What left wing politicians should tell their electorate

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Do you think food stamps would make the parents buy food? Most likely not. I'm certainly not a do gooder sometimes I wish I was. I'm just being realistic. The parents need fixing. It's not about the price of food everyone knows that it's about bad parenting and parents that are lazy drug addicts or have mental health issues and who don't look after their children.

In principle I've nothing against the idea of food stamps, I'm just not sure how effective they are in practice... For responsible parents it would seem like a nanny state thing, and for irresponsible ones I can see a black market emerging where €20 in food stamps = €10 in cash.
 
Isn't that why we have social services?, to ensure the kids don't suffer. I don't want to see hungry kids I want to see parents getting sorted out, whether by carrot or stick.
To be fair Betsy while acknowledging the rationale of your initial post the point being made here is that SW & CA goes to parents rather than children. If they spend the money on drink/drugs etc this is not the fault of the hungry kids. From my own limited experience & small charity involvement we do appear to be developing a large class divide which makes it more difficult as time progresses to emerge from a dependency culture.
This whole area is extremely complex and cannot be resolved by changes in SW or making it less attractive to depend on SW. Job opportunities for those with a minimal level of education are extremely rare and almost always paid poorly (Luas drivers excepted!). Courses available rarely lead to job success purely because low skill jobs are becoming a thing of the past.
Left leaning politicians should be focusing on how to create more opportunities and then incentivise people to take them up.
 
I agree there is no economic reason. It's due to bad parents who probably spend the money on drink & drugs. Should the children be left to suffer because of their parents? I wouldn't want to be part of a society where a child is left go hungry.
Hold on now, it's not down to bad parents who probably spend the money on drink & drugs. There may be a small minority
for whom that is the case but that sort of broad generalisation serves no purpose in a discussion like this. It's down to bad education but not so much by the education system but by the parents of the current parents. If your children can't cook and look after their personal hygiene then you have failed them just as badly as the child who can't read and doesn't go to school. Some kids are little gits and despite the best efforts of good parents they turn out bad, just as the inverse is also true, but we are speaking in generalities here.
 
I'm not for abolishing breakfast clubs, just saying isnt it just a sad illustration of how badly things can go.

In California they have a welfare card that cannot be spent in liquor stores or fortune tellers - that's where I think we should be going with this - to try to help the kids.
 
This whole area is extremely complex and cannot be resolved by changes in SW or making it less attractive to depend on SW. Job opportunities for those with a minimal level of education are extremely rare and almost always paid poorly (Luas drivers excepted!). Courses available rarely lead to job success purely because low skill jobs are becoming a thing of the past..

SW creates a poverty trap. We have people coming here from all over the world working in low paid jobs, for whom english is a second language. We have a services economy staffed with people who don't need college degrees to do their job. Now maybe some companies are filtering applicants at the moment by college degree but that's a different thing.

We need to tie benefits to work rather than have all or nothing means tests which create poverty traps and a dependency culture. People shouldn't have to worry that if they take a low paid job they will lose all their benefits. And people should be better off if they work. Our current system does not deliver that. We need to look at 'push' factor, making a life of SW-only less attractive and 'pull', making a working life more attractive.
 
The point I was making was that there will always be children whose patents prioritise other spending over food. No amount of education will change that. Society should ensure that such children are looked after. Of the children that get fed in the breakfast clubs only a small few will really need but if it helps those children I'm happy to see my taxes spent on it. It could go on worse.
Hold on now, it's not down to bad parents who probably spend the money on drink & drugs. There may be a small minority
for whom that is the case but that sort of broad generalisation serves no purpose in a discussion like this. It's down to bad education but not so much by the education system but by the parents of the current parents. If your children can't cook and look after their personal hygiene then you have failed them just as badly as the child who can't read and doesn't go to school. Some kids are little gits and despite the best efforts of good parents they turn out bad, just as the inverse is also true, but we are speaking in generalities here.
 
There are currently only political parties that are either left of centre or radically left of centre ( I'm with Michael O'Leary on that one ! ), it would appear that Betsy Og's rules apply generally


The choice of the electorate is either moderate or radical left when it comes to parties .
 
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You're correct and I think it's time those middle income, working people who are paying lots of tax start raising their voices.
They did....and it nearly wiped out Labour, knocked 30% off of FG and stopped Renua in its tracks
 
There are currently only political parties that are either left of centre or radically left of centre ( I'm with Michael O'Leary on that one ! ), it would appear that Betsy Og's rules apply generally


The choice of the electorate is either moderate or radical left when it comes to parties .
I agree. We have gone from a situation where the unemployed and low income earners were under represented in the Dail to a situation where those on high rates of income tax have, particularly those who pay more than half their income in tax, are under represented.
There is no center right party in Ireland.
 
If Sense and sorting were comfortable bedfellows, we would not have an issue.

Faults/Poverty/feeling of entitlements/ poor parenting/ fluffy do gooders , all transend generations and it is obviously very difficult to come up with Quick fix answers.

Logic would like to say Left Winger supporters have lost the plot on personal responsibility but for all their leftie (whinging),is it not obvious that poorer areas have less of the cake ?
If you check the leftie (whinger)politicians and what they do , you will find they are very active in trying to get their people into a positive mode.

It ain,t simple !
 
In answer to any Lefties touting burning bondholders (like Argentina did) ...

Argentina has been shut out of the money-markets for 15 years and while creditors have agreed a 25% haircut, it was reported in the Argentine parliament that burning the bondholders cost the country USD100bn over the past 15 years or so. It defaulted on USD82bn. Creditors are happy as they picked up the bonds for a few cents on the dollar.
 
In answer to any Lefties touting burning bondholders (like Argentina did) ...

Argentina has been shut out of the money-markets for 15 years and while creditors have agreed a 25% haircut, it was reported in the Argentine parliament that burning the bondholders cost the country USD100bn over the past 15 years or so. It defaulted on USD82bn. Creditors are happy as they picked up the bonds for a few cents on the dollar.

Has anyone who touted the burning at any point provided a single example of where burning bondholders worked out better than the alternative?
 
Great comparison, given Iceland has about 3/5 of the population and 1/2 of the GDP of County Cork.

Thanks. I thought a European country whose debt crisis was due to having an inflated banking sector was a relevant example.

But I await your post pointing out that Argentina has a population of 40+ million so should not be considered as an example of why not to burn bondholders.
 

I don't think it really worked out well for the population though. I can't imagine people here accepting a 60% devaluation of the currency with no changes to welfare or wages. The amount of industrial unrest there over the past few years in particular tells you they're not happy.
 
Before FG /Labour won the last election .

1. the (MARKETS ) had accepted that Mr Noonan was going to burn Bondholders and had factored that into their sums.
2. Once elected it seems Mr Noonan was strongarmed into a U -turn.
3. Said U -turn has since been sold as a good idea ?
4. I can only hope that NOT burning Bondholders was the correct action (I have my doubts).

On the general (burn bondholders).
Why not ? were else would lenders expect a 100% guarantee , that's madness.
Ps. I think Argentinian Default was SOVEREIGN not just normal lender debt , ie apples v oranges.

The truth is in the fog !
 
Setanta . I ain,t atall sure ! The jargon around various debt confuses my simple mind !
Bottom line, I suppose Debt is Debt however you cut it.

The point I was hoping to make is Point 1, ie Bondholders were to be burned and Markets had accepted that ?
 
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