Time to vote FF

Anynama141

BuilderPlumber wrote: »

BUT not the real right: permanent job and stability. the power rests in the employer to get rid of people.

When did that ever exist?

And why should an employer be stuck with someone forever? How is that fair?

raymon

As we saw in Meath east , FF were defeated. However because all the other voters stayed tucked up in bed , FF came second.

Their weak candidate Thomas Byrne came second because the core FF voter went to the polling station. Core FG did too.

Staying in bed is not a protest vote. Spoiling your ballot is not a protest vote.

To make a protest against FF ( or FG ) you must vote for your protest candidate, or become a candidate yourself.

Srianadh

FF members have been bleating on about internal party reforms and how grassroots members are now decision makers (hinting that civil servants had an inordinate say in policy before this). If it's true, I'd very much welcome that........if it's true. After all, most of us know members of all political parties and they, by in large, are ordinary decent folk. I remain to be convinced though but am at a loss as to who to vote for. Labour have badly let me down. They have done the exact opposite of what they promised. Sinn Féin are more populist than F at their worst. Nothing they say makes sense in reality. FG seem to be happy to hit the poor whilst letting the super wealthy off scot free. Independents won't work together and by in large (Ross and Donnelly being exceptions) are nothing more than jumped up Councillors. DDI.......the less said the better!

FF are in transition but if they are to have any future they need that transition to bring them out with a Lemass-ian type party. If we end up back at Ahern/Cowen FF though then it'll be time to put them on the scrap heap. Positives are their joining ALDE and support for gay marriage. Negatives is their personnel. It's the same old faces bar a few. They need fresh blood and fresh faces, most importantly with fresh ideas. If that were to happen, and I mean truly happen, then I might consider given them a preference (would still gall me to give them a #1 though). 3 years is a long time though. It's to early to even talk general election as Labour won't be in a hurry to collapse the Government. They've shown that they're there only for the pension and a go at power, nothing more.

Anynama141

Srianadh wrote: »

FF members have been bleating on about internal party reforms and how grassroots members are now decision makers (hinting that civil servants had an inordinate say in policy before this). If it's true, I'd very much welcome that........if it's true. After all, most of us know members of all political parties and they, by in large, are ordinary decent folk.

I know a few too, and they are cute hoors who joined the party to try to gain influence and favours for themselves, their businesses and their families.

BuilderPlumber

Anynama141 wrote: »

When did that ever exist?

And why should an employer be stuck with someone forever? How is that fair?

It is the only fair way. People should be guaranteed work in what they have studied, are skilled in. The right to work, eat and sleep and live in safety are rights not privileges. Job insecurity in Ireland has created the following very harmful affects:

1. A dole culture where people (often correctly) conclude social welfare is a better option than low paid work with degrading conditions. Most people in junior office jobs are treated like dirt by their bosses especially young accountants, solicitors and the like. I know people who worked in these and ended up depressed.
2. A tendency to speculate - where it is a given you have to make money by investing in things like shares and property because of job insecurity. This was actively encouraged but as we know sooner or later people get burned.
3. Lack of loyalty. If a firm is not loyal to an employee, how can they be loyal to the firm?
4. A do the minimum attitude - just do the bare minimum and no more because you feel that the contract is up in a few months and there is no point.

ALL this means poor overall performance and often an aversion to work. People should be treated as people not as tools.

Anynama141

BuilderPlumber wrote: »

It is the only fair way. People should be guaranteed work in what they have studied, are skilled in. The right to work, eat and sleep and live in safety are rights not privileges. Job insecurity in Ireland has created the following very harmful affects:

1. A dole culture where people (often correctly) conclude social welfare is a better option than low paid work with degrading conditions. Most people in junior office jobs are treated like dirt by their bosses especially young accountants, solicitors and the like. I know people who worked in these and ended up depressed.
2. A tendency to speculate - where it is a given you have to make money by investing in things like shares and property because of job insecurity. This was actively encouraged but as we know sooner or later people get burned.
3. Lack of loyalty. If a firm is not loyal to an employee, how can they be loyal to the firm?
4. A do the minimum attitude - just do the bare minimum and no more because you feel that the contract is up in a few months and there is no point.

ALL this means poor overall performance and often an aversion to work. People should be treated as people not as tools.

So forcing companies and individuals to hire people for life is a realistic solution? Would you hire some guy if it meant that you were stuck with him for 40 years?

oscarBravo

Anynama141 wrote: »

So forcing companies and individuals to hire people for life is a realistic solution? Would you hire some guy if it meant that you were stuck with him for 40 years?

