What do our taxes fund?

Zebra3

I have no objection to paying my fair share of taxes to fund schools, transport, hospitals and all the usual things a country needs to function.

Interesting to find out today that we, the Irish taxpayer, are paying Frank Lampard's wages!!!!! :mad::mad::mad:
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/david-mcwilliams/david-mcwilliams-elite-is-preparing-to-sell-country-down-the-river-2366359.html

Let me just say this to any TD of any party that supports the government's policy of destroying our country to keep crooks like Abramovich happy, WE WILL DESTROY YOU AT THE NEXT ELECTION.

starbelgrade

We may well be sued by Abramovich too. His investment company, Milhouse, is threatening to sue Ireland over its treatment of junior debtholders after last week’s increased bail-out of several of our banks.

Banned Account

Meh, more sensationalist rubbish to be honest. I think that you will find Frank Lampard's wages are paid by Chelsea who generate the revenue from merchandising, ticket sales yadda yadda yadda as well as borrowings from banks.

I'm not doubting the fact that Abramovich owns them as well as this other company which has bought the INBS debt but to link the two together in such a way is just lazy populist journalism aimed at rabble rousing.

Then again, wht else would one expect from the man who declared the minister of finance's blanket bank guarantee as a shrewd move??

Lockstep

What do our taxes fund?

Oh, why, everything! Policemen, trees, sunshine! And lets not forget the folks who just don't feel like working, God bless 'em!

Cavehill Red

Yet more reason why we are fools to let that economic illiterate Lenihan underwrite the bondholders of these banks at the taxpayer's expense.
The banks claim they don't even KNOW who their subordinated bondholders are.
Only this one Russian oligarch has emerged from the shadows to whine like a bitch about losing money on his Irish banking bet.
This is why your taxes are going up and your wages and public services are going down, people. This is what you're paying the 50 billion for. To keep poor Roman and his shadowy pals sorted.
Because if we didn't (and of course we have no moral or legal reason to do so), Lenny reckons they mightn't like us anymore, these shadowy people even the banks don't know.
Boo-****!ng-hoo. They bet and lost. Let them go to the wall.

Myrddin

Well Harney does need to eat, how else could such an objective be funded?

moonpurple

in reply to op

our taxes fund

the army horse school
200,000 euros fee for each of many state cars,
an army that goes off around the world having fun
or sits in barracks in ireland, having fun
funds to africa though ireland's debt is now greater than ethiopia's
many senior civil servants such as head of forestry who earn
m o r e t h a n the president of america

please give us your pet lists:cool: here leadies

thebigbiffo

well - all those useless, semi-retarded administrative staff in the civil service wont pay themselves :mad:

Sykk

tl;dr

Banned Account

Sykk wrote: »

tl;dr

It's ok, I'll sum it up for you.


"Blah, blah, blah, blah ...

*'god, they must all fancy me sooooooooooooooo much'*

... blah, blah, blah, blah ... you should have all listened to me ...

*'I hope they missed allllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll those times I was way off the mark'*

... blah, blah, blah, blah ....

*'oh, wait, that doesn't matter because they all fancy me sooooooooooooooooooooo much, especially that o'callaghan one - that dirty minx with her come to bed eyes'*

... blah, blah, blah, blah ...

*smiles patronisingly, ruffles hair*

... blah, blah, blah, blah,

*'I can't belive they swallow this badly written crap', makes ca-ching noises, laughs loudly *

Predator_

Great article and just another small piece of evidence that our government are traitors and criminals.

moonpurple

this is the article from the op first post

By David McWilliams
Wednesday October 06 2010
The last time I checked there was a harp on the front of my passport, not a picture of Michael Fingleton

The other day I met a German radio presenter from ARD, the German public radio station. I've known her for quite a while -- since a brief spell working on the German economy in the 1990s for an investment bank. She, like many other foreign correspondents, has been sent to Ireland to see what is going on here.

After a while, I wondered why she hadn't asked me anything about the Government, or the prospect of an election or what new political constellation might emerge here. She joked and in an exaggerated German accent laughed: "David, it doesn't matter who your next prime minister is, he will have no power -- we own you now, and he will do what we tell him."

The problem is that the joke is on us. She touched on the nub of the issue: the Irish elite is prepared to sell the sovereignty of this country to protect the likes of Roman Abramovich and other vulture investors who bought up third-rate Irish banking debt at a discount and are hoping to get paid in full.

In the world of debt, these people are referred to as 'rogue creditors'. Typically, they are treated as rogues. They are nothing to us and should be treated as nothing. As the clever economist Karl Whelan observed, if we are happy that our tax is used to pay Frank Lampard's wages, then that's more of a reflection on us.

People such as Abramovich, like the other creditors, can be told to line up in an orderly queue and wait for the liquidator to give them the morsels that might remain from the broken Irish banking system. The crud Abramovich owns -- an IOU from Irish Nationwide Building Society (INBS) -- is not the same thing as Irish government debt.

The last time I checked there was a harp on the front of my passport, not a picture of Michael Fingleton.

Any political party that fights the election on that premise of protecting the Irish taxpayer from vulture investors will get my vote. Not only will that party be doing the right thing, but it will begin the process of giving back to the people the country that we built. This country and our future income needs to be ripped from the grip of the 'political elite' (a group the governor of the Central Bank identified the other day) who are selling us to the lowest, not highest, bidder.

My German friend was amazed when she saw Abramovich's caper and she observed that the Irish parliament kept genuflecting to some crowd called bondholders. She asked me one of the most insightful questions I have heard throughout this long saga: "Do you Irish need to be loved so much that you will stand up for nothing?"

