Where did it all go wrong?!

4ensic15

Nothing has gone wrong. In 1960 only 5% of school leavers went on to Third Level. In 1980 it was 20%. Now it is over 60%. In the 1950s if you got TB you got 6 weeks in hospital and if you couldn't afford to pay for more you were sent home, to infect your family. Until the 1970s there were tenements in Dublin with a family per room and one toilet for the house, which could hold upwards of 50 people. In 1980 there were 4 restaurants in Ballsbridge. People hardly ever ate out unless they were very well off.

Grandeeod

4ensic15 wrote: »

Nothing has gone wrong. In 1960 only 5% of school leavers went on to Third Level. In 1980 it was 20%. Now it is over 60%. In the 1950s if you got TB you got 6 weeks in hospital and if you couldn't afford to pay for more you were sent home, to infect your family. Until the 1970s there were tenements in Dublin with a family per room and one toilet for the house, which could hold upwards of 50 people. In 1980 there were 4 restaurants in Ballsbridge. People hardly ever ate out unless they were very well off.

What a daft and delusional summation considering the topic. You've gone from the 50s to the 80s on a crusade of social injustice that could easily be made comparable to the problems we have today. And you are selective. Did you google all that? Seriously?

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

BlinkingLights

I think there's a bit of an imaginary past in some discussions where people seem to remember the old days possibly through the lens of US movies.

For example, I know someone who gets nostalgic about the 1980s and it seems to be a mix of music and Back to The Future.

1980s Ireland was tough. High emigration, poor infrastructure, high unemployment, smog in cities, very poor state services, etc etc etc and that's before you get into the extreme social conservatism and the influence of the church on absolutely everything.

Even in the USA they're nostalgic about the 1950s largely based on Happy Days...

AndrewJRenko

Divelment wrote: »

In fairness I'm very tolerant of people's choices, if you are gay and you fancy people of your own gender, then who am I to say if you are happy or not, or in love or not? But gender fluidity is just is a step too far in my opinion. It points straight to a problem which is the complete absence of a sense of self. We all go through times where we are not sure of what we are or who we are, but to normalise this notion I think that we can switch gender after our daily shower, no I don't agree with that whatsoever.

But why would you expect the rest of the world to be based around your opinions? You may not agree with this, but why do you get to impose your view on others?

Like I asked above, exactly what kind of 'bending' do you need to do to accommodate a gender-fluid work colleague? As I understand, the most that you'll be expected to do is the basic humanity of not being rude or ignorant to another person.

Divelment wrote: »

If I wake up in the morning and decide that I want to be a lion and want to go into work dressed up as a lion and growl down the phone to my customers because after all it's Tuesday and I've decided that I'm a lion, what part of your logic says that I cannot decide to be a lion on a Tuesday?

Yeah, I'm really not going to bother to come up with a dignified response to this.

Grandeeod

BlinkingLights wrote: »

I think there's a bit of an imaginary past in some discussions where people seem to remember the old days possibly through the lens of US movies.

For example, I know someone who gets nostalgic about the 1980s and it seems to be a mix of music and Back to The Future.

1980s Ireland was tough. High emigration, poor infrastructure, high unemployment, smog in cities, very poor state services, etc etc etc and that's before you get into the extreme social conservatism and the influence of the church on absolutely everything.

Even in the USA they're nostalgic about the 1950s largely based on Happy Days...

1980s ireland didn't have an A&E or hospital crisis. 1980s Ireland didn't have a housing crisis either. It wasn't perfect, but it seems that present day life has decided that health and housing are to be massive issues while some of us sip lattes, drive beamers, holiday whenever, pay lower taxes, moan about taxes and can't buy a house despite having the ability to repay a mortgage. In comparison the 80s were pretty straight forward.

CatFromHue

Grandeeod wrote: »

1980s ireland didn't have an A&E or hospital crisis. 1980s Ireland didn't have a housing crisis either. It wasn't perfect, but it seems that present day life has decided that health and housing are to be massive issues while some of us sip lattes, drive beamers, holiday whenever, pay lower taxes, moan about taxes and can't buy a house despite having the ability to repay a mortgage. In comparison the 80s were pretty straight forward.

How much did it cost to run the health service back then?

