government should create jobs!

Oranage2

Everyday we see the dispair and hopelessness from thousands of fellow irishmen/women that are trying desperately to find jobs that just arent there and everyday we hear Job agendcies like FAS being involved in a scandel!

So my question is why dont the government not get rid of all the agendcies and create jobs for job seekers! Nothing feels worse than not being given an oppertunity of working and pay tax to contribute to society all because some greedy people made billions while the rest suffer!

I know a lot of people disagree with the internship scheme as it appears to be slave labor and increasing profits for private companies so a government scheme that pays eleminates these two factors.

So what i think is the government could pay 8.65€ an hour at a maximum working week of 22 hours.

So that €190.3 a week and after tax equals approx 188 euro!

Jobs could be created in

- Enviormental protection
- waste management
- Support network for the old/disabled
- Farming assistant
- many more

The government could also provide a free creche for job seekers availing of one of their new positions while hiring other job seekers to mind the children (vetted and skilled unemployed person only)

The 22 hours could be done over 3 days - job seekers wouldnt lose any benefits like medical card or rent allowance though their dole would be stopped.

Does anybody else see why the government isnt doing this?

silverharp

and where does the money come from? to employ somebody to do something you have to give them equipment, offices etc. on top of their salary. The activities you mention would not give a financial return so essentially you want to borrow more money so that people work for the sake of working.
you might like my sig :pac:

al28283

Oranage2 wrote: »

Everyday we see the dispair and hopelessness from thousands of fellow irishmen/women that are trying desperately to find jobs that just arent there and everyday we hear Job agendcies like FAS being involved in a scandel!

So my question is why dont the government not get rid of all the agendcies and create jobs for job seekers! Nothing feels worse than not being given an oppertunity of working and pay tax to contribute to society all because some greedy people made billions while the rest suffer!

I know a lot of people disagree with the internship scheme as it appears to be slave labor and increasing profits for private companies so a government scheme that pays eleminates these two factors.

So what i think is the government could pay 8.65€ an hour at a maximum working week of 22 hours.

So that €190.3 a week and after tax equals approx 188 euro!

Jobs could be created in

- Enviormental protection
- waste management
- Support network for the old/disabled
- Farming assistant
- many more

The government could also provide a free creche for job seekers availing of one of their new positions while hiring other job seekers to mind the children (vetted and skilled unemployed person only)

The 22 hours could be done over 3 days - job seekers wouldnt lose any benefits like medical card or rent allowance though their dole would be stopped.

Does anybody else see why the government isnt doing this?

How about spelling lessons?

Cookie_Monster

yeah, get people to build roads to nowhere, walls in the middle of fields and follys on every hill top. Keep them busy, it'll be grand

Manach

Well, it would have the benefit of keeping disgruntled voters occupied instead of them having to ask questions of the government. Simples.

Tabnabs

The government don't create jobs, demand creates jobs.

aka Who create jobs? The guy who build a better mouse-trap? Or the demand of the people who need it?

Dale Parish

It's not the governments business to create jobs (depending on where you are of course...).
It's up to them to create the enviornment by which jobs can be created.
Sadly with too high a minimum wage and ridiculous levels of dole, we're still a long way off as people decide shelf-stacking jobs are "below them".

Nijmegen

Government work programs, government work programs, now where do I remember those from...?

Ah yes. I remember reading once about factory shift workers in the Eastern Bloc. Everyone had to have a job, you see. So there were 3 shifts in certain factories, with one of the shifts often coming in to undo the work of the prior shift so the next one would have something to do (not enough raw material.)

Very efficient. What happened to them in the end...?

Government work programs are expensive - even in our expensive public service the pay bill is only half (ok, a bit more of) the story, and you've got to pay for materials and so on.

And for what?

Makey up roads to nowhere? A lot of new post offices? Certainly nothing productive. You can't make retail goods because you'd be distorting the market, and besides nobody is buying anything anymore so you'd only kill retail sales by increasing supply and there go the productive private sector companies.

Besides which, where would you (borrow) the money from?

Manach

Well there is still money in the private sector pensions :rolleyes:

Debtocracy

Tabnabs wrote: »

The government don't create jobs, demand creates jobs.

aka Who create jobs? The guy who build a better mouse-trap? Or the demand of the people who need it?

Quit living in the past. Demand doesn’t create jobs, bank credit does. These days people are too poor to buy anything, so without credit, there is no demand.