With Germanic precision and with the benefit of distance, she touched a nerve. The Irish weakness for not causing any trouble (bar a few theatrically drunken songs for the audience late at night) has led us to a situation where we are embarrassed to admit that we messed up. We don't want to stand out. We don't want to draw attention to ourselves for serious reasons. Is it because we want to impress the foreigner and above all make life easy for him?

Is it fair to say that over the years the language of resistance has been replaced by the language of compliance?

What is clear is that some countries fight, some make nuisances of themselves, but the default position of Ireland, or at least the Irish elite, is to comply -- no matter what the cost.

So take the example of euro membership. Denmark and Sweden -- two great European countries whose bona fides as EU members was never in doubt -- decided to keep their own currencies because they were perfectly happy with them and the euro's case wasn't compelling enough.

Meanwhile, what did our elite do? They went along for the ride -- one which the evidence would suggest was an extremely ill-advised ride. Ireland had much greater cause for concern about joining the euro, but we hardly made a noise. Why?

Could it be -- to follow my German friend's line of enquiry -- that we didn't have the self-confidence to stand on our own two feet and do some hard analysis about the consequences of this currency or any other decision?

Did we just want to be a mute member of the club -- unlike the pesky Danes, Swedes or, God forbid, Brits?

It is difficult to answer these questions. They are fraught and can lead to lots of heat and sometimes not too much light, but you don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to see a pattern.

Take, for example, Abramovich owning a huge amount of INBS debt. How did he get his hands on it? Who sold it to him? Would it be too much to conclude that whoever -- whichever broker -- sold the debt to him, also sold it to some other mega-rich clients elsewhere?

That would stand to reason. If so, could it be that the mega-rich who are closer to home find themselves in the same position as Abramovich?

Could it be that the only people benefiting from the Government's blind rush to impale the small guy with the debts of Fingleton et al are our own "high net worth" individuals? Could they be pulling the strings?

In all this haze, allegation and counter-allegation, can the "cui bono" question help us at all?

A clear domestic banking resolution law would clear all this up. But we have no such law. So the people are left in the lurch wondering who to believe.

We do know that, for example, the EU Commission gave its opinion on Friday at the wind-up of a Danish bank where it enthusiastically supported the principle of burden sharing.

Here's the quotation from the EU Commission regarding bust Danish banks: "Moreover, burden sharing is ensured by excluding shareholders and subordinated debt holders of the failed bank from any benefit from the aid."

There you have it in black and white. This is what the EU has advised Denmark to do. It clearly states that they won't give any state money to the troubled bank until the subordinated debt holders are burnt.

So let's get back to my German friend's observation: is it because we need to be loved or are we protecting someone big?

The EU says burn them and move on. Logic says don't sacrifice your sovereignty to bail out the hyper-rich, democracy says it is unfair to penalise the poor for the mistakes of the rich. What do you think?

David McWilliams will teach an economics diploma called 'Economics without boundaries', enrolling now; see www.independentcolleges.ie

Princess Peach

Your taxes pay for my dole! :pac:

-Leelo-

moonpurple wrote: »

funds to africa though ireland's debt is now greater than ethiopia's

That is actually frightening

Mr Benevolent

I'm getting sick of McWilliam's style. He writes like an Sun journalist moonlighting as an amateur economist.

WindSock

Our taxes fund my smug sense of superiority and inheritance to services when talking about the unemployed.

thebigbiffo

-Leelo- wrote: »

That is actually frightening

no its not. have you ever priced a house in ethiopia? or bought a beer?

me neither, but that doesnt matter a jot

Zebra3

Confab wrote: »

I'm getting sick of McWilliam's style. He writes like an Sun journalist moonlighting as an amateur economist.

His style is better than yours.

c_man

Confab wrote: »

I'm getting sick of McWilliam's style. He writes like an Sun journalist moonlighting as an amateur economist.

I liked this bit from his Facebook page last week

Question : Elpenor Dignam @ how does it feel to be referred to as a pop economist by Alan Dukes on RTE?

Answer: Hi Elpenor, i didn't hear the interview but i have never understood what the problem is with making something popular and understandable. if mr dukes thinks that making economics accessible is a problem well i think it is a reflection on him!! popular economics..i'm all for it!

Mr Benevolent

Zebra3 wrote: »

His style is better than yours.

That's spelling, not style.

th3 s1aught3r

What do our taxes fund ?

Public Sector
Infrastructure
Berties car and driver (yes he is entitled to it)

delonglad

Zebra3 wrote: »

I have no objection to paying my fair share of taxes to fund schools, transport, hospitals and all the usual things a country needs to function.

Interesting to find out today that we, the Irish taxpayer, are paying Frank Lampard's wages!!!!! :mad::mad::mad:
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/david-mcwilliams/david-mcwilliams-elite-is-preparing-to-sell-country-down-the-river-2366359.html

Let me just say this to any TD of any party that supports the government's policy of destroying our country to keep crooks like Abramovich happy, WE WILL DESTROY YOU AT THE NEXT ELECTION.

You'll have to destroy more than anyone who supports the government and its policies, the opposition is full of useless politicians too. At the end of the day they all rub shoulders with the rich business man. The whole Dail should be sacked! People wont uprise against this way of accepting things the government throw at us while the rich get richer!! Their all too busy watching xfactor and sending me emails to support Gamu!!

Ireland needs a revolution and the country needs to be run by its people not a social elite!