I would have thought with so many new, since then anyway, types of procedures, treatments, equipment etc that it would cost more to run now than back then.

bb12

this elizabeth warren talk pretty much sums it all up

The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class with Elizabeth Warren

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A

Bushmanpm

I don't remember Four Star
(For the young un's, forerunner of unleaded) cost in 6+ euro/punt per gallon in the 80's. Nor the extortionate road tax. Or the thieving car insurance.
And yet people say there's LESS tax nowadays!
Hahahahahahahaha, mugs.

harry Bailey esq

Patww79 wrote: »

Because everything is wildly more expensive than it was.

Cocaine isn't!

Tigger

wordofwarning wrote: »

Our standard of living is significantly better. Someone on minimum wage in the 1980s was

A) lucky to have a job

Would dream of the lifestyle that people have now on minimum wage. Flying was super expensive in the 1980s. Clothing was super expensive. Someone on €9.15 an hour can go to the Canaries for 2 weeks with a bit of saving and have a reasonably high standard of living.

Housing is so expensive, as it is expensive to build as it now such a high standard. Housing was cheaper in the 1960s, as it was thrown up. There was no insulation, often no central heating, minimal plumbing and electrical. It was literally 4 plastered walls, wooden floor, a roof and a bit of plumbing. Even adjusted for inflation, people would probably not want to buy a 1960s house with the same standard today

How,,? Are they lifing wither their parents or what ?

Glenster

Divelment wrote: »

Yeah my grandparents couldn't legally buy contraception, if they could even find it back then as the pill only became available several decades later. But do you think where we are today, is all that more advanced? I've a friend who works in a public sector organisation where there is a person who is "gender fluid", so this person comes into work on a Monday and is "Kate", dressed in a skirt and high heels or whatever, then on Tuesday this same person is "Steve" and is presenting themselves as a guy. Our society is now enabling this, are you telling me that this is any less bizarre than my grandparents not having access to contraception 50 odd years ago?

BULL****

4ensic15

Grandeeod wrote: »

What a daft and delusional summation considering the topic. You've gone from the 50s to the 80s on a crusade of social injustice that could easily be made comparable to the problems we have today. And you are selective. Did you google all that? Seriously?

I notice you haven't contradicted any of it. Just made a personal attack. It has nothing to do with social injustice. It has to do with how well of people were in the past. Not everyone lived in Enid Blyton books.

Dohnjoe

Deleted User wrote: »

The previous generation here, the US, the UK, Australia etc mostly raised families/own their own house on a single income...........around 40 hours of work a week.

Here we are both parents working - so 80 hours of work a week from a family and people are struggling to get the same kind of house despite effectively putting in twice the effort?


Where`d it all go wrong and where is it goin?

It's fairly straightforward

• Land is a scarce resource
• Houses have become larger and are made of higher quality, more expensive materials, to higher standards
• Many families have gone from single to dual income, increasing purchasing power
• Other costs of living (e.g. food) have decreased
• People are simply willing to spend more of their income on a house

Spudmonkey

bb12 wrote: »

this elizabeth warren talk pretty much sums it all up

The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class with Elizabeth Warren

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A

That's a really good talk. I think a lot of it applies here also.

Diemos

Deleted User wrote: »

Where`d it all go wrong and where is it goin?

Feminism :P:D

Dohnjoe

In almost every respect; equality, rights, workplace safety and rights, employment mobility and options, infrastructure, quality and diversity of goods available, real and disposable income, healthcare.. we are vastly better off than we were 40/50 years ago

kyeev

Paying rent/mortgage is the killer in all this.
You spend over 50% of your working years paying back the mortgage to the bank. We all probably end up paying at least 200-300k in interest over the course of a lifetime.

A simplistic way of looking at it is: Rich folks don't borrow money. They pay for their kid's house in cash. Then, their kid repeats the cycle by keeping all the money they earn, doesn't pay the banks any interest, and then are able to buy their kid a house in turn, mortgage free.

The only way out of the loop as far as I see is to encourage my kids to become a professional something, in a job that is employable in a town (not city), live rurally and buy/build sensibly such that they can pay the mortgage off fast. Unless you're at the top end of the food chain salary wise, I can't see how you can ever "make it" in a city.

pilly

If we're comparing the 1980's with now, the ONLY area where we are worse off is housing and it's plain and simple. The government stopped building. That's where it all went wrong.

In every other aspect of life we're much better off than we were in the 80's and I know from being alive during both eras.

