Public service pay cut?

Wanderer78

Dav010 wrote: »

Enlighten me.

apologies, made changes to that message

Dav010

Wanderer78 wrote: »

apologies, made changes to that message

Which corporations are being bailed out as we speak?

cee_jay

Dav010 wrote: »

So instead we keep plodding along, held over a barrel by unions, unable to cut away the waste and wasters?

But in your model, all public service staff will be fired, giving an open pay cheque to contractors. It is very simplistic, with no understanding of the complexities a public service department has to deal with on a daily basis.

Answer some questions for me just so I can understand this a bit better.
Without the public servants, who judges the performance of the outsourced staff/contractors? Who measures the services provided for efficiency and performance? Who does the procurement to ensure value for money? Who asks the pertinent questions when a project goes off course?

Wanderer78

Dav010 wrote: »

Which corporations are being bailed out as we speak?

cant remember now to be honest, but ive heard Italian economist Mariana mazzucato speak about it, think she said Renault and airbus, id have to check to be honest

Hotblack Desiato

Air France/KLM and Lufthansa are getting billions.

Hotblack Desiato

Dav010 wrote: »

Perhaps that is the most obvious benefit of outsourcing to private contractors, the job gets done

Like PPARS? Great example of value for money outsourcing there... which produced nothing at great expense and the design the consultants came up with was unimplementable.

Wanderer78

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Air France/KLM and Lufthansa are getting billions.

covid payments could also be considered bailouts, kinna

Dav010

Wanderer78 wrote: »

covid payments could also be considered bailouts, kinna

Jesus wept, the corporations being bailed out by the Irish Government, are KLM, Lufthansa and airbus? Or are you using the French/Dutch/German Governments now to illustrate your point about bail outs to Irish corporations? I had assumed we were talking about the Irish Public and Private sectors in this discussion.

Covid payments are not a bailout for Irish private sector corporations, the employers would have laid off their employees and still come out the same, some did rather than taking the Covid payments. This was a Governmemt initiative to keep the numbers of unemployed as low as possible and keep people’s jobs open.

Wanderer78

Dav010 wrote: »

Jesus wept, the corporations being bailed out by the Irish Government, are KLM and airbus? Or are you using the French/Dutch Governments now to illustrate your point about bail outs to Irish corporations? I had assumed we were talking about the Irish Public and Private sectors in this discussion.

you do realise we re apart of a union called the eu, and you can be damn sure, those bailouts will creep into your world soon enough, again, id class current covid payments as forms of bailouts, of sorts anyway

'markets do not exist in a vacuum'!

Dav010

Wanderer78 wrote: »

you do realise we re apart of a union called the eu, and you can be damn sure, those bailouts will creep into your world soon enough, again, id class current covid payments as forms of bailouts, of sorts anyway

You are over reaching, it’s another statement you can’t back up.

Wanderer78

Wanderer78 wrote: »

you do realise we re apart of a union called the eu, and you can be damn sure, those bailouts will creep into your world soon enough, again, id class current covid payments as forms of bailouts, of sorts anyway

'markets do not exist in a vacuum'!

Dav010 wrote: »

You are over reaching, it’s another statement you can’t back up.

that statement is from economist joe stiglitz, and hes right, all markets are complexly intertwined, and due to global initiatives such as globalization, this is even more so now than ever

i have asked you before, i will ask you again, can you provide us with a working, fully functioning example of a fully privatized society and economy?

fly_agaric

Dav010 wrote: »

Covid payments are not a bailout for Irish private sector corporations, the employers would have laid off their employees and still come out the same, some did rather than taking the Covid payments. This was a Governmemt initiative to keep the numbers of unemployed as low as possible and keep people’s jobs open.

There are several kinds of Covid-19 supports to business/private sector.
Not all of it is wage subsidies (which you could see as alternative to paying unemployment if the businesses had laid the employees off instead). Some of it is direct payments to prop up the income of shuttered businesses. Some of it is "debt warehousing" (tax bills put on the long finger, maybe never to be paid, who knows??).

