Where is all the money going?

El_Duderino 09

I'm in the UK and it's worse here. Full employment used to mean wages went up. Now we're at or near full employment and we're being told by government not to ask for pay rises. Meanwhile corporate profits are through the roof and their shareholders are getting big pay rises through dividends.

In other words, the money is getting sucked up to the already wealthy. They get a pay rise while sitting on their arze and letting their wealth work for them, but those of us who actually work are less well off. Passive income from shares is taxed lower than income from labour. Like, WTF?

fliball123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120962652#Comment_120962652

With regards to living standards I think we have now morphed into a 2-tier dichotomy with regards to living standards. The vast majority of those under the age of 30 are struggling in this country and its due to the high cost of property, rents, childcare etc. I mean we have people playing our welfare system having multiple kids and being given everything, we have our older cohorts who bought their house at a much cheaper price point and then you have the under 30s trying to work pay tax and contribute to our society and do things the right way and it is near impossible for these people to get a foot hold in Ireland. It will be interesting to see the emigration figures for 2023 already we are up 10% from 2021 to 2022 but this is disguised with our net migration figure due to the hundreds of thousand refugees flooding here and they are not all from war torn countries, stories of people being allowed through our emigration process with no documentation is becoming more common and our bleeding heart lefties are their mouth pieces and a lot of these people are simply here for our welfare goodies and our best and brightest indigenous youth our under 30s in large percentages are running to pastures new at the very least they will be able to rent somewhere to live for themselves. The country is going to be completely unrecognizable in 20/30 years.

For those arguing about the different political options. The simple answer is for the vast majority there is no party that will help. Every one of the promise the sun moon and stars and then have excuse after excuse when they get power and are fumbling when it comes to the implementation of these promises. As a previous poster put it the public sector do not do accountability well it should start with politicians and they should be kept to their word. If they do not implement what they got voted in on they should simply receive zero in their pension.

Emblematic

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120963350#Comment_120963350

@One eyed Jack 1:19am "Whether or not anyone either in Ireland or the UK is better off is relative. That’s if you were actually going to consider asking random people for their opinions on what they believe - they’re unlikely to consider average or mean national statistics, let alone the idea of comparing themselves at a national level with other countries.

By way of example - you’d get very different answers to that question were you to compare the answers you’d get in Darndale compared to Surrey, or Rathdown compared to Rochdale! 😳"

That's why you don't rely on anecdotal evidence but rather some sort of statistic such as household disposable income as I have tried to provide.

Wanderer78

again, most money nowadays is in fact created within our global financial system, i.e. by banks, in the form of credit, the main function of credit in this modern era is primarily to (re)inflate the value of assets such as, and in many cases, the value of property and land, hence which has lead to our current property market fcuk ups....

...oh and credit is also used to speculate in other asset markets including stock, share, bond markets etc, engaging in other financialisation activities such as share buy backs etc, helping to increase the values of such, whereby everyone becomes a winner(well actually only truly major asset owners gain, as theyre the ones that own the majority of assets, these are also mainly older generations to, so younger generations generally get fcuked in this game to....)

...so if you re wondering where all the money is going, and what it really is doing....

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41171746.html

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/robert-watt-confirms-he-receives-full-294-920-salary-at-department-of-health-1.4786056

Those pigs need fattening. Only the best swill for them.

techman1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120961330#Comment_120961330

The total welfare bill is north of 20 billion not 2 billion, that's effectively what the government gets in corporation tax receipts. Our welfare rates are much higher than in UK therefore in order to entice people into the labour markets you have to pay much higher wages. Then ireland takes the higher rate of tax at 40k which is below the average industrial wage and lower than our European peers. The result of all this is that it is more attractive to stay on welfare in Ireland and not work. The less people working especially in low wage jobs drives up prices because there is less stuff being produced. The productivity of the multinational sector distorts irelands statistics as alot of that productivity isn't actual goods and services but money moved through ireland to avail of our low corporation tax rates

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120965012#Comment_120965012

...so workers in lowered paid jobs are less productive?