Dohnjoe

kyeev wrote: »

Paying rent/mortgage is the killer in all this.
You spend over 50% of your working years paying back the mortgage to the bank. We all probably end up paying at least 200-300k in interest over the course of a lifetime.

On an average 350k house? give an example of this

kyeev

Dohnjoe wrote: »

On an average 350k house? give an example of this

http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/mortgages/mortgage-calculator.aspx

Use their example, click on the amortisation table, click view summary and weep.

Cina

Ireland is one of the world's best countries to live in. Our standard of living, economic freedom, quality of life, freedom of press, infant mortality rate, life expectancy and income are better than 95% of people on the planet and yet there seems to be a thread moaning about the country on a weekly basis.

May as well do a Brexit or Trump now and shoot ourselves in the foot because our living standard's are too damn good to allow us to moan at a reasonable level.

Imallrightjack

Ally Dick wrote: »

Bertie and Charlie McGreevy are to blame. They allowed the banks to shift the lending criteria to couples, and did nothing. Gordon Brown was faced with the same problem in the UK with Halifax building society, and he put a stop to it

Bertie for president.

ScumLord

BlinkingLights wrote: »

The explanation of changing consumer habits doesn't add up as many of those gadgets and technologies are vastly less expensive than they were a couple or decades ago never mind in the 1970s. A lot of aspects of life have become significantly cheaper.

Cheaper yes, but also crappier in many ways.

We can buy cheap versions of everything but they have much shorter life spans. If you bought a table/TV/shirt in the 50s it would probably last your entire life. Now people go to something like Ikea and get a table for half the price of a good one that they know will only last a few years and have worked that fact into their lifestyle.

I think if you were trying to sell a product to the average consumer and told them it would last 20 years they'd turn their nose up at it because they don't want to be stuck with something for 20 years, they want to replace everything every couple of years and do an overhaul, like the celebrities on the tele.

The average person has bought into the consumer society hook line and sinker, we're perfectly happy to buy shyte and replace it every few years, it doesn't matter that you're spending way more on all those replacements than you ever would on a quality item, it doesn't matter that you're generating added tons of waste, it doesn't matter that we're using up resources quicker than ever to meet that demand. We want shiny new things.

In reality they should bring in some European wide law that says products have to last longer. Increase the standard European warranty out to five years at least. It might slow down the consumer slightly.

pilly

ScumLord wrote: »

Cheaper yes, but also crappier in many ways.

We can buy cheap versions of everything but they have much shorter life spans. If you bought a table/TV/shirt in the 50s it would probably last your entire life. Now people go to something like Ikea and get a table for half the price of a good one that they know will only last a few years and have worked that fact into their lifestyle.

I think if you were trying to sell a product to the average consumer and told them it would last 20 years they'd turn their nose up at it because they don't want to be stuck with something for 20 years, they want to replace everything every couple of years and do an overhaul, like the celebrities on the tele.

The average person has bought into the consumer society hook line and sinker, we're perfectly happy to buy shyte and replace it every few years, it doesn't matter that you're spending way more on all those replacements than you ever would on a quality item, it doesn't matter that you're generating added tons of waste, it doesn't matter that we're using up resources quicker than ever to meet that demand. We want shiny new things.

In reality they should bring in some European wide law that says products have to last longer. Increase the standard European warranty out to five years at least. It might slow down the consumer slightly.

Very good points in a lot of cases but with the likes of things like kids clothes they don't need to last a lifetime and the fact that they're very cheap now does mean that there is no need for a child not to have clothes or shoes.

There was a time when kids didn't have coats or shoes.

Dohnjoe

ScumLord wrote: »

We can buy cheap versions of everything but they have much shorter life spans. If you bought a table/TV/shirt in the 50s it would probably last your entire life. Now people go to something like Ikea and get a table for half the price of a good one that they know will only last a few years and have worked that fact into their lifestyle.

The quality of items on aggregate is far higher than it used to be. Safety and production standards are higher. The range of choice is magnitudes greater. The materials used are better.

Anecdotally it's easy to see the world through nostalgic coloured glasses. I grew up in the 80's with rustbucket cars driving around, banging on the sides of tellys to get them to work, the low quality goods on our shelves

topper75

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

This is all true.

But it is also true that there is a big bag of crap we have to tolerate today that people didn't have to even think about back then.

