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Sick of Unemployed People Getting abuse on
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Honestly, we find Tesco the cheapest to shop in. Were we buying branded goods, yes, perhaps Lidl or Aldi would be the best option but for generic own-brand stuff, Tesco compete very well. Grocery shopping for a family of 4 typically costs us between €80 and €100. Often rises to €120 if we put a case of beer into the trolley for the weekend.
why would someone with financial struggles be paying for premium brands?
and more importantly why would they be wasting money on beer?
I'm starting become speechless0 -
on another note on tesco showing how cheap they are on there leaflets the best they can do is match aldi/lidl but can beat super value?
how come they can never show a cheaper recipt between them and lidl/aldi?
at best they advertise where they can match them which is on very few products0 -
puffishoes wrote: »Yes the proof is in the store on the price tag.
If you don't have a statistic to back up your arguments, you are just making assumptions and will be more than likely wrong. It is not anyway beneficial to the thread to be making statements of fact that are not actual fact. It merely misleads people who presume you bothered to make sure what you are saying is true.
Going back to the OP , the problem stems from people who make assumptions based on hearsay and believe it to be gospel. When in fact they have no understanding of the actual facts.0 -
Probably just older, ours are only 3 and 6 so easily kept happy at the mo.Feck, you're doing alright there.
I take in Lidl and Supervalu in a round trip and we rarely get away with less than €150 for a family of 5. Maybe my kids are older, or just hungrier.
We don't pay for premium brands. My point was in relation to the notion that Lidl & Aldi are the cheapest places to shop. I've found this not to be the case based on our weekly shopping basket. Another factor here would be that Lidl/Aldi won't have everything you want in store so you'll end up going elsewhere too. The "yellow sticker" fridge doesn't seem to exist in our local Lidl either and the briefest of glances in our freezer would tell you that it's a staple of our shopping.puffishoes wrote: »why would someone with financial struggles be paying for premium brands?
and more importantly why would they be wasting money on beer?
I'm starting become speechless
As for beer? We buy a case most weeks instead of going and spending multiples of the €20 or so that it costs in a pub. That's our prerogative though: I believe I'm entitled to a few luxuries at the weekend since I've worked for them all week.0 -
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Probably just older, ours are only 3 and 6 so easily kept happy at the mo.
We don't pay for premium brands. My point was in relation to the notion that Lidl & Aldi are the cheapest places to shop. I've found this not to be the case based on our weekly shopping basket.
As for beer? We buy a case most weeks instead of going and spending multiples of the €20 or so that it costs in a pub. That's our prerogative though: I'm entitled to a few luxuries since I've worked for them.
Ah sorry, i mis-read the premiumum brands part.
interesting, no matter how hard i try I can't get a receipt lower than aldi/lidl.0 -
If you don't have a statistic to back up your arguments, you are just making assumptions and will be more than likely wrong. It is not anyway beneficial to the thread to be making statements of fact that are not actual fact. It merely misleads people who presume you bothered to make sure what you are saying is true.
Going back to the OP , the problem stems from people who make assumptions based on hearsay and believe it to be gospel. When in fact they have no understanding of the actual facts.
Oh stop with the complete and utter nonsense. in your own link it states they're the lower ones :rolleyes:
what do you want? two identical receipts?0 -
I think I've a fair idea, our two are whippets but bottomless pits for food.You honestly just won't believe what can be consumed by a skinny 12 year old.
Essentially, I find Tesco have more generic replacements for branded products than the discounters. Take their Sunsip cola: 3 2l bottles for €1.50. No, it's not as nice as Coca Cola but at a third of the price, I'll take the difference. The same goes for a lot of their product ranges. Lidl / Aldi have some great options but any time we've done a full week's shopping there, we've ended up having to go elsewhere for some of our shop that they didn't carry.puffishoes wrote: »Ah sorry, i mis-read the premiumum brands part.
interesting, no matter how hard i try I can't get a receipt lower than aldi/lidl.0 -
Thanks.