I wouldn't even have started my business under those circumstances. I'll try to hold on to employees for as long as I can - I invest in them, and I want to get a return on that investment - but to be required by law to keep paying them, even when I can't afford to? Not a chance.

Anynama141

oscarBravo wrote: »

I wouldn't even have started my business under those circumstances. I'll try to hold on to employees for as long as I can - I invest in them, and I want to get a return on that investment - but to be required by law to keep paying them, even when I can't afford to? Not a chance.

This is what the easy answers crowd don't get - the harder you make it to fire an employee, the harder you make it for him to be hired in the first place.

BuilderPlumber

oscarBravo wrote: »

I wouldn't even have started my business under those circumstances. I'll try to hold on to employees for as long as I can - I invest in them, and I want to get a return on that investment - but to be required by law to keep paying them, even when I can't afford to? Not a chance.

No one said that you have to hire an employee for life. But the government should provide work for all - which was one of the good things about communism. The STATE owes a duty of care to all its citizens. If people can't get work in private enterprise, the state then should have plenty of work which is needed - and would be there if obscene salaries were cut for the arrogant people at the top.

Otherwise, unemployment remains a massive problem and talented people remain on social welfare and cannot achieve what they should because of the arrogant elite at the top.

Anynama141

BuilderPlumber wrote: »

No one said that you have to hire an employee for life. But the government should provide work for all - which was one of the good things about communism. The STATE owes a duty of care to all its citizens. If people can't get work in private enterprise, the state then should have plenty of work which is needed - and would be there if obscene salaries were cut for the arrogant people at the top.

Can you provide a list of successful communist countries? Ones that we might model our system on, like.

BuilderPlumber wrote: »

Otherwise, unemployment remains a massive problem and talented people remain on social welfare and cannot achieve what they should because of the arrogant elite at the top.

Is there any arrogant elite in communist countries?

BuilderPlumber

Anynama141 wrote: »

Can you provide a list of successful communist countries? Ones that we might model our system on, like.

Is there any arrogant elite in communist countries?

Yes, there are arrogant elites in communist countries too. And these are not perfect either. China is successful and far richer than it was in the past but it is like all the other communist countries really capitalist. Ceaucescu and Stalin are hardly communist: they took all the wealth for themselves and their cronies.

Tito's Yugoslavia was of course far better place than later and Poland was in many ways better off communist as well. Ukraine and Belarus were better off when they were part of the USSR.

Communism failed due to poor governance and economic mismangement. Capitalism failed for the same reason. Greedy elites unfortunately are everywhere and there is no such thing as democracy. Instead, all countries are dictatorships with enforced laws only some are much worse than the others!

Anynama141

BuilderPlumber wrote: »

Communism failed due to poor governance and economic mismangement. Capitalism failed for the same reason. Greedy elites unfortunately are everywhere and there is no such thing as democracy. Instead, all countries are dictatorships with enforced laws only some are much worse than the others!

Um...capitalism is working just fine. It was the weird move of socialising bank debt that got us into this hole.

Go and tell the people dragged out of poverty in Brazil that capitalism doesn't work.

oscarBravo

BuilderPlumber wrote: »

...the state then should have plenty of work which is needed - and would be there if obscene salaries were cut for the arrogant people at the top.

Do the maths for me: how many arrogant people at the top are getting obsene salaries, and how much should they be cut by? Multiply that out for me - is it enough to pay a living wage to everyone who's currently unemployed?

BuilderPlumber

Anynama141 wrote: »

Um...capitalism is working just fine. It was the weird move of socialising bank debt that got us into this hole.

Go and tell the people dragged out of poverty in Brazil that capitalism doesn't work.

I never said capitalism failed everywhere or communism failed everywhere. It is poor governance and economic mismanagement that failed. Capitalism worked in Brazil yes and the Czech Republic is a better off country as a capitalist one. It depends on the competence of those in charge.

Ireland's current and recent coalition governments are a hodge podge of capitalist, socialist and communist mixed up thinking that collides and gives us the worst of each imo. Agreed, the socialising of the bank debt is exactly a trait of such mixed up ideology.

Anynama141

BuilderPlumber wrote: »

I never said capitalism failed everywhere or communism failed everywhere. It is poor governance and economic mismanagement that failed. Capitalism worked in Brazil yes and the Czech Republic is a better off country as a capitalist one. It depends on the competence of those in charge.