Removing the rose-tinted glasses completely, two truths remain:

• Change is inevitable.
• Change is a double-edged sword.

On we go.

Dohnjoe

Dohnjoe wrote: »

On an average 350k house? give an example of this

To be fair "least 200-300k in interest over the course of a lifetime"............. it's not at all far off.

On a 4.3% variable rate (non tracker) over 30 years a €300k mortgage is about €1500/month.

30 x 12 x 1500 = €540,000

€240k in interest (at 4.3%)

ScumLord

Dohnjoe wrote: »

The quality of items on aggregate is far higher than it used to be. Safety and production standards are higher. The range of choice is magnitudes greater. The materials used are better.

I am a trained auditor and apply safety standards, those standards set up a bare minimum with regards consumer safety. The standards force companies selling particular products, IE: electric plugs. to met a bare minimum so the plug won't blow up but also cover the company should something go wrong outside of warranty. Without them companies would be selling stuff that was barely fit for purpose as we see in Chinese products that fall apart as soon as you've brought them home.

In the past things were made to be much stronger. Electrics wise things are much, much better today (in many cases) but that's because they were extremely crude back then. But production today is all about making the process cheaper, safety is forced on companies and in the end the customer doesn't care about safety standards, all they care about is how much money they spend.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

markodaly

Some good comments here. Life today is vastly different to 30 years ago. It can be summed up by the saying, 'If we didnt have it we didnt spend it". Now people consume much more, live in the now, eating out 3-4 times a week. If you did a survey on the number of restaurants in Dublin say in the 1970's and now, I would say there would be a ten fold increase. Would love to see some stats on this.

I remember my father going over to New York to march in the St. Patricks day parade in the late 80's. He was involved in some association and knew some big wigs over there. Yet, still he had to pay for his own air faire, which was a lot of money.
This was a big big deal for the famliy. To me, it was like he was going to the moon as travel was so expensive and a rarity. I remember he brought me back an american football and a frisbee, stuff that you could not get here. It was like he bought me a car or something, all my friends were amazed at this weird looking frisbee that could fly and cut through the air for what seemed like an eternity.

Now, people go there on a long weekend to do some christmas shopping. The same stuff can be bought here as over there, there is no mystique surrounding America anymore. Remember watching Dallas on a Saturday night, it was looking looking in at a different world. That tells you all you need to know on how life has changed. People consume and spend more, some things are cheaper like clothes and the like. Other things have gotten more expensive, like housing.


Not many people mention the elephant in the room regarding housing, that is womens liberation into the workforce. It was possible for a man to support a wife and 5 kids and still live in a nice decent middle class Dublin suburb. The cloth had to be cut to measure but still, it was doable and it was a good life. Now however, as women are more likely to be university educated than a man, these same houses has more money chasing them. If you do not have two incomes to buy a house in the same nice suburb, then the other buyer will, thus driving up the price of these houses. Its a double edged sword, as women in the workforce is a good thing but it is something not really acknowledged by our betters, that indirectly it has driven up the prices of desirable homes and also led to wage stagnation (mens wages generally levelling off) as a huge untapped force was unlocked into the labour market. So, it is now the new normal. I just wish people acknowledged this.

ScumLord

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Do you want to have one table for the rest of your life though? I think this is a concern for some people, they want the cheap one because it comes with the promise of a new table in a few years.

Modern manufacturing has certainly become technically better in every way. The problem is we quantify everything so a modern product is no better than it absolutely has to be. I've bought cheap and I've bought expensive and there can be a huge difference. Expensive the people making the product really think about the person using the product, how it will be used, what it needs to achieve and making it slightly better than it needs to be so it won't break. With cheap the engineers test the product so it will last a certain amount of uses and cut away everything else. It's a way of building things that just rubs me up the wrong way.

As for the shirt that lasted a lifetime -- in the past, women spent a lot of time mending clothes, darning socks, and the like, in order to keep them functional. But we now value women's labor more highly and don't expect them to sit home sewing so that old clothes can be maintained forever.

You couldn't possibly repair a shirt from dunes though. The clothes literally disintegrate to the point there's nothing to repair and the act of repairing would just make it disintegrate more.

