Economy & The Public Sector

equivariant · 28-02-2012 10:51pm

Newaglish wrote: »

I think if you want to claim that there have been massive public sector paycuts and job losses that you should be able to provide some evidence of this though? You ask that "private sector cheerleaders" acknowledge this "fact" but in this forum we tend to acknowledge facts on the basis of supporting evidence.

Wow. The condescension in this post is amazing. "In this forum, we tend to blah blah". Who appointed you the ethical guardian of the forum? I have posted here before you know, and I don't need a lecture on constructing an argument.

Anyway, to your points. It is undeniably a fact that public sector workers have suffered large paycuts. In my own workplace, I would estimate that most of my colleagues have seen their take home pay reduced by at least 15% in the last 2 years. I made this point earlier. Do you seriously doubt this?

This bit is just a whole lot of noise and not really a logical argument - saying "the world doesn't revolve around what you think is right" is not an effective refutation of someone's point. There's an implication where you say "The public sector has a duty to provide service to all the residents of the state, not just to you, or to the 'customers' who can afford their service" that consolidated services would result in services not being provided to certain citizens but you don't elaborate on how you think this will be.

There is always going to be a trade-off between what citizens need and what can be afforded. If there was enough money, each person would have their own personal doctor on hand 24/7, free permanent childcare, one teacher per student, etc. but this is not feasible. You have to accept that in times where the government is running an unsustainable deficit that it needs to increase its income (through increased tax revenue) and/or decrease its expenditure. When our expenditure is about 55bn per annum of which about 20bn goes on public sector wages, it's an area that absolutely has to be addressed. Public sector wages are very simply put, a direct calculation of employee head count * average wage. You have to reduce one or the other, or both. Yes, this may result in either a worsening of the incomes for public sector employees or a reduction in services available to the public*. The poorer the country is, the less help it can generally afford to give people for free and that is an unfortunate, but very basic, fact.

*There is the issue of tackling inefficiency in the public sector but that's essentially a combination of a) improved work practices leading to b) redundancies.

You completely missed the point. I was merely arguing that the public sector cannot be run like a typical corporation as had been implied by amacachi. Your own post in fact supports that position, when you argue that there is always going to be a trade off between the needs of citizens and what can be afforded. Agreed, and that is precisely the point. No corporation will concern itself with such a tradeoff - it will generally concern itself with maximising profit, and the needs of the citizenry hardly influence corporate decision making.

I believe that in this forum, we tend to try to avoid straw men, and we actually try to present arguments based on logic and sound inference and not necessarily based on what the opinion makers in the Irish Independent tell us to believe.

PS On your point about the deficit between tax income and state expenditure, I wonder were you so keen on balancing the books when our obscenely low corporation tax was under scrutiny? Or when our political leaders agreed to pay punitive interest rates on loans to bail out our private sector financial institutions?

amacachi · 28-02-2012 11:01pm

equivariant wrote: »

Here

In what sense is it "my" union if I am not a member. Its analogous to me saying that the Catholic Church is "your" church (I'm guessing that you are an atheist)

Figure of speech. If one doesn't vote for a government but is ruled by them it's their government. If you're bound by what a union negotiates then it may as well be your union.

As I posted earlier, you will not find me defending the unions, However, that is not where this argument started. The public sector unions and the public sector are not the same the thing, despite your confused attempts to conflate them. My point is and always has been that the public sector has suffered extensive job losses and paycuts during this recession - this point has nothing to do with how well or poorly the unions represent their members. I do not claim that these hardships are in any way exclusive to the public sector, thus your insistent demands for a breakdown of paycuts (which I never volunteered to give) is irrelevant to the point at hand. Just to save you the bother of asking again, I will not be providing any such breakdown. If you feel the need to persist, then provide it yourself. While you are at it of course, you should provide a corresponding breakdown for the entire private sector workforce otherwise I would suggest that any comparisons are meaningless.

Hold on, wanting a breakdown of your claim of paycuts is irrelevant? LOL.

Once again, you persist with the straw men. My point about services in remote areas was to illustrate that the public service can not and should not be run just like any other corporation. Nothing in your argument above refutes that in any way. I am happy to learn that you favour consolidation of services, However, you may be surprised to learn, the world doesn't revolve around what you think is right. The public sector has a duty to provide service to all the residents of the state, not just to you, or to the 'customers' who can afford their service. As it happens, I also agree that University fees should be reintroduced on a properly means tested basis, but that is not the point I was making.

