10 More Years Of Austerity - John Bruton

steddyeddy

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

it would make a nice change though.

Yes most of the lecturers I work with had to give up getting that new car this year . Maybe next year those Martini sipping people on the dole will finally take a hit.

Banjo String

steddyeddy wrote: »

Yes most of the lecturers I work with had to give up getting that new car this year . Maybe next year those Martini sipping people on the dole will finally take a hit.

Ah eddy you didn't take the bait did ye?

steddyeddy

Banjo String wrote: »

Ah eddy you didn't take the bait did ye?

Ah no don't worry. Ignorance needs no further exposure

oppenheimer1

Going Forward wrote: »

Something to look forward to:

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/john-bruton-ireland-faces-10-more-years-of-austerity-budgets-1.1812651

Looks like from his position (not seeking election) that he is talking straight.

"Mr Bruton said the Irish people themselves had passed a referendum on the EU Fiscal Compact treaty which commits Ireland to reducing the debt/GDP ratio from 120 per cent to 60 per cent.

That referendum was passed by an almost two to one margin in 2012."

Couple this with two more E2bn budgets of cuts/savings/tax increases and it's hard to be optimistic.

It's almost refreshing to not hear of turning corners and green shoots.

I think Mr Burton is being overly pessimistic. From the experiences of other countries it generally takes about 10 years to get over the kind of shock we went through. We are halfway through that, so I expect another 5 years of budget tightening - but that the worst is over.


At the end of that period there may be a time where there will essentially be no change in the budget position and a further few years until we see real movement on things like tax reductions or increases in benefits.

.jacksparrow.

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

I think Mr Burton is being overly pessimistic. From the experiences of other countries it generally takes about 10 years to get over the kind of shock we went through. We are halfway through that, so I expect another 5 years of budget tightening - but that the worst is over.


At the end of that period there may be a time where there will essentially be no change in the budget position and a further few years until we see real movement on things like tax reductions or increases in benefits.

Benefits, what does that word even mean?

oppenheimer1

.jacksparrow. wrote: »

Benefits, what does that word even mean?

Programmes and payments by the Department of Social Protection.


You knew what I meant though and decided to be an arse. Nice. :rolleyes:

Davarus Walrus

While it may not be fashionable to say it, Bruton's assessment of the economy is a rather more grounded and pragmatic one than those espoused by people and parties who promise no cuts to services, and no further increases in taxes and rates. Apart from vague rhetoric about taxing 'the rich'.

Financial prudence isn't in vogue at the moment.

steddyeddy

Davarus Walrus wrote: »

While it may not be fashionable to say it, Bruton's assessment of the economy is a rather more grounded and pragmatic one than those espoused by people and parties who promise no cuts to services, and no further increases in taxes and rates. Apart from vague rhetoric about taxing 'the rich'.

Financial prudence isn't in vogue at the moment.

Depends on what you mean on prudence. Bruton gave an opinion not a scientific fact.

Davarus Walrus

steddyeddy wrote: »

Depends on what you mean on prudence. Bruton gave an opinion not a scientific fact.

Well borrowing the guts of 1000 million euro a month is reality. Promising the sun, moon and stars without having to make any difficult decisions - in a cheap attempt to hoover up votes - isn't really that grounded in pragmatism. Or reality. It's the same tired politics wrapped up in the green cloak of nationalism.

steddyeddy

Davarus Walrus wrote: »

Well borrowing the guts of 1000 million euro a month is reality. Promising the sun, moon and stars without having to make any difficult decisions - in a cheap attempt to hoover up votes - isn't really that grounded in pragmatism. Or reality. It's the same tired politics wrapped up in the green cloak of nationalism.

It;s all opinion until you go into detail and reasons why this would not work or why promises are unrealistic.

Aidric

Davarus Walrus wrote: »

Apart from vague rhetoric about taxing 'the rich'.

Wasn't that Sinn Fein's line? Just look how that's worked out for France.

steddyeddy

Taxing the rich is as vague as the "pro-austerity" the less well off need to take the hits. We need a middle ground. First of all we need to tax child benefit on incomes > a certain amount.

Tail Docker

Davarus Walrus wrote: »

Well borrowing the guts of 1000 million euro a month is reality. Promising the sun, moon and stars without having to make any difficult decisions - in a cheap attempt to hoover up votes - isn't really that grounded in pragmatism. Or reality. It's the same tired politics wrapped up in the green cloak of nationalism.