Mutant z

Paying through the roof for your sky packages is bound to have an affect.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

RedTie

Cina wrote: »

Ireland is one of the world's best countries to live in. Our standard of living, economic freedom, quality of life, freedom of press, infant mortality rate, life expectancy and income are better than 95% of people on the planet and yet there seems to be a thread moaning about the country on a weekly basis.

Maybe because, despite this stat, we all know the country could be much better with a public health service that didnt resemble that of a Third World (or at the very least a Second World) country.

We're also a country where every system at every turn is riddled with corruption.

A country where the capital city centre is like Night Of The Living Dead with junkies.

A country that cant even house it's own and yet we take on more Immigrants.

That - and more - is why we moan.

eyerer

markodaly wrote: »

a huge untapped force was unlocked into the labour market.  So, it is now the new normal. I just wish people acknowledged this.

They wouldn't acknowledge it since they would be labelled sexist very quickly.

AndrewJRenko

markodaly wrote: »

Now, people go there on a long weekend to do some christmas shopping. The same stuff can be bought here as over there, there is no mystique surrounding America anymore. Remember watching Dallas on a Saturday night, it was looking looking in at a different world. That tells you all you need to know on how life has changed. People consume and spend more, some things are cheaper like clothes and the like. Other things have gotten more expensive, like housing.

There is something about the amounts of money spent on frippery and sh1te these days, mostly (though not exclusively) by the fairer sex. It struck me when The Snapper was on TV a couple of weeks back how dramatically different appearances were in the late 80s to today. The amount of money spent on cosmetic dentistry today is huge, with chains dedicated to 'your smile' and braces almost mandatory for teenage girls. The amount of money spent on make-up and even make-up brushes at €100 a pop for teenage girls is huge. The amount of cash spent on Michael Kors handbags/boots/watches, Pandoro junk bracelets and piles of other stuff with a 'designer label' would have fed a family of six for a year in the 80s. In the old days, a raincoat was see-through plastic and cost £4 in Dunnes or Penneys. Today, it costs €100 for the latest North Face 'technical clothing' to keep Mammy dry as she dashes into Lidl.

I'm not nostalgic for the old days, and I recognise how much things have improved in health care and social services - but really, we're spending vast amounts of money on junk.

Divelment

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

I'm not nostalgic for the old days, and I recognise how much things have improved in health care and social services - but really, we're spending vast amounts of money on junk.

You'd think with all the improvement in medical diagnostic technology, that there wouldn't be 500,000 on hospital waiting lists. The problems are so obvious to fix and simple in nature, but you see the same basic problems being allowed to exist for years and years in this country. You wouldn't see Michael O' Leary investing billions in aircraft assets and only allowing them to be used during normal business hours, yet this is what is going on in the HSE, diagnostic equipment worth hundreds of millions of Euro but can only be operated for 35 hours of the week. You couldn't actually make this stuff up.

The housing crisis is another example of a basic problem easily fixed, yet it gets worse with every passing week. People being let into the country from Christ knows where and not a sign of us even discussing the fact that we can't house people from everywhere, and then you have the bleeding heart liberal ICCL brigade, "oh sure didn't we all go to the US and the UK in the 80's when there was no work here!"...

If I go to the US or Australia and work illegally, if I'm caught, I can expect to be stuck into a prison and queued up for deportation. Nobody calls them racist for deporting me, I'm there illegally, end of story, out you go. Meanwhile back on Craggy Island, you can come here, claim asylum, have your claim rejected, then get free legal aid, take an appeal, have the appeal appealed, head into the High Court, then into the Supreme Court, then take your appeal to Europe, all on the Irish taxpayer? And we never seem to be able to stand back and ask ourselves why we have no money to run & improve the most basis of pubic services here in this country?

Roger_007

The problem is that for the last few generations the standard of living has been increasing with each generation being better off than their parents. This created an expectation that the trend would continue indefinitely.
Historically, there was no such expectation, as the standard of living for most people did not change significantly for hundreds of years prior to industrialisation.
It may simply be the case that the upward trend of standards of living has come to an end for the time being. We may just have to get used to the idea that our children, and succeeding generations, will be no better off, or slightly worse off, than we are.

Divelment

Roger_007 wrote: »

The problem is that for the last few generations the standard of living has been increasing with each generation being better off than their parents. This created an expectation that the trend would continue indefinitely.
Historically, there was no such expectation, as the standard of living for most people did not change significantly for hundreds of years prior to industrialisation.
It may simply be the case that the upward trend of standards of living has come to an end for the time being. We may just have to get used to the idea that our children, and succeeding generations, will be no better off, or slightly worse off, than we are.

