"The Great Resignation"

It's costing more and more to go to work, petrol now 1.72 at my local station, new and second hand car prices rising big time too.

Anyone renting on under e15 an hour is probably better off on the dole as the government will pay their rent. Fuel allowance, back to school allowance etc etc. Any bit of a nixer at all and they are miles better off.

It's nuts but the country has turned into a welfare state in the last 20 years.

modern political and economic ideologies have failed, its time for us to dig our heads out of the sand, and sort it, or we face the likelihood of serious conflicts!

A new kind of worker has emerged in Japan over the past 2-3 decades, called a 'freeter'. In one sense, it means anybody who does not work solely for a single company, so it could refer to something similar to a freelancer, who would still work hard and make good money.

But, more commonly, it refers to people who have (by choice or having no alternative) opted out of the rat race and the 'permanent corporate slave for the next 45 years, start a family, get a mortgage' culture, and just work a small number of part-time stress-free jobs, earning just enough to get by and giving them time to do stuff they enjoy (as much as they can afford at least).

More possible in Japan than here thanks to an abundance of cheap places for rent - here'a a shoebox in a reasonably central part of Yokohama (same suburb I lived in 20 years ago, that's why I looked it up) for €335 a month, and there is much less aversion to such tiny apartments than there would be here. But then, here in Ireland, the safety net provides for much more than in Japan, so maybe it evens out that way.

I can understand how a person, especially a young and/or single childless person might look at rising costs of almost everything, and look at people 10-15 years older still scrambling to scrape a deposit together, and say 'F**k this, what's the point' and settle for/settle into an unemployed/part-time worker lifestyle.

....its more closer to what welfare in the states! robbing and other criminal acts, food banks, and addictions.....

...the abilities of the market in providing us with all our needs is a fantasy, made up by humans, based on pure sh1te ideas that has no basis in reality, such as 'rational expectations' etc, its time for us to grow up and accept this reality, or we risk completely destroying ourselves. current inflation issues are more to do with serious supply side issues, than money creation, as central banks having been trying for years now to gain inflation, and have been largely unable to do so, but we have successfully caused a hyper inflation situation in most, if not all of our asset markets, by encouraging and promoting whats called fire sector lead economies, or also called financialisation of our economies, this approach is now starting to collapse, so, go us! yes, both the left and right have been engaging in these ideologies and beliefs, so really, go us!

I am working in the US in one of the largest aum hedge funds in the world. I work as a developer in quant trading. I have been over here for a decade and we have a house, good chunk of retirement and no debts. The lifestyle is good, I'm glad I left Ireland post recession, it definitely worked for me. However, if we have a kid, there's no chance I am staying here, I don't want to raise children in this absolute mad house. My only choice here would be private education and I don't want a entitled kid, nor do I want the cyber bullying or the materialism and the superficial culture here.

unfortunately another part of these ideologies is to promote and encourage monopolisation of markets, which effectively crushes sme's out of existence, you can see our of government defaulting to this continually, its happening as we speak, for example, pandemic supports for employees and employers should have never been withdrawn, this seriously increases the likelihood of many sme's failing in the coming months, whereby most large businesses/corporations will just be fine.... and baring in mind, most are employed in the sme's sectors.

another element of these ideologies is balancing budgets and taxation, governments actually dont need to balance budgets, in fact by doing so, is actually dangerous, it means we become largely solely reliant on the private sector money supply, which is created by the fire sectors itself, i.e. the credit supply, as happened pre 08, which generally leads to a credit fueled bubble, and......

we may not in fact need to raise taxes post covid, but since we re locked into these ideologies, i.e. including balancing budgets, we more than likely will, we could just run a budget deficit indefinitely, making sure we service our debts, until fully serviced

I do wonder if a large part of that is just busy-work by recruitment agencies. Even pre-Covid I wondered how many ads actually had jobs behind them..

Do you think a 5% tax on the wealth of the top 1% could be achieved by any means other than a revolution?

The sad reality is that there probably aren't enough resources on this planet to afford every adult in the world the 3 bed semi with the white picket fence, partner and two kids, holiday abroad once a year, new car every 5 years lifestyle that most aspire to. As the developing world advances and more are lifted out of poverty, the developed world will need to take the hit for their increased share of those resources (resources being a finite thing). You can be damn sure, however, that it won't be the top 1% whose share of global resources is increasing year-on-year who take that hit though. It'll be the ordinary working and middle classes (who the media owned by the 1% will tell to blame it on the unemployed and immigrants).

I'd agree that globalisation is a large contributor to these issues but the "build a wall and ignore the plight of those on the other side of it" approach seems a solid recipe for WW3 to me... (particularly when those on the other side happen to be those who climate change is likely to hurt most driving them to migrate to the other side).

The western world has far more than our fair share of global resources (largely because our ancestors stole it through imperialist invasions of less industrialised societies). Isolationism might seem an appealing strategy for countries that are large enough to be a self-sustaining market (the USA) or rich enough (Switzerland) but De Valera's governments here proved quite conclusively that it's a road to ruin for a small island nation such as ourselves.