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Socially and Economically Liberal Party in Ireland

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    #32
    alastair
    Registered Users Posts: 19,309 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.
    Hmm. You don't need to be any sort of economic liberal to object to bailouts or new taxes. The social issues are more mainstay leftist issues, and I doubt you'll find too many young people opposed to 'powerful unions' or 'expansive welfare'. In fact I'd say quite the opposite.
    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.
    Wow - these kids are really happening - man! Not like those insular, inhibited, dull, and enslaved left-of-centre kids in their gulags, eh?
    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.
    Down with hijabs, taxes and unemployment! Up with dancing in the street to Pharrell Williams and his associated opposition to social support mechanisms!
    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.
    It does beg the question however - why do these street-dancing, Internet-enabled, champions of personal freedoms continue to vote for primarily non-libertarian parties then? It's as if there was some manner of flaw in this particular narrative?


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    #33
    Idbatterim
    Registered Users Posts: 17,852 ✭✭✭✭Idbatterim


    vote of for anyone on an issue are the crazy far right wing nut jobs.
    Who are these crazy far right wing nut jobs voting for? Our idea of of right wing here is hilarious!


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    #34
    Tabnabs
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 15,716 Mod ✭✭✭✭Tabnabs


    The closest thing to a "successful" party with these credentials in Europe, is the Danish Liberal Alliance party

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Alliance_%28Denmark%29#Politics


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    #35
    conorhal
    Registered Users Posts: 6,995 ✭✭✭conorhal


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.

    What you're describing is the narcissism of a sociopathic society that has collapsed all forms of social cohesion, ironically the adherents of such a model fail to realize what easy prey it makes them for the sociopathic corporatists and oligarchs that want to strip them of any kind of rights at all.
    The socialists used to say of social cohesion 'five fingers makes a fist', but when you atomize a society and spread the metacarpals and metatarsals of it's corpse across the graveyard of the state, you won't even be able to raise a single finger when you find yourself working a zero hour contract job with too few or two many hours to afford you the care free life you aspire to, because I assure you that lifestyle only exists in conjunctions with peoples ability to stand up for themselves.

    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.

    Just as one swallow doesn’t make a summer, one Arab girl dancing to ‘happy’ does not make an Arab spring.
    If anything the Arab Spring UNDERLINED how fast the twitter generations revolution could be ground under the heel of an organization like the Muslim Brotherhood that had the organization and people on the ground, everybody that thought a new day had dawned were quickly disabused of the notion. No doubt in Iran, that girl will quickly learn that technology can be used just as effectively to sniff out dissent as it can be to spread it.


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    #36
    AngryLips
    Registered Users Posts: 2,705 ✭✭✭AngryLips


    Tabnabs wrote: »
    The closest thing to a "successful" party with these credentials in Europe, is the Danish Liberal Alliance party

    Someone suggested the NEO party in Austria ...but I don't know much about them.


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    #37
    Tabnabs
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 15,716 Mod ✭✭✭✭Tabnabs


    AngryLips wrote: »
    Someone suggested the NEO party in Austria ...but I don't know much about them.

    http://europa.neos.eu/ But you'll have to run it through google translate.


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    #38
    Idbatterim
    Registered Users Posts: 17,852 ✭✭✭✭Idbatterim


    If the appeal of social and economic liberalism is on the rise is Britain, it is almost certainly on the rise in Ireland too, given our shared culture. It's not hard to find young people who object to the country's banking bailouts, high taxes, expansive welfare state, and powerful unions, who also object to state regulations on abortion, divorce, and gay marriage.
    Yeah that hits me nail on the head, my brother also... Im 30, he's 25...


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    #39
    Karl Stein
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,689 ✭✭✭Karl Stein


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.

    'Shared culture'. Such stomach churning platitudes to our former colonists.
    But young people today are far more individualistic, far less likely to fall prey to priests, nationalists, and socialists who want them to serve collectivist abstractions like Church, Nation, or Society.

    This is really quite funny coming from someone who ceaselessly preaches of the evils of 'statism'.
    All over the world, media, technology, trade, cheap travel, and free-flow of information are hastening the end of the collectivist era.

    Except in all those collectivist oriented countries where it isn't.
    Young people want opportunities, they want excitement, they want to have fun and to be free,

    They always have.
    and they want the government to get the f*** out of the way.

    Perhaps the one's indoctrinated, like the Tea Party dupes, by your creed say such meaningless propagandistic sound bites.
    Young Iranian women are ditching their hijabs and dancing in the streets to Pharrell Williams.

    *cringe*


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    #40
    GaelMise
    Registered Users Posts: 542 ✭✭✭GaelMise


    comongethappy wrote: »
    Example?

    I haven't read much corporate welfare endorsement here?

    No, but you did attack welfare for the poor, while ignoring corporate welfare. Which suggests to me that you see one as being a problem and the other not so much.


