Budget 2024 - The Squeezed Middle

Fantastic, can’t wait to give in Notice to my employer and get €230+ to sit at home and do nothing everyday.

Rampant inflation. Let's increase minimum wage. Why are costs continuing to rise? Oh yes the employer must push up prices to cover wage increases.

Been on it before myself, plenty of stuff to be at to pass time if you want.

No commute, no 50 hr weeks, no people to be dealing with, not getting up at 5.30 am into the miserable weather etc

It aint all bad either like!!

I'd much rather hear of targeted increases in policing, healthcare or education than get a tax credit for all of an extra €20/€30 a month.

That's the thing. Giving away money is nice but it's better to invest it in the future. Rather than supplementing peoples incomes it'd be better to work towards a place where it's not necessary.

...and again, wrong wrong wrong and wrong, most money is now in fact created by financial institutions, we call these 'banks', this money is in fact in the form of credit, and its primary use is to inflate the value of assets such as property...

governments globally have been playing this game for decades now, governments create money by running a deficit, but since deficits are believed to be the work of the devil, they have moved towards surpluses, i.e. which in fact is the act of removing money from the economy...

...which means we primarily run our economies using bank created money, i.e. credit, whos negatives have been explained above.....

...inflation can be caused by both the demand(money supply) and supply side of our economies, our current inflation is primarily a supply side problem, from severe supply chain disruption during covid, and now an energy shock, hence why the price of energy has sky rocketed....

...this can be partly seen by the overall profits major players in our commodity markets and energy markets, many of which are currently recording record profits!

...money is created when banks create a loan, this is the primary source of our money supply, and again, governments only create money when running a deficit!

the size of a government doesnt necessarily equate to the amount of corruption within it, ireland is known to be one of the least corrupt states in the world, certainly when compared to more impoverished nations....

..again wrong, when governments create bonds, this is in fact the beginning stages of 'public' money creation, but in order for this transaction to be complete, there must be purchasers of these bonds, hence bond holders...

...once again, the majority of our money supply in fact comes from the financial sector in the form of credit, i.e. the private sector money supply, this occurs when banks lend, from individuals, right up to major businesses and corporations....

in order for banks to be able to do this, they must meet whats called their 'reserve requirements', which includes deposits, but can also include other assets in their portfolios....

...this is also a part of whats called 'financialisation' of your economy, under such an approach, governments are 'encouraged' to remove themselves from providing critical social functions such as providing housing, and to do as much as it possible to encourage and facilitate other major parts of an economy, in particular the fire sectors(finance, insurance and real estate), in doing so, only that the main priorities of these sectors is to maximize its financial gains from the whole process. this generally leads to highly dysfunctional housing markets, serious supply problems and hyper inflated property prices....

...once again, our current inflationary problems are primarily supply side lead, as explained earlier, i.e. the rapid increase in the price of energy, oh yea, this has been largely privatized over the last few decades also, so happy happy days, record profits, and everyone's a winner!

yes wages are not the cause of this form of inflation, again, its supply side!

...once again, most of our money supply does not come from central banks, as explained, but central banks have been doing their best to also fcuk this up, by maintaining extremely low rates, and facilitating the financial sector with money, via programs such as qe, which in turn just bulked up the reserve accounts of banks at the central banks, allowing them to lend more, i.e. and by allowing them to lend more, and more they did, but not to the likes of sme's and us citizens, but to banks and other 'non bank financial institutions', i.e. shadow banking entities, who in turn used this money to further inflate the value of assets, including engaging in share buy back schemes, etc....

...yes public health care staff and gardai etc, sit around doing fcuk all all day, definitely!

If you have a mortgage for a house like this and your on 250k it could be challenging to manage, you would also be craked in the head to pay that price for a 3-bed semi.

I'm guessing part time workers will only get the small minimum wage increase

What salaries do the squeezed middle start on?

40 k and upwards?

Like wtf?....it looks like my nephew built it out of lego...

3/4 of a million....for that....in leopardstown.....ffs

Your Avin a larf mate!

For a married couple it works out closer to 145k after tax, that's a fair amount of money- there are many couples, both working, on less than half that that would both would be considered to have very good jobs.