Everything will change after Coronavirus

Ubbquittious

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

Anyone can't, and wont do them. That's why we need immigration.

Feck sake immigration is the last thing we need. A lot of people in the west have become lazy and accustomed to comfy office work and dumb resale of Chinese imports, put those guys back to doing actual work and you have nor shortage of workers

Blueshoe

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

There will always be a few people who take the p*ss but generally it would work out well with helping a more equal society. I know we have Mags Cash etc here in Ireland but I'm still glad my taxes pay for a decent enough social welfare system, it's something to be proud of.

I'm in my early 30s. Worked since I left school. Bought anything I own. Paid off loans and currently paying a mortgage. Some individuals who were in school with me never worked a day in their lives yet all have houses.

Same story repeated in towns and villages up and down the country.

Also people who cannot afford a mortgage as they as caught in a rent trap. People who have gone to college put in the work and still have no house of their own.

Something is wrong there. I'll give you two guesses who will be paying the bill at the end of this too

Del Griffith

The_Brood wrote: »

99% of the "rich" do not deserve a lick of what they have .... they are good at coding

Ubbquittious

Greentopia wrote: »

You're falsely equating wealth with happiness because you've internalised the message that's drummed into people from either that wealth is a means to happiness. A mistake many people make. If wealth was the source of happiness celebrities and the super wealthy would be the happiest people on earth. One look at their private lives tells us this is not so.

My uncles family were born into wealth. Money has not made any of them happy. All its caused is division, jealousy, marriage breakups and bitterness.

On the other hand the people I know who are genuinely the happiest and more importantly the most content are those who have either eschewed the wealth and privilege they were born into early on and opted for a far simpler way of life (mainly organic farmers, artists, craftspeople), or they had the stressed middle class existence of the daily commute and grind who had an epiphany and sold everything to again live a simpler life, mostly in the country.

But of course no-one who is desperate for riches and sees it as a means of having a fulfilled life ever believes that. It's something they have to find out for themselves.

Ahh there has to be a middle ground. A simple life living off the land but now and then you make a few Bob and splurge on a brand new jetski. Best of both worlds. Living in the country definitely helps in my experience

jill_valentine

Which is the morally correct kind of work then, the office workers who are lazy or the street cleaners who are unskilled and menial?

Which of the two shouldn't be treated like it's of value? Which kind of people doesn't deserve to be economically stable for the work they do?

TuringBot47

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

None of that is nessecarily true and the situation you born into and rasied up in before you turn 18 will have a massive influence on what happens after.

It'll only have an influence afterwards if you've run up criminal convictions or addictions.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Plenty of "successful" people out there who have nevefr done a day's work in their lives.

It's easy to conjure up imaginary people there.
Would you like to name someone famous ?
Successful people will have something, intelligence, creativity, solid work ethic, people skills or the like.

What's this "never done a days work in their lives" comment from ?
People can work hard without carting a wheelbarrow of bricks around or the like. I've worked 60 hour weeks in I.T.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

This idea that wealth is a measurement of success or contributions to scoiety is incredibly niave.

Some wealth is inherited.
Some will be earned by starting successful companies or working from the start in unicorn companies offering share options.
But a lot of hard working couples in Ireland can pull in over €100k a year, typically more if they both work in medium level jobs.

Thelonious Monk

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Feck sake immigration is the last thing we need. A lot of people in the west have become lazy and accustomed to comfy office work and dumb resale of Chinese imports, put those guys back to doing actual work and you have nor shortage of workers

Ok so where are we going to get all the cleaners etc from? Cleaners are pretty much all immigrants in offices, hotels etc. Same goes for many other low paid jobs. Irish people wont do those jobs any more.

Eric Cartman

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

Ok so where are we going to get all the cleaners etc from? Cleaners are pretty much all immigrants in offices, hotels etc. Same goes for many other low paid jobs. Irish people wont do those jobs any more.

Thats the problem we need to fix, keep the borders closed and work on that one instead.

Thelonious Monk

Blueshoe wrote: »

I'm in my early 30s. Worked since I left school. Bought anything I own. Paid off loans and currently paying a mortgage. Some individuals who were in school with me never worked a day in their lives yet all have houses.

Same story repeated in towns and villages up and down the country.

Also people who cannot afford a mortgage as they as caught in a rent trap. People who have gone to college put in the work and still have no house of their own.

Something is wrong there. I'll give you two guesses who will be paying the bill at the end of this too

I'm in the same boat as you. Count yourself lucky you have all that you have instead of focusing on other people's supposedly cushy lives.