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    #41
    comongethappy
    Registered Users Posts: 2,753 ✭✭✭comongethappy


    GaelMise wrote: »
    No, but you did attack welfare for the poor, while ignoring corporate welfare. Which suggests to me that you see one as being a problem and the other not so much.

    Did I?

    Can't I take issue with both?

    Does every post seeking a curb on the welfare state HAVE to explicitly seek a curb on corporate assistance?


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    #42
    p1akuw47h5r3it
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,001 ✭✭✭p1akuw47h5r3it


    Karl Stein wrote: »
    'Shared culture'. Such stomach churning platitudes to our former colonists.


    Stomach churning platitudes? It's simply a fact.


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    #43
    SupaNova2
    Registered Users Posts: 515 ✭✭✭SupaNova2


    Karl Stein wrote: »
    *cringe*

    Why *cringe* ?


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    #44
    jank
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 13,018 ✭✭✭✭jank


    alastair wrote: »
    and I doubt you'll find too many young people opposed to 'powerful unions' or 'expansive welfare'. In fact I'd say quite the opposite.

    I am 33 and I do not know anyone either in Ireland or Australia or NZ that I know of or my friends that are either a member of a union or involved. The idea of a unions for your average educated 20-30 something is just far fetched in this day and age. The only place where unions are getting new recruits are in places like the PS e.g. teachers, Gardai and so on. This is not only an Irish phenomenon, it is happening all over the western world.

    As old world union heavy industry gives way to service oriented new industries like media, IT, pharma, biotech then unions will go the way of the dodo. They are holding out in state services but in private industry they are almost all but gone.

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/membership-fall-crisis-for-unions/story-fnbkvnk7-1226343081983

    Roll on 20 years where these 20-30 somethings will become the leaders of the next generation, where do you think the new leaders of unions will come from?


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    #45
    jank
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 13,018 ✭✭✭✭jank


    Karl Stein wrote: »
    'Shared culture'. Such stomach churning platitudes to our former colonists.


    Are you denying that Ireland has a long and shared history and culture with the British and UK? We are more like them than any other nation on earth. Your hatred of them cannot get in the way of that fact.


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    #46
    alastair
    Registered Users Posts: 19,309 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    jank wrote: »
    I am 33 and I do not know anyone either in Ireland or Australia or NZ that I know of or my friends that are either a member of a union or involved. The idea of a unions for your average educated 20-30 something is just far fetched in this day and age. The only place where unions are getting new recruits are in places like the PS e.g. teachers, Gardai and so on. This is not only an Irish phenomenon, it is happening all over the western world.

    As old world union heavy industry gives way to service oriented new industries like media, IT, pharma, biotech then unions will go the way of the dodo. They are holding out in state services but in private industry they are almost all but gone.

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/membership-fall-crisis-for-unions/story-fnbkvnk7-1226343081983

    Roll on 20 years where these 20-30 somethings will become the leaders of the next generation, where do you think the new leaders of unions will come from?
    There's still an awful lot of people in unions - even in the private sector, and why assume that those of us who aren't in unions are opposed to union membership for others? I've never joined a union, but support those who do. I'd rather unions were powerful than weak, if only because I see nothing wrong in collective representation for workers. The defence of worker's rights isn't an issue that's going to go away, and therefore, the need for trade union's isn't either.


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    #47
    jank
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 13,018 ✭✭✭✭jank


    alastair wrote: »
    There's still an awful lot of people in unions - even in the private sector, and why assume that those of us who aren't in unions are opposed to union membership for others? I've never joined a union, but support those who do. I'd rather unions were powerful than weak, if only because I see nothing wrong in collective representation for workers. The defence of worker's rights isn't an issue that's going to go away, and therefore, the need for trade union's isn't either.

    Vast majority of people are not in unions however, and the trend is clearly in falling membership. Classic case is the auto industry in the US.

    If you support powerful unions in Ireland then you support the gombeenism, clientism and vested interests dictating terms and conditions to democratically elected representatives. You support inflated public sector wages and pensions and therefore you support taxing private industry to pay for these 'entitlements'. Hence why Ireland is so taxes yet the average working man/woman sees very little in benefit from this.

    People should of course be free to join a union, out of their own accord and free will, however in some industries one has to join a union even if they do not want to. In my opinion a teacher should be able to negotiate their own wages and contracts with their school, collective bargaining creates dinosaurs.