Dav010

Wanderer78 wrote: »

that statement is from economist joe stiglitz, and hes right, all markets are complexly intertwined, and due to global initiatives such as globalization, this is even more so now than ever

i have asked you before, i will ask you again, can you provide us with a working, fully functioning example of a fully privatized society and economy?

No I cannot, I doubt it exists. But that does not mean that we would not benefit from contracting out parts of the current public services and reducing the numbers of public servants.

Dav010

fly_agaric wrote: »

There are several kinds of Covid-19 supports to business/private sector.
Not all of it is wage subsidies (which you could see as alternative to paying unemployment if the businesses had laid the employees off instead). Some of it is direct payments to prop up the income of shuttered businesses. Some of it is "debt warehousing" (tax bills put on the long finger, maybe never to be paid, who knows??).

Could you tell me more about debt warehousing/tax bills put on hold, never to be paid. I’m sure lots of businesses would like to take advantage of that forgiveness from Revenue. Link please.

What direct payments prop up incomes of businesses?

fly_agaric

Dav010 wrote: »

Could you tell me more about debt warehousing/tax bills put on hold, never to be paid. I’m sure lots of businesses would like to take advantage of that forgiveness from Revenue. Link please.

https://www.revenue.ie/en/corporate/communications/covid19/filing-and-paying.aspx

https://www.revenue.ie/en/self-assessment-and-self-employment/crss/index.aspx

But then I have a feeling in my waters you knew this already and are just being a bit awkward for the sake of it?

I didn't say "forgiveness". I was being pessimistic that we might see alot of business collapses after this is over (collapsed/liquidated businesses will struggle to pay creditors like Revenue or the banks etc.).

2ndcoming

Dav010 wrote: »

No I cannot, I doubt it exists. But that does not mean that we would not benefit from contracting out parts of the current public services and reducing the numbers of public servants.

No. There are hundreds, if not thousands of examples locally and internationally that necessary public services and privatisation is a marriage made deep in the bowels of hell (hopefully, where many of its most famous exponents now dwell).

Wanderer78

Dav010 wrote: »

No I cannot, I doubt it exists. But that does not mean that we would not benefit from contracting out parts of the current public services and reducing the numbers of public servants.

exactly, and id completely agree with others, humanity has already gone down this road, it simply doesnt work, but there is sufficient evidence to support that a public/private system is best, but certainly not the way we have it

fly_agaric wrote: »

https://www.revenue.ie/en/corporate/communications/covid19/filing-and-paying.aspx

https://www.revenue.ie/en/self-assessment-and-self-employment/crss/index.aspx

But then I have a feeling in my waters you knew this already and are just being a bit awkward for the sake of it?

I didn't say "forgiveness". I was being pessimistic that we might see alot of business collapses after this is over (collapsed/liquidated businesses will struggle to pay creditors like Revenue or the banks etc.).

moratorium should have rremained in place, a bloodbath is on the way, fcuking idiots!

fly_agaric

Wanderer78 wrote: »

moratorium should have rremained in place, a bloodbath is on the way, fcuking idiots!

Don't really understand this comment.
What moratorium?

Wanderer78

fly_agaric wrote: »

Don't really understand this comment.
What moratorium?

a banking moratorium, was implemented at the beginning of covid, to protect both creditors and debtors, it was removed a while ago, so a bloodbath is on the way in regards debtors

fly_agaric

Wanderer78 wrote: »

a banking moratorium, was implemented at the beginning of covid, to protect both creditors and debtors, it was removed a while ago, so a bloodbath is on the way in regards debtors

Didn't know that was gone.

Think it is quite hard to know what will happen (as regards businesses that are kept going with support at the moment) when this Covid-19 crisis starts to peter out and we get closer to being "normal" again.

Some things in society may have structurally changed due to crisis which will damage profitibility of some categories of businesses or even make them unviable.

salonfire

Wanderer78 wrote: »

i have asked you before, i will ask you again, can you provide us with a working, fully functioning example of a fully privatized society and economy?

