green technology sector. I'm sure some clever accounting could be done to encourage companies here to generate a sector specialising in developing wind and water energy, and deploy it off the coast. But no, we seem to be letting the NIMBY crowd control this and it will pass us bye.

leonidas83

Reduce tax's on SME's, get rid of alot of the red tape involved in setting these up. Encourage entrepreneurship as opposed to punishing it heavily by banning somebody found bankrupt for 7+ years from setting up a new business. Look to the US in this regard, look at how they foster this entrepreneurship, at how many chances they give people when their businesses may not work out the first few times. We on other hand punish them.

Eradicate motor tax by putting this tax instead on fuel. You will get rid of the administration involved in collecting this tax & actually tax the people that use the most fuel (main polluters) which was what the emmission based system was meant to be about in the first place. This would be good for the economy because you would be looking at savings from the admin dept & gains from people who continually avoid paying the motor tax in Ireland.

Cut public & civil service wages & pensions. Whether they believe it or not their wages are far too high for this economy. When you look at wages comprising of 80% of the education budget & 75% of the health budget there is no excuse for this. If the unions want to protest about this, f*** them. They are amongst the best paid in Europe on average & if they have a problem with this let them emmigrate & see how they get on.

Overhaul the department of social protection. Cut long term dolers dole & allowances by half who are neither looking for a job or trying to re-educate themselves. They must show they are genuinely trying to improve their situation otherwise it should be cut.

jank

antoobrien wrote: »

already have that, about half the tax net don't pay any income tax.

And what about those that earn an average salary? Half of your income goes into the states coffers and one gets very little in return.

In Australia you dont reach the highest level of tax until you are pulling in 180k a year! Highest rate is 45% plus medicare at 1.5%, so the effective rate is almost less than Ireland which taxes people at almost half your income when you are pulling about 32k, crazy stuff!

jank

bbam wrote: »

I'd fear that would bankrupt the country even more than at present. I doubt it would have people spend more, they would probably save more which wouldn't generate any economic activity.

.

The only sure way of getting economic growth is to give people the choice to spend more of its own money that they earn themselves.

We should of course cut waste in public serivces and welfare. Billions of low hanging fruit there.

Godge

jank wrote: »

And what about those that earn an average salary? Half of your income goes into the states coffers and one gets very little in return.

In Australia you dont reach the highest level of tax until you are pulling in 180k a year! Highest rate is 45% plus medicare at 1.5%, so the effective rate is almost less than Ireland which taxes people at almost half your income when you are pulling about 32k, crazy stuff!

Absolute rubbish.

http://icampaigned.com/blog/tags/effective-tax-rates-ireland-2012/

"The effective tax rate only reaches 20% at €35,000 gross earnings"


So at 32k, you are probably paying less than 20%.

antoobrien

Godge wrote: »

"The effective tax rate only reaches 20% at €35,000 gross earnings"


So at 32k, you are probably paying less than 20%.

At just over 37k I paid 8250 in PAYE, USC & PRSI last year, approx 22%.
If we just take PAYE it was just over 4900 (13%).

Indirect taxes, even if I spend every cent of disposable income on 21% vat items (not possible if you want to live because food is 0%) still only comes up to about 40% of my gross - including my excise on petrol & motor tax.

jank

Godge wrote: »

Absolute rubbish.

http://icampaigned.com/blog/tags/effective-tax-rates-ireland-2012/

"The effective tax rate only reaches 20% at €35,000 gross earnings"


So at 32k, you are probably paying less than 20%.

You know what I mean, one is paying over half their income in tax for any euro earned after 35k, which is ridiculous.

Gurgle

jank wrote: »

You know what I mean, one is paying over half their income in tax for any euro earned after 35k, which is ridiculous.

60% if one is unfortunate enough to be stuck in the public sector trap

antoobrien

Gurgle wrote: »

60% if one is unfortunate enough to be stuck in the public sector trap

Practically impossible to be fired or made redundant - my heart bleeds (no wait that's just it beating)

antoobrien

jank wrote: »

You know what I mean, one is paying over half their income in tax for any euro earned after 35k, which is ridiculous.

Very different from what you said. And you're also wrong, the 41% rate starts at 32,800.


It's also probably not worth point out to you that nobody actually pays half their wages in direct taxes (paye, prsi & usc) - even at the higher levels - because of the structure of our tax system.