    Regarding workers rights. When did unions really care about 'workers' rights other than their own members and ultimately their own pay packet. Didn't a public sector union recently state that their own wages should be restored to pre GFC levels above any tax cuts to workers. i.e give a small protectived sector a pay increase on the backs of those on the min wage... workers rights..:rolleyes:


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    #48
    alastair
    Registered Users Posts: 19,309 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    jank wrote: »
    Vast majority of people are not in unions however.
    35% unionised vs 65% non-unionised of the workforce - seems like a substantial representation to me.
    jank wrote: »
    and the trend is clearly in falling membership. Classic case is the auto industry in the US.
    If you support powerful unions in Ireland then you support the gombeenism, clientism and vested interests dictating terms and conditions to democratically elected representatives. You support inflated public sector wages and pensions and therefore you support taxing private industry to pay for these 'entitlements'.
    I have to support these things, do I? Oh, wait - I don't. Unions have every right to lobby politicians on behalf of their members, and Labour have an equal right have union affiliates. Public sector wages are, in the main, not inflated, and public sector pensions are no longer quite as desirable as they once were - though all pension provision would be better off improved.
    jank wrote: »
    Hence why Ireland is so taxes yet the average working man/woman sees very little in benefit from this.
    Taxes aren't particularly high here. Try pretty much anywhere else in Europe for higher taxes.
    jank wrote: »
    People should of course be free to join a union, out of their own accord and free will, however in some industries one has to join a union even if they do not want to.
    Which industries would these be then?
    jank wrote: »
    In my opinion a teacher should be able to negotiate their own wages and contracts with their school, collective bargaining creates dinosaurs.
    Your opinion as you say. Not one I share.
    jank wrote: »
    Regarding workers rights. When did unions really care about 'workers' rights other than their own members and ultimately their own pay packet.
    When they voted to support other union's campaigns? When they co-ordinate campaigns under the banner of Congress? Pretty much on a regular basis?
    jank wrote: »
    Didn't a public sector union recently state that their own wages should be restored to pre GFC levels above any tax cuts to workers. i.e give a small protectived sector a pay increase on the backs of those on the min wage... workers rights..:rolleyes:
    You don't want a union to lobby for the best pay for their workers? As I say - you've your opinions, but I don't share them.


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    #49
    Idbatterim
    Registered Users Posts: 17,852 ✭✭✭✭Idbatterim


    You don't want a union to lobby for the best pay for their workers? As I say - you've your opinions, but I don't share them.
    if its private industry I dont really care, that said I am sick of hearing abut Aer Lingus and their strikes, even a union rep said the public are sick of it! In relation to public servants, no I dont think it is in my interest to have the unions trying to cream off as much possible for as little work as possible, funnily enough. There is a cost to that to the rest of society. If somebody gains, somebody loses...

    The unions are actually just damaging the company and ergo its employees, they may profit from it in the short term, which is pretty much where any vision here starts and ends... Funny how hundreds of thousands of us in the private sector dont need them, they are nothing but **** stirrers and ignorant as they come, I wouldnt trust the union reps to run a tuck shop...


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    #50
    alastair
    Registered Users Posts: 19,309 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    Idbatterim wrote: »
    if its private industry I dont really care...
    they are nothing but **** stirrers and ignorant as they come, I wouldnt trust the union reps to run a tuck shop...

    Seems like not only do you care, but you're rather intimidated by the prospect of collective representation. I'm also curious about your theory that no-one can gain without someone losing - who's losing as a consequence of your salary then?


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    #51
    Idbatterim
    Registered Users Posts: 17,852 ✭✭✭✭Idbatterim


    people arent forced to buy what I sell. I.e if it doesn't effect me or I have choice I dont really care. My point with government spending is, its like dividing up a cake, you want a big slice, someone else is getting a smaller one...


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    #52
    alastair
    Registered Users Posts: 19,309 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    Idbatterim wrote: »
    people arent forced to buy what I sell. I.e if it doesn't effect me or I have choice I dont really care. My point with government spending is, its like dividing up a cake, you want a big slice, someone else is getting a smaller one...

    You're still not telling me who's losing on the back of your gain? Any spending is like dividing up a cake - nothing special about the public sector in that regard.


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    #53
    GaelMise
    Registered Users Posts: 542 ✭✭✭GaelMise


    jank wrote: »
    Vast majority of people are not in unions however, and the trend is clearly in falling membership. Classic case is the auto industry in the US.

    That worked out just great for them didnt it.


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    #54
    Idbatterim
    Registered Users Posts: 17,852 ✭✭✭✭Idbatterim


    You're still not telling me who's losing on the back of your gain?
    they are losing money and gaining something else. They are free to lobby all they want, but in the case of the public service, because they can throw their weight around it is to the detriment of myself and many others. What do I get if Ps workers receive a pay rise?
    You don't want a union to lobby for the best pay for their workers? As I say - you've your opinions, but I don't share them.

    that was the question you posed, like I said, they can do what they want, if its a private company its probably not going to effect me. If its PS they can lobby all the want. The government should have the balls to make the correct call, which they usually dont...


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    #55
    comongethappy
    Registered Users Posts: 2,753 ✭✭✭comongethappy


    GaelMise wrote: »
    That worked out just great for them didnt it.