I can give you examples of fully functioning subsections of the economy:
Private transport, food, clothing retailers, fuel suppliers, mechanics and repair outlets, computer and electronic manufactures and suppliers, networking suppliers (apart from the old state dinosaur Eircom), and so on.

Imagine if our food was dependent on the delivery by the public sector like education? How many days would we go hungry through strikes?

There is a reason the food supply - the very essence of life - is left to the private sector.

Wanderer78

salonfire wrote: »

I can give you examples of fully functioning subsections of the economy:
Private transport, food, clothing retailers, fuel suppliers, mechanics and repair outlets, computer and electronic manufactures and suppliers, networking suppliers (apart from the old state dinosaur Eircom), and so on.

Imagine if our food was dependent on the delivery by the public sector like education? How many days would we go hungry through strikes?

There is a reason the food supply - the very essence of life - is left to the private sector.

again, this is an over simplification of the full functioning of economies and sectors, its clearly obviously now, we require functioning public and private sectors, working in some sort of symbiosis. food supplies are not just left to the private sector, as it interacts with various public sector bodies, in order to function. all sectors interact with public bodies and sectors, in order to exist. its clearly obvious that this is so, libertarianism is a myth, its built on a mythical belief that sectors can exist without any state interaction, its time for us to grow up and accept this reality, and to accept there are inefficiencies in both public and private sectors, and probably of equal amounts, its incredible childish to not realise this reality

cee_jay

salonfire wrote: »

Imagine if our food was dependent on the delivery by the public sector like education? How many days would we go hungry through strikes?

There is a reason the food supply - the very essence of life - is left to the private sector.

Like the school meals scheme, which even through covid-19 and school closures managed to get the meals to the kids in greatest need?

Private and public sector operate in completely different ways. Private sector aim is to make a profit. However, public sector aims to extend opportunities, protect the vulnerable, and improve everyone's quality of life. However, some of the societal issues are so complex there isn't just one easy solution to fix them.

For example, take an area like Dublin's North East Inner city. High unemployment, high rate of crime, high deprivation rate, low educational attainment, the list goes on. There is no magic bullet that will fix these issues overnight. Some of these issues will take at least a generation to remedy.

No private sector organisation would deal with this as there is no profit involved for them. It is a cross cutting issue, which hits so many different aspects of the public service, and who work together to try address the issues for future generations.

fly_agaric

salonfire wrote: »

Imagine if our food was dependent on the delivery by the public sector like education? How many days would we go hungry through strikes?

There is a reason the food supply - the very essence of life - is left to the private sector.

You could maybe have picked a better example. Seems to me the state has such deep involvement in this. Food supply from the field right up to when you eat your meal out is extremely regulated and controlled by the state and a fair whack of it all over Europe would not be viable as is only for massive supports like CAP.

If the magic invisible hand f-cks it up as has happened before in this country in the past, and suddenly there's no food or food is totally unaffordable, people tend to get quite upset (apart from the whole dying of starvation thingy).

Onb a less extreme scale + thinking of more recent events, the public get very angry when dodgy food makes people sick or they are sold food that is not what they think it is (like burgers with horsemeat in them).

beauf

salonfire wrote: »

I ...
Imagine if our food was dependent on the delivery by the public sector like education? How many days would we go hungry through strikes?

There is a reason the food supply - the very essence of life - is left to the private sector.

I thought most of farming isn't viable anymore except for large farm businesses with their economy of scale.

https://www.google.com/search?q=farming.+Ireland+not+viable&oq=farming.+Ireland+not+viable&aqs=chrome..69i57.15006j0j7&client=ms-android-xiaomi-rev1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

Hotblack Desiato

Wanderer78 wrote: »

libertarianism is a myth, its built on a mythical belief that sectors can exist without any state interaction

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/l-p-d-libertarian-police-department

L.P.D.: Libertarian Police Department
By Tom O’Donnell

March 31, 2014

I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.

“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”

“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”

“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”

The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”

“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”

“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”

He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”

I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.

“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.

“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.

“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”

It didn’t seem like they did.

“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”

Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.

I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.

“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.

Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.

“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.

I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”

He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.

“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”

“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.

“Because I was afraid.”

“Afraid?”

