Opinion formers - get your facts rights

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Howitzer

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Taken from the Public Sector Attitudes thread.

I'm not taking a pop at Fergus Finaly. I like Fergus Finlay, he does some really good and important work with Bernardos, but when people write Opinion peices in newspapers they gotta get their facts straight.

Maybe people would like to use this as noticeboard of mainstream news articles where FACTUAL errors have been made.



liaconn said:
Absolutely. But who's to say that that's what he meant. Are you Fergus Finlay?

Well, it was pretty obvious to anyone else I know who read the article that that is what he meant. Obviously, you'd rather believe he's making stuff up.

All you gotta do is point me at a link. I'm not so biased in my opinions that I can't admit I'm wrong. Where has this been stated? Is it a widely held view?

It is Fergus Finlay who said he's seen/heard these figures quoted. You seem to be accusing him of lying on the basis that you have not heard any misrepresentation yourself. That is the point I am making.
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LMAO.

Here again is the orginal quote. I haven't misrepresnted or paraphrased Fergus in any way shape or form.
liaconn said:
When they’re talking about public spending, commentators seem to use whatever figure comes into their heads. I’ve heard it solemnly reported on the radio that public service pay accounts for proportions of spending ranging from 50% to 75%. There’s a mantra about it — "it’s simply impossible to cut public spending (and thereby save the economy is the inference) without cutting pay because pay simply accounts for too much".
The actual figure is about one-third. Public service pay is about one-third of public spending. So every €3 you take off a public servant should give you about €1 in public spending cuts.
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You may know what Fergus meant but the article isn't aimed at you. It's an opinion piece, by definition the aim is to form opinion. Fergus makes an unsubstantiated point that people are misrepresnting PS wages as a percentage of overall numbers and then 1 line later makes, what I can only assume, to be a glaring mistake in his own figures. (A 3 Euro saving is a 3 Euro saving no matter what way you look at it (before tax).)

When you're in the business of opinion forming you gotta be able to back up what you say.
 
Howitzer said:
It's an opinion piece, by definition the aim is to form opinion. Fergus makes an unsubstantiated point that people are misrepresnting PS wages as a percentage of overall numbers and then 1 line later makes, what I can only assume, to be a glaring mistake in his own figures. (A 3 Euro saving is a 3 Euro saving no matter what way you look at it (before tax).)

When you're in the business of opinion forming you gotta be able to back up what you say.
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Technically opinion pieces and editorials are to present an opinion or view point rather than to assist someone in the development of an opinion. By their nature they are biased and most will present figures or lack of however they want. We've had the same circular discussion with opinion pieces that criticise the PS/CS.

Somewhere in this complete and tedious morass at the moment is the truth and the answer. Even I'm getting bored of the sniping and arguments and really like to string on arguments beyond their sell-by date, so it must be bad.
 
Latrade said:
Technically opinion pieces and editorials are to present an opinion or view point rather than to assist someone in the development of an opinion. By their nature they are biased and most will present figures or lack of however they want. We've had the same circular discussion with opinion pieces that criticise the PS/CS.
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I would disagree. Whilst opinions based on a set of figures can be infinite the figures themselves should be cast iron.

You can't just misrepresent a set of figures to be true when you know, or should know, them to be incorrect. You can't just make up up numbers to support your arguement.

You can on the internet, 63.2% of people know that, but that has always been the stand out high moral ground that conventional press has taken over anonymous internet posters - that there is an element of accountability and referencability to what they say.
 
What I found funny about this particular article was that Fergus got on his high horse of about other commentators misrepresenting facts and figures but didn't provide a reference and then proceeded to misrepresent a figure of his own making.

Opinion formers - get your facts right.
 
Frontline. Tuesday, 24th November 2009. 19.30 mins in.

http://www.rte.ie/player/#v=1060912

Teacher with a salary of 49.5K states he receives a take home salary of 950 a forthnight. 49.5/52 = 950. He should have stated he receives a before tax salary of 950 a WEEK.

RTE - get your facts right.
 
Howitzer said:
Frontline. Tuesday, 24th November 2009. 19.30 mins in.

http://www.rte.ie/player/#v=1060912

Teacher with a salary of 49.5K states he receives a take home salary of 950 a forthnight. 49.5/52 = 950. He should have stated he receives a before tax salary of 950 a WEEK.

RTE - get your facts right.
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I think you need to get your facts right also. The teacher was on Prime Time not Frontline.
 
And surely the teacher should get his facts right or are RTE to vet all statements made by programme participants to live shows for factual errors?
 
As liaconn noted, it was Prime Time not Frontline (my mistake, sorry) so the program was recorded not live.

I did provide the link for anyone to see for themselves.
 
Why are we sitting around here talking about facts when feelings are what's important...
 
Article by Ronan O'Driscoll (director of Savills)

[broken link removed]

There are about 40,000 empty houses and apartments recently completed by builders, which remain unsold.
..
Wrapped up in those properties is VAT of about €1.3 billion, which at current rates will trickle into the exchequer in the years ahead. If something positive is done to proactively sell a proportion of these properties, the tax received will be very significant.
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Here's how VAT works. VAT is simply a tax collection machanism. The consumer ultimately pays it but at every stage along the way, from raw matierial to services provided, VAT is charged AND PAID TO REVENUE. That paid VAT is then OFFSET against what is owed at the next stage. All the VAT on the raw matierials and services asociated with building these units has already been paid. Once the builder completes the sale he'll calculate what VAT he owes, takes away the VAT he's already paid, and forward on the outstanding amount to revenue.

If the price has been reduced to such an extent that it sells for less than it cost to build then it is possible that very little, if any, VAT will accrue to Revenue.

The only way in which a full 13.5% of VAT would be locked away in these units would be if their original goods and services were paid for cash in hand, and as we all know that couldn't possibly be the case.

I accept that many suppliers and sub-contractors may have outstanding invoices which have not been paid but stating that there is 1.3 Billion Euros VAT outstanding by multiplying the amount of units by a nominal price and calculating 13.5% of that is factually incorrect.

Ronan O'Driscoll (director of Savills) - get your facts right.
 
That's not actually true Howitzer because the builder can reclaim any VAT charged to him

For example (ignoring the new VAT rules on subcontractors):

A builder contracts various subbies to build a house

Cost of build is, say €100K + VAT so the VAT intake to Revenue is €13,500

But

The Builder can claim back this €13,500 in his next VAT return so the net VAT income to Revenue is NIL

Now when the builder sells the house for, say €200K + VAT, the purchaser will pay over €227K and the builder must pay the €27K over the Revenue

But

The purchaser CANNOT reclaim the VAT from the Revenue so the net VAT income to Revenue is €27K

The ONLY time that VAT actually enters the Revenue coffers is when somebody who is NOT VAT-registered purchases a good or service

So it IS true to calculate the loss of VAT as net sales value of units unsold x 13.5%
 
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