RichardAnd

Dale Parish wrote: »

It's not the governments business to create jobs (depending on where you are of course...).
It's up to them to create the enviornment by which jobs can be created.
Sadly with too high a minimum wage and ridiculous levels of dole, we're still a long way off as people decide shelf-stacking jobs are "beyond them".

I'm quite sure you meant "below them". What you said syggests a person a very low self esteem

leeroybrown

They're already undermining legitimate employment for people with schemes like WPP2 without going down this line. Governments should create an environment where employment is generated because anything else just turns into a huge messy social welfare scheme that kills off legitimate enterprise.

digme

silverharp wrote: »

and where does the money come from? to employ somebody to do something you have to give them equipment, offices etc. on top of their salary. The activities you mention would not give a financial return so essentially you want to borrow more money so that people work for the sake of working.
you might like my sig :pac:

issue our own money?

Nody

digme wrote: »

issue our own money?

Monopoly money would have a higher trading value then a new irish punt would...

digme

Nody wrote: »

Monopoly money would have a higher trading value then a new irish punt would...

Why do you need to trade it?

Nody

digme wrote: »

Why do you need to trade it?

Minor things such as oil, clothes, cars, food etc. that needs to be imported tends to lead to a need to trade with your currency with other countries.

Also in regards to OP, this thread is a clear example why the government should not be involved in creating jobs. They always bundle it up in the hope to buy votes.

digme

Nody wrote: »

Minor things such as oil, clothes, cars, food etc. that needs to be imported tends to lead to a need to trade with your currency with other countries.

Also in regards to OP, this thread is a clear example why the government should not be involved in creating jobs. They always bundle it up in the hope to buy votes.

We have the euro for that.

SBWife

digme wrote: »

Why do you need to trade it?

Am I seeing things...wow.

Because we are not a self sufficient nation (and it would be economically insane to try and be one).

digme

SBWife wrote: »

Am I seeing things...wow.

Because we are not a self sufficient nation (and it would be economically insane to try and be one).

we have the euro? We can create and issue our own money for Ireland at zero percent interest.

Dale Parish

RichardAnd wrote: »

I'm quite sure you meant "below them". What you said syggests a person a very low self esteem

Yeah thanks that's what I meant :pac:
I'm going to disagree and say it suggests that they are either 1) too proud or 2) life on the scratcher is too easy.
I think it's 2.

Nijmegen

digme wrote: »

we have the euro? We can create and issue our own money for Ireland at zero percent interest.

Um, how much do you understand about how money works? (Not trying to be smart...)

Everything is valued against everything else. Ireland prints Punts Nua tomorrow. We say 1 Punt Nua is worth €1. Fine. Then the free markets begin to trade out Punt Nua. And the value drops, 40-60% (this is not a bull figure, that's what would happen) and your Punt Nua is now worth €0.40-0.60 cent.

Well, we grow plenty of spuds here in Ireland so we won't starve. But the price of petrol will double-and-a-half, so there's your jobs program - all the people going out to pick the spuds by hand.

We make computers, right? Well, we import the goods to do it. So they'll get more expensive.

Average salary is €35,000. It's now 35,000 Punts Nua. But oh s***, it's only now worth €21,000 - €14,000 !

Of course, the government can print all the money it wants. Your salary is now 350,000 Punts Nua, and now it's 3.5 million Punts Nua. But we just keep going down in value on the market and now 1,000,000 Punts Nua will buy you a grand total of a few pennies.

If all it took to be trillionaires was to print money, we'd all be at it. They've tried it, in Weimar Germany and lately in Zimbabwe.

Loaf of bread just ends up costing you a wheelbarrow worth of cash.

digme

Nijmegen wrote: »

Um, how much do you understand about how money works? (Not trying to be smart...)

I condensed your post above.
The money would supplement the euro not replace anything at all.
You could use it to pay part of your car tax,vat,council tax,bins,etc
The end result is people have more money in their pockets,everyone wins.

keithclancy

digme wrote: »

I condensed your post above.
The money would supplement the euro not replace anything at all.
You could use it to pay part of your car tax,vat,council tax,bins,etc
The end result is people have more money in their pockets,everyone wins.

:rolleyes:

So where does the conversion to Euro happen when the Government has to pay the Civil Servants/Contractors/Services Outside the state ?

digme

keithclancy wrote: »

:rolleyes:

So where does the conversion to Euro happen when the Government has to pay the Civil Servants/Contractors/Services Outside the state ?