I disagree on this - every communist country ended up a dire, depressed dump. The only ones left are North Korea and Cuba (which, to be fair, would not be so poor if not for the US trade embargo).

Some systems just can't be made work at all.

OCorcrainn

Anynama141 wrote: »

I disagree on this - every communist country ended up a dire, depressed dump. The only ones left are North Korea and Cuba (which, to be fair, would not be so poor if not for the US trade embargo).

Some systems just can't be made work at all.

Cuba is hardly a dire, depressed dump. It has one of the best health care systems in the world along with one the highest literacy rates (97%) in the world. It is a prime agricultural, pharmaceutical and biotech centre. It's Global Human Development Index ranking is much higher than the vast majority of Carribean, Central & South American nations.

Anynama141

OCorcrainn wrote: »

Cuba is hardly a dire, depressed dump. It has one of the best health care systems in the world along with one the highest literacy rates (97%) in the world. It is a prime agricultural, pharmaceutical and biotech centre. It's Global Human Development Index ranking is much higher than the vast majority of Carribean, Central & South American nations.

It's a depressed dump nonetheless. Lovely place for a holiday, if you can ignore the repression of the locals. Terrible place to live.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Anynama141 wrote: »

I disagree on this - every communist country ended up a dire, depressed dump. The only ones left are North Korea and Cuba (which, to be fair, would not be so poor if not for the US trade embargo).

Some systems just can't be made work at all.

The porblem here is that you assume that the failure is with the system.

Could communism be made to work? It has, on community level at least. Has capitalism been made to work? Not in most cases. Take Ireland for example. Italy, Greece, the US...

The problem isn;t the system, it's the people. As long as we have corrupt people in charge, it really doesn't matter what system we use.

It is said that the the difference between comunism and capitalism is that with communism you have man screwing over his fellow man. With capitalism. it's the other way around.

Anynama141

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

The porblem here is that you assume that the failure is with the system.

Could communism be made to work? It has, on community level at least.

It has, on occasion, at a community level. Because you know who you are working for and the slackers are incentivised to work. Also it's much harder to be a rent-seeker in such a community.

But we are not talking about small community systems - we are talking about national systems.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Has capitalism been made to work? Not in most cases. Take Ireland for example. Italy, Greece, the US...

Nonsense. Total nonsense. The failure of Greece is due to government mismanagement - Italy too. The US is the richest and most powerful nation in the world, and has been for a century. Hardly a poster child for failure. Would you judge capitalist USA as less successful than than communist USSR?

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

The problem isn;t the system, it's the people. As long as we have corrupt people in charge, it really doesn't matter what system we use.

I agree, up to a point. But some systems ignore human nature: communism is such a system. That's why they all ended up impoverished failures. Why were people risking their lives to get across the Berlin wall for all those years?

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

It is said that the the difference between comunism and capitalism is that with communism you have man screwing over his fellow man. With capitalism. it's the other way around.

I'm not sure how you screw over your fellow man under a capitalist system? Do you mean by employing someone, or something?

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Anynama141 wrote: »

It has, on occasion, at a community level. Because you know who you are working for and the slackers are incentivised to work. Also it's much harder to be a rent-seeker in such a community.

But we are not talking about small community systems - we are talking about national systems.

If it can work on a small level, it can work on a national level. The only thing stopping it is the people. Not sure what the relevance to your point of "slackers" and "rent-seekers". These are people too, and will contribute to the failure of any system.

Nonsense. Total nonsense. The failure of Greece is due to government mismanagement - Italy too. The US is the richest and most powerful nation in the world, and has been for a century. Hardly a poster child for failure. Would you judge capitalist USA as less successful than than communist USSR?

Again - the all used the same system. Who was the Greek government mismanaged by? People. And before you hold up the US government as your poster child, could you kinldy tell me what the US national debt is? And why?

I agree, up to a point. But some systems ignore human nature: communism is such a system. That's why they all ended up impoverished failures. Why were people risking their lives to get across the Berlin wall for all those years?

Because they were run by an insecure, corrupt regieme. Not because they were communist. At this point, I'm not entirely convince you know about what the core tenets of communism are, or how the Soviet Bloc countries abused them.

I'm not sure how you screw over your fellow man under a capitalist system? Do you mean by employing someone, or something?

Sean Fitzpatrick, Charlie McCreevey and Bertie Ahearne all managed it.