This data is from 2010, which appears to be the latest available for disposable income. It doesn't take into account the tax hikes in budgets since then.
Average gross pay = $48,757, this translates to €39,200 at today's exchange rate.
But here is Q1 2012 data showing €2996 monthly or €35,952 yearly, a fall of 8.3%.
Having a large drop in gross and large increases in taxation I suspect we will be quite far from that top spot when the statistics catch up.
Having said that from your link we can see that Ireland's net pay is 3rd highest, with only Luxembourg and Switzerland being higher.0 -
You honestly just won't believe what can be consumed by a skinny 12 year old.
And especially with the holidays!! Have a pair of them and I split my shopping, I like some things in Lidl (remnant of living in Germany for 10 years), I confess I like brand washing powder which I pick up on special.
I buy no rubbish though, no crisps, colas/sodas, chocolate. If the boys want them they have their pocket money (that's my excusee, I'd eat them lol).
I think you have to be a savvy shopper now, I bring a list, alternate from toiletires (all on special) to cereals/breads (on special) and stock up.
Rarely get away with less than 150 for the week.0 -
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Having said that from your link we can see that Ireland's net pay is 3rd highest, with only Luxembourg and Switzerland being higher.
We're 10th on gross pay, and there's no net pay data for 8 countries of whom Norway, Denmark and Finland all have higher gross pay.
But still, point taken.0 -
puffishoes wrote: »on another note on tesco showing how cheap they are on there leaflets the best they can do is match aldi/lidl but can beat super value?
how come they can never show a cheaper recipt between them and lidl/aldi?
at best they advertise where they can match them which is on very few products
I thought they did a comparison in their leaflets they send around? They do comparisons in store on some items definitely. Personally I don't think their comparative products are as nice as Aldi or Lidl.
Anyway, bit off topic!Mad Men's Don Draper : What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons.
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I thought they did a comparison in their leaflets they send around? They do comparisons in store on some items definitely. Personally I don't think their comparative products are as nice as Aldi or Lidl.
Anyway, bit off topic!
They do but they never manage to beat aldi/lidl
They will match them but never beat them
on the leaflet when they can they show tesco beating super valu but never lidl aldi they always "match" them0 -
We could always just re tax the employed till these new laws are brought in
Help those in need
Yes in some cases taxes should increase but in many cases welfare and benefits should decrease. And in cases like you have described, where SW is being used to pay for a house, the mortgage holder, the government and the banks should realise that the burden is unsustainable and it's a misuse of welfare support to be purchasing an asset for somebody. People in this situation shouldn't just wait for insolvency laws, they should go to the council and get on the housing list, or they should go to the bank and negotiate a rent back scheme whereby you pay 60% (arbitrary figure) of your monthly payments but this is taken as rent and at the end of the term of the mortgage you don't own the house (only a fraction of it).
Either way it isn't begrudgery to think its crazy that SW is being used to buy property. Especially when I fully support a strong welfare net that provides shelter, food and comfort while people get back on their feet0 -
puffishoes wrote: »Oh stop with the complete and utter nonsense. in your own link it states they're the lower ones :rolleyes:
You are talking utter nonsense. My link shows a table of the most popular retailers, not the cheapest. It is also alarming that from the report I posted, the thing you highlight and find interesting is the shops people use. I think you highlighted this because the rest of the report on Income Distribution and Disposable Income makes your whole argument a farce. You also used a statistic that has no baring on the argument, which further highlights your lack of understanding.0 -
MOD NOTE:
Can everyone stop squabbling over grocery prices please?0 -
looks like the european commission think the SW payments are still too high
http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/ec-criticises-croke-park-deal-and-welfare-system-3151578.html0 -
We're 10th on gross pay, and there's no net pay data for 8 countries of whom Norway, Denmark and Finland all have higher gross pay.
But still, point taken.
