would it be really that bad under the imf

blacksmith105

Hearing a lot of noise about the IMF waiting at the door and was watching Vincent Browne last evening and the overall opinion from the panel was that it was not a case of IF we have to ask the IMF to come in and run the country but a case of WHEN .
They seemed to say that we would have to call them in early in 2011 as the amount of debt we owe is just impossible for a small country to core with
So worst case the IMF are called in around March-April 2011 , what could we expect to happen thats not already going to happen in the December Budget
So under the IMF would we expect

1. 15-20pc cut in social welfare rates
plus total overhaul of welfare system ie rent allowance , single mothers etc
. 10-12pc reduction in PS pay across the board
3. Reduction of around 15000 in PS numbers
4. Reduction of TD,S to around 100
5. Firesale of all semi state and companies the state has a stake
6. Closing of non essential government departments


Would it be really that bad to have the IMF run this country as we cant ,

Jaysoose

I dont think its a case of how bad, but more a case of we need them.

The current goverment/opposition parties are inept and have done NOTHING to sort out finances for the last two years while the central bank has told them to sort it over and over.

This shower are waiting it out as long as they can to keep the mental salaries and expenses coming in before they get turfed out at the next election.

ewj1978

totally agree.. Its a "lets hang on" approach to government ..

IMHO,Let the IMF come and sort it out. Better to have people who will actually make decisions rather than these amadans that we have now.

johnnyskeleton

Hi Blacksmith105.

At the top of your screen there should be a search function. Click on that and then click "advanced search" from the drop down menu.

There, type "IMF" in the text box, and in the forums (sic) box to the right select Soc / Politics / Irish Economy.

You should get many threads all asking the same thing and all giving a similar answer.

If there is anything new arising from any of those threads why not post that instead of this, because:

1) IMF don't take over a country like you suggest;
2) cuts are necessary;
3) even if the IMF were providing loans to the Irish state under certain conditions, the State would still have control over where at least some of those cuts will come from.

Permabear

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dan_d

What a lot of people chose to ignore is that the IMF coming in would affect Ireland's reputation as a country in a massive way.

They might implement a whole lot of cuts that are obvious and necessary to us now, but there's a whole lot of countries out there that wouldn't touch us to do business again, which is even more damaging. We can't keep blithely talking about the IMF coming in as if they would be saviours. I agree they would carry out cuts that our politicians don't seem to have the backbone to, but the ramifications of their presence would stretch far and beyond just cuts, and would be felt for a long long time.

Permabear

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flutered

i asked before here on boards, has any one traveled through russia or the argentine while the imf were pay masters, nobody answered, i wonder why, the people were on the streets trying to sell their megre possesions to buy one item, bread, on the other hand people like the guy that owens chelsea f.c. were in a position to make use of the situation, i wonder why that has a familiar ring to it

Caolan1

Flutered, that was your 666'th post.
I hope it is not an Omen.... :eek:

IvySlayer

donegalfella I want to print out your post then make love to it.

Seth Brundle

I wonder what effect would there be on the unions. If the PS were forced into taking pay cuts and various job losses (where the unions have sweet FA input), would PS workers wonder what point is there to being in a union?

IvySlayer

kbannon wrote: »

I wonder what effect would there be on the unions. If the PS were forced into taking pay cuts and various job losses (where the unions have sweet FA input), would PS workers wonder what point is there to being in a union?

Didn't Begg and O'Connor agree with the Government to bail out the banks? Where did they expect the money to come from?

ardmacha

Is that all? We've added around 85,000 employees to the public payroll over the past decade. We can surely afford to shed 15,000 of them.

Probably. It would be important to establish exactly where these extra people are, rather than just cutting every section equally, whether or not they gained extra staff in those years.

Is that all? An Irish teacher makes 54 percent more than a Finnish teacher, and 75 percent more than a French teacher.

A source for this would be nice. If you look at OECD data an exerienced secondary school teacher in Ireland received 6% more in Ireland than in Finland in 2008, of course the Irish person has been cut by 15% or so since then, while their Finnish counterpart is probably the same. And for any type of teacher the French figure in 2008 was 75% of the Irish salary, not half. You don't mention Belgium or Germany where teachers were and are better paid than in Ireland.

That said, if schools were set up with Finnish staffing ratios and facilities, I'd say teachers would be happy to work in them, especially as Finnish teachers work less hours at all levels.

Carolyyn

Some posters are applying some very blue sky thinking to the "not so bad" prospect of the IMF coming in on a white horse and sorting out the big bad government and unions...

This is a 2 way street and he who pays the piper will call the tune, the first thing that we are likely to be asked to sacrifice in return for being "rescued" will be our enriching 12.5% rate of corporate tax. Work out how all our big multinational employers in IT, pharmacuetical will react to that, or any others even considering Ireland as a destination for investment...

whatawaster

Carolyyn wrote: »

the first thing that we are likely to be asked to sacrifice in return for being "rescued" will be our enriching 12.5% rate of corporate tax.

Why?

They won't come in and tell us we have to do this, or we have to do that. They will give us a range of options, and budgetry targets

CT is not a huge earner for the state compared to income tax and VAT. Increasing it could well lead to a loss in CT revenues.