Why are we here discussing anything then? Some of the best posting I've ever seen. :rolleyes: There's no strawman in what I am saying. If maintaining services were the most important thing they could've been maintained. That is not the most important thing however to the government, the unions nor most of the workers. Their pay packet is all they care about and the government just cares about keeping them as happy as they can and **** the service that's provided.
There's plenty of areas that could've been targetted for cuts with less effect on the service at the end of the line but that would have meant a reduction in power long-term for the unions which they don't want. It's a merry dance we all have to just sit back and watch.

Turtwig · 28-02-2012 11:16pm

Gbear wrote: »

A bit tangential but I remember seeing a video narrated by an american or canadian professor of economics arguing that data indicates that once people receive a comfortable wage, by and large they tend to work better, not as their wages increase, but as their freedom increases with respect to their work.

It was one of those economic videos narrated by an economics professor where the video itself is sped-up sketching done by a hand to illustrate the points.

Anyone know what i'm on about? There's a few of them and I can't remember how I found them in the first place.

Think this was the video you were referring to.

Can't find it now but both NS and the Economist had similar stuff about this too. Tbh, to me it does make sense. It all depends on the culture of the company and your role within it though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

Newaglish · 28-02-2012 11:28pm

equivariant wrote: »

Wow. The condescension in this post is amazing. "In this forum, we tend to blah blah". Who appointed you the ethical guardian of the forum? I have posted here before you know, and I don't need a lecture on constructing an argument.

Firstly, I'm sorry that my post appeared to be condescending and that isn't what I intended. I was alluding to the fact that the one of the reasons why we sometimes have threads that are not really related to religion at all is because the forum has a general ethos (ew) of seeking facts to support arguments. I know you say that you "don't need a lecture on constructing an argument" but surely then you would have to accept that, to paraphrase Christopher Hitchens, assertions made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Anyway, to your points. It is undeniably a fact that public sector workers have suffered large paycuts. In my own workplace, I would estimate that most of my colleagues have seen their take home pay reduced by at least 15% in the last 2 years. I made this point earlier. Do you seriously doubt this?

I don't know whether to doubt or believe the assertion as I have only seen anecdotal evidence to support it. That being said, I'm aware of the events in the wider economy and I can't think of any specific public sector paycuts other than the pension levy (which I don't think goes as high as 15%?) and I would imagine that any paycuts people in your department have experienced would be across the public sectory generally and would therefore be pretty easy to dig up from a public source?

You completely missed the point. I was merely arguing that the public sector cannot be run like a typical corporation as had been implied by amacachi. Your own post in fact supports that position, when you argue that there is always going to be a trade off between the needs of citizens and what can be afforded. Agreed, and that is precisely the point. No corporation will concern itself with such a tradeoff - it will generally concern itself with maximising profit, and the needs of the citizenry hardly influence corporate decision making.

OK... but do you agree then that cost cutting in this sector, despite the fact that it may impact on the level of services provided to the public, may be necessary?

I believe that in this forum, we tend to try to avoid straw men, and we actually try to present arguments based on logic and sound inference and not necessarily based on what the opinion makers in the Irish Independent tell us to believe.

I really don't follow what point you're making here? Could you clarify?

PS On your point about the deficit between tax income and state expenditure, I wonder were you so keen on balancing the books when our obscenely low corporation tax was under scrutiny? Or when our political leaders agreed to pay punitive interest rates on loans to bail out our private sector financial institutions?

These are two completely separate points and I don't know how you are logically connecting them to this debate. What I'm trying to say is that is may be necessary - based on our current public finances - to review public sector spending. I'm not in any way implying that public sector workers are overpaid, underpaid or adequately paid. All I'm saying is that if the government has a certain amount of money and cannot sustainably run a deficit like this in the long term (or in the short to medium term either, for that matter).

I really don't want to answer those points as they are going to muddy the waters and create an irrelevant side-debate but however, I will make a comment if you feel that it's relevant. I believe the low corporation tax rate is a good thing as it attracts foreign direct investment into this country on a massive scale. You can have companies paying 12.5% on billions of profits channelled through the country or you can have them paying 30% of nothing, as they wouldn't be here to begin with. The knock-on effects on the country in terms of employment, income taxes and general consumption are invaluable.

