Occupy Galway Group (mod note added)

Wompa1

biko wrote: »

I'm am a "floater", very left on some issues, sometimes centre and sometimes right-wing. All depends on the issues I guess.

Yeah, I'm probably the same. The picture doesn't do well for the not everyones a crusty argument I'm afraid :P

Talking bout the issues but we're keeping it funky!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmLHOGT0v4c

Mrs OBumble

Wompa1 wrote: »

I'd actually probably fall under as being more centre/right than left to be honest. I have friends that think the wealthy in the country should be paying 50% tax...

And I'm fairly left / environmentalist overall, but with a strong dislike of the lack of personal responsibility that's an unintended consequence of some welfare interventions, and an appreciation that the top 20% pay the vast majority of the actual tax that is paid.

In 2008/09/10, I had either no work or every little, my income put me in the "pay no tax" bracket. As a result of some hard work before that, I have a very modest residential house overseas, which actually prevents me from getting welfare assistance! Thankfully overseas invesment means I've been able to get reasonably paying work here again.

I have problems with capitalism - but it's better than is every alternative I know about.

And I cannot see how these protests are going to help either the individuals concerned (residential address "Tent 3, Eyre Square" isn't attractive to prospective employers!), or society at large.

Wompa1

Wompa1 wrote: »

I'd actually probably fall under as being more centre/right than left to be honest. I have friends that think the wealthy in the country should be paying 50% tax...I don't agree with that either. There has to be a happy middle ground that can be worked out. I'm middle class but I think wealth is a great incentive for people to strive to achieve. A lot of people dream of being millionaires..

At the same time, it's been made glaringly obvious that certain sectors in this country are out of control and corrupt. Politicians, Bankers, Universities, Sporting bodies etc. Social welfare needs a lot more restrictions too.

Well, I couldn't have you thinking I was left

When you consider the marginal Income tax rate (41%), PRSI (4%) and the marginal USC (7%) the tax rate on the richest is already 52%.

http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/it/leaflets/it1.html#section3

Wompa1

JustMary wrote: »

And I'm fairly left / environmentalist overall, but with a strong dislike of the lack of personal responsibility that's an unintended consequence of some welfare interventions!

In 2008/09/10, I had either no work or every little, my income put me in the "pay no tax" bracket. As a result of some hard work before that, I have a very modest residential house overseas, which actually prevents me from getting welfare assistance! Thankfully overseas invesment means I've been able to get reasonably paying work here again.

I have problems with capitalism - but it's better than is every alternative I know about.

And I cannot see how these protests are going to help either the individuals concerned (residential address "Tent 3, Eyre Square" isn't attractive to prospective employers!), or society at large.

I would think the idea is to highlight the discontent amongst the working class. It's still the upper class which is pulling the strings and they'll continue to do things in an unfair way if it's simply ignored.

The protests will need to get much larger and more vocal but as long as the groups are being organized by people with alterior motives, that won't happen.

Listening to the radio yesterday morning on Newstalk they seemed to suggest a lot of countries Occupy protests had been sidetracked by different groups trying to lump their issues into the Occupy movements. That won't work.

Wompa1

Deleted User wrote: »

When you consider the marginal Income tax rate (41%), PRSI (4%) and the marginal USC (7%) the tax rate on the richest is already 52%.

http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/it/leaflets/it1.html#section3

I was thinking more of pure income tax but good point. Plus more of, drop income tax for middle class and raise it hugely for the upper class. So if it happened that middle class paid something like 15% and upper class paid 50% That wouldn't be great in my eyes...even though I'd stand to pay a lot less tax

inisboffin

JustMary wrote: »

8am. The 53% are up, showered, dressed and heading to work. No signs of life from the 99% camp yet.

Not all of the 53% are up! Plenty of barstaff, hotelstaff, musicians etc probably *still* in their leabas!;)

inisboffin

What a day to be out in it. Were there many tents when you passed this morning JustMary?

Wompa1

inisboffin wrote: »

Not all of the 53% are up! Plenty of barstaff, hotelstaff, musicians etc probably *still* in their leabas!;)

I had an ex that use to say that too, when I'd point out the throngs of people in Galway in the middle of the day in Galway. Numbers don't correlate....in my opinion anyway

inisboffin

JustMary wrote: »

And I cannot see how these protests are going to help either the individuals concerned (residential address "Tent 3, Eyre Square" isn't attractive to prospective employers!), or society at large.

I think we were chatting about this recently in another thread, but I actually *remember* when someone's address was 'blue tent, the swamp, Galway'! They were in College at the time afaik.