TuringBot47

jill_valentine wrote: »

Which is the morally correct kind of work then, the office workers who are lazy or the street cleaners who are unskilled and menial?

You think office workers are lazy?
I think your own prejudices and jealousy are coming out there.

I've worked 60 hour weeks to get a project over the line.
Worked full days in the office, got home and continued working until past midnight.

Street cleaners have zero stress, no requirement to study 4 years just to start their career then are expected to constantly keep up to date with new technologies every year.

Thelonious Monk

Eric Cartman wrote: »

immigrants are not the solution, lowering welfare to the point where people NEED to do those jobs to live is.

I don't think there would be anywhere near enough people on the dole that are capable of doing these jobs even if we did lower welfare. Plus most of these dole lifer people would be incapable of doing any kind of job, they wouldn't have the discipline.

Blueshoe

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

I'm in the same boat as you. Count yourself lucky you have all that you have instead of focusing on other people's supposedly cushy lives.

What?
I know some of the individuals I mentioned. They never had any interest in going out and trying. I'm not lucky. My efforts were rewarded. I work for a living.

Virus lockdown means nothing to some people. The bookies and pubs are closed. Other than that no different

pgj2015

Greentopia wrote: »

You're falsely equating wealth with happiness because you've internalised the message that's drummed into people from either that wealth is a means to happiness. A mistake many people make. If wealth was the source of happiness celebrities and the super wealthy would be the happiest people on earth. One look at their private lives tells us this is not so.

No I am not, I didnt mention happiness in what I said in that post. I mentioned working 7 days a week. I am very happy since I started my business and working so much, I have been saying it to myself a lot over the last year. I would rather earn 20k a year working for myself than 2 million a year as an employee. There is just something about business that I love, providing a product or service to the public and getting reward for it.

if i hadnt a penny and lived on the streets, I reckon I would still see rich entrepreneurs and admire them, I would never begrudge them, its just the way I think.

nthclare

Greentopia wrote: »

You're falsely equating wealth with happiness because you've internalised the message that's drummed into people from either that wealth is a means to happiness. A mistake many people make. If wealth was the source of happiness celebrities and the super wealthy would be the happiest people on earth. One look at their private lives tells us this is not so.

My uncles family were born into wealth. Money has not made any of them happy. All its caused is division, jealousy, marriage breakups and bitterness.

On the other hand the people I know who are genuinely the happiest and more importantly the most content are those who have either eschewed the wealth and privilege they were born into early on and opted for a far simpler way of life (mainly organic farmers, artists, craftspeople), or they had the stressed middle class existence of the daily commute and grind who had an epiphany and sold everything to again live a simpler life, mostly in the country.

But of course no-one who is desperate for riches and sees it as a means of having a fulfilled life ever believes that. It's something they have to find out for themselves.

There's new age crusties in East Clare who's bank accounts will do their grandkids a lifetime.

Living the simple life and being creative, holidays to India and I never judge a book by it's cover.

They look like they've nothing but go into their house's and it's a different story, insulation, Nordic stoves, solid Oak kitchens etc
Jacuzzi's, meditation rooms etc

pure.conya

Ace2007 wrote: »

What i would like to see is more people actually saving for that rainy day - but if you have been through the 08 crash and still haven't saved - i doubt going through this crisis will help change your mind either.

It's gas how we're all expected to save a fortune out of our limited disposable incomes to survive a few months if everything goes south, yet massive tax avoiding corporations that report obscene profits year on year cant even survive a fortnight without needing a bailout

Also back in 2008 wages were about the same yet rent was 50% cheaper than it is today, how does that make sense?

Thespoofer

nthclare wrote: »

There's new age crusties in East Clare who's bank accounts will do their grandkids a lifetime.

Living the simple life and being creative, holidays to India and I never judge a book by it's cover.

They look like they've nothing but go into their house's and it's a different story, insulation, Nordic stoves, solid Oak kitchens etc
Jacuzzi's, meditation rooms etc

What do they do for a living?

jill_valentine

TuringBot47 wrote: »

It'll only have an influence afterwards if you've run up criminal convictions or addictions.

This is so spectacularly and transparently false I have to wonder if it's meant to provoke a reaction.

Your entire basic education, your health, and all the opportunities available to you during the key years of your career, are affected by that first 18 years. Can some people do more than what might be expected from their circumstances, sure, in the same way some people really can win a million euro on Prize Bonds.