Godge

jank wrote: »

You know what I mean, one is paying over half their income in tax for any euro earned after 35k, which is ridiculous.

That is because we have a progressive tax system which taxes the low-paid and those on social welfare very lightly while those who earn more pay more.

The only way of increasing income tax take is to cut credits to reduce the tax-free amount.

BOHSBOHS

nobody pays over 50% ???

they do actually.. there is a tipping point over and above which the tax credits effect on effective taxation rates is negated

this occurs at ~560k for single paye employees
and ~245k for self employed (due to diff calcs for paye prsi and usc)

the marginal rates of 52/55% are important as they can affect economic output/work incentive , eg i might not work that overtime for 100e if i am getting only 40e
after tax /pension etc but i would work it if i got 60 net. :pac:

our low paid workers are undertaxed compared to other countries
but to increase taxation in this area without making people go on the dole
we need to reduce payments to longer term unemployed (over 1 year )
like they do in practically every other country.

antoobrien

BOHSBOHS wrote: »

nobody pays over 50% ???

they do actually.. there is a tipping point over and above which the tax credits effect on effective taxation rates is negated

Not so much the tax credits but the fact that there's 32,800 that everybody only pays 20% on.

With less than 9,830 (0.47% of) taxpayers earning greater than 275k in this country it'd be statistically irrelevant - if that group didn't pay 15% of the total income tax collected here.

Head The Wall

Gurgle wrote: »

60% if one is unfortunate enough to be stuck in the public sector trap

Stuck you say, If it is that bad let them leave and get a job elsewhere. Surely every PS employee will get paid a higher net figure in the private sector for the same job.

ardmacha

If it is that bad let them leave and get a job elsewhere.

It is irresponsible to wish for the wrecking of much needed public services.

mikemac1

Develop the fishing industry

The Spanish trawlers love fishing here anyway!


Send the Irish navy to Rockall
We will own it and all associated fishing rights.
Might not be something we can use now but maybe one day

Gurgle

Head The Wall wrote: »

Stuck you say, If it is that bad let them leave and get a job elsewhere.

Haven't you ever wondered why our hospitals are so under-represented with Irish doctors and nurses? Because they're gone to elsewhere.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

mariaalice

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Okay maybe I was a little unrealistic, we could go for my other idea which is to double or treble the population.

666irishguy

Build 4 nuclear power plants, 2 for us and 2 for exporting energy. Supplement them with a large scale program of wind farm building that will gradually phase out one or two of the nuclear plants in the coming decades. Perhaps the production of bio-diesel on a large scale if it's possible. Jobs would be created and we would be self sufficient in energy.

nice_guy80

I like the fishing idea

Fianna Fail sold the Irish fishing industry away when the CFP and CAP was introduced in the 1970s. they were more interested in helping the farmers

We have huge fishing grounds, but a very small fishing fleet
Think of the employment a proper fishing fleet could bring to isolated communities of Ireland around the coast.

Japer

nice_guy80 wrote: »

We have huge fishing grounds, but a very small fishing fleet
Think of the employment a proper fishing fleet could bring to isolated communities of Ireland around the coast.

the fish ain't there. We already have massive factory ships which have to go to the coast of Africa to get fish because with modern technology they have fished out stocks here

bbam

666irishguy wrote: »

Perhaps the production of bio-diesel on a large scale if it's possible..

This isn't really a runner..
We don't have sufficient quality land to grow the fuel crops..
Even if we did use the available land where would we get food crops from? Oats, wheat, barley and potatoes are currently grown on any land that is suitable for crops in Ireland, growing bio-fuel crops displaces these and reduces the available food supplies.. this leads to increases in basic food prices, so we may have cheaper "green" fuels but can't afford the basic food elements that we need...

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2012/0917/1224324089691.html

http://www.oxfam.org.uk/media-centre/press-releases/2012/09/biofuels-driving-up-prices

antoobrien

bbam wrote: »

This isn't really a runner..
We don't have sufficient quality land to grow the fuel crops..
Even if we did use the available land where would we get food crops from?

Lack of understanding of food production showing up here me thinks.

Crops like sugar beet can be used in crop rotation, so they will have minimal (if any) impact on the production of food.

Even more importantly we have a history of producing sugar beet here in Ireland (until we closed the factories). It doesn't require the best land either (there was a factory in Tuam - the land in the west is probably the poorest in the country).

