IMF/EU impact

femur61

Reading about Berties massive pension and all the other FF retiring TDs pensions. I don't see any impact of the IMF/EU on the way our public money has been spent. I hear daily about well qualified children of friends of mine who are leaving because of lack of prospects and lack of work. How are the fat cats still getting their over inflated wages with their generous pensions still getting away scot free. I was talking to a friend of mine is still in the UK after the last wave of immigration in the 80's and she was astounded at teachers wages and nurses wages here. I didn't tell her they would be considered by some in the PS to be at the lower scale of enumeration.

Why do we as a nation lie down and let people get away with it?

later12

Widespread PS wage drops would result in even more significant and in my opinion, unwanted, levels of deflation and recession.

Public sector wage levels must fall, but this must be allowed to happen in line with economic growth or slow economic decline. You can't simply wake up one day and slash public sector wages or current spending and expect no long term repercussions on things like mortgages, consumer goods and consumer confidence. Consumer confidence is one of the most significant economic indicators there are for fund investors. Mortgage repayments are already very delicate. You can't just implode these things.

meditraitor

later10 wrote: »

Widespread PS wage drops would result in even more significant and in my opinion, unwanted, levels of deflation and recession.

Public sector wage levels must fall, but this must be allowed to happen in line with economic growth or slow economic decline. You can't simply wake up one day and slash public sector wages or current spending and expect no long term repercussions on things like mortgages, consumer goods and consumer confidence. Consumer confidence is one of the most significant economic indicators there are for fund investors. Mortgage repayments are already very delicate. You can't just implode these things.

You really should think before you post....... if public sector wages had fallen with "economic decline" then our overheads as a country would be a lot less. and your average nurse(Teacher) would not be earning more than their counterparts in every other european state....

RichardAnd

femur61 wrote: »

Reading about Berties massive pension and all the other FF retiring TDs pensions. I don't see any impact of the IMF/EU on the way our public money has been spent. I hear daily about well qualified children of friends of mine who are leaving because of lack of prospects and lack of work. How are the fat cats still getting their over inflated wages with their generous pensions still getting away scot free. I was talking to a friend of mine is still in the UK after the last wave of immigration in the 80's and she was astounded at teachers wages and nurses wages here. I didn't tell her they would be considered by some in the PS to be at the lower scale of enumeration.

Why do we as a nation lie down and let people get away with it?

That really is an interesting point but I think the answer is quite simple. We're worse off than we were five years past BUT, for most, things really aren't all that bad at all.

Yes, people have lost their jobs but the majority of people who were working in the boom are still doing so. People, on average, have less money but things are cheaper and money is certainly still being spent on X, Y and Z items.

And to go deeper into the matter, Irish people generally dont' look very far beyond their own little bubbles when they take measure of the world. If a guy is working, has a pretty wife who is also in work and his two kids are fed, watered and clothed comfortably then, to him, life is fine. He might get worked up occasionally by some load of nonsense on the six one but his primary concern will be his own affair and to be honest, he would be right. The primary concern of any person should, and generally is, his/her own family.

So no, I don't believe this recession will bring about a new age for Ireland where we are free of corrupt politics, half arsed public projects and all their concomitants. Nay, if anything, this recession will send ireland back to what it always was, that unremarkable little country on the edge of Europe with emigration being perfectly normal.

But you know, life in the 70s wasn't as bad people often think. Always remember that society is just an illusion and, in reality, your primary concern should always be the well being of your loved ones.

later12

meditraitor wrote: »

You really should think before you post....... if public sector wages had fallen with "economic decline" then our overheads as a country would be a lot less.

You really should read before you reply. I am advocating public sector wage deflation in line with economic decline, this should have happened and ought to continue to happen in a controlled manner.

The OP appears, if I am not mistaken, to be asking why visible changes have not become apparent. My point is that you simply cannot slash wages overnight. If you want to know what such extreme measures can do to an economy just consider the Bolivian fuel crisis.

Sea Sharp

It's only been a few weeks since the EU/IMF came in. The government have to stick to the 4 year plan to keep getting the bailout. There's 4 years of regular cuts to come. Give it time

theroad

RichardAnd wrote: »

But you know, life in the 70s wasn't as bad people often think. Always remember that society is just an illusion and, in reality, your primary concern should always be the well being of your loved ones.

You and Margaret Thatcher both! And life in Ireland in the 70s wasn't that bad? Try being non-Catholic, or a woman (when in the 70s was it that a wife stopped being her husband's chattel?), or gay. Try looking for contraception, or a divorce, or a phone line, or an airline ticket that didn't cost a week's wages. Try looking for a job! I could go on, but you get the picture. The point being that none of the huge and necessary social changes of the last four decades happened in an economic vacuum, rather they were driven by increasing prosperity.

Life in the 70s was cars that wouldn't start and watching "Mart and Market" on the telly because there was nothing other than RTE (unless you lived in the pale.)

RichardAnd

theroad wrote: »

You and Margaret Thatcher both! And life in Ireland in the 70s wasn't that bad? Try being non-Catholic, or a woman (when in the 70s was it that a wife stopped being her husband's chattel?), or gay. Try looking for contraception, or a divorce, or a phone line, or an airline ticket that didn't cost a week's wages. Try looking for a job! I could go on, but you get the picture. The point being that none of the huge and necessary social changes of the last four decades happened in an economic vacuum, rather they were driven by increasing prosperity.

Life in the 70s was cars that wouldn't start and watching "Mart and Market" on the telly because there was nothing other than RTE (unless you lived in the pale.)

Maggie thatcher is dismissed and admonished by many simply because whenever her name is mentioned, it's generally followed or preceded by just that. Say what you will about her and I don't dold her up as some sort of angle but she did managed to rein in reckless socialist spending and balance england's books. Did she do it in the best way possible? Who can say but what we do know is that she fixed a situation where a country was spending 5 pounds for every 3 it made.

And yes, life was harder in the 70s but people didn't have unrealistic expectations in life. A simple job, a simple life with a few comforts now and then was what people wanted and most (though, true, not all) got that. You don't need three sun holidays a year, a plasma screen TV and and two nights clubbing a week to be happy or fulfilled.

johnnyskeleton

theroad wrote: »

(when in the 70s was it that a wife stopped being her husband's chattel?)

What?

theroad

Maggie is certainly not someone to be dismissed! In fairness, much as I loathed her politics, in saying there is no such thing as society she was making a point about self-reliance, which is no bad thing. But I also disagree: there is such as thing as society.

What I was saying about the 70s is that I think many of the changes in Irish society (sic) in the last 40 years were good and worthwhile, and they arose out of big increases in economic prosperity. Now that the country is in economic decline, I have absolutely no wish to return to conservatism of Ireland in the 70s, whatever about having to make do with less.