It's also the "reality" presided over by your darling FG. Their piddly, arsey cuts won't reduce that either. Mainly as they seem determined to take every hard-choice going when it comes to the weakest, and none of the hard choices when it comes to the strongest.

dxhound2005

steddyeddy wrote: »

Depends on what you mean on prudence. Bruton gave an opinion not a scientific fact.

In a household it would mean eating food which is bought and paid for, not throwing one third of it away. Doesn't happen in my house, probably not in yours. But even in these austere times the average being wasted per household is somewhere between €700 and €1000 a year. Also when the real austerity strikes the country will have to cut back on the €6 billion it spends on alcohol every year. Again my household is responsible for very little of that, as is yours probably.

Many enterprising ideas were put forward in the Water thread about how to save money when the metering starts. But electricity costs more now than the water will and I see evidence of much unnecessary usage resulting in higher bills.

Davarus Walrus

steddyeddy wrote: »

It;s all opinion until you go into detail and reasons why this would not work or why promises are unrealistic.

The current Government didn't decide to become unpopular out of choice. They had to make some of the most radical decisions at an economic level in the history of the State. If there were viable and workable alternatives to what they had to do then I'm sure they'd be on it like a fly on shít.

So excuse me if I find people like Paul Murphy going on about no water charges, no cuts to services and a €13 an hour minimum wage, as being the type of political woo that should be questioned. It's the worst type of cynical populism masquerading as socialism.

ryan101

comongethappy wrote: »

He was on the Sean O'Rourke show this morning saying he can now only afford no more than €300 on body glitter per month.

Now that's what I call austerity

Tail Docker

dxhound2005 wrote: »

In a household it would mean eating food which is bought and paid for, not throwing one third of it away. Doesn't happen in my house, probably not in yours. But even in these austere times the average being wasted per household is somewhere between €700 and €1000 a year. Also when the real austerity strikes the country will have to cut back on the €6 billion it spends on alcohol every year. Again my household is responsible for very little of that, as is yours probably.

Many enterprising ideas were put forward in the Water thread about how to save money when the metering starts. But electricity costs more now than the water will and I see evidence of much unnecessary usage resulting in higher bills.

Household prudence does not equate to National Prudence. Which would you eliminate, the gold-plated pond running hot water or the packet of Doritos on a friday? Our lot go for the Doritos every time as being "the big answer".

Davarus Walrus

Tail Docker wrote: »

It's also the "reality" presided over by your darling FG. Their piddly, arsey cuts won't reduce that either. Mainly as they seem determined to take every hard-choice going when it comes to the weakest, and none of the hard choices when it comes to the strongest.

You see, this is the type of cheap and vague rhetoric that seems to be popular. The Weakest and the Strongest. A battle to the death.

Fire out a couple of the things you would have done differently. Back of a fag packet type of answers.

dxhound2005

Tail Docker wrote: »

Household prudence does not equate to National Prudence. Which would you eliminate, the gold-plated pond running hot water or the packet of Doritos on a friday? Our lot go for the Doritos every time as being "the big answer".

The biggest expenditure by far is on Social Welfare, €20 billion a year. Followed by Health and Education with the majority of the spending on both going on wages. Between them those three cost more than the country gets from all the taxes, so we are borrowing to pay for them. There you have the very obvious targets for reductions, but good luck in keeping the 2.3 million people who benefit from Social Welfare payments happy if you cut their money. Or if you dare suggest that people should pay for their own third level education or that half the country doesn't need to have a medical card.

Son Of A Vidic

Lars1916 wrote: »

I think, he lives somewhere on Griffith Avenue, so I heard

You're getting mixed up with Bertie's ex who lives there. She lives a few doors down from my sister. Bertie often played a wee bit of footie with my nephews. So I spent an entire summer training my nephews, in how to make it look like an accident. Unfortunately, Operation Broken Neck was aborted when Bertie broke up with his arm candy.

Tail Docker

Davarus Walrus wrote: »

You see, this is the type of cheap and vague rhetoric that seems to be popular. The Weakest and the Strongest. A battle to the death.

Fire out a couple of the things you would have done differently. Back of a fag packet type of answers.

Unsecured/Juniour Bondholders would have sung for it for a start, with negotiated percentile payments to Senior bondholders - think 10%, not 100%. All bank debt would have remained just that -bank debt. Tax rates for corporations would have been fixed at the 10% rate, but actually collected, at 10% - not the 1% they accept. No dodges or excuses. Like it or leave, you'll get no better anywhere else.

Pensions, salaries and perks in the PS would have died on their arse, same for all past pension deals done - €37k max PA to any one person, regardless. Like it or leave it.

I could go on. Might as well dream here as in bed.