I couldn't disagree with this any more to be honest. How utterly f*cked up has the world now become, that notwithstanding all these utterly mind boggling improvements in technology, in particular the internet that has revolutionised our economies and our societies, and notwithstanding all this supposed improvement in understanding and advancement and enlightenment that we have now acquired as humans in the post industrialisation era, but we can't meet the most basic needs of a society in Ireland and in the UK in 2017?

Housing and healthcare, if you think about it, apart from water and food, these are up there on the Maslow Pyramid of human needs as the most basic needs of all. A roof over your head, food in your belly, heat and shelter from the elements, this is caveman stuff. Then when your basic human needs are deemed to have been met, other motivational factors things become more important, a pay rise that might allow you to go on a holiday, job satisfaction, a new pair of jeans or whatever.

In Ireland today in 2017, we have created a situation whereby a roof over your head, the most basic human need of all, is now being dangled in front of you as a luxury. In Dublin it is a luxury that will now cost you 2,000 Euro a month if you have the audacity to want to have a partner and maybe start a family. The same could be argued for water only huge public protest turned the issue of water privatisation into a political hand grenade and it was the straw that broke the camels back in terms of what Irish people were prepared to put up with through being taxed up to the hilt and then being charged again on the double for a privately delivered service.

This goes back to the bin protests of the 1990's, Joe Higgins and Claire Daly being imprisoned for being in contempt of court, and I'm to the right of centre in terms of my politics, but this started back then, when we decided to start taxing the **** out of everyone and then trying to charge them on the double for a basic service, and from then until now, it has snowballed into what we have today, which is a situation where we are paying on the double for everything. We have local authorities who can't collect bins, can't deliver water, can't build houses, yet the property tax that Revenue will make you pay for, is keeping these guys on their automatic increments and their bench-marked pay scales and their tax free lump sums and bench-marked pensions upon retirement, but nothing works, if you want your bins collected then pay privately, if you want to get into a hospital, pay privately, if you want water and won't pay, "then we'll turn your water off to a trickle". This was stated public policy only 2-3 years ago.

Edit: To anyone unfamiliar with the writings of Abraham Maslow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

tabby aspreme

wordofwarning wrote: »

Our standard of living is significantly better. Someone on minimum wage in the 1980s was

A) lucky to have a job

Would dream of the lifestyle that people have now on minimum wage. Flying was super expensive in the 1980s. Clothing was super expensive. Someone on €9.15 an hour can go to the Canaries for 2 weeks with a bit of saving and have a reasonably high standard of living.

Housing is so expensive, as it is expensive to build as it now such a high standard. Housing was cheaper in the 1960s, as it was thrown up. There was no insulation, often no central heating, minimal plumbing and electrical. It was literally 4 plastered walls, wooden floor, a roof and a bit of plumbing. Even adjusted for inflation, people would probably not want to buy a 1960s house with the same standard today

The houses that were built in the 60s were built with the materials available at the time, and the quality of the work on them was way better than a lot if the pyrite ridden fire traps built in the last 15 years

Grandeeod

Divelment wrote: »

I couldn't disagree with this any more to be honest. How utterly f*cked up has the world now become, that notwithstanding all these utterly mind boggling improvements in technology, in particular the internet that has revolutionised our economies and our societies, and notwithstanding all this supposed improvement in understanding and advancement and enlightenment that we have now acquired as humans in the post industrialisation era, but we can't meet the most basic needs of a society in Ireland and in the UK in 2017?

Housing and healthcare, if you think about it, apart from water and food, these are up there on the Maslow Pyramid of human needs as the most basic needs of all. A roof over your head, food in your belly, heat and shelter from the elements, this is caveman stuff. Then when your basic human needs are deemed to have been met, other motivational factors things become more important, a pay rise that might allow you to go on a holiday, job satisfaction, a new pair of jeans or whatever.

In Ireland today in 2017, we have created a situation whereby a roof over your head, the most basic human need of all, is now being dangled in front of you as a luxury. In Dublin it is a luxury that will now cost you 2,000 Euro a month if you have the audacity to want to have a partner and maybe start a family. The same could be argued for water only huge public protest turned the issue of water privatisation into a political hand grenade and it was the straw that broke the camels back in terms of what Irish people were prepared to put up with through being taxed up to the hilt and then being charged again on the double for a privately delivered service.