Anynama141

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

If it can work on a small level, it can work on a national level. The only thing stopping it is the people. Not sure what the relevance to your point of "slackers" and "rent-seekers". These are people too, and will contribute to the failure of any system.

Isn't that like saying that we should be able to live underwater, except for the nature of people? As in, completely pointless?

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Again - the all used the same system. Who was the Greek government mismanaged by? People. And before you hold up the US government as your poster child, could you kinldy tell me what the US national debt is? And why?

Are you confusing democracy and capitalism? The US national debt is rather high: why? Because they can keep printing dollar denominated debt and people still want to buy it. Simple as that.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Because they were run by an insecure, corrupt regieme. Not because they were communist. At this point, I'm not entirely convince you know about what the core tenets of communism are, or how the Soviet Bloc countries abused them.

This is the old 'real communism has never been tried' argument.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Sean Fitzpatrick, Charlie McCreevey and Bertie Ahearne all managed it.

Um...I'm not sure what capitalism has to do with that. Two are failed politicians, one a bankrupt businessman.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Anynama141 wrote: »

Isn't that like saying that we should be able to live underwater, except for the nature of people? As in, completely pointless?

In other words, are people as corrupt as their governemtns? yes, probably. This is the biggest problem with scale.

Are you confusing democracy and capitalism? The US national debt is rather high: why? Because they can keep printing dollar denominated debt and people still want to buy it. Simple as that.

No, I'm not. And the reason for the US debt is more because they borrowed too much from private institutions and no can not afford to pay it back. effectively, giving capitalist corporations too much control over government. Also, if you think the US is democratic rather than capitalist, please explain the recent Monsanto Protection Act.

This is the old 'real communism has never been tried' argument.

Now I'm even more sure you don't know what communism is.

Um...I'm not sure what capitalism has to do with that. Two are failed politicians, one a bankrupt businessman.

I would not call Bertie and Charlie failed politicians - they succeced vey well in exactly what they set out to do. And are you sayign that none of them hurt anyone financially?

Anynama141

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

No, I'm not. And the reason for the US debt is more because they borrowed too much from private institutions and no can not afford to pay it back. effectively, giving capitalist corporations too much control over government. Also, if you think the US is democratic rather than capitalist, please explain the recent Monsanto Protection Act.

Ok, you clearly don't understand who holds the US national debt....

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Now I'm even more sure you don't know what communism is.

So name the successful communist regimes and we'll start from there.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

I would not call Bertie and Charlie failed politicians - they succeced vey well in exactly what they set out to do. And are you sayign that none of them hurt anyone financially?

Did Stalin ever hurt anyone financially? Or Lenin? What do the acts of foolish elected politicians have to do with a market economy?

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Anynama141 wrote: »

Ok, you clearly don't understand who holds the US national debt....

So name the successful communist regimes and we'll start from there.

Did Stalin ever hurt anyone financially? Or Lenin? What do the acts of foolish elected politicians have to do with a market economy?

You're making my point for me: Stalin was a brutal leader who used the system to attain his needs.

Look, you seem to think I'm aruing pro-communism or anti-capitalism when I'm not. You need to understand that this is my argument: corrupt (not foolish ) politicians are more to blame for systematic failures than the systems themselves.

Anynama141

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

You're making my point for me: Stalin was a brutal leader who used the system to attain his needs.

Ok. So let's review the successful communist countries again...?

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Anynama141 wrote: »

Ok. So let's review the successful communist countries again...?

Do you read what you reply to...? I've answered that twice, even though it wasn't even close to my point!! See below:

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Look, you seem to think I'm aruing pro-communism ... when I'm not.

carpejugulum

wyndhurst wrote: »

Like it or not........They also have the fact that Micheál Martin is by far the best party leader in place at the moment.

Goebbels would compliment Martin on how he managed to reinvent himself.
He was at the top of FF when all the nonsense went down FFS.

Anynama141

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Do you read what you reply to...? I've answered that twice, even though it wasn't even close to my point!! See below:

I didn't read the edit because you wrote it after my reply.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Anynama141 wrote: »

I didn't read the edit because you wrote it after my reply.

It's been the core point of my last six or seven posts in this thread.

Banjo String

carpejugulum wrote: »

Goebbels would compliment Martin on how he managed to reinvent himself.
He was at the top of FF when all the nonsense went down FFS.

Ditto the FG party and labour and their numerous u-turns.

Property tax, child support, bankers and bondholders, say whatever it takes to get into power, completely change their morals once in.

FFhaven't fooled me either however. They'redas bad as each other tbh. Each and every one.