TheBigShort
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But if everyone sits back and lets the poverty lobby call for even more expenditure when we already have €200 bn of national debt, they can't complain when we the Troika comes back in.
The notion that the 'squeezed middle' are somehow a consequence of some organized conspiracy of the poor is both bizarre and sad
The "Squeezed Middle" are net recipients when things like child benefit, the cost to the State of providing education to their children etc are taken into account.
The top 5% of earners pay half of all the income tax (and have about 30% of the income). They are paying for everything.
All lot of submissions will not be given a second glance because the proposals they contain are ill-defined, uncosted and insufficiently researched.
I presume this comment is directed at the Fiscal Advisory Council , and not me?
Well said; emotive language is used by all sides, "Vulture Funds" being the most emotive of all.Just to add - if groups who advocate for a certain section of society are to be pejoratively labelled "the poverty lobby" perhaps it would be helpful to have a lexicon for the various other lobbyists eg, the vultures lobby, the fat cats lobby, the scavengers lobby,the cooking the books lobby, the "I deserve it whingers lobby, the "I don't care about anyone else" lobby. We are all fairly adept at lumping other viewpoints into a selfish lobby but don't find it so easy to recognise ourselves.
When tax rates and benefits (childrens allowance etc) are taken into account you're right, however for most people I would think it's the cost of living rather than the tax rates that are the issue. High rents / house purchases, obscene motor tax rates on cars > 2008, tv license, insurance, school books & "voluntary" contributions etc etc etc.Given that we are not going to change the social structures we have in this country, and broadly speaking I don't think we should, and that we have very low levels of income taxes on middle income earners, what else can we do to make people feel less stretched?
I come back again to my point that we are discussing the services we provide and how much they cost whereas we should start by looking at how well and how efficiently we deliver those services.
Once we know that we are as lean and efficient as we possibly can be (and that will result in far fewer people being employed by the State) we should then look at whether we can afford to continue to deliver those services, but efficiency comes before cuts to pay and cuts to services.
That leads to the next question; how do we improve efficiency and who and what are the blocks to that improvement?
if groups who advocate for a certain section of society are to be pejoratively labelled "the poverty lobby"
Hi Early Riser
I had not realised that was pejorative. Thanks for pointing it out. I have edited my submission accordingly and it now reads "All the pre-Budget submissions you receive will be calling for increased expenditure."
This was the original context:
"But if everyone sits back and lets the poverty lobby call for even more expenditure when we already have €200 bn of national debt, they can't complain when we the Troika comes back in."
Maybe the language was careless, but the point is valid. There is a massive lobby calling for further expenditure. They are on all the TV and radio shows. There is no counter lobby calling for expenditure cuts.
Would the "higher expenditure lobby" be less pejorative?
Or just "all the groups calling for increased expenditure" ?
The original point is valid.
Brendan
I could shoot off a proposal myself but to be taken seriously, it would have to have credence; not just a
broad-spectrum personal stance.
Anything I say could be easily refuted by those who have information that I cannot access.
Change is brought about by getting people emotionally involved, not by logical argument.
The second issue is does the management have the respect of the people they are meant to be leading (issues of the legitimacy of authority come in here)? If you are in charge then everything is your fault; if something goes wrong you have made the wrong decision, hired the wrong people, failed to train your people properly, incorrectly allocated resources or failed to anticipate a problem. Do the people in charge accept that position? If not they need to be replaced.
The third issue is the vested interests within the State sector. That means Unions, industry lobby groups, local lobby groups etc. They either have to engage positively and productively or be shut out of the process completely.
Other countries have done this, New Zealand being the best example as they are similar in size and culture to us. We can and should do it. We just have to start by making it the main topic of public discourse.
your point was to suggest that any increased expenditure is unaffordable and as such is leading the country to dire times, inducing increased poverty - hence the term "the poverty lobby"?
dire times, inducing increased poverty
I really do not think that this describes how the country works or how change is achieved.
The most successful campaign on economic issues by far in recent years was the water charges campaign, it had no credence what so ever, yet it was hugely successful. Change is brought about by getting people emotionally involved, not by logical argument.
Good point. I will amend my submission to point that out. The biggest losers from our unsustainable welfare system will be the recipients themselves when the money runs out.
No, the sentiment is about the peopel in charge actually being in charge, making decisions and taking responsibility.I understand the sentiment here but I do detect that the overall approach here is to transform public sector management to operate in similar vein, with similar targets and output measurements, as that which is applied in the private sector. Certainly there is a lot of commonality in the fundamental operations of any organisation, but there is very little similarity in measuring outputs.
They represent the interests of their individuals at an individual level, i.e. within the existing structure. The problem is the existing structure. To improve the overall structure they need to take a big picture view and not concentrate on short term individual interests.In what way do unions not engage positively and productively? They are simply representing the views of their members, how is that not a positive and productive thing?
New Zealand ranks somewhere around 30th richest country in the world compared to Ireland, consistently top 10. Inequality is on the rise, house prices are in a bubble, increasing numbers of the population are reliant on welfare, child poverty is increasing, suicide rates are increasing....It does of course have its good side, its Debt/GDP ratio is less than 40% - but we had something similar before it was decided to bailout out bankrupt banks.
The biggest losers from our unsustainable welfare system will be the recipients themselves when the money runs out.
Hold on there! The net amount used to bail out the banks is somewhere between 40 - 50bn. That's about 20-25% of our national debt. Easy on the revisionist stuff there fella.
I don't get this point, sorry.
You are saying that we had a national debt like that of NZ but choose to bail out the banks. We put 64bn into the banks of which about 20bn has been repaid. I think the net amount is somewhere around the 40-50bn mark. This represents about 20-25% of our national debt, which means about 75-80% of our national debt is our own doing. It's this amount that you should be comparing to the national debt of NZ rather than justifying the difference as down to what we used to bail out the banks..
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