Household Charge Mega-Thread [Part 3] *Poll Reset*

darkhorse

lugha wrote: »

No it doesn’t matter in the slightest. I know full well nobody in their right mind would lend money to us were we to decide that we were going to cheerfully ignore our massive deficit and just and wait and see if we can’t grow out way out of it.

Well, unfortunately its not we who decide, its the people who were voted into power by a majority(albeit a disillusioned majority). Also, regarding bold, I guess we will never know.

Le_Dieux

paddy147 wrote: »

Mr Kenny told me on my telivision,that I was not to blame for all of this.

Thats great........(but the man is still making me pay for it,as if it was and is my fault)

So why cant/wont the goverment politicians lead by example then???

Why dont they all take pay cuts,chop down their advisors salaries,stop with all these stupid and excessive perks/claims??

The goverment should lead by example and stop filling up their own pockets even more

Been saying this for a long time now. If they were in industry, they'd have a rebellion on their hands now. Of course the slimy plebs would have got fired but lined their pockets with a fat pay-off.

dvpower

darkhorse wrote: »

On the one hand, you're saying ya would prefer us not to stack up massive public debt. Then on the other hand, you're saying that our immediate problem is our deficit. So, really, is'nt it a case of, damned if we do and damned if we dont. Therefore, would you agree, my learned friend, that our politicians should put a proposal to the troika and the germans, that we as a nation on it last legs, should defer austerity and debt and put the country bact to work, which would be in everyone's interest, because, you know as well as I do, lugha, this is not going to end well financially(as a matter of fact, my 11 year old grandson knows it).

How can we defer austerity and debt at the same time - doesn't deferring further debt mean also deferring further borrowing (which means more, not less, austerity)?
Or are you suggesting that our lenders should just let us off the repayments and continue to give, not lend, us further money?

As a little test, you might ask your grandson to simply hand over his pocket money to you from now on with no promise to pay him back. I think I know what little Gunter's response will be.

lugha

darkhorse wrote: »

….that our politicians should put a proposal to the troika….

So if problems can be eased by simply "putting forward proposals" then why do we have many people (and the number will grow) struggling with mortgages? After all, according to your logic, all they need do is do to their lender and put some proposal to them, perhaps pointing out (truthfully) that they are struggling desperately to keep up payments? Hey, maybe you have solved our mortgage crisis?

Alas of course, you can put all the proposals (even good ones) you want to your bank manager, he is going to do what is in the bank’s best interest (which occasionally will also be in your best interests, but that would be coincidental). Now if you actually had some leverage, something to bargain with, the game might change. You could go nuclear I suppose and rob the bank??

And it is the very same with the government’s dealing with the Troika. I simply do not see anything substantial we can use to bargain with. Then can hurt us a lot more than we can hurt them. I suppose we too could go nuclear and invite perhaps the North Koreans or Chinese to set up a massive military base in Wexford …….

darkhorse wrote: »

there is a lot of people in this country not terribly far from economic armageddon, and thats before the budget in December.

There are always people who struggle financially, that was so even during the boom. But I think you are badly mistaken if you think we have reached the lowest point, it hasn’t really started proper yet. It will get much, much worse before it gets better.

darkhorse wrote: »

Well, unfortunately its not we who decide …..

Finallly!!!! The penny drops!

darkhorse wrote: »

…. its the people who were voted into power by a majority

Oh wait, it doesn’t!

Whoever we vote into power only has very little influence on the path we take through the crisis. Everybody points out that the current government is taking almost exactly the same approach as the last one but fail to see the reason why they do. Which is because there is no real alternative.

It would be nice if we could take an a la carte approach to the problem and say for example, we would like you to keep lending us money so our economy doesn’t collapse completely but we don’t particularly like to have to reform our finances. And we definitely don’t want to have to take on banking debt and pay all those horrid bondholders.

Once again, I would point out that the Greeks, for all their protests (far more vociferous that ours) ultimately had to accept the reforms demanded of them. Had they not, it was obvious that the Troika were prepared to cut the funds that are keeping them afloat and let them fend for themselves. The deals they are getting are in relation to their debt. If they wanted more money lent to them, they had to put their house in order. Nobody wants to throw good money after bad.

darkhorse wrote: »

(albeit a disillusioned majority).