Absolutely point taken also. I think though it points to the difficulty of comparing statistics across different countries. We may well have a lower gross pay but our taxation/SI levels are lower than many EU countries making comparisons difficult.0 -
Likewise, our indirect taxes may be higher and also the value for money / quality of services we get in exchange for taxes paid is relatively poor.Absolutely point taken also. I think though it points to the difficulty of comparing statistics across different countries. We may well have a lower gross pay but our taxation/SI levels are lower than many EU countries making comparisons difficult.0 -
Ok, I only called the sustainability argument new, because it was my first encounter of it in the thread.You said:
"your new argument "it's unsustainable" doesn't mean welfare is to be the sole recipient of cuts in funding, does it?"
I clarified that it is all about sustainability, It is not my "new" argument and had you read further back in the thread you would have seen that.
I also answered your question when you asked "Should welfare be the sole recipients of cuts in funding" - I stated that I never said this.
I went on to further clarify that a lot of people on welfare don't complain that it's too low, I gave the reasons for that, so I certainly am not "bashing" those on welfare which you implied in your response to me.
There are real reasons why people are struggling on welfare - but there's a huge difference between those trying to juggle debt, cutting out everything including food (after internet/phones and cars are gone), to those who see those items are "neccessities" (the car which you did not mention, but a few did earlier in the thread, giving their reasons for keeping them).
However, you definitely are criticizing welfare recipients on how they spend their money; through many of your posts, you keep talking about excess expenditure as if all welfare recipients do that, and you are arguing that as a reason to cut welfare.
That is not directly bashing all welfare recipients, but it is implicitly generalizing the problem to all welfare recipients, thus is implicitly bashing welfare overall.
This has been debunked entirely; the wage you get from a job, for the grand majority of people on welfare, is far more financially preferable.daltonmd wrote:Now the debt issue s a different one, but by god if you are unemployed and can "afford" to have all these things then not only is there NO incentive to come off SW (as has been posted recently) but we have to look at the levels "some" people are getting. I have no problem targetting those who "need" help. SOme need more than others.
If there really are a minority of welfare recipients (and remember, minority), who are in a position that they are better off on welfare, then fine that should be addressed; the salient point in this whole discussion though, is that the vast vast majority of people on welfare, are there because of the lack of jobs, not through being better off compared to having a job.
And why are wages so high? It's due to the cost of living, and if you slash wages tomorrow the cost of living will not adjust overnight, people will be far more financially burdened and business profits will fall due to reduced consumer spending, and the economy will take damage.The cost of living in this country is ridiculously high because we pay ourselves ridiculous wages and levels of social welfare.
It goes in circles, and you can't address wages until you address the cost of living, which is affected by a number of things including the ridiculous cost of housing still, which was pushed up in the first place partially due to the expansion of available credit in the boom (bubble) era (which pushed the house prices up), etc. etc..
There's no one-step simple solution; slashing welfare and slashing wages both have ramifications that damage the economy, so there needs to be deeper reform to bring down the cost of living.0 -
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I don't know much about the specific examples you give, but yes I'd agree more specific/discerning means tests might help; not sure how much, but it would be a help.No, it's not. Which is why the rates need to be adjusted to handle more specific cases better. As they currently stand, a 22 year old living independently of their parents and who's paid stamps receives lower JSB than a waster who's never left their bedroom in their parents house at the age of 30. Welfare (and Tax) rates need to be based on circumstances (and previous contributions) rather than on arbitrary distinctions such as age or marital status.
In the end though, there are simply a vast number of unemployed, so we are still talking about a minority here; the main solutions in my view are to get the economy back going again, get people employed, whilst also enacting reform to reduce the cost of living.
Your comments on rent supplement in particular I'd agree with (not the artificial-floor/abolishment of rent supplement mind); I don't know much about the deliberate distortions of the property/rental market, but it is far too costly at the moment and the entire property market needs reform.
Do you not understand the consequences of this though? If welfare payments could not be used to address debts, there would be mass defaults and foreclosures for those with a mortgage.Laminations wrote:Welfare shouldn't be used to cover debts.
This would do enormous social and economic damage.0 -
Likewise, our indirect taxes may be higher and also the value for money / quality of services we get in exchange for taxes paid is relatively poor.
