Are private schools better than public schools?

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gianni

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And don't forget to criticise the wealthy and how much more above the average industrial wage they earn. But never mention how they got to that position, the years of study they did to get their qualifications, the risks they took to get their business off the ground and the amount of people they employ or all those additional hours they put in to be a success.

Often the wealthy benefitted from private schooling, family inheritance, favourable tax breaks. The risks they take are no greater than those that someone with reduced safety nets take.
 
Often the wealthy benefitted from private schooling, family inheritance, favourable tax breaks. The risks they take are no greater than those that someone with reduced safety nets take.
Private schools? Really?
The State spend about €6000-€7000 a year putting a child through Secondary School. The financial differential between private and public schools is very much overstated. I'd suggest that there is a bigger difference between a public school in Blackrock and a public school in Darndale than there is between the private and public school in Blackrock.

There isn't much inherited wealth in this country, but that will change in the future.
There are very few tax breaks for business owners in this country.

Bottom line; most rich people in this country are rich because they earned it. They also pay most of the income tax. So be nice to them.
 
Private schools? Really?
The State spend about €6000-€7000 a year putting a child through Secondary School. The financial differential between private and public schools is very much overstated. I'd suggest that there is a bigger difference between a public school in Blackrock and a public school in Darndale than there is between the private and public school in Blackrock.

There isn't much inherited wealth in this country, but that will change in the future.
There are very few tax breaks for business owners in this country.

Bottom line; most rich people in this country are rich because they earned it. They also pay most of the income tax. So be nice to them.

If the difference between the public and private school in Blackrock was so narrow, why would anyone spend €7,000 extra per year to place their child in the private school?

I think most rich people overestimate the influence their specific talents and disregard the advantages afforded to them.
 
If the difference between the public and private school in Blackrock was so narrow, why would anyone spend €7,000 extra per year to place their child in the private school?
I don't think most private schools cost €7000 a year, more like 4 or 5k. People send their kids to schools for lots of reasons, because their friends are going there, because they went there, because it's the local school, because it has a better reputation, because they think their child will get a better education or because they are snobs or any mix of the above. There is no evidence that private schools provide better educational outcomes than public schools in the same demographic catchment area.
I think most rich people overestimate the influence their specific talents and disregard the advantages afforded to them.
I think you might want to take that chip off your shoulder.
 
People send their kids to schools for lots of reasons, because their friends are going there, because they went there, because it's the local school, because it has a better reputation, because they think their child will get a better education or because they are snobs or any mix of the above.
I never really realised the following before I became a parent.

But when you have kids you find you spend a lot of time socialising with your kids' friends' parents.

So I sometimes think fee-paying schools are more an opportunity for the parents to hang out with each other than for the kids. All of the stuff that fee-paying schools do more of (performances, fields sports, extra-curricular stuff) is in many ways a vehicle for the parents to socialise.
 
Where can we find the numbers for this?
Over 90% of inheritance tax received comes from residential property. In other words inheriting a share of the parents house.
The top 10% of earners own 20% of the total value of residential property.

There is a far higher level of income inequality than net wealth inequality. Because we have a very "progressive" income tax system we end up with a much more even net income distribution after welfare payments etc, the "social transfer".
That's all well and good now but as the people who bought their houses before the 90's property boom start polling their clogs and passing on their wealth to their children the levels of net income inequality will increase. We need to start taxing wealth more and taxing income less.

A few sources here and here and here.
 
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Over 90% of inheritance tax received comes from residential property. In other words inheriting a share of the parents house.

What is the source for this? It is not implausible, but the only think I can find is this.

There is a far higher level of income inequality than net wealth inequality.

This is just wrong and you should correct it. The Gini coefficient for net wealth is 0.67, the Gini coefficient for income is 0.30.
 