If anyone thought that this, or any other government, had some painless way out of the current crisis, then yes, they certainly were delusional. But I think most people know the score.

Am Chile wrote: »

I suspect other labour councillers will follow suit before the local elections as Labour are gonna take a heavy hit in 2014 local elections-

The government parties, and the smaller one’s in particular, always take a hit in the local elections, even when times are good. This seems to be a universal phenomena seen in many democracies.

And yes, there are politicians in every party who don’t have the cahunas for making, or standing over, the tough decisions. Nothing new there either.

donalg1

paddy147 wrote: »

Thing is that I didnt go on tele telling Ireland and its people that it wasnt their fault.

If we are all in this together,than why does Mr Kenny and the goverment not show leadership and lead by example and take some cuts,cut out all of these unbelievable TD allowences and expenses and stop breaking their own rules when it comes to advisors and salaries??


At the end of the day,are the people of Ireland not Enda Kennys boss???

Seen as "we as a country" elected him.


As another forum member pointed out a few pages back,the goverment politicians are lining their pockets even more now,than before.
But they are all on for taking as much as they can from the people of Ireland.



Oh and I allready took 2 big pay cuts from my employeers,but obviously thats not enough for Mr Kenny and Mr Noonan,and Mr Gilmore.


So when will the goverment minsiters take their BIG PAY CUTS????????

Yes they should take pay cuts, and scrap the allowances get rid of the unvouched expenses, but I dont think they will, instead it will be the low to middle income earners taking the pay cuts, and paying more taxes.

Bullseye1

Didn't FG say there was a deal done on the bank debt a few months ago? And not there is no deal on the debt, but we are a special case. Even if we could renegotiate with the Troika do you believe the monkies in government have the ability to get a good deal? There is still the matter of 3.5 billion to be paid to our own central bank at the beginning of 2013.

FG and Labour, and for that matter the rest of the idiots in Dail haven't got the intelligence to get us out of the mess this country is in. It will take the people of this country, the entrepreneurs to create employment. The very people go ernment have abandoned to support a low corporation tax to companies who have no problem pulling out of this country at the drop of a hat.

It's all very well supporting the low coorperation rate IF you also make it easier for SMEs to do business.

Bullseye1

donalg1 wrote: »

Yes they should take pay cuts, and scrap the allowances get rid of the unvouched expenses, but I dont think they will, instead it will be the low to middle income earners taking the pay cuts, and paying more taxes.

And yet those people who protest giving them more money until they get their own house in order make little of the protest. The irony here is that the same people are telling us that we the Irish People have to get our house in order to get the necessary money to pay for the everyday running of he country. But when some of us question government spending its meaningless, "ad sure its only a few million here and there"..

tayto lover

lugha wrote: »

No it doesn’t matter in the slightest. I know full well nobody in their right mind would lend money to us were we to decide that we were going to cheerfully ignore our massive deficit and just and wait and see if we can’t grow out way out of it.

Even if there was a policy change form the European power brokers (and continue to pretend if you wish that we might be able to exercise any real influence over them to move them in such a direction) I think they would still insist that we continue with efforts to close the gap.

Well it looks as if the Greeks are not bowing the knee and will get their debt spread out. It's either that or default and bring down the euro.
I wonder which way the Germans will have it?

Chips Lovell

The Greek deal will get their debt in 2020 down to a level where our's is set to peak in 2014.

bgrizzley

lugha wrote: »

And the Greeks did try the big protest thing but ultimately the accepted, more or less, the terms that were dictated to them. If they didn’t, they would not have been bailed out. And neither will we.

http://www.independent.ie/business/video-euimf-agrees-deal-to-cut-greek-debt-by-40bn-3308156.html

Chips Lovell

Are people seriously favourably comparing the Greek situation to ours?

Ghandee

Vladimir Kurtains wrote: »

Are people seriously favourably comparing the Greek situation to ours?

They're only pointing out that a deal is possible, if fought for (I think).
Best boy in class is clearly getting us nowhere.