I'm not disagreeing with you .. in fact I'm almost in danger of turning into your biggest fan!! My point remains however that because of all the variables it is very difficult to compare situations across different countries0 -
KyussBishop wrote: »Ok, I only called the sustainability argument new, because it was my first encounter of it in the thread.
Fair enough.KyussBishop wrote: »However, you definitely are criticizing welfare recipients on how they spend their money; through many of your posts, you keep talking about excess expenditure as if all welfare recipients do that, and you are arguing that as a reason to cut welfare.
No I am critiscising people who want to maintain certain standards of life they they accrued when they could work.KyussBishop wrote: »That is not directly bashing all welfare recipients, but it is implicitly generalizing the problem to all welfare recipients, thus is implicitly bashing welfare overall.
It's not generalizing as I was responding to posters, directly, who were definding their position, as I have clearly said there are people on welfare who are struggling and have given up everything. Their struggles are utility bills and feeding their kids.KyussBishop wrote: »This has been debunked entirely; the wage you get from a job, for the grand majority of people on welfare, is far more financially preferable.
It hasn't been debunked at all.KyussBishop wrote: »If there really are a minority of welfare recipients (and remember, minority), who are in a position that they are better off on welfare, then fine that should be addressed; the salient point in this whole discussion though, is that the vast vast majority of people on welfare, are there because of the lack of jobs, not through being better off compared to having a job.
Never said this was the case.KyussBishop wrote: »And why are wages so high? It's due to the cost of living, and if you slash wages tomorrow the cost of living will not adjust overnight, people will be far more financially burdened and business profits will fall due to reduced consumer spending, and the economy will take damage.
Wages are so high because we went through a boom, look to many industries and see the percentage of their costs are salaries, not services, not supplies, but salaries. Take the HSE as a prime example. I think it is 70% of the budget is for salaries.KyussBishop wrote: »It goes in circles, and you can't address wages until you address the cost of living, which is affected by a number of things including the ridiculous cost of housing still, which was pushed up in the first place partially due to the expansion of available credit in the boom (bubble) era (which pushed the house prices up), etc. etc..
If people don't have the high wages then employers won't have that pressure, this is what will bring the costs down.KyussBishop wrote: »There's no one-step simple solution; slashing welfare and slashing wages both have ramifications that damage the economy, so there needs to be deeper reform to bring down the cost of living.
You are right, there is no one-step solution. But be very clear on this, we are borrowing obscene amounts of money to pay PS wages and a huge SW bill - if anyone thinks that we can keep going back to the pot and borrowing this money, while paying these rates, then you are sorely mistaken.
At some point, our "partners" in Europe will say; Enough, we are not subsidising these rates (which are higher than our own countries) anymore, if you want more money then you best cut/slash/ and cut some more.
All of your points are valid - but at the end of the day Europe holds the purse strings and this will come to an end.
We have Labour - No cuts to SW and PS pay, we have FG - No higher taxes - these are not economic decisions, this is the old party politics again and it will ultimately cost us dearly.
You can put every valid point up, you can argue the toss about who needs or who deserves until the cows come home - at the end of the day we are broke and the sooner that people really see this clearly then the better prepared they can be.0 -
Laminations wrote: »How long does a person have to be unemployed before something as burdensome as a mortgage becomes unsustainable? Savings would provide a buffer but I'd imagine it would become unsustainable very quick. What seems to come less quickly is the realisation that although you could afford a house when working you can no longer afford a house.
You need to talk to your bank.
Part of our National long drawn out reaquaintance with reality process is the awful realization that many of us never could afford that house even when working......
The only way we could convince ourselves otherwise was to pursue a highly individualistic course which saw property ownership defined as an Irish "Entitlement".
Once we bought into this,we had to then equally stridently,defend our right to own "Our own Little place" free of domestic rates,water rates or any other form of property or local taxation,whilst also availing of relatively low general taxation rates also....Bizzarre ?...No not really,at least not to those many supporters of Charles McCreevy Esq and his fellow economic wonderkinder....:o
Now,as we see the reality of hundreds of thousands of "Ordinary" people trapped by vast individual property related debt mountains,we are slowly beginning to realize that Owning one's own "little Place" can be as effective as a big noose around ones neck should circumstances change,as they surely have.