Red tape for start-up enterprises would go out the door on their arse too - bend over backwards to get people into business. If every small business employed two people, and you had dozens starting every day, unfettered, people would create their own wealth. The State kills more businesses than it creates.

visual

FG has always thought of themselves as elite and always will. Hell bent on passing the burden over in stealth taxes knowing full well that those at the bottom can't afford it. But it's better in their opinion than having higher taxes on the wealty.

Soon they be telling us that there is no bank debt

sooner they are out of power the better.

steddyeddy

Davarus Walrus wrote: »

The current Government didn't decide to become unpopular out of choice. They had to make some of the most radical decisions at an economic level in the history of the State. If there were viable and workable alternatives to what they had to do then I'm sure they'd be on it like a fly on shít.

So excuse me if I find people like Paul Murphy going on about no water charges, no cuts to services and a €13 an hour minimum wage, as being the type of political woo that should be questioned. It's the worst type of cynical populism masquerading as socialism.

I don't think they did but that doesn't mean they have the intelligence and ethics to prevent the worst of in society from getting worse.

Son Of A Vidic

visual wrote: »

FG has always thought of themselves as elite and always will.

Just think of an Irish version of Harry Enfield's Tory Boy character, but with a huge Cow's Lick added.

cooperguy

visual wrote: »

FG has always thought of themselves as elite and always will. Hell bent on passing the burden over in stealth taxes knowing full well that those at the bottom can't afford it. But it's better in their opinion than having higher taxes on the wealty.

At what level would you consider someone wealthy and what should the tax be increased to?

IvaBigWun

They can go fúck themselves.

Our nationwide mantra of "ah sure it'll be grand" is slowly morphing into "wait. what?!" and all the better for it.

More austerity? More USC?

You're having a fúcking laugh! Its almost revolution time.






*takes deep breaths and counts to ten*

visual

cooperguy wrote: »

At what level would you consider someone wealthy and what should the tax be increased to?

Apple Goggle would be good examples
not wasting money on hot air projects like wind power. Having enough cop on not to sign up to a self imposed carbon tax. Wasting money make a private water company and costly meters. The list is endless but transfer of banking debt was beyond belief. Yes FF made a total ass of it but FG knowing continued with it.

Everything FG/Lab has touched has gone wrong
even the spin about transferring short term loans to long term.

But back to your question 100k & 60% tax and look for savings doing things differently not spend all day every day dreaming up stealth taxes and setting up quangos.

steddyeddy

cooperguy wrote: »

At what level would you consider someone wealthy and what should the tax be increased to?

It's not a matter of absolute value but relative value. Someone who has more should bear the burden more than someone who has less. Someone who has more can bear more burden than someone with less. Head of school in UCD (head of zoology, medicine ect) has a wage of 150 grand plus. If we take into account the other perks of the job that is a conservative estimate.

Now he has taken a pay cut but he hasn't had to change house, car or holidays. In a society where people are becoming homeless people with downs syndrome are being assessed for medical cards and poverty is increasing that simply isn't good enough.

Public bodies like the HSE have massive amounts of money wasted every year. I would say the same is true for many state bodies.

Reduce the deficit by all and any means but target the less well off in society as a last resort.

emo72

visual wrote: »

Apple Goggle would be good examples
not wasting money on hot air projects like wind power. Having enough cop on not to sign up to a self imposed carbon tax. Wasting money make a private water company and costly meters. The list is endless but transfer of banking debt was beyond belief. Yes FF made a total ass of it but FG knowing continued with it.

Everything FG/Lab has touched has gone wrong
even the spin about transferring short term loans to long term.

But back to your question 100k and look for savings doing things differently not spend all day every day dreaming up stealth taxes and setting up quangos.

ah man. thats a great reply. its all real too. im with ya:pac:

emo72

steddyeddy wrote: »

It's not a matter of absolute value but relative value. Someone who has more should bear the burden more than someone who has less. Someone who has more can bear more burden than someone with less. Head of school in UCD (head of zoology, medicine ect) has a wage of 150 grand plus. If we take into account the other perks of the job that is a conservative estimate.

Now he has taken a pay cut but he hasn't had to change house, car or holidays. In a society where people are becoming homeless people with downs syndrome are being assessed for medical cards and poverty is increasing that simply isn't good enough.

Public bodies like the HSE have massive amounts of money wasted every year. I would say the same is true for many state bodies.

Reduce the deficit by all and any means but target the less well off in society as a last resort.

ah jesus mate to much realism and honesty there. what you say is fair and it makes sense. this wont go down well with the austerity junkies. prepare for the onslaught!