It's also worth pointing out that we already produce oilseed rape (the bright yellow fields one might notice in certain parts of the country) - another potential source of biofuel without affecting the food crops.

bbam

antoobrien wrote: »

Lack of understanding of food production showing up here me thinks.

Crops like sugar beet can be used in crop rotation, so they will have minimal (if any) impact on the production of food.

Even more importantly we have a history of producing sugar beet here in Ireland (until we closed the factories). It doesn't require the best land either (there was a factory in Tuam - the land in the west is probably the poorest in the country).

It's also worth pointing out that we already produce oilseed rape (the bright yellow fields one might notice in certain parts of the country) - another potential source of biofuel without affecting the food crops.

If we were to plant enough fuel crops it would impact on food production. To have a meaningful bio fuel industry it would displace foods. This has proven to already be happening in other countries. Note I was responding to the poster that talked about large scale production of bio fuels.
It's only recommended to plant rape on in every four years. So to have a meaningful supply would require very large areas in cultivation. In the scheme of economically viable bio fuel production we just don't have enough viable land.

And I understand food production just fine thanks.

antoobrien

bbam wrote: »

If we were to plant enough fuel crops it would impact on food production. To have a meaningful bio fuel industry it would displace foods. This has proven to already be happening in other countries. Note I was responding to the poster that talked about large scale production of bio fuels.
It's only recommended to plant rape on in every four years. So to have a meaningful supply would require very large areas in cultivation. In the scheme of economically viable bio fuel production we just don't have enough viable land.

And I understand food production just fine thanks.

Looks like you didn't ready what I posted and are fairly ignorant of modern Irish farming practices.

We already have fairly large scale oilseed rape production which is not affecting food production and sugar beet production can easily happen on land that is not being used for food production.

Gurgle

bbam wrote: »

So to have a meaningful supply would require very large areas in cultivation. In the scheme of economically viable bio fuel production we just don't have enough viable land.

And I understand food production just fine thanks.

So for best yields of cash crops we need a 4-year rotation: Sugar beet -> Rape -> Garlic -> Marijuana

Trhiggy83

Default on the bankers debt and return to the punt .......problem solved

Idbatterim

taken from Ryanair full year results 2012

These higher oil prices next winter and the refusal of some monopoly airports (most notably Dublin & Stansted) to lower winter charges makes it more logical to ground up to 80 aircraft rather than suffer losses flying at very low winter yields in FY13.

I would have thought increasing tourism is one potential quick fix solution...

Gurgle

Trhiggy83 wrote: »

Default on the bankers debt and return to the punt .......problem solved

Excellent, that was easy.
I look forward to my new life in an unheated stone cottage on a 2 acre plot and raising my kids on potatoes and goats' milk.

galwayrush

Gurgle wrote: »

Excellent, that was easy.
I look forward to my new life in an unheated stone cottage on a 2 acre plot and raising my kids on potatoes and goats' milk.

But you would be able to borrow some punts at about 15% rate to improve your lot.

Trhiggy83

Gurgle wrote: »

Excellent, that was easy.
I look forward to my new life in an unheated stone cottage on a 2 acre plot and raising my kids on potatoes and goats' milk.

Might as well get a few sheep for that plot as well, there is plenty of them around who cant think for themselves at the minute

Gurgle

galwayrush wrote:

But you would be able to borrow some punts at about 15% rate to improve your lot.

If we abandon the euro and return to the punt, we'll be looking back with nostalgia at the good old days of 15% interest rates.

Trhiggy83 wrote: »

Might as well get a few sheep for that plot as well, there is plenty of them around who cant think for themselves at the minute

Yes, some people will believe anything :rolleyes:.

Gurgle

Idbatterim wrote: »

I would have thought increasing tourism is one potential quick fix solution...

We're living with a system where the people in charge would rather spend 50 million tagging 'The Gathering' onto every annual festival than reducing fees at the airports.

maynooth_rules

I know its only a small thing but in regards to tourism I really think a bigger push is needed to get Continental Europeans over here. Work with Ryanair, give them what they want for a trial period next summer and see will we get the numbers here as a result of that. Again this silly 'gathering' idea will focus on those furthest away in America and Oz. It seems like we are selective on our tourists and we are simply not doing enough to get those German, french, Spanish etc tourists who could come over here on a cheap Ryanair flight.
Also maybe discounted travel similar to our pensioners free travel passses for OAPs from the EU might help.