Mrs OBumble

inisboffin wrote: »

Not all of the 53% are up! Plenty of barstaff, hotelstaff, musicians etc probably *still* in their leabas!;)

Yeah, but they are probably on their weekend, or were working until 1am.

I loathe the 1% / 99% and even 53% labels. But they seem effective at describing the perspective here. (What was the % that voted FG at the election???)

At 8:05am, there were 6 or 7 tents still in place. The larger one had been moved to the opposite end from where it was yestereday.

inisboffin

Wompa1 wrote: »

I had an ex that use to say that too, when I'd point out the throngs of people in Galway in the middle of the day in Galway. Numbers don't correlate....in my opinion anyway

I'm not saying they're all workers, but it's a fact that a lot of people I know who work don't have 9-5 hours by any means, therefore don't usually be up at 8am.

inisboffin

JustMary wrote: »

Yeah, but they are probably on their weekend, or were working until 1am.

At 8:05am, there were 6 or 7 tents still in place. The larger one had been moved to the opposite end from where it was yestereday.

Yeah that's what I meant!

There were only 4 there when I passed, so it seems more have joined them.
I would have expected less midweek. The London one in St Pauls has a lot of (9-5ers I'd assume) people joining them on their weekend and then back to work Monday.

bloo

biko wrote: »

I'm am a "floater".

Indeed you are biko









....sorry couldn't resist

inisboffin

Today's Irish Times

Mahell

bloo wrote: »

Indeed you are biko









....sorry couldn't resist

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Deadly! Assuming I'm understanding it correctly. It's a poo joke right?

biko

Was wondering if anyone would pick up on that when I wrote it. Or that it means dead body in water.

Irishgoatman

JustMary wrote: »

What sort of oaks do you have in mind? I'm not sure i fancy eyre square as a halting site ...

Only just seen this.

It's nice to see a moderator adding such an intelligent posting on this thread. I'm sure that at least she know what she's talking about.

Irishgoatman

I've just got fully up to date with this thread and it's good to see that some people are beginning to understand what it's all about.

Although there are others, two that stood out, to me, are Bozacke and Zootshooter. I suggest that anyone who hasn't read their postings should do so.

I'm not going to attempt to name the posters who just seem to be wasting time as there are far too many IMHO.

Bozacke

zarquon wrote: »

I am merely trying to see how you qualify to offer suggestion on the national finance problem and i dissagree that it is very consequential. As i have said people that cannot manage personal finance properly are completely disqualified from trying to input on the national finance issues as they have no track record and are clearly poor descision makers. My salary is below 30K but i have never been in dept and manage my finances carefully and have managed to put plenty of savings away over the years. I simply cannot tolerate others earning far in excess of me that whinge and complain about their financial difficulties and how it's big corporations and goverments that are to blame when the individuals make the poor choices. Goverments don't force me to take car loans, credit card debt or mortgages. People always look for scapegoats.

As you still won't declare your qualification to offer advice or opinion on financial matters there is very little i can do in this case. I will simply say that in life the advice of successful people is usually more prudent than those of unsuccessful people. Of course this is a forum for all voices to be heard but not all voices are correct.

First of all I am not unsuccessful and I clearly make a lot more than you. I am not broke and never said I was nor did I say I had the answers to all the financial problems. That being said I had some answers before the crash, since I predicted the crash, although I had expected it to come a few years earlier but I suspect the only reason the crash didn't come earlier was because the property bubble was propped up by Fianna Fail. Despite my predictions, unfortunately my personal situation and my timing being a little off didn't allow me to prepare adequately for the subsequent crash.

All I'm trying to say is clearly we are all hurting, at least the 99% are hurting, with our salaries, equity, investments and pensions decreased while most of our costs have increased. Meanwhile the richer are getting even richer and the spread between the rich and the poor is getting further and further apart. I'm not looking for any hand-outs and I am not preaching that anyone should get something for nothing and I also believe that hard work should be rewarded and success is a great incentive for hard work. Unfortunately, hard work and good ideas aren't always enough, since the system can be a bit fixed, not all the time but in many cases. Remember, no one becomes rich on their own, even if they are an inventor, which very few of the rich are, they need others to supply, produce, sell and support for them to obtain their wealth and in most cases the wealth isn't properly distributed. This lop-sidedness in wealth is wrong and evil. I'm not saying hard work and ingenuity shouldn't be rewarded and I'm not saying anyone should get something for nothing, but things aren't right. As far as taxes, someone mentioned about all the poor that don't pay taxes, well i pay plenty of tax and what about all of the rich that don't pay taxes due to loopholes.