Chips Lovell

What people don't seem to understand is that we'd need to be vastly, vastly more screwed than we are to get anything like a deal that Greece just got.

And that even with that deal, Greece is still in a much worse position than we are in right now.

Hijpo

Vladimir Kurtains wrote: »

What people don't seem to understand is that we'd need to be vastly, vastly more screwed than we are to get anything like a deal that Greece just got.

And that even with that deal, Greece is still in a much worse position than we are in right now.

Well we certainly wont get a deal if it is seen that ireland has enough money to be wasted on bloated pensions, salaries and allowances

Chips Lovell

Cutting public expenditure would make us even less likely to get a renegotiated deal, not more.

In order to get to where Greece is, our government would probably need to engage in a massive splurge of fiscal irresponsibility that would make the first Haughey government look parsimonious by comparison.

tayto lover

Vladimir Kurtains wrote: »

Cutting public expenditure would make us even less likely to get a renegotiated deal, not more.

In order to get to where Greece is, our government would probably need to engage in a massive splurge of fiscal irresponsibility that would make the first Haughey government look parsimonious by comparison.

Don't worry we're getting there Vlad and fast too.

Our Govt, while in opposition, sat idly by while the last Govt got us into such trouble. Enda never muttered a word. In fact where is Enda? The only time I see him is when he's in Europe with Angela. He's rarely on t.v. involved in political debates. He seems to shun all kinds of interviews unless he has the questions in advance and the interviewer sticks to the prepared script. Around this time last year he made his infamous broadcast where he told us it was not our faults but weeks later he told the Europeans that we went mad and it was our fault. Where is he hiding? He is not showing his people his leadership skills.

Hijpo

Vladimir Kurtains wrote: »

Cutting public expenditure would make us even less likely to get a renegotiated deal, not more.

In order to get to where Greece is, our government would probably need to engage in a massive splurge of fiscal irresponsibility that would make the first Haughey government look parsimonious by comparison.

Ahhh so thats why they give themselfs raises

Chips Lovell

tayto lover wrote: »

Don't worry we're getting there Vlad and fast too.

The thing is, we aren't. We're by and large hitting the targets agreed with the troika. So any Greek-style renegotiation thankfully isn't on the cards.

Ghandee

Vladimir Kurtains wrote: »

The thing is, we aren't. We're by and large hitting the targets agreed with the troika. So any Greek-style renegotiation thankfully isn't on the cards.

Why should we be thankful that we're not getting a deal that would result on a write down of a debt that does not belong to the Irish tax payers?

Forget the deficit for a while here, if we got a write down on the bank debt (that should not have been thrust on to tax payers to begin with) we would have a great headstart on tackling the deficit without throwing good money after bad!

Chips Lovell

Ghandee wrote: »

Why should we be thankful that we're not getting a deal that would result on a write down of a debt that does not belong to the Irish tax payers?

Because the only way we would have gotten such a deal would be if our economy had been in the same utter state that Greece's is in. Bear in mind too that even after this, Greece is still is a far worse place than we are. You don't want that, do you?

Ghandee

Vladimir Kurtains wrote: »

Because the only way we would have gotten such a deal would be if our economy had been in the same utter state that Greece's is in. Bear in mind too that even after this, Greece is still is a far worse place than we are. You don't want that, do you?

Are you saying, (worse shape than Greece or not) that you're ok with the Irish state being lumbered with debts that should not belong/or be associated with it?

How could the Bank debt's, being either written down, or even better, completely wiped from our overall debt burden, possibly be bad for us?

Chips Lovell

I didn't say that getting our debt reduced would be bad for us. I said that it wouldn't happen, because we, unlike Greece, are hitting our targets.

DoesNotCompute

Leading economic expert Professor John Fitzgerald says property tax is preferable to income tax, as it less damaging to employment.

lugha

donalg1 wrote: »

Yes they should take pay cuts, and scrap the allowances get rid of the unvouched expenses, but I dont think they will, instead it will be the low to middle income earners taking the pay cuts, and paying more taxes.