One major advantage of the European model of renting ones own "Little Place" is the level of mobility it gives the individual,particularly when things change rapidly,and mobility of labour begings to make the difference.
However,for as long as we continue to believe the hoary ol chesnut of Rent being seen as "Dead Money" as opposed to Mortgages being seen as "Cute Money",then we're doomed to be the Good Ship Hesperous of Europe......:eek:Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.
Charles Mackay (1812-1889)
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KyussBishop wrote: »
Do you not understand the consequences of this though? If welfare payments could not be used to address debts, there would be mass defaults and foreclosures for those with a mortgage.
This would do enormous social and economic damage.
Does it not strike you as obscene that we are in this situation (mostly/partly?) because of the banking debt we took on, this banking debt forced us from the bond markets, leaving us dependant on borrowed money to pay SW - which is now being used to repay those same banks?
The consequences of not allowing what should happen - to happen is what is causing a lot of the problem, hopefully the insolvency laws will aid to stop this.
If people have mortgages that are so in arrears, that they are irretrievably hopeless, then they are bankrupt and should take that route.
We tried to save the banks and it broke us - trying to save people will have the same effect.0 -
KyussBishop wrote: »
Do you not understand the consequences of this though? If welfare payments could not be used to address debts, there would be mass defaults and foreclosures for those with a mortgage.
This would do enormous social and economic damage.
This is not an issue for SW. You discuss this with your creditors the credit was aproved on the basis of income. it didn't include a guantree from SW payments.
You discuss with your creditors and freeze/defer etc. you don't service it from SW. or at least we can't base SW payments on possible debt's
anyway if the SW payment was adjusted correctly people couldn't afford to service debt. but do you not understand that if people can afford to service debt then the payment is obviously far too much??0 -
We tried to save the banks and it broke us - trying to save people will have the same effect.
Yet we still pay for the banks bailouts and to keep the banks active. We should do it for banks and bondholders but not for fellow Irish people who are baring the brunt of the banks action (inaction) but not for actual real people?0 -
So you're saying these people should not be given as much welfare money as they are, yes? In what way do you propose to do that?daltonmd wrote:No I am critiscising people who want to maintain certain standards of life they they accrued when they could work.
If you propose more detailed means tests, fair enough, but if you propose a general slashing of welfare, you would be using the examples of a minority 'living beyond their means', to promote cutting everyones welfare.
It has, several times in the thread; what you earn from JSA is tiny compared to almost any job.daltonmd wrote:It hasn't been debunked at all.
You will need to get figures and show a breakdown of, lets say, the number of people getting more than 20k on welfare, and show that that is a significant percentage of welfare recipients, otherwise the argument has absolutely no backing.
What did the boom do? It increased the cost of living (in the manner partially described in my previous posts), along with the wages etc., and if you cut the wages tomorrow the cost of living will not immediately go down, and it will have significant economic and social damage.daltonmd wrote:Wages are so high because we went through a boom, look to many industries and see the percentage of their costs are salaries, not services, not supplies, but salaries. Take the HSE as a prime example. I think it is 70% of the budget is for salaries.
They will, because the number of people buying their stuff will decrease, and the value of their stock will immediately plummet because people can't afford to buy at that price, and businesses will close.daltonmd wrote:If people don't have the high wages then employers won't have that pressure, this is what will bring the costs down.
Also, what is going to happen to people on mortgages? The value of their debt will not decrease, and so people whose salaries are cut will find it more difficult to meet their mortgage payments, and there will be defaults and foreclosures.
So you see, cutting wages has a lot of knock on effects, and the price of houses during the boom time is contributing to holding wages high, and to keeping the cost of living high, so the problem needs to be addressed pretty carefully.
