Suggestions to better our economic situation

there is a cost to everything..........the economy works if that cost is competitive.......

if not....then it suffers.........

how many tesco workers....does it take to keep a nurse etc......

if there is not enough,,,,,result, problems....

with regard to overseas business......is, can you compete with their cost.....

golden lane wrote: »

there is a cost to everything..........the economy works if that cost is competitive.......

if not....then it suffers.........

how many tesco workers....does it take to keep a nurse etc......

if there is not enough,,,,,result, problems....

with regard to overseas business......is, can you compete with their cost.....

i can't figure out what you're saying

fliball123 wrote: »

Last I heard Tesco were profitable ..why would you mess with what they are doing..its the non profitable or areas where we are making a loss in as in Ireland Inc

In fact they are so profitable that apparently Ireland is one of the most profitable parts of their empire. In such circimstances it might be better to appeal to Tesco to cut its profit margins and reduce its prices accordingly .. now that would certainly help the Irish economy and its struggling citizens.

Legalise weed. Would remove a lot of costs in prisons etc. Tax it. Brings in a load more tourism.

cut the billions that are wasted each year, make Ireland a far more competitive place to do business in and to visit. We either go on sheltering the few and throwing the rest to the wolves, or we all take home less and have far more in employment and get the growth cycle in gear!

Charge people for when they complain about a thread.

Abolishing employers PRSI which will give a mixture of increased employment/higher wages/extra breathing room for small business. All of which are desperately needed at this point in time.

Changing the current welfare system into a negative income tax system. Under such a system somebody who does zero hours work might get €150 a week. If they were to get offered €100 a week for a job, instead of losing all their benefits (a 150% marginal tax rate!) they would only lose €25/€50 from their benefits giving them a total weekly income of €225/€200 (a 10%/20% marginal tax rate). This will encourage more people to enter the workforce and allow businesses to take on people for only a few hours a week instead of having to pay current employees overtime.

Removing capital gains tax and DIRT which will encourage people to save and invest more of their money and help create strong domestic businesses instead of having to rely on foreign investment forever.

Making the tax code simpler should also be an objective of the government. We currently have 5 different rates of VAT. Instead we should have a flat rate of say 17.5% and a zero rate for essentials such as food, milk, heating, electricity bills and pharmaceuticals. The same with the income tax, have a flat rate of of say 20% on income above the poverty line and get rid of all the deductions and tax credits.

Finally, get rid of the road tax and all the current duties on petrol & diesel and just replace it with a simple tax on petrol & diesel. This money should only go towards road maintenance and not general government revenue. If I remember correctly I worked out before that this would mean a €0.40 tax on every litre of petrol and diesel sold. Combined with VAT this would bring the price of a litre of petrol down to €1.36 and diesel down to €1.43. This would be a big boost to commuters and to business.

There are so many people out of work who are effectively unemployable in the current climate. I'm talking specifically about middle aged men who have little education and whose work experience is predominantly in the construction industry or with a specific skill-set that was used in a factory that no longer exists.

Is there any way that these people can contribute to society in a dignified manner? I'm not talking about having them out in orange jumpsuits picking up litter or anything like that. It's just that you have them sitting around depressed with no self worth. Not everyone has the confidence and perseverance to retrain nor the necessary skills to set up their own business. If they could focus their energy on some kind of task, that could help society then it would surely be a win-win situation for everyone.

Icepick wrote: »

That PRSI part is part of employee's salary and exists for a reason.

You're correct in saying that employers PRSI is part of an employees salary. And for that reason the employer doesn't give a damn what the rate of PRSI is. If an employer is spending €500 a week on an employee it makes no difference to the employer whether that is 100% percent money wages or 90% wages and 10% PRSI. For the employee it does make a difference; the higher the rate of PRSI the lower the monetary wages.

This area is one of the few where there is a consensus among economists. Pretty much every economist agrees that the burden of employers PRSI falls almost entirely on the employee. For that reason, if we were to abolish employers PRSI employees would see an equivalent pay rise.

So far as I can tell the only reason the employer's portion of PRSI exists is so that politicians can tell voters that they are being nice by getting employers to shoulder some of the PRSI burden.