Instead? Surely you haven’t been convinced by the lads here that some hefty cuts targeted at the political classes will do the trick? “As well as”, maybe. But it won’t be “instead of”

Their pay is linked to civil service pay scales so it is unlikely that you will see their pay cut any further (bar a possible further voluntary cut) until the PS elephant is tackled. Ironically, I think part of the reason why political remuneration is so excessive is because so many people are perpetually complaining about it, and this is true even in good times.
Even if you halved their salaries there would be still a sizable number who would still think it is too much, so I suspect they might well reason that if they are going to be getting loads of grief about it, no matter what they level ….

hijpo wrote: »

Ahhh so thats why they give themselfs raises

Did they? :mad: I’m outraged (though I kinda think that they didn’t)

Ghandee wrote: »

Best boy in class is clearly getting us nowhere.

It is getting us a 13 billion loan this year, without which we would be completely screwed. And I do think there may be dividend, albeit a tenuous one, in being the good boy. If they shaft us after getting our straight A’s they will have a far greater task in persuading the larger economies to, shall we say, “embrace their vision” if the need arises in the future.
And in any case, it hardly matters how bad plan A is unless someone comes up with a plan B.

lugha

DoesNotCompute wrote: »

Leading economic expert Professor John Fitzgerald says property tax is preferable to income tax, as it less damaging to employment.

In before "But his daddy was a blueshirt!" :pac:

bgrizzley

lugha wrote: »

In before "But his daddy was a blueshirt!" :pac:

what kind of an economist thinks a Carbon tax is for raising revenue?

tayto lover

bgrizzley wrote: »

what kind of an economist thinks a Carbon tax is for raising revenue?

If we were not needlessly paying 3.1 billion in March to bondholders we wouldn't need this budget or property tax at all. That is a sickening fact.

Le_Dieux

tayto lover wrote: »

Don't worry we're getting there Vlad and fast too.

Our Govt, while in opposition, sat idly by while the last Govt got us into such trouble. Enda never muttered a word. In fact where is Enda? The only time I see him is when he's in Europe with Angela. He's rarely on t.v. involved in political debates. He seems to shun all kinds of interviews unless he has the questions in advance and the interviewer sticks to the prepared script. Around this time last year he made his infamous broadcast where he told us it was not our faults but weeks later he told the Europeans that we went mad and it was our fault. Where is he hiding? He is not showing his people his leadership skills.

Tayto, didn't You see him last Saturday....drinking a carlsberg;)

Le_Dieux

Am Chile wrote: »

Labour has lost a counciller in clonmel-his reasons outlined for leaving the labour party.



http://clonmelonline.com/2012/11/cllr-darren-ryan-resigns-from-labour-party/

With local elections just over a year and half away I think its a very wise move by Darren to resign a member of the Labour party that have sold out and betrayed the working class voters they claim to represent-I suspect other labour councillers will follow suit before the local elections as Labour are gonna take a heavy hit in 2014 local elections-

And rightly so! Have a hunch they'll be another PD in the making, unless they either 1) ditch the BMW chauffeur driven gombeen of a leader ( and promote Róisín Shortall ) or 2)Wake up and reign the fg'ers in. But of course, what does gilmore worry about? He'll have a fat pension for life.

Grrrrr:mad:

dxhound2005

Bullseye1 wrote: »

Didn't FG say there was a deal done on the bank debt a few months ago? And not there is no deal on the debt, but we are a special case. Even if we could renegotiate with the Troika do you believe the monkies in government have the ability to get a good deal? There is still the matter of 3.5 billion to be paid to our own central bank at the beginning of 2013.

FG and Labour, and for that matter the rest of the idiots in Dail haven't got the intelligence to get us out of the mess this country is in. It will take the people of this country, the entrepreneurs to create employment. The very people go ernment have abandoned to support a low corporation tax to companies who have no problem pulling out of this country at the drop of a hat.

It's all very well supporting the low coorperation rate IF you also make it easier for SMEs to do business.

If I pointed out your inability to spell monkeys correctly I would get into trouble. So I will just ask are you of such superior intelligence yourself that you feel free to issue this sort of abuse? Would you like to be called and idiot?