We need to make our savings through spending cuts, and rises in Income tax imo. Not CT. Not consumption taxes.

bryaner

flutered wrote: »

i asked before here on boards, has any one traveled through russia or the argentine while the imf were pay masters, nobody answered, i wonder why, the people were on the streets trying to sell their megre possesions to buy one item, bread, on the other hand people like the guy that owens chelsea f.c. were in a position to make use of the situation, i wonder why that has a familiar ring to it

You cant compare Ireland with these countries, were slightly more civilized!

dan_d

I just don't think it's good to be thinking 'ah sure the IMF will come in and it'll be great, we'll be able to chose what we want to do, we won't have to listen to those politicians anymore, and the PS will be decimated and our problems will be solved'.Watch what's happening in Greece.Fine the UK may have survived, but did they not have a massive property crash shortly afterwards?(scuse my history, mightn't be that accurate). Also the UK economy is quite different to ours...we rely a lot more on foreign exports...on external business and money.
I just think we're being awfully flippant about something that will essentially be a death knell for our economy for a large number of years to come.Yes the IMF would have it's advantages, but they would be brief and the disadvantages and long lasting effects would be greater.

Carolyyn

whatawaster wrote: »

Why?

They won't come in and tell us we have to do this, or we have to do that. They will give us a range of options, and budgetry targets

CT is not a huge earner for the state compared to income tax and VAT. Increasing it could well lead to a loss in CT revenues.

We need to make our savings through spending cuts, and rises in Income tax imo. Not CT. Not consumption taxes.

In practice it's likely to be to the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) that this country would apply for assistance. Germany's powerful Green Party has stated that it's price for supporting a rescue would be moving our corporate tax rate to match the German rate.
What country might you think have most power in relation to the EFSF ?

In relation to CT, it's not the relative amount of revenue it brings into the government that at issue, its the key role it plays in attracting FDI (employment) to this country ahead of other European countries. If that goes it's bye bye Ireland for the likes of Intel, Dell, etc cos it's not for the love of us they are here!!

20Cent

Some people seem to want the imf in order to implement right wing policies which would never be implemented under normal democratic circumstances. Of course they will argue that they are democrats, but are actually fascists.

Jaysoose

dan_d wrote: »

I just don't think it's good to be thinking 'ah sure the IMF will come in and it'll be great, we'll be able to chose what we want to do, we won't have to listen to those politicians anymore, and the PS will be decimated and our problems will be solved'.Watch what's happening in Greece.Fine the UK may have survived, but did they not have a massive property crash shortly afterwards?(scuse my history, mightn't be that accurate). Also the UK economy is quite different to ours...we rely a lot more on foreign exports...on external business and money.
I just think we're being awfully flippant about something that will essentially be a death knell for our economy for a large number of years to come.Yes the IMF would have it's advantages, but they would be brief and the disadvantages and long lasting effects would be greater.

I think the main issue people have is that our current political classes are incapable or unwilling to sort out the issues, what are we to do? wait until cowen etc completely empty the bank account then head off after the next election or bring in the IMF to do something..anything is better than nothing.

Its not gonna be pretty when the imf come in but whats the alternative?

RDM_83 again

well if they are coming in you'd better hope you've money for private health insurance (actually you'd better hope you've got a large nest egg full stop)

All the wonderful PS cutting that people are looking forwards to does have an effect

http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050143

and please note this line of the Paper before you post that the mortality rises would have occured anyway

"In contrast, non-IMF lending programs were connected with decreased tuberculosis mortality rates (−7.6%, 95% confidence interval, −1.0% to −14.1%)"

Permabear

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ardmacha

Ronan Lyons table was compiled in April 09, probably based on OECD data from several years before and before the two budgets which applied two cuts to salaries and also increased taxes. In any case after tax salaries for particular family formations is not just an issue for the public sector, if you prefer the French tax approach (and you probably don't) then all persons on that income should pay more tax, whether private or public sector. There is no doubt that we all were fairly lightly taxed in 2007 or so, but this has and will change.

In brief, there is nothing particularly special about Irish teachers or the Irish educational system, despite the propaganda spin coming from the teachers' unions. So there's no rationale for their high salaries, either.

As you say Ireland is not the best on the scores, nor does it have the highest paid teachers, it is in the middle. So talk of "astronomical" salaries is nonsense, unless you are talking about South Korea. What Ireland does have is one of lowest overall spends per student on education, it is unclear that Finnish teachers or others could get better scores in such an underfunded system. Education is generally in the centre of the range of European performance, if only the same could be said about other Irish public services!

And 48 percent of Irish post-primary maths teachers are not actually qualified to teach the subject.

We agree that this is a problem, minimum maths standards for teachers should be increased and well qualified maths teachers should get the pre cut salary.

Permabear

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ardmacha

Can you please post some figures, with sources, to illustrate your claim that Irish teachers earn close to the average salary in the OECD?

Ireland is unusual in that primary and secondary teachers are paid exactly the same, which is not the case for most countries. Forfas may have other figures, I can only see 2008 figures adjusted for cost of living in Education at a Glance 2010. These show a 12% gap or so between the OECD average and Irish salaries, given the reduction since then they should now be closer to the average. I do not have exact figures for the reductions, which of course includes the pension levy which Forfas conveniently ignores, nor for the reduction in the cost of living. My best guess is that this would show an average about 3% over the OECD average, adjusted for cost of living, now for secondary teachers. Of course if the cost of living falls in Ireland then teachers and other people should be paid less.

When people talk about these salaries are they proposing emulating Finland etc or just cutting teacher salaries while ignoring the class size etc found in other countries? I'd support introducing these systems, but not just taking one number from them in isolation.