I did believe at the time that the interest rate on our bailout fund was punitive, to a degree, but I also knew that it was a little bit of a show for the public that the interest rate was set artifically high in order to give us a chartiable paycut to give a sense of justice to the common man and to make the bailout more politically acceptable to the public.

equivariant · 28-02-2012 11:40pm

amacachi wrote: »

Figure of speech. If one doesn't vote for a government but is ruled by them it's their government. If you're bound by what a union negotiates then it may as well be your union.

Just wrong. When you don'y pay the union dues and when you do not have access to union assistance in legal disputes, it is not your union. It may surprise you to learn that unions do more than negotiate Croke Park deals

Hold on, wanting a breakdown of your claim of paycuts is irrelevant? LOL.

LOL indeed. Do you doubt that such pay cuts have taken place in the public sector? If you do, then we have nothing to talk about as you are clearly not aware of reality. If you don't then why keep repeatedly try to ask for something that is irrelevant to the argument. I never claimed that the pay cuts were in any way exclusively public sector, so if they occurred then what is the relevance of the breakdown. Anyway, unlike the private sector, lots of information about public sector pay is publicly available, so you can go and find out for yourself just as easily as I can, if it is that important to you.

If maintaining services were the most important thing they could've been maintained. That is not the most important thing however to the government, the unions nor most of the workers. Their pay packet is all they care about and the government just cares about keeping them as happy as they can and **** the service that's provided.

So you reveal your true colours. This is just slanderous bile (at least the part about the workers). And the irony of a private sector advocate complaining that 'all they care about is their paypacket' is presumably not lost on you.

There's plenty of areas that could've been targetted for cuts with less effect on the service at the end of the line but that would have meant a reduction in power long-term for the unions which they don't want. It's a merry dance we all have to just sit back and watch.

As I have repeatedly said in this thread, I am no fan of the unions. However, that doesn't excuse some of the ill informed rubbish that you have come out with in relation to public sector workers (as opposed to the unions).

magicbastarder · 28-02-2012 11:46pm

equivariant wrote: »

LOL indeed. Do you doubt that such pay cuts have taken place in the public sector? If you do, then we have nothing to talk about as you are clearly not aware of reality. If you don't then why keep repeatedly try to ask for something that is irrelevant to the argument. I never claimed that the pay cuts were in any way exclusively public sector, so if they occurred then what is the relevance of the breakdown. Anyway, unlike the private sector, lots of information about public sector pay is publicly available, so you can go and find out for yourself just as easily as I can, if it is that important to you.

argument lost.

equivariant · 29-02-2012 12:04am

Newaglish wrote: »

I really don't want to answer those points as they are going to muddy the waters and create an irrelevant side-debate but however, I will make a comment if you feel that it's relevant.

Perhaps it is truer to suggest that you don't want to answer those points as they do not fit in well with your political views. It is hardly an irrelevant side debate, when one of the main reasons for public sector cutbacks is to balance the books.

I believe the low corporation tax rate is a good thing as it attracts foreign direct investment into this country on a massive scale. You can have companies paying 12.5% on billions of profits channelled through the country or you can have them paying 30% of nothing, as they wouldn't be here to begin with. The knock-on effects on the country in terms of employment, income taxes and general consumption are invaluable.

This is a false dichotomy. The choice does not have to be between 12.5% of billions or 30% of nothing. And it seems that other countries can actually generate employment without having to prostitute themselves to multinationals in order to do it. Why must we?

I believe that the true dichotomy here is between a society that values good healthcare and education and values public service or a society that is willing to sell its soul to some big multinational corporations. By your logic, why not cut the corporation tax rate down to 10% or 5% or 0%? We could really get loads of multinationals that way.

I did believe at the time that the interest rate on our bailout fund was punitive, to a degree, but I also knew that it was a little bit of a show for the public that the interest rate was set artifically high in order to give us a chartiable paycut to give a sense of justice to the common man and to make the bailout more politically acceptable to the public.

The common man appreciates your belated explanation. We is too dumb to be knowing that stuff after all

Newaglish · 29-02-2012 12:17am

equivariant wrote: »

Perhaps it is truer to suggest that you don't want to answer those points as they do not fit in well with your political views. It is hardly an irrelevant side debate, when one of the main reasons for public sector cutbacks is to balance the books.