“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”

I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.

“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”

He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me for arresting him.

Pogue eile

salonfire wrote: »

Imagine if our food was dependent on the delivery by the public sector like education? How many days would we go hungry through strikes?

There is a reason the food supply - the very essence of life - is left to the private sector.

I don't think it was intentional but thank you for giving a great example of how both sectors are completely dependent on one another and cannot function in a silo.

Examine the full life cycle of a typical food product that is obtained on a supermarket shelf and you will see a perfect example of both sectors working in tandem.

In general people who give out about the Public Service have actually no perception of what the role and function of the service is - no one is suggesting that it is perfect of course - nor is the private sector which routinely gets ignored.

I joined the Civil Service 20 years ago and while it left a lot to be desired then it has come a hell of along way in those intervening years and I would without hesitation defend it as an operating body right now. Is it perfect? Of course not, but as the old FF war cry once said - 'A lot done, more to do' I worked in the private sector for 6 years before joining the service and again without hesitation would say that I witnessed just as much incompetence there as I seen in the Civil Service, and probably a lot more nepotism.

There was a massive influx of new recruits a number of years ago as the private sector plummeted, but what was noteworthy was the number of those same people who left as soon as the economy picked up again.

Always remember as well - the grass isn't always greener on the other side - and I would offer that piece of advice to both sectors.

khalessi

salonfire wrote: »

Imagine if our food was dependent on the delivery by the public sector like education? How many days would we go hungry through strikes?

There is a reason the food supply - the very essence of life - is left to the private sector.

Imagine indeed, an entire organisation going online overnight and offering their service in a different way while they also managed to have meals delivered to the homes that needed it.

Geuze

Wanderer78 wrote: »

, libertarianism is a myth, its built on a mythical belief that sectors can exist without any state interaction, its time for us to grow up and accept this reality, and to accept there are inefficiencies in both public and private sectors, and probably of equal amounts, its incredible childish to not realise this reality

I suspect there are very few libertarians who want no State.

They do want a small / smaller State.

When we see the massive waste in healthcare/HSE, and when we see the many able-bodied adults who do not work, partly due to the welfare state, it's no surprise that some people want the State to be less involved.

Day after day we hear about the mismanagement in the HSE / massive expenditure / waiting lists, these are due to vested interests (doctors, trade unions)

As a HSE employee told me: the doctors and the unions run the hospital.

We know that productivity is higher, and waiting lists shorter, in non-HSE hosps.

So it's understandable that some people want the HSE to be less involved.

What strikes me as odd is that some politicians criticise the HSE / State, yet simultaneously want the HSE/State to do more.

The way I see it, 15 month waiting lists are a sign that we should ask the HSE to step aside, and do less, not more, and switch to alternative providers.

AndrewJRenko

Geuze wrote: »

I suspect there are very few libertarians who want no State.

They do want a small / smaller State.

When we see the massive waste in healthcare/HSE, and when we see the many able-bodied adults who do not work, partly due to the welfare state, it's no surprise that some people want the State to be less involved.

Day after day we hear about the mismanagement in the HSE / massive expenditure / waiting lists, these are due to vested interests (doctors, trade unions)

As a HSE employee told me: the doctors and the unions run the hospital.

We know that productivity is higher, and waiting lists shorter, in non-HSE hosps.

So it's understandable that some people want the HSE to be less involved.

What strikes me as odd is that some politicians criticise the HSE / State, yet simultaneously want the HSE/State to do more.

The way I see it, 15 month waiting lists are a sign that we should ask the HSE to step aside, and do less, not more, and switch to alternative providers.

Non-HSE hospitals get to cherry pick. They get to pick the nice, clean, simple, routine cases that they know exactly how long will take and how much profit they will make out of it. If you don't meet the criteria, like my overweight in-law who's knee replacement at the Beacon was cancelled, they just push you back onto the public health service to pick up the slack.

It's easy to avoid waiting lists when you pick and choose your customers.

BTW, if you talk to the doctors and the unions, they'll tell you that the HSE employees run the hospital. Don't listen to what vested interests on any side tell you.