...talk to folks on the dole in the uk, and you ll find, its a very depressing existence, this in turn forces some into criminality, in order to survive....

..the true causations of unemployment, particularly long term unemployment, are in fact highly complex, you ll find many, if not most struggling with all sorts of highly complex psychological disorders, from autism, mood disorders such as bi-polar, personality disorders, learning disabilities, and beyond(pull out the dsm....)

...you ll find many if not most of these individuals have severely struggled within our educational and training systems, particularly at the early stages, i.e. primary and secondary, many leaving prematurely, leaving them with all sorts of long term, complex psychological problems including complex traumas, anxieties and depressive disorders, which of course can include addiction problems and disorders....

...you ll also find other welfare traps include the affordability of child care, or more so, the lack of the ability to afford so, leading to long term welfare dependencies....

...completely agree about the distortions of the existence of the multi nationals here, but its extremely important to add the growing, non productive activities of these businesses and institutions, ie. financialised actives such as share buy backs etc etc

...these issues truly are highly complex in nature, to the point, we dont actually really understand them in full, and may never....

Emblematic

The query about Ireland relative to Brexit Britain has prompted an investigation into household disposable incomes for Ireland relative to other countries in Europe generally over time.

I do think disposable household income per capita is generally better than the likes of GDP (or GNI) since essentials like housing costs which are very high in Ireland are taken into account.

So looking at the Eurostat table below:

Adjusted gross disposable income of households per capita in PPS [TEC00113__custom_7143204]

For the most recent year of full data (2021), we have:

Ireland (in green) is just below Italy which itself is just below the EU average (in blue). Ireland is number 12 on the list out of the 27 EU countries.

The web page allows you to pick different years going back to 2011. What is interesting is that Ireland is at number 12 throughout the years and always a bit below the EU average. I think this may be surprising to many people who might have thought we bounced back dramatically since 2011 relative to other countries. But that does not appear to be the case.

That said, we're still better off than many countries, though in the case of the likes of Slovenia, Lithuania, Chechia, not as much as we might imagine. A few percentage points at best.

We just need to accept that the economy is not working as well for ordinary people as we might imagine.

Tazz T

The money is being sucked out of the economy by BTR (Build-To-Rent) institutional investment companies. Billions paid by workers in the Irish economy to pay insane rents inflated by aforesaid investment companies goes direct to Florida to fund the pensions of the US elderly.

And it's all sponsored and tax enabled by the FF/FG state (and much of it fronted by ex-NAMA to make it looks Irish).

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120965012#Comment_120965012

The poster is correct, spend on jobseekers allowance and benefit is approx 2bn (in 2022). We have a half-trillion (nominal) GDP, that's chump change and a drop in the ocean. You're conflating the wider department's spend on dole, with their much broader remit.

Just under half of the headline expenditure of the Department of Social Welfare is pensions, which I'm not sure if your cribbing about or not? Other line-items include maternity benefit, illness benefit, farm assistance payments, carers allowance, back to school allowances, working family payment, child benefit. You want to tell citizens they're for the chopping block to achieve to some sort of notional productivity gains? We're already among the most productive workers on the planet.

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120965189#Comment_120965189

...this is the whole idea of a financialised economy, the fire sectors(finance, insurance and real estate), become highly extractive, they no longer become a part of the productive element of the economy, and ultimately just extract, extract and extract....

...and yes, this requires state bodies, in particular public policy, in order to occur....

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120964187#Comment_120964187

That's why you don't rely on anecdotal evidence but rather some sort of statistic such as household disposable income as I have tried to provide.

That’s why I was confused as to why you would suggest asking random members of the public what they believed about a comparison between Ireland and the UK in terms of which country is better off, and suggested that most people in Ireland would say Ireland, when on paper at least (using average disposable income as a measure), the UK are better off.