You pay them in euros?

Triangla

Agree with previous posters, government is not there to create jobs. Government is there to provide environment in which job growth will occur.

Good debate could be on the key levers under government control that can be used to encourage growth, for example lower fuel taxes/levies.

I'd prefer to see cheaper petrol/diesel for everyone than scrappage deals for those who can afford new cars (and as such are probably fine financially anyway)

Also, the last thing we need is an even bigger public service, it's much cheaper to pay someone the dole.

keithclancy

digme wrote: »

You pay them in euros?

Lets simplfy this

I'm the Government

Your the Tax Payer

You pay me in Irish Punt Nua for the service

I have to pay a Contractor to perform the service under tender

Where am I going to get the Euros to pay them with ?

_Kaiser_

Just to throw another element into this...

Yes most people want to work and feel that they're doing something useful and contributing and all that BUT people also want to work to be able to afford things they mightn't otherwise be able to, go on holidays, treat themselves/their loved ones - not to mention the whole wanting to better themselves/education angles etc

In other words, no one works for the sake of working. It's a means to an end, and while I'm all for encouraging people to work and helping them to do so, it's not going to be of any use if there's no real reward or worse, it costs them money to do so!

Most newly (in the last 3 years - I think the phrase "long term unemployed" referencing 12 months+ needs to be rethought at this stage in our economic decline) unemployed are there because they were working and now they aren't as a result of cutbacks/redundancy.
Unfortunately however the debts of these people (loans, credit cards, mortgages and so on) don't just disappear along with their job and income and people can bleat all they like about how the dole isn't SUPPOSED to be for these things, but the creditors don't seem to be buying that anymore than I do!

Facts are most people in this position are struggling to get by from week to week, paying just enough off each debt to keep the threatening lettters from the mailbox, while they desperately try and find a new job to yes, restore their sense of self-worth, but also their income and ability to pay what they owe.

I'm not saying we should be paying everyone €35k+ but job schemes like this DO amount to little more than fudge the real figures and create cheap/almost slave labour if it's mandatory.

What we need to find some way to restore our competitiveness through fair but universal cuts, a modest above-board tax increase that means those who CAN pay more DO pay more, and reductions in the ridiculously overstaffed and overpaid (at the higher grades) PS sector (and I say that as a former PS worker myself).

Of course, if our government had actually taken the mandate to serve the people to heart, we wouldn't necessarily be in this mess as we wouldn't all be paying the gambling debts of those who dared and lost, but I note that first it was the Private vs Public sector, now it's the employed vs the unemployed - our governments are great at the old "divide and conquer" tactics but hey it works for them I guess as while we all play armchair economists and dream up wonderful ideas about how *I* could save the country if only... , business continues as normal and THAT is the real problem.

We need to be showing our anger and frustration in calls/letters/visits to our TDs, demanding REAL change .. not just in our circumstances, but in the mindsets and practises that got us here and so on - but then this IS Ireland where phrases like "ah shure it'll be grand", "I'm alright Jack", "can't someone else do it" and so on really should be written into the National Anthemn!

Nijmegen

digme wrote: »

I condensed your post above.
The money would supplement the euro not replace anything at all.
You could use it to pay part of your car tax,vat,council tax,bins,etc
The end result is people have more money in their pockets,everyone wins.

Um, you can't have 2 official currencies?

You can have an official currency and an unofficial one - like the USD in many Latin American countries - but it's self defeating, part of the black economy.

Two currencies would be two tier. I get paid in punts. You get paid in Euro's. Man oh man are you better off than me.

The mechanical reasons of why that wouldn't work would take some explaining. Think it through...

If it were that simple.....

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

GUIGuy

I don't think it's a good idea but its not unheard of to have a two parallel currencies in one economy... A hard currency for externally traded goods and an internal currency for re-circulatory activities. This has gone on in eastern Europe, China, SE Asia, Latin America at various times.

The issue with this is that the majority of people (public servants, dole & the majority of shops/services) get paid in the local currency because by their nature they don't bring in new money from abroad they just recirculate existing money. Only those in the internationally traded sectors have access to hard currency.