This goes back to the bin protests of the 1990's, Joe Higgins and Claire Daly being imprisoned for being in contempt of court, and I'm to the right of centre in terms of my politics, but this started back then, when we decided to start taxing the **** out of everyone and then trying to charge them on the double for a basic service, and from then until now, it has snowballed into what we have today, which is a situation where we are paying on the double for everything. We have local authorities who can't collect bins, can't deliver water, can't build houses, yet the property tax that Revenue will make you pay for, is keeping these guys on their automatic increments and their bench-marked pay scales and their tax free lump sums and bench-marked pensions upon retirement, but nothing works, if you want your bins collected then pay privately, if you want to get into a hospital, pay privately, if you want water and won't pay, "then we'll turn your water off to a trickle". This was stated public policy only 2-3 years ago.

Edit: To anyone unfamiliar with the writings of Abraham Maslow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

This.

That's how I feel and I'll state that I'm no leftie and would lean towards the right on a few things too.

Divelment

Grandeeod wrote: »

This.

That's how I feel and I'll state that I'm no leftie and would lean towards the right on a few things too.

I'm self employed but I believe in hard work and good pay, I believe in a living wage, I believe in affordable housing, but we are on the road to a hiding in this country because we have now "institutionalised" high pay, terms and conditions within the public sector, and we tolerate low pay, and sh*t terms and conditions within the private sector.

The reason we have a thread like this now, is because we have geared the whole thing up to the point now where even Gardai, nurses, civil servants, (the protected classes), can't live in Dublin now because of the cost of living and in particular the cost of renting, it's reached breaking point now. Humans need continuity and sustainability, we have not evolved, and we will never evolve to a place where we have a 1 year plan for life, but yet this is what society is now demanding of us. One of my best mates, has a wife and 3 kids, living in a Dublin suburb all his life, renting the last 10-15 years, paid up on the nose every month, no hassle in the castle. He gets an e-mail last week from the landlord, his daughter and partner are moving back to Ireland and he needs the house back. My mate has been f*cked straight into the Irish housing crisis at fairly short notice, in terms of the length of time that he has been living in this property.

I don't believe that this is how we are meant to live as human people, we have developed so rapidly within the last 20 years but we have not evolved as a species where we can deal with this kind of overnight change, and nor should we in my opinion.

Grandeeod

Divelment wrote: »

I'm self employed but I believe in hard work and good pay, I believe in a living wage, I believe in affordable housing, but we are on the road to a hiding in this country because we have now "institutionalised" high pay, terms and conditions within the public sector, and we tolerate low pay, and sh*t terms and conditions within the private sector.

The reason we have a thread like this now, is because we have geared the whole thing up to the point now where even Gardai, nurses, civil servants, (the protected classes), can't live in Dublin now because of the cost of living and in particular the cost of renting, it's reached breaking point now. Humans need continuity and sustainability, we have not evolved, and we will never evolve to a place where we have a 1 year plan for life, but yet this is what society is now demanding of us. One of my best mates, has a wife and 3 kids, living in a Dublin suburb all his life, renting the last 10-15 years, paid up on the nose every month, no hassle in the castle. He gets an e-mail last week from the landlord, his daughter and partner are moving back to Ireland and he needs the house back. My mate has been f*cked straight into the Irish housing crisis at fairly short notice, in terms of the length of time that he has been living in this property.

I don't believe that this is how we are meant to live as human people, we have developed so rapidly within the last 20 years but we have not evolved as a species where we can deal with this kind of overnight change, and nor should we in my opinion.

Once again, I agree with you completely. Cheers for a post that I can totally relate too on every level. I have worked for myself since the age of 21 and at the age of mid 40s, I'm still finding it hard, after many years of giving employment, falling on my arse, getting back up and then getting crapped on by life. But I keep going.

Divelment

Grandeeod wrote: »

Once again, I agree with you completely. Cheers for a post that I can totally relate too on every level. I have worked for myself since the age of 21 and at the age of mid 40s, I'm still finding it hard, after many years of giving employment, falling on my arse, getting back up and then getting crapped on by life. But I keep going.