I did answer your question

This is a false dichotomy. The choice does not have to be between 12.5% of billions or 30% of nothing. And it seems that other countries can actually generate employment without having to prostitute themselves to multinationals in order to do it. Why must we?

I believe that the true dichotomy here is between a society that values good healthcare and education and values public service or a society that is willing to sell its soul to some big multinational corporations. By your logic, why not cut the corporation tax rate down to 10% or 5% or 0%? We could really get loads of multinationals that way.

Not really a false dichotomy I don't think. Our effective tax rate ends up so low when you account for various capital allowances and other reliefs, we don't need to reduce it any further - I don't think that it would result in any significant increase in FDI. With regard to increasing the rate - why do you think Google, Facebook, Microsoft et al are based in Dublin? Other countries would kill to have these companies and the only reason we have them is because of our low tax rate. Increase it, and they leave.

The common man appreciates your belated explanation. We is too dumb to be knowing that stuff after all

You really need to learn to look at this objectively, I feel that you're taking this whole thing way too personally at the moment. Either deal with my point or move on, I don't see how point-scoring commentary really helps with anything.

dmw07 · 29-02-2012 4:53pm

ninja900 wrote: »

Haha. My wife works in the financial services sector. 5 years ago she worked for the fund management arm of A Rather Large Irish Bank (which today is not state owned).
Everyone there considered themselves rather underpaid - which by market standards they were. She applied to Extremely Large US Investment Bank (subseqnently not rescued by the US taxpayer) and was accepted at about 50% salary increase.
But they assigned her to a team 'lead' by an obnoxious asshole who didn't have the first clue and assigned her no work. She literally sat there for two weeks asking 'what am I supposed to do' with no answer. She resigned after two weeks and got a similar, but slightly less well paid, post in a European bank (guess what, also not rescued by the taxpayer), where things are mostly good - but even there the rugby playing friend of the boss is allowed get away with murder while ordering everyone else around.

If you think idiotic recruitment and management policies only happen in the public sector, you've another think coming.

Nice one! Getting paid to do nothing because your boss is an idiot. Brilliant. I'm sure his team is still hitting their targets though. Otherwise shareholders will ask questions etc.

Not really about the public service, more about bad people at work;
Anyway, another funny story from a friend working in a public office. He was hauled off a job because his alcoholic boss did not understand scripted code. The leader public servant chap has no SQL knowledge (Although he oversees all IT developments) and when presented with a plan of action for a new back-end to a GUI by my mate, he accused him of trying to get him fired and questioned all his scribbling.

Alcoholics in work, ha, sure it could be worse.

Naughtius Maximus · 29-02-2012 7:05pm

ninja900 wrote: »

Haha. My wife works in the financial services sector. 5 years ago she worked for the fund management arm of A Rather Large Irish Bank (which today is not state owned).
Everyone there considered themselves rather underpaid - which by market standards they were. She applied to Extremely Large US Investment Bank (subseqnently not rescued by the US taxpayer) and was accepted at about 50% salary increase.
But they assigned her to a team 'lead' by an obnoxious asshole who didn't have the first clue and assigned her no work. She literally sat there for two weeks asking 'what am I supposed to do' with no answer. She resigned after two weeks and got a similar, but slightly less well paid, post in a European bank (guess what, also not rescued by the taxpayer), where things are mostly good - but even there the rugby playing friend of the boss is allowed get away with murder while ordering everyone else around.

If you think idiotic recruitment and management policies only happen in the public sector, you've another think coming.

But the taxpayer foots the bill for the PS.

01-03-2012 10:23pm

Naughtius Maximus wrote: »

But the taxpayer foots the bill for the PS.

Thankfully that wasn't the case with AIB or Anglo, eh? :eek:

Naughtius Maximus · 02-03-2012 8:14pm

Deleted User wrote: »

Thankfully that wasn't the case with AIB or Anglo, eh? :eek:

Point being; I was responding to claims about bad practice in the private companies. Zombie banks aside the tax payer doesn't pick up the tab for nonsense decisions by the private sector.
How many people do you think got fired for the likes of PPARS or the 35 million spent on the proposal for the new childrens hospital.
I'm not jumping on the nati public service and wagon but given the type of cronyism that's entrenched into Ireland I can just imagine the havoc it's created in the Public Sector.

Economy & The Public Sector

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