That in itself creates a huge localised inflation problem... people need hard currency to buy certain things but it's in short supply.
Quite often hard currencies in such countries trade higher than they do on the international open market, because people are desperate for it and so short sell the openly traded value of the local currency.
This wipes out wealth of the majority and increasing both the relative and absolute wealth of those with access to foreign currency.

digme

keithclancy wrote: »

Lets simplfy this

I'm the Government

Your the Tax Payer

You pay me in Irish Punt Nua for the service

I have to pay a Contractor to perform the service under tender

Where am I going to get the Euros to pay them with ?

Nijmegen wrote: »

Um, you can't have 2 official currencies?

You can have an official currency and an unofficial one - like the USD in many Latin American countries - but it's self defeating, part of the black economy.

Two currencies would be two tier. I get paid in punts. You get paid in Euro's. Man oh man are you better off than me.

The mechanical reasons of why that wouldn't work would take some explaining. Think it through...

If it were that simple.....

Hows this.

A council issues a certain percentage of your wages in punts.
They then accept back those punts as payment for motor tax,rates,vat,etc. That would free up a massive amount of money.

Nijmegen

digme wrote: »

Hows this.

A council issues a certain percentage of your wages in punts.
They then accept back those punts as payment for motor tax,rates,vat,etc. That would free up a massive amount of money.

I'm sorry digme, but that's just not how it works! You could never create a balance between the amount of punts vs euros you pay into the economy to cover the cost of all goods and services, and you still get the hyper inflation at home.

There's a reason the only countries to try this are backwards and went to the wall.

There is no such thing as 'free money'.

digme

Nijmegen wrote: »

I'm sorry digme, but that's just not how it works! You could never create a balance between the amount of punts vs euros you pay into the economy to cover the cost of all goods and services, and you still get the hyper inflation at home.

There's a reason the only countries to try this are backwards and went to the wall.

There is no such thing as 'free money'.

If the money is earned, not lent and thus payed back to the council.How is that going to cause hyper inflation?

Nijmegen

digme wrote: »

If the money is earned, not lent and thus payed back to the council.How is that going to cause hyper inflation?

I think GUIGuy gave a good explanation?

We can discuss economic theory, or we can say this: Why is it that only failed economic backwaters have two currencies, and they usually go on to collapse entirely?

digme

Nijmegen wrote: »

I think GUIGuy gave a good explanation?

We can discuss economic theory, or we can say this: Why is it that only failed economic backwaters have two currencies, and they usually go on to collapse entirely?

GUIGuy's explanation ?
What do you think europe does? It uses a local currency, the euro.
And for external trade, it uses mostly the dollar.

Finnbar01

digme wrote: »

we have the euro? We can create and issue our own money for Ireland at zero percent interest.

And who would want the newly issued irish punt over the euro?

digme

Finnbar01 wrote: »

And who would want the newly issued irish punt over the euro?

You'd use both.
You'd have to earn the punt, you can still get a loan of the euro from a "bank".

Finnbar01

digme wrote: »

You'd use both.

But people would prefer the euro, as the new punt would be worth next to nothing.

The only way this could work would be for the government to actually ban the euro altogether.

digme

Finnbar01 wrote: »

But people would prefer the euro, as the new punt would be worth next to nothing.

The only way this could work would be for the government to actually ban the euro altogether.

You're not grasping the concept.
The punt will be 1 to 1 with the euro.And no, the government don't need to ban the euro,why would they?

Boskowski

There is no miracle diet pill. It's change your diet and exercise. Sorry wrong forum. Umm, maybe not?

Nijmegen

digme wrote: »

You're not grasping the concept.
The punt will be 1 to 1 with the euro.And no, the government don't need to ban the euro,why would they?

Umm, I really think you're missing it: It is as 'physically' impossible to run a sustainable economy in the fashion you describe as it is for me to do 20 pull ups with my tongue.

The problems are so myriad it's hard to know where to start. Firstly, mandating that the currency be accepted 1:1 with the euro is impossible. If it was possible, why didn't the GDR do it with, for example, the West Mark? Would have solved a lot of their problems!

You just can't do it. GDR is actually a good example: They used the WestMark as, essentially, their hard currency for buying the stuff they couldn't get themselves for all kinds of industry and leisure. They had to get the WestMark's, apart from aid, through extortion rackets, both overtly criminal and by, for example, forcing West Germans visiting the East - primarily relatives in East Berlin - to exchange their marks into east marks at a very tasty exchange rate for the E. German government (essentially, making them a profit on each transaction.) They also imported Soviet oil and gas at very favorable rates and exported it to the west, for example, at market prices.