Meet your twin...

bb12

bb12 wrote: »

this elizabeth warren talk pretty much sums it all up

The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class with Elizabeth Warren

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A

Thanks for posting that, it is mind blowing.

Highly recommend anyone taking the time to watch it from 7:44 or so where she says if we were back in 1970 and said in 30 or so years time we would be in a situation where household incomes are double (because of women entering the workforce) and then tried to predict what life would be like we would have thought families would be very wealthy and have little to no debt.

She then spends the entire lecture showing how in fact the middle class has had less and less disposable income until it came to a point where the US the single income families in 1970 saved more and had more disposable income than a dual income family in the 2000s. Seems like madness when you consider all the gadgets and gizmos we have. She adjusts things for inflation to see where the additional income got gobbled up and the answer is basically mortgages and rents. Cars became cheaper to buy and run but because the family unit went from 1 car to 2 cars the overall cost jumped. Throw in childcare, healthcare and education costs to the mix. Now this is for the US but I think Ireland was something like 10 years behind them at least when comparing US in the 1970s.

But its the system the West as a whole is adopting. All at the same time we handed over our manufacturing to a dictatorship in China. It all seems a bit mad!

Ireland doesnt = the US but we can definitely learn from their mistakes right? Its not too late is it?!?

Cina

RedTie wrote: »

Maybe because, despite this stat, we all know the country could be much better with a public health service that didnt resemble that of a Third World (or at the very least a Second World) country.

Nonsense to the extreme. What country has a perfect healthcare system? If you want 'third world' heathcare from a developed nation you should look at the US, not Ireland. At least it's free here to an extent. Most countries have flawed healthcare systems because it's a very complex issue, and as we are seeing with the UK right now, when it is completely free and at the forefront of your policies, it's pretty much unsustainable from a financial point of view.

So yeah, we're not great, but we're not that bad, we're actually among the highest ranked in the world in most metrics.

RedTie wrote: »

We're also a country where every system at every turn is riddled with corruption.

you should go to an actual third world country and see what corruption is really like.

RedTie wrote: »

A country where the capital city centre is like Night Of The Living Dead with junkies.

Talk about nit-picking, every countries has 'junkies', every capital city has issues, ultimately Dublin is one of the safest capitals in the world

RedTie wrote: »

A country that cant even house it's own and yet we take on more Immigrants.

quite an ignorant view when you consider what these migrants have been through, I say bring as many as we can because they've suffered more than those of us who can't get housing ever will.

RedTie wrote: »

That - and more - is why we moan.

if those are the reasons you moan then you don't have much to worry about.

mariaalice

I have different take on this.

It wasn't better when one income supported a household it was different its nothing to do with having computers televisions, I phones, the internet, in the past people spent 40% to 50% of their income on food now its 10%.

Those who purchased a house and raised a family with relative ease on one income came from a professional back ground, the civil services, came from the v skilled working class or had medium to large farms. When I was younger anyone outside the above cohort who managed to purchases a house often has a second or even third job or put off having children for years. It was very much a two tire society.

Issues like the increase building regulations are often over looked in how they make housing more and more expensive, even in the recent past schools had one teacher and a large class now they have SNA and resources teaches, children from a local creche are taken to the park wearing high vis jackets and the child care workers want to be seen as 'profession' and paid as such. Medical treatment now included all sort of very expensive diagnostic tests and its moved on from a ward to individual en suit rooms and so on and so on in all aspects of society. There is no going back.

There are higher expectations, in the past the professions were restricted and skilled apprenticeships were keep in family's now the message is everyone can aspire to anything.

It a very complex issue.

pilly

You know, I just had a look at houses for sale in Dublin and I don't think it's half as bad as people are talking about. Beautiful house in Kiltipper in Tallaght, nice area, €269k. It is well worth that and affordable for a lot of people.

Are people just looking for more than they need?

mariaalice

pilly wrote: »

You know, I just had a look at houses for sale in Dublin and I don't think it's half as bad as people are talking about. Beautiful house in Kiltipper in Tallaght, nice area, €269k. It is well worth that and affordable for a lot of people.

Are people just looking for more than they need?

But but that house is in Tallaght and a significant cohort of purchasers cant get over that fact. The world of Ross OCarroll Kelly might be fiction based on a stereotype but all stereotypes have a basses in fact.