The reason the UK appears better off on paper is because they have more people who are super-wealthy than Ireland, who are pushing up the average disposable income considerably. If you ask Leo about it though, he’ll respond by reminding you that they’re only billionaires on paper 😒

The richest 1 per cent Ireland hold 27 per cent of the country’s wealth, the report said.

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/taoiseach-says-some-billionaires-are-all-fur-coat-and-no-knickers-1420516.html

Similarly, in the UK -

It also found that the wealthiest 10% of the population are estimated to hold around half of all wealth, primarily in the form of private pensions and property.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/map-richest-area-uk-how-much-wealth-150957367.html?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmllLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAAvt-Cx9194b5_Ll54gZkrgzkMcjtEH6cecnUQLKTQGXt0xkir36uZw8wnvPXjD-85X6qPsG4rtxKxSdW-Ik5Q1e-HtTFuB1oYUvg5DstVd8-71w2TiqGpWeR74Nb5lmLoganJhm1rl8BdwBT0_BP4ng9NXz1j0XnNqVljFnxtOM

Wolf359f

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120965114#Comment_120965114

Disposable income per actual household maybe more accurate. The per Capita doesn't take into account a larger family size and more of the population in higher level education though?

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120965012#Comment_120965012

The less people working especially in low wage jobs drives up prices because there is less stuff being produced.

That’s not what drives prices up? More people having less disposable income is what drives prices up and poverty up, as has happened in the UK with their unforgiving welfare system, which if it were implemented here would mean a proportionate increase in the number of families living in poverty, unable to access basic services such housing, healthcare and education. It’s not that it’s more attractive to stay on welfare, it’s that they don’t have the basic skills and knowledge required to be able to support themselves.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120965082#Comment_120965082

It’s really not that complex or difficult to understand at all, it’s simply that most people just don’t care. I’m sure you’re aware of people who don’t even have the OP’s level of literacy to be able to question where all the money is going, but could understand it if it’s explained to them in a way they do understand - the money is going on providing services for people who can’t provide for themselves.

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120965422#Comment_120965422

...completely disagree there, people are far from stupid, most people are just too stressed outta their heads to have the space in their lives to even think this through....

...once again, we re firmly in the grips of the credit era, most money no longer comes from public means, i.e. from states and central banks etc, but in fact comes from the global financial system itself, in the form of credit, and is primarily being used to (re)inflate the price of assets such as property and land, hence our significant increase in private debt, and in fact the rapid increase in the price of property during this era, i.e. money is in fact debt, i.e. debt is our money supply, money created by both public and private means....and since we now try to maintain a low or negative public money supply, i.e. by running balanced or even surplus budgets, this in turn forces us towards the only other method of money creation, i.e. credit, via banks.....

...when governments redistribute taxes, they are redistributing money which in fact originated from bank created money, i.e. credit, particularly when those governments are themselves not adding to the money supply, by running deficits, as is normally the norm, particularly in advanced economies such as ireland....

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120965484#Comment_120965484

completely disagree there, people are far from stupid…

Could you point out the part in my post that gave you the impression I was suggesting anyone is stupid?

Like the OP I’m not referring to where the money is coming from, I know where it comes from. It’s where it’s going, is the point of the thread.

Emblematic

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120965283#Comment_120965283

@One eyed Jack 2:08pm "That’s why I was confused as to why you would suggest asking random members of the public what they believed about a comparison between Ireland and the UK in terms of which country is better off, and suggested that most people in Ireland would say Ireland, when on paper at least (using average disposable income as a measure), the UK are better off."

The suggestion of public perception of Ireland as a comparitively rich country in Europe is just that, a suggestion. I don't know whether studies have been done but I would not be surprised if the average punter in Ireland, whether in Ballsbridge or Mullingar generally believes that Ireland is fairly high up on the disposable income scale relative to other EU countries as well as Brexit Britain.

It is how the media generally portrays us to ourselves. It is also certainly the impression you get from many of the posters on this thread when they cite examples of concerts selling out and so forth.