When Germany reunified the OstMark was traded for WestMarks at a 1:1 ratio for the first 4,000 marks, 2:1 for the remainder, which cost West Germany billions and drove up the cost of living in East Germany as they became less competitive for their primary markets, central and eastern Europe.

To get the amount of hard currency required to keep afloat - in our case, Euro's, in theirs anything but crappy ost money - they would have had to increase their exports to western nations by 5-6 times versus what they were, despite already having a trade surplus with the West that is actually larger than our current trade surplus!

Money is valued against something. It has a real value. £1, $1 and €1 are not the same thing and there's a reason for that.

Sheesh, I'm trying to get my head around all the different ways our economy would collapse under this sort of a regime, it's amazing.

Re: GUIGuy, he wrote earlier in the thread:

I don't think it's a good idea but its not unheard of to have a two parallel currencies in one economy... A hard currency for externally traded goods and an internal currency for re-circulatory activities. This has gone on in eastern Europe, China, SE Asia, Latin America at various times.

The issue with this is that the majority of people (public servants, dole & the majority of shops/services) get paid in the local currency because by their nature they don't bring in new money from abroad they just recirculate existing money. Only those in the internationally traded sectors have access to hard currency.

That in itself creates a huge localised inflation problem... people need hard currency to buy certain things but it's in short supply.
Quite often hard currencies in such countries trade higher than they do on the international open market, because people are desperate for it and so short sell the openly traded value of the local currency.
This wipes out wealth of the majority and increasing both the relative and absolute wealth of those with access to foreign currency.

SouperComputer

digme wrote: »

You're not grasping the concept?

The concept isn't rooted in reality!

Oranage2

silverharp wrote: »

and where does the money come from? to employ somebody to do something you have to give them equipment, offices etc. on top of their salary.

Well it would come from the social welfare fund - welfare would be stopped and people would be paid to work.

silverharp wrote: »

The activities you mention would not give a financial return so essentially you want to borrow more money so that people work for the sake of working.
you might like my sig :pac:

Isnt this life - not everybody loves their job - i know i dont love mne - i'd say retail staff dont lover theirs but people have to work - that life

and the jobs i suggest as you quite rightly pointed out dont have profits but at least the streets would be clean, old people wont just be left to die.

Everybody should contribute to society and this way everybody does

al28283 wrote: »

How about spelling lessons?

Well done, if you're not smart enough to add to the debate probabily best not to contribute at all!

Nijmegen

Well it would come from the social welfare fund - welfare would be stopped and people would be paid to work.

Firstly, the social welfare fund is only covering 1/3 of welfare costs these days, so 2/3 of the money would (as welfare does) come from daily spending.

Secondly, if you pay a man to dig a hole you need to buy him a shovel.

leeroybrown

Oranage2 wrote: »

Well it would come from the social welfare fund - welfare would be stopped and people would be paid to work.

This fixes nothing. In fact it makes things worse. There's no extra money being generated by or injected to the economy so people won't spend any more than they already do. As no extra money is being generated the only logical source of this extra work is the replacement of current employment with these new state sponsored workers. Private enterprise would either fail due to not being able to compete or abuse the system by replacing ordinary workers with state sponsored ones. We already see the latter case with the WPP1 and WPP2 schemes being mis-used.

Suryavarman

Oranage2 wrote: »

Well it would come from the social welfare fund - welfare would be stopped and people would be paid to work.

But then it's just going to cost more to pay people the same amount.

Isnt this life - not everybody loves their job - i know i dont love mne - i'd say retail staff dont lover theirs but people have to work - that life

and the jobs i suggest as you quite rightly pointed out dont have profits but at least the streets would be clean, old people wont just be left to die.

Everybody should contribute to society and this way everybody does

I think what silverharp means is people will be given jobs just so the government can say unemployment is going down. The jobs that we would be giving people would be worthless as they wouldn't be producing anything.

We already have council workers to keep the streets clean though. If anything your plan will create the scenario were old people will be left to die after all the money for pensions being wasted on meaningless jobs.

Manach

Re old people dying, I'm fairly sure that historical family support structures had taken care of most of their own kin. With the growth of the interventionist state, familial bonds have loosen in Western Europe - 2003_European_heat_wave