There's clearly something wrong with a system where a company that's making huge profits can fire good and hardworking loyal long time employees, because they can replace that person with someone else that costs less not to be more competitive, but so the company can receive even greater profits. These are the same companies that had received numerous grants and tax breaks to create the jobs in the first place.

Something needs to be done, for many of the workers’ rights around the world that people fought to improve for hundreds of years are slowly being taken away. Yes, there may be some strange people protesting and not all may completely understand the message and some may have their own agenda. But the point is we need to protest and speak up before it's too late.

So my question is, if the 99% are hurting and the 1% isn't why are other members of the 99% criticising and making a laugh of those protesting? Yes, they aren't perfect and their message needs to be clearer, but to me the main message is loud and clear - the 1% have too much. I'm not asking for Communism, but the laws need to change and things need to be more balanced. I find it strange that someone who only makes 30K a year could protest the protestors! It reminds me of the misguided "Joe the Plumber" during the US Presidential election who criticised Obama because he wanted to tax the rich. It later emerged that "Joe" was far from rich even broke and he was against a tax system that would have been a lot more favourable to him, why? Because Joe like many is brainwashed by the media that this is all bad "Socialism", meanwhile these same rich that claim to be Capitalists are quick to put their hands out for any grants, tax-breaks or bail-outs available.

Am I out in the streets protesting? Not yet, because I'm too busy with a job and a family and maybe I'm a bit to apathetic too, but I certainly wouldn't criticise those protesting, on the contrary I applaud them and if things get much worse we may all be out their protesting with them, let's hope it doesn't get to that, but if changes aren't made soon, I'm afraid it will!!

Ficheall

Bozacke wrote: »

someone mentioned about all the poor that don't pay taxes, well i pay plenty of tax

You're not poor though, are you? Seemingly you make "a lot more" than 30k.

Bozacke wrote: »

There's clearly something wrong with a system where a company that's making huge profits can fire good and hardworking loyal long time employees, because they can replace that person with someone else that costs less not to be more competitive, but so the company can receive even greater profits.

There are issues with capitalism, certainly, but unless there are some hefty contracts, I don't see why it's unreasonable that a company should reduce costs to maximise profit. That's how a free-ish market should work.

cheesemaker

Yes, fair play to anyone agreeing with FG policies

http://www.theantiroom.com/2011/10/17/guest-post-thank-you-timothy-geithner/

Bozacke

Ficheall wrote: »

You're not poor though, are you? Seemingly you make "a lot more" than 30k.

Ficheall,
I'm not poor, although even though I live a very modest and frugal lifestyle I find it very difficult to support my family and survive and things are just getting worse. yes, over 30K isn't poor, but it's not even comfortable if you have a family to support. Yes 30K a year is a great salary if you live with Mammy and Daddy and don't pay rent, but that's about it!

Ficheall wrote: »

There are issues with capitalism, certainly, but unless there are some hefty contracts, I don't see why it's unreasonable that a company should reduce costs to maximise profit. That's how a free-ish market should work.

OK, so you're saying that a company should maximise profits as much as possible, so if a company wants to maximise their profits it's OK to move the labour force to China which is cheaper than Ireland and then move it to children which is cheaper than the Chinese adults, have them work for longer hours and a 7 day week at the same pay and then remove all of the safety requirements since that way they can maximise profits even more. This is all fair and well in a free market system. Then to maximise profits even more they shouldn't have to pay taxes either. All from a company that may have had pretty good profits in the first place. Where does it end? Then if the same company runs into any trouble, they'll expect grants and hand-outs to prop them up.

facebook.com/pages/Occupy-Galway
Lifted from the occupy Galway page on Facebook.

Their manifesto is the same as Dame Street.

Occupy Galway #OccupyGalway A statement from Occupy Dame Street:

''Our demand is that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) stay out of our affairs. We do not want their influence or control.

Our demand is that the private bank debt that has been socialised and burdened upon the population of the country who had nothing to do with it be lifted. We will not pay and let our children and their children pay for this crisis that private banks and bondholders have caused. It is their problem, not ours.

Our demand is that the oil and gas reserves off our coast that were criminally handed away to private corporations be returned to sovereign control.

Our demand is for real, participatory democracy – where the people’s interests come first, where the people decide what happens.''

We agree with them 100% on each of those matters. That's our statement too. Anything else you need?

My problems with the above are as follows:
We need the IMF - we are spending more than we collect in taxes. The end goal of the IMF is to get us back on our own feet. Kicking them out now would involve immediate even worse austerity.

On bank debt - unfortunately this is a few years too late - to cut them off now would just put us back in the position we were in in 2008 and would not get any of the money already spent back.