But the reality is a bit different. We are at best mid-table in EU terms sadly.

Emblematic

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120965317#Comment_120965317

I would say it does take into account varying family size. If it were per houshold rather than per capita it would be more problematic. You would be averaging very large households with very small ones.

Instead, better to add up all household disposable income and then divide it by the population.

It's basically the amount the idividual on average has to spend after unavoidable expenses like tax and rent etc.

Wolf359f

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120965711#Comment_120965711

It doesn't take into family sizes as it's per capita. With the comparison being made with the UK, the typical Irish household is 10% larger 2.7 vs 2.4. So it stands to reason that Irish household would have 10% more disposable income. Or Italy at 2.28, meaning the Irish household would have 18% more disposable income.

A younger population with a higher take up of education would also skew the figures on a per capita basis.

Emblematic

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120965973#Comment_120965973

Yes, the average household size might be 10% larger in Ireland than the UK and so, as you say, you might expect 10% more disposable income per household in Ireland other things being equal. However since there's also 10% more people in the Irish household the amount per individual works out the same (again other things being equal), and its the disposable income of the individual we're measuring here.

I suppose it depend on what you want to measure. I think its a reasonable attempt at assessing how well off we are as individuals in Ireland. To a certain extent, it controls for family size.

The factors you point out such as larger household size should work in Ireland's favour, i.e. should put us a little higher on the scale than other countries since a larger household is probably more efficient in terms of rental cost per individual. However even given that, we're quite far down the ladder.

I think on the other point about education, yes if we've very large numbers in full-time education and not earning that will lower disposable income per capita, but I think that's as it should be. If your in full time education you are not going to be earning what a full time worker would and this, quite rightly, should be reflected in the numbers.

Wolf359f

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120966182#Comment_120966182

Maybe giving an extreme example you will understand:

Lets say country A household disposable income per capita is 20k, country B is 18k.

Household in A with 2 people: 40k disposable income combined

Household in B with 5 people: 90k disposable income

Which household is better off?

The factors I mention would and do put us higher up the ladder, it's just you're looking at a different table:

Emblematic

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120966234#Comment_120966234

Except that measuring the average household income is a rather arbitrary figure highly dependent on the average household size. It is not really meaningful for the purpose of working out how much the average punter has.

In answer to your question, household A is better off in my opinion since although the total income per household is less, the household only has to support two people. The higher household income per capita captures this.

This is why household income on its own is of little value. Household income per capita has some value and, I would argue, disposable household per capita adjusted also for purchasing power is probably the most relevant to this thread.

lawrencesummers

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120965012#Comment_120965012

Or you could just lay less dole and force people into the labour market.

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120966503#Comment_120966503

...sounds like a great plan, shouldnt cause any significant social disruptions at all!

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120966503#Comment_120966503

Force who into the labour market? We're at functional 100 percent employment. We have circa 100k on the live register, of which, two thirds is down to natural churn, people between jobs.

You're talking about 30k or so long term unemployed, who for all intents and purposes are probably unemployable due to undiagnosed mental health issues or untreated addiction. We have a labour force of 2.6 million, so what you're suggesting is utterly pointless.

Wolf359f

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120966272#Comment_120966272

Well seeing as how the amount Irish people have being saving per capita is one of the highest in Europe, maybe that's where it's going?

20% of the disposable income per capita ends up in savings in Ireland. I think it's about 6k per capita the last year.

Maybe per capita basis screws statics. Hense why medium gets used alot.

So we have a lower than average disposable income per capita, yet save more of if per capita and then complain on where the money is going?

cnocbui

This country just had the largest surplus of any country in the EU. The reason you might be feeling less well off is that you are paying excessive taxes in order to create that surplus. There shouldn't be such a massive surplus, the government should only take enough to cover expenses.

sameoldname

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120968089#Comment_120968089

Seriously? Our budget surpluses are coming almost entirely from corporation tax on multinationals. The government has been telling us that every chance they get. It can't be relied upon.