What is this notion that there's some benevolent all powerful referee passing out success exactly fairly? Why on earth would that be true? What natural force makes the world just and fair economically in some way it isn't in any other regard at all?

ectoraige

The_Brood wrote: »

There is enough money out there to have a hospital fully equiped on every street corner, but no we cant have that, we need to keep the top 1 percent and 10 percent as rich as ever before.

What would be the point of a hospital in every corner?

There wouldn't be enough doctors, nurses, healthcare assistants, porters, and other healthcare workers to staff them, not to mention the fact that even if there were, they would have so few patients their clinical skills would stagnate.

pure.conya

Eric Cartman wrote: »

When somebody comes up with a better system, we'll all gladly change. Theres nothing left of the aisle or that involves redistribution of wealth thats better.

https://qz.com/1835237/amsterdam-adopted-a-new-economic-model-for-life-after-covid-19/

The city of Amsterdam this week officially decided to embrace what has come to be known as “The Doughnut Model,” a framework for sustainable development created by Oxford University economist Kate Raworth. In adopting this model, which attempts to balance the needs of people without harming the environment, the city hopes to emerge from the cloud of Covid-19 elbows out, with new purpose. The Dutch capital is the first city in the world to commit to the model, making it an economic experiment of a sort.


In an interview with The Guardian that took place before the decision was announced, Amsterdam’s deputy mayor Marieke van Doorninck said she thinks the model will help her city overcome the devastating effects of the novel coronavirus. If her government hopes to rebuild its economy and adequately address local socioeconomic and environmental shortcomings, she said, the government cannot revert to the status quo.

As a city leader, van Doorninck will help determine how policies will be shaped by the new economic model. The doughnut won’t provide answers on its own, she says, but it will provide a new way of looking at problems and finding their answers.

So what is “the doughnut?”
At the simplest level, the model makes the controversial case that a growing economy and ever-expanding GDP aren’t necessarily signs of economic health. It suggests that there are two large-scale problems facing humanity: poverty and climate change. The doughnut is an attempt to visualize and enable measurement of the relationship between the two.

pure.conya

ectoraige wrote: »

What would be the point of a hospital in every corner?

There wouldn't be enough doctors, nurses, healthcare assistants, porters, and other healthcare workers to staff them, not to mention the fact that even if there were, they would have so few patients their clinical skills would stagnate.

He/she hardly meant literally

Ace2007

jill_valentine wrote: »

Save what? Any savings I had by the time 2008 happened were wiped out making it through that, and I haven't been able to get anywhere close to that together since.

After the last recession an awful lot of people either had to restart their careers from zero or watch their wages stagnate or recede permanently. The cost of living didn't nosedive, but job security, benefits etc did and now that's taken for granted. People were in far more precarious employment situations heading into this thanks to the normalisation of ****ing around with hourly work contracts or full time "contractors" in jobs that used to have pensions. People were just glad to have jobs again after 2008, and the consequences of that are going to be felt in a big way when the C19 payments stop coming and we really have to take stock.

Same generation who've been rent trapped, and are now sharing in situations that make the advice about isolating redundant. They weren't buying patio heaters and pizza ovens or two beds off plan and on pyrite - that wasn't even an option in the first place. The extravagance that's associated with the Tiger years hasn't been a feature for the last few, not because we're all much more sensible, but because people never came back to having any disposable income to speak of. Few nights out and maybe a holiday a year doesn't translate into a house deposit or an emergency fund to fall back on for weeks or months.

They didn’t get used to living from payday to payday by choice, they had to. Once the bills are paid, where's the money for saving? I would argue we are, in many ways, far worse off to weather a recession this time than we were then. Even people in negative equity then had roofs over their heads. Even people in ****e zero hour retail jobs had jobs. Everything's far more fragile this time around.

If in the last 12 years you haven't managed to save the equivalent of 3/6 months of expenses, then yes you have been doing something wrong.

People paying high rents in Dublin - no one is forcing you to rent these places - I've worked with people over the years that have commuted from all over the country to Dublin, in order to save money - from Roscommon to Belfast, from Tipp to Waterford, everyday coming up to Dublin, early morning trains, or carpool journey - madness you might think - but they were able to save money. That was their goal and they did it.

You mention the bills - how much do you need to earn, I put in in a thread a few weeks back that I could live off 100 a week easily - another poster said they could live of 20 quid a week if they had to. The difference in Ireland is that people spend so much money without a care in the world, Coffee and scone every morning - then buying their lunch out, few drinks after work on a Friday - all money that they could save. How much money do you think is wasted on paying interest on CC in Ireland?

I'm all for people wanting to live their lives etc, but 12 years since the crash and it seems no one has learn a lesson.