    Yes it did.

    US car production is performing very well outside of Michigan & the auto unions stranglehold.

    Job prospects in these areas has never been better.


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    #56
    alastair
    Registered Users Posts: 19,309 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    Idbatterim wrote: »
    they are losing money and gaining something else. They are free to lobby all they want, but in the case of the public service, because they can throw their weight around it is to the detriment of myself and many others. What do I get if Ps workers receive a pay rise?
    So - just to be clear - your pet theory that for someone to gain, someone else must lose doesn't apply to you, but only to public sector workers? What do your customers/clients get if you get a pay rise? Any thoughts? Fair pay for services provided seems reasonable, irrespective of whether we're talking about a private or public sphere.
    Idbatterim wrote: »
    that was the question you posed, like I said, they can do what they want, if its a private company its probably not going to effect me. If its PS they can lobby all the want. The government should have the balls to make the correct call, which they usually dont...
    Why wouldn't wage increases in a private company effect you? Do you believe they operate outside the rest of the economy? I'm still not clear why you believe any workers representatives would not seek to roll back salary cuts as soon as it seemed possible - that's part of their job.


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    #57
    jank
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 13,018 ✭✭✭✭jank


    GaelMise wrote: »
    That worked out just great for them didnt it.

    The hub of American Auto industry are in southern states where they have right to work laws. VW workers told the UAW to feck off under plans to unionise their planet in Tennessee.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/21/us-vw-uaw-tennessee-idUSBREA3K0GG20140421


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    #58
    jank
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 13,018 ✭✭✭✭jank


    alastair wrote: »
    35% unionised vs 65% non-unionised of the workforce - seems like a substantial representation to me.

    Source for this figure. Even if true the latter is almost double the former. Seems like a majority to me, and rising...
    alastair wrote: »
    I have to support these things, do I? Oh, wait - I don't. Unions have every right to lobby politicians on behalf of their members, and Labour have an equal right have union affiliates. Public sector wages are, in the main, not inflated, and public sector pensions are no longer quite as desirable as they once were - though all pension provision would be better off improved.


    Yes, they can lobby, but holding the country to ransom over their entitled demands is not right. I do not want to turn this thread into another Irish public sector thread but if you do not think that they have gotten off lightly during Irelands latest economic crisis then there is nothing more I can really say.
    alastair wrote: »
    Taxes aren't particularly high here. Try pretty much anywhere else in Europe for higher taxes.

    One of the highest in the OECD and that is just income. When the average wage earner is being taxed at a marginal rate of 51% at around 33,000 a year then that to me is high. One has to earn $180,000 a year in OZ to get taxed at that rate, while similar figures are available form Sweden, the UK and Germany. The rates are comparable enough but its when you are hit at that low level of income then that is the key issue. Where do you think this money goes?
    alastair wrote: »
    Which industries would these be then?

    American Auto industry for example. CIE also as far as I know.

    alastair wrote: »
    You don't want a union to lobby for the best pay for their workers? As I say - you've your opinions, but I don't share them.

    When a union comes out with that sort of stuff and with typical 'me, me me' over other non union workers then people have the right to call them up when they spout their 'we look after workers rights' crap. They don't! They look after the rights of a group of people who pay them to lobby government and hold the tax payer over a barrel in a threat of strikes. Unions should be calling for tax decreases all over the shop, but they never do because they know that workers can get real wages increases that way as well. So increase the tax take and lobby for the a larger slice of the pie, rinse repeat.. Who are the real winners and losers here?


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    #59
    alastair
    Registered Users Posts: 19,309 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    jank wrote: »
    American Auto industry for example. CIE also as far as I know.
    There's no mandatory union membership requirement in either.


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    #60
    alastair
    Registered Users Posts: 19,309 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    jank wrote: »
    One of the highest in the OECD and that is just income. When the average wage earner is being taxed at a marginal rate of 51% at around 33,000 a year then that to me is high. One has to earn $180,000 a year in OZ to get taxed at that rate, while similar figures are available form Sweden, the UK and Germany.

    Except that the effective rate for an individual earning €33,000 here is comparible with Australia, and well below Sweden, Germany etc. http://www.oecd.org/tax/taxing-wages.htm


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    #61
    jank
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 13,018 ✭✭✭✭jank


    alastair wrote: »
    There's no mandatory union membership requirement in either.

    I should clarify, in some states if you work in the Auto industry you must, repeat, MUST be a member of a union and pay dues to a union. Not surprisingly this was one of the reason why the auto industry pretty much went tits up in places where the democrats and unions ruled the roost and killed the goose that layed the golden egg. Now, even Michigan the centre of the old auto industry have passed right to work legislation in an effort to save the industry.

    http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2013/03/28/right-to-work-law-takes-effect-in-michigan/


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