There is no oil. Shell haven't managed to bring any gas ashore yet. The rules have been changed and are much more favourable than they were but we can't be demanding Norwegian terms without Norwegian returns.

There was a general election in February with a 70% turnout. If it didn't return who you wanted then it means you don't represent 'the people'.

I get that they are unhappy and would like change but camping in Eyre Square isn't going to change anything. My suggestion would be to put their energies into some sort of co-operative that would generate work or provide a market for people's skills, find alternative uses for NAMA properties etc. Maybe using any surplus for charity or activism or whatever.

antoobrien

Deleted User wrote: »

facebook.com/pages/Occupy-Galway
Lifted from the occupy Galway page on Facebook.

Their manifesto is the same as Dame Street.

My problems with the above are as follows:
We need the IMF - we are spending more than we collect in taxes. The end goal of the IMF is to get us back on our own feet. Kicking them out now would involve immediate even worse austerity.

On bank debt - unfortunately this is a few years too late - to cut them off now would just put us back in the position we were in in 2008 and would not get any of the money already spent back.

There is no oil. Shell haven't managed to bring any gas ashore yet. The rules have been changed and are much more favourable than they were but we can't be demanding Norwegian terms without Norwegian returns.

There was a general election in February with a 70% turnout. If it didn't return who you wanted then it means you don't represent 'the people'.

I get that they are unhappy and would like change but camping in Eyre Square isn't going to change anything. My suggestion would be to put their energies into some sort of co-operative that would generate work or provide a market for people's skills, find alternative uses for NAMA properties etc. Maybe using any surplus for charity or activism or whatever.

At last some sense from this thread

JJayoo

Why not make a list of the people responsible for this whole mess, and then camp outside their houses.

JJayoo

I'm sure Frank Fahey has a nice big lawn we could all camp in.

Mrs OBumble

Deleted User wrote: »

There was a general election in February with a 70% turnout. If it didn't return who you wanted then it means you don't represent 'the people'.

I don't normally do replies to say "+1" ... but I think this point needs some magnification:

"There was a general election in February with a 70% turnout. If it didn't return who you wanted then it means you don't represent 'the people'."



Recent observations from the Eyre Square halting site:

Tents are now secured to the ground with sandbags and/or large lumps of rock/concrete. Several are now mounted on wooden racks, with spare racks beside some others. I presume that this is to aid in drainage. At about 10:30pm, they were trying to tie a large tarpaulin over several of the tents. I'm not sure that this will stand up to much wind, though.

Dave Joyce

My God, talk about some people not having a clue! Have you any idea how much the Galway developers ALONE owe to NAMA?? And while not all of them have stiffed sub contractors (particularly one nice individual who at this moment in time is up to his oxters but STILL has some lifestyle), SOME have left small sub contractors in the crapper by refusing to pay them. This kind of crap was going on BEFORE we took a nose dive! They would be very close EVEN NOW to the 1%, even though they are in NAMA:rolleyes:, they're living it up....albeit more discreetly.

And then we have the beauties who screw their staff in order to make more profits for THEMSELVES. I know of one individual who told his staff they were taking a big pay cut cause times were bad and they wouldn't survive without doing so, only for his staff to read in one of the nationals that the company had made record profits!!!

We need the IMF - we are spending more than we collect in taxes. The end goal of the IMF is to get us back on our own feet. Kicking them out now would involve immediate even worse austerity.

The end goal is to keep us going as default from us or any of the other countries could bring the house of cards down. They don't give a crap about Ireland and just wait and see what Merkel and Sarky have in plan for Framany....sorry Europe.

On bank debt - unfortunately this is a few years too late - to cut them off now would just put us back in the position we were in in 2008 and would not get any of the money already spent back.

So just keep giving them more:rolleyes:, us ordinary gobsheens can afford a good more yet.

There is no oil. Shell haven't managed to bring any gas ashore yet. The rules have been changed and are much more favourable than they were but we can't be demanding Norwegian terms without Norwegian returns.

SO, its cool to let Shell take everything we have and get NOTHING in return. And our politicans regardless of whatever party got NOTHING for providing the resources.......yea right :rolleyes:

You're not poor though, are you? Seemingly you make "a lot more" than 30k.

So fecking what, I don't care how much ANYONE makes, PROVIDING they're not riding some poor unfortunate gobsheen in order to do so.

chuckliddell

think i'll head into Neachtains tomorrow for a few pints, i'd say the takings are down this week,

on a more serious note tho, any word on the Christmas Market this year, hope it'll not be affected by this pajama party.

biko

Drove past earlier, must be freezing for them. Fair play, I wouldn't want to camp out in this cold.