SIPTU Jack wants something more progressive than USC

Gerry Canning said:
FIREFLY.
Private pension funds have been raided .
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I think raiding private pension funds was one of the worst, most shortsighted policies ever introduced. Most people who have to fund their own retirement in any meaningful way are now very skeptical in taking out a pension. Given that public sector pensions are financed from current income & borrowing, those in the private sector will have to try to fund their own retirement and also their public sector friends'. Anyone else think this is a "House of Cards" waiting to fall?
 
Gerry Canning said:
A proper Income Tax system would kill off these stealth taxes , USC...and Tax would be loaded on income without fudge.
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I agree it is farcical having separate names for what is essentially income tax. Then when it is used cynically to claim either that income tax has not been increased or has been reduced - who do they take us for? Also calling it a "social" charge has failed in softening its image. I note that Noonan and Enda cut to the chase these days and talk about reducing the marginal rate of tax which they identify as 52%. (55% for some self employed)

But all a bit off topic. He who is too mean to buy a razor was condemning USC not because it was taxation (he luvs taxation) but because it was not progressive enough.
 
Gerry Canning said:
PURPLE.
{these people who consistently damage this country}
Wrong , they were not in charge, and think, were would most people be without the moral compass of Unions over the decades.Do you wish to put your faith in our (enterprising ) class?
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Think where we'd be without the Suffragettes but they won the battle (and rightly so) and then they disappeared.
Unions in 2014 are nothing like Unions were in 1914. They have morphed into something that the founders of the Trade Union movement in this country would not recognise. I keep thinking of the last few pages of Orwell's Animal Farm.
This is a democracy and a Republic. No one other than the elected representatives of the people should have a say in how the country is run.
 
........
Purple . Like your comments ,
but even now the Trade Union Movement is not totally Orwellian.
I remember the good work they did for Shipping Workers.
I applaud the work they have done for Waterford Workers.
In both these cases The State did not do their duty.

If our country is left to be run by elected representatives without the odd (riot) (uprising) to make them use their 2nd brain cell ,I think we could be in trouble.
People being (revolting) and nominally undemocratic can be a good thing!
 
So Jack was a proponent of that disgraceful levy on private pensions? I wonder does Jack think it is fair that someone, such as myself, in my mid-50's, recently made redundant, with a modest defined contribution pension that I daren't touch for several more years, should have their pension raided to essentially help pay for lucrative public service pensions, index-linked and often available to retirees in their 50's and to which no levy was applied. I agree we all had to make sacrifices to get the country back on its feet but it is the blatant unfairness of that pension levy that really galls me.
 
Mr. O'Connor was , to the best of my knowledge , never a supporter of the private pensions levy - Indeed from memory he expressed grave reservations concerning same - it should be remembered that a significant percentage of SIPTU's members are in the private sector.

Of course a hugely controversial pension levy was applied to public sector workers .

The most recent beneficiaries of the funds generated by the private pensions levy were of the course the private sector workers employed by the Waterford Glass.
 
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