The Waxbill

The_Brood wrote: »

99% of the "rich" do not deserve a lick of what they have. Either family inheretance, or they are good at coding or playing financial games with imaginary numbers. While the rest of us have to slave away to survive. That has to end by any and all means necessary.

You are spot on and sadly it will be business as usual as soon as this is all over. Back to greed, over consumption and destruction of the environment.

I no longer think we are actually viable as a species.

nthclare

Thespoofer wrote: »

What do they do for a living?

Fishing, tobogganing, digging turf, making buns for farmers markets, knitting headbands, daisy chains, wood turning etc

Eric Cartman

nthclare wrote: »

Fishing, tobogganing, digging turf, making buns for farmers markets, knitting headbands, daisy chains, wood turning etc

yoga classes , weaving , not paying tax. the usual.

pure.conya

TuringBot47 wrote: »

In the real world, there are menial unskilled jobs which anybody can do.
They won't command high wages, nor should they.

If it wasn't for the likes of people working in production line/clean room, shelf packers, till operators, cleaners etc. we'd all be screwed, maybe then you'd realise how your attitude stinks

TuringBot47

jill_valentine wrote: »

This is so spectacularly and transparently false I have to wonder if it's meant to provoke a reaction.

You mean like stating that all office workers are lazy?

jill_valentine wrote: »

Your entire basic education, your health, and all the opportunities available to you during the key years of your career, are affected by that first 18 years

Affected yes, controlling the rest of your life, no.
Plenty of people go back and complete the leaving, take night courses, start their own businesses etc.

In the same way women say "I put on that weight when I was pregnant"... maybe, but 20 years later it's not an excuse.

jill_valentine

TuringBot47 wrote: »

You think office workers are lazy?
I think your own prejudices and jealousy are coming out there.

Ah now there's irony.

I was actually challenging a term used by another poster.

That said, I work in an office. I have done sixty hour work weeks. I'd say most of us here have done sixty hour work weeks at some stage. So I can say with my own authority that a sixty hour work week in IT is not equal to a a sixty hour work week in a retail job or a job outdoors.

Street cleaners have zero stress, no requirement to study 4 years just to start their career then are expected to constantly keep up to date with new technologies every year.

Oh for the stress free life of doing a extremely hazardous job of hard labour out in the elements for a pittance. How happy is the serf's lot.

nthclare

Eric Cartman wrote: »

yoga classes , weaving , not paying tax. the usual.

They paid inheritance taxes so what's theirs is theirs.

isn't it great they're happy out and were lucky enough to educate themselves and do what keeps them ticking over.

And there's not a thing that can be done to them, judging them only affirms jealousy and resentment...

Say's more about the begrudgers than them...

TuringBot47

pure.conya wrote: »

If it wasn't for the likes of people working in production line/clean room, shelf packers, till operators, cleaners etc. we'd all be screwed, maybe then you'd realise how your attitude stinks

Nope.
I've worked in those sort of jobs for 5 years while paying to put myself through college. 13 hour days, cleaned toilets, worked damn hard.

We live in a capitalist society where skills in demand command more money.

If anything you'll find all those jobs you listed are probably high on the list of ones at risk of being automated.
Amazon opened cashier-less stores in the US as a trial.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

TuringBot47 wrote: »

It'll only have an influence afterwards if you've run up criminal convictions or addictions.

Eh...??
Firstly, the circumstances of birth can cause criminality or addictions; secondly what's this got to do with being born into wealth?

It's easy to conjure up imaginary people there.
Would you like to name someone famous ?
Successful people will have something, intelligence, creativity, solid work ethic, people skills or the like.

What's this "never done a days work in their lives" comment from ?
People can work hard without carting a wheelbarrow of bricks around or the like. I've worked 60 hour weeks in I.T.

You said your yourself - inheritance, wealthy, parental/family wealth/influence.

Google the Just Wrold Fallacy. A lot of major influences happen as a result of circumstances of birth.

Some wealth is inherited.
Some will be earned by starting successful companies or working from the start in unicorn companies offering share options.
But a lot of hard working couples in Ireland can pull in over €100k a year, typically more if they both work in medium level jobs.

Confirms what I said: why is this measured as "successful"? A lot of people never achieve this and hare happier and work just as hard if not harder at tasks in the community that give no income.

You seem to hink I said that wealth does not bring success - but that's not true: what I said was that it is incredibly niave to think that wealth and income automatically means happiness and success.

And this is one of the lessons I think people are goign to bring away from the coronavirus experience. People have had their income and their social lives suspended because of this, but more people seem to be worried about their social lives.