Free market economics in europe?

bonkey

AngelofFire wrote:

Yes but i was talking about being able to afford a home, rather than actually owning a home.

So, what you're really talking about is the amount of the 17% of people who have any identifiable want/need to own a home and don't already. You're saying that its getting out of their reach, and they're not likely to reverse that trend.

I mean, its not like saying "I own a 3-bed semi-d, but can't afford to buy another one / trade up on market prices" should qualify as poor.

Fair enough...but sell it for what it is. Its not a reflection on the population of Ireland. Its a reflection on somewhere around a sixth of the adult population.

jc

Meh

AngelofFire wrote:

Yes but i was talking about being able to afford a home, rather than actually owning a home.

I don't understand the distinction you're drawing here. One is a necessary precondition for the other. You can't own a home if you can't afford a home, so it seems that 83% of Irish people can afford their own home (again, the highest rate in the world).

bonkey

Meh wrote:

You can't own a home if you can't afford a home,

Not entirely true. Consider my mate....he's unemployed, generally broke and penniless, has been all his life. He cannot afford to buy a home. However, he is an only son of a sole-remaining parent who does own a house.

My mate will go from one of the 16% who don't own a home to one of the 84% who do, without ever being able to afford the house he will own.

Conversely, I would also point out that home ownership is not necessarily an indication of wealth in the first place. Switzerland, IIRC, has the lowest home-ownership in Europe, at somewhere around 30%. It is by no means the poorest nation, nor the one with the most comparativelly poor people.

Meh

bonkey wrote:

Not entirely true. Consider my mate....he's unemployed, generally broke and penniless, has been all his life. He cannot afford to buy a home. However, he is an only son of a sole-remaining parent who does own a house.

My mate will go from one of the 16% who don't own a home to one of the 84% who do, without ever being able to afford the house he will own.

Yep, and according to AngelofFire, we should all feel sorry for him because he "can't afford to buy a home". When in fact he's a lucky SoB who got a house for free! The 83% who own their own homes are doing pretty well, even (especially) if they didn't buy that home out of their own pockets.

Conversely, I would also point out that home ownership is not necessarily an indication of wealth in the first place. Switzerland, IIRC, has the lowest home-ownership in Europe, at somewhere around 30%. It is by no means the poorest nation, nor the one with the most comparativelly poor people.

That's very true, Irish people seem to have an unhealthy obsession with owning real estate.

Meh

Meh wrote:

The 83% who own their own homes are doing pretty well, even (especially) if they didn't buy that home out of their own pockets.

They would of course have to pay CAT if the value of the house is more than €466,725-admittedly that would rule out the vast bulk of houses,though maybe not in Dublin.
There are houses up and down the East coast bought for under that threshold, now worth close to and over €700k, meaning the inheritance could get costly.

These siblings could of course take out a loan for the CAT and then sell the family home with no tax liability, pay off the loan, trade down to a house worth 3 or 400k and have a 100k in the bank aswell sitting pretty.

Quantum

AngelofFire wrote:

Yeah the 90,000 children living in poverty are all lazy

Firstly I don't accept your definition of poverty, which seems to me to be totally and utterly subjective and inapropriate, and hence your non credible figures. Secondly it's quite possible that it is children's parents that are the lazy ones that produce poverty for their children. I don't believe in a nanny state and if parents chose to be lazy then there are consequences.

so are the people who cant afford to buy a house even though they work 40 hour weeks.

If you are implying that not being able to buy a house is some kind of problem that society should be correcting then that's a society that I don't ever want to exist in this country.

I have never seen such a myopic argument in my life. Do you really believe that the state of school bulidings and the fact that many primary school class rooms lack proper learning materials is solely down to the fact that the school children in them are lazy?.

This is what I ACTUALLY said as opposed to what you claim I said: "the only section of the community not transformed here are the terminally lazy."
And I don't accept that 'many' primary schools lack proper learning materials. This is simply not true. Please post supporting factual references for this ?

Do you think that its acceptable that the average income of people earning in excess of 1000 per week has increased by 66% since 1995 whilst in the same period earnings of the average industrial worker has only increased by 23% (source ERSI). Are PAYE workers Lazy?

Please post a reference to this data, as I have no confidence as to it's accuracy. Wages and employment have improved out of all proportion in Ireland in thre last ten years and this is due to the market economics introduced into this country by irish Governments and with the encouragement of the EU.

Quantum

AngelofFire wrote:

therefore i believe that every one should have a share of the benefits proportionatley.

You are entitled to your view but I do not believe that wealth should be handed out to people no matter how much of it there is - only that they should earn it on the basis of their work and contribution.

*the figure of 90,000 children living in poverty comes from the barnardos website

Please post web references to save us having to dig through sites ?
Actually the figure I see on their site is 120,000 and I laughed out loud when I saw it. It is a completely nonsensical and self serving piece of crap.

I dont think we have a choice between a society thats equally poor, and a society thats rich but has massive inequality. I believe that the Fruits of this economic boom must be shared proportionatley. We can have a rich country were every aspect of society benefits, be it the health service, the businessmen, the education system or the PAYE worker.

I don't want a society where people are kept by the state irrespective of their contribution to society or willingness to work. I don't want a society that shares out wealth proportionately. Human beings are unequal. Some are better at things than others. There will always be inequalities in life and that is the way it should be - it is one of the most fundamental characteristics of human beings and ti should always be maintained that way.

sovtek

Quantum wrote:

only that they should earn it on the basis of their work and contribution.

Really...like this ya mean?

pete

Quantum wrote:

Please post web references to save us having to dig through sites ?
Actually the figure I see on their site is 120,000 and I laughed out loud when I saw it. It is a completely nonsensical and self serving piece of crap.

So the reason you don't believe their figures is you don't believe their figures?

Actually, the barnardos website specifically states:

Ireland is a wealthy country, but we still have 70,000 children living in consistent poverty.

See also:

CORI:

Living in housing that is overcrowded, damp, in disrepair or in a poor neighbourhood can be damaging to people of all ages. However, its impact on children's welfare tends to be very significant.

A study produced for the Children's Research Centre at Trinity College Dublin by Simon Brooke found that between 1991 and 2002 the numbers of children living in these conditions doubled. According to the report entitled Housing Problems and Irish Children there are now 50,000 children living in such conditions.

Fine Gael:

Some 70,000 children live below the poverty line, living in households with heating and debt difficulties or having no substantial meal in a two-week period. Over 300,000 children live in relative poverty, that is, their standard of living is substantially less than the general standard of living in society.

daveirl

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Zaph0d

Regi wrote:

Should more economically liberal countries like Ireland or the UK continue to shackle themselves to that philosophy? Or will the comfortable and social welfare systems of Germany and France florish in this new Europe? Can they maintain themselves long term in the globalised economy?

The Eastern Bloc members are more free market oriented than Germany and France; they make no secret that they all intend to copy Ireland's low corporate tax model and go further still with small fixed income taxes etc. Neither English speaking countries nor the Eastern Bloc will cede the right to set their own tax rates, nor will they accept expensive social provisions.

Whether the constitution is passed or not, this situation won't change.

How are we shackled to France and Germany's fiscal policies? To an extent we owe our success to the larger European countries insisting on maintaining high tax rates (and low tax takes).

We shouldn't forget that the aim of the European Union is to avoid a repeat of the occasions in the last century when European countries decided to murder each other by the million. We should try to find as many points of agreement as possible and forge strong commercial and cultural ties. The European union should never be dissolved over disagreements about the optimal economic policy.

pete

daveirl wrote:

This post has been deleted.

AFAIK living below 70% of the median income is classified as 'relative' poverty.