This is just wrong and you should correct it. The Gini coefficient for net wealth is 0.67, the Gini coefficient for income is 0.30.
That's net income inequality, after social transfer.
In your link they compare gross household income to net wealth; apples and oranges.
Should we continue to treat the symptoms of inequality (taxing the bejesus out of people's income) or should be treat the root causes (educational outcomes, infrastructure, addiction and social attitude)?
What is the source for this? It is not implausible, but the only think I can find is this.
I've edited my post to add sources.
 
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@NoRegretsCoyote, gross income is also a stupid measure to use for anything. If I earn €50k a year and own my own home and my next door neighbour earns €100k a year but is paying a €300k mortgage I have a far higher disposable income.
What's coming down the road is lots of people inheriting relatively large amounts of wealth due to property price inflation.
At the same time we have inherited tenancies in council houses. The children of that cohort know that if they work hard and try to buy their own home they will be at a massive disadvantage because they won't inherit wealth and half of their marginal earned income will be taken in taxes. Why would they bother?

We couldn't stratify our society into intergenerational haves and have-nots more if we tried.
 
Pre tax- and transfer-income inequality is about . So below wealth inequality. Still wrong.
But half as unequal as you first suggested.
The distribution of net wealth by age isn't taken into account by the gini coefficient and net household wealth is under €180k or about 3 years average household income. In other words income has a far higher impact on inequality than wealth.
My point is that this will change over time and will have a specific and significant impact on who owns their own home and who is trapped in social housing.
I still can't see support for your claim that 90% of inheritance tax comes from property.
Read the IT article I linked.
 
Is someone who worked for 40 years to secure and then pay off a mortgage so they could live in that house mortgage free during retirement really wealthy?

My own parents are in this position - but they are scraping by on one state pension and one modest occupational pension and live a modest lifestyle. Yet according to most measures of wealth they are wealthy.
 
Is someone who worked for 40 years to secure and then pay off a mortgage so they could live in that house mortgage free during retirement really wealthy?

My own parents are in this position - but they are scraping by on one state pension and one modest occupational pension and live a modest lifestyle. Yet according to most measures of wealth they are wealthy.
When thy die and their children inherit the proceeds of their house then the children will be wealthy.
If your parents don't own a house and won't leave you money it makes it hard for you to buy a house/pay off a mortgage and leave more cash for your children.
I bought my first home in 1997, three years after qualifying as a Tradesman, because I thought that property prices would go up after 1998 when the ECB was established and exchange rates were frozen and interest rates (which were much lower in Europe) were set by that ECB. It was an apartment in Dublin City Centre. It cost £58,000 which was three times my income. Since then the rate of asset price inflation has far outpaced wage inflation. When the people who bought those assets cheap die their children will get a inheritance significantly bigger than their parents would have got relative to income.
 
I don't consider my parents wealthy and I raised the point because many analyses of wealth inequality between age groups are overly simplistic I think. Not that this type of inequality doesn't exist I want to stress, but it its scale and nature is not understood. In my own parent's generation any advantages they gained in the housing market counterbalanced by fact they left school prior to the availability of free second level education.

Like many people of my generation I come from a large family and by the time the family home is divided among us all the proceeds will be modest but I acknowledge unearned.

I agree Purple that inherited wealth will be more significant going forward than it was in the past, because asset price growth has outpaced wages but also because small families are more common now so inheritances will be larger and it is more and more difficult to buy a house without parental help.
 
I agree Purple that inherited wealth will be more significant going forward than it was in the past, because asset price growth has outpaced wages but also because small families are more common now so inheritances will be larger and it is more and more difficult to buy a house without parental help
Yes, very important point.
We have an aging population and a reducing birth rate so our population should stabilise or decline over the next few decades, assuming low net immigration. That will concentrate more wealth among those who inherit while wealth becomes proportionately larger in relation to income.
 
I did. It simply says that >90% of CAT comes from inheritances, it doesn't say what the composition of those inheritances is.

Your claim:


Still unsubstantiated.
I can't find the link I got the data from so I withdraw it. Have you any interest in posting on the substance of the topic at hand or are you just intent on nit-picking?
 
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