Be that as it may, the social costs (and potential of further economic damage) of balancing our budget, have to be weighed against the cost of expanding our debt further into the future.daltonmd wrote:You are right, there is no one-step solution. But be very clear on this, we are borrowing obscene amounts of money to pay PS wages and a huge SW bill - if anyone thinks that we can keep going back to the pot and borrowing this money, while paying these rates, then you are sorely mistaken.
I don't know the optimal solution, but in general the arguments for cutting welfare or even wages, without looking to address other more intertwined issues, are very short sighted.
So you would be happy to let people go homeless and significantly escalate debt defaults, causing further harm to the economy? That's a great plan.Does it not strike you as obscene that we are in this situation (mostly/partly?) because of the banking debt we took on, this banking debt forced us from the bond markets, leaving us dependant on borrowed money to pay SW - which is now being used to repay those same banks?
The consequences of not allowing what should happen - to happen is what is causing a lot of the problem, hopefully the insolvency laws will aid to stop this.
If people have mortgages that are so in arrears, that they are irretrievably hopeless, then they are bankrupt and should take that route.
We tried to save the banks and it broke us - trying to save people will have the same effect.
Effectively, this massively screws over anyone who lost their job while in debt, and will hurt unemployed families the most (those with mortgages).
What do you propose the family do when they forcelose? Start renting? Oh look the money's going to a landlord now instead of a bank, and the family have effectively lost every cent they put into their mortgage, years of their lives working.
Don't want rent being subsidized? Well I guess they'll have to be homeless then, and forget about the idea of even having a place to live until jobs become available.
So effectively, it's either pump the money into debt repayments, or into rent payments, or just force people out of their current accomodation.0 -
One major advantage of the European model of renting ones own "Little Place" is the level of mobility it gives the individual,particularly when things change rapidly,and mobility of labour begings to make the difference.
However,for as long as we continue to believe the hoary ol chesnut of Rent being seen as "Dead Money" as opposed to Mortgages being seen as "Cute Money",then we're doomed to be the Good Ship Hesperous of Europe......:eek:
Ireland has no tradition of a proper renting structure, because our glorious leaders have never bothered to address the issue. In Euorpe, people can rent all their lives, whole families have rented property for generations. In Ireland that doesn't exist on a private scale. There is no correct structure to allow people to rent in the long term. It remains a temporary situation, at best, for the majority of people.
I remember the days when rent could shoot up by 30% or more, within 12 months and there wasn't a thing the renter could do. Renting elsewhere wasn't the answer because of the cronyism that existed between landlords and there's no reason to believe that we won't see the likes of that again in the future.
Renting in Ireland is NOT really an option, or alternative to trying to own ones house, even with the minefield that accompanies that decision. People cannot lay down roots, start families, send kids to school...as they didn't know whether they were even going to be living in the same area within the next year. 12 month leases were the order of they day and still are in the private rent market.
That's no way to live and it's one of the main reasons that people chose to try and get an hidiously overpriced mortgage, even at the latter stages of the bubble that was allowed expand by our government.
A European model of renting in this country would be great, but it would require government to actually get off their arses and implement the structure that's necessary.
They won't.0 -
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KyussBishop wrote: »daltonmd wrote:
It hasn't been debunked at all.KyussBishop wrote:This has been debunked entirely; the wage you get from a job, for the grand majority of people on welfare, is far more financially preferable. If there really are a minority of welfare recipients (and remember, minority), who are in a position that they are better off on welfare, then fine that should be addressed
It has, several times in the thread; what you earn from JSA is tiny compared to almost any job.
You will need to get figures and show a breakdown of, lets say, the number of people getting more than 20k on welfare, and show that that is a significant percentage of welfare recipients, otherwise the argument has absolutely no backing.
It seems like a valid enough point, given some analysis in the recent (controversial withdrawn) ESRI report:
The Costs of Working in IrelandA comparison of take home pay shows that it does not pay to work for 1% of the population. However, a comparison of take home pay plus extra expenditures shows that 15% of the people without children, and 44% of people with children, are better off not working.0
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