Austerity isn't really working is it?

Anynama141 wrote: »

Jimi, I don't think the salaries are waaaay out of whack.

They would'nt be too bad for Google or Facebook, but for a small country with our debts, time to cop on.

Anynama141 wrote: »

It does not matter if it costs extra to hire during low-unemployment times? Firstly, how often do we have those times? And secondly, won't that push up inflation even further during such times?

It doesn't matter when there are low-inflation times, because there is the option of having minimum wage falloff as unemployment increases; if arguing for total abolition then you need to justify the reasons for not choosing that falloff.

Minimum wage has existed for a long enough time now, in a lot of countries, to show it's not really a problem when it comes to inflation.

Anynama141 wrote: »

So there's no conceivable job in existence in Ireland today that is only worth €8 per hour? Or €7? That's a ridiculous argument and I presume you know it. That's arguing in bad faith.

I didn't say there aren't any jobs that are only worth paying that much to do; I said that either the job is worth paying someone to do, or it is not.

If the job needs to be done regardless of minimum wage, then clearly it is still worth doing, and worth it enough to justify paying someone minimum wage to do it.

Anynama141 wrote: »

So the cost of goods does not matter during those rare times of 'high employment'? We should all be happy to pay more than we need to?

I missed '4' last time, and answered it as 5 instead somehow; you can't say the cost of minimum wage will be applied to the cost of products, because there are any other number of things that could happen:
- The jobs paying less than minimum wage could just be ended
- The money for minimum wage could come from company profits
- The money could come from other workers or execs wages
- The money could come from any number of reconfigurations of company finances/expenditure, which don't ultimately affect the price of consumer goods

Since there's such a wide variety of places other than the cost of goods, where the money could be sourced, you would really need to show evidence that minimum wage increases the price of goods.

Anynama141 wrote: »

And you haven't addressed point 5 at all.

My answer to 4, was actually to 5.

Anynama141 wrote: »

Your arguments are all contingent on dismissing these points only during 'times of high employment' - how often do we have those times? So even you admit that your points are relevant for at best 20% of the time, and even then they still don't make sense as they don't deliver the best outcomes for society.

Not really, I am pointing out the option, of making minimum wage falloff as unemployment increases, and showing how that obsoletes unemployment-related arguments against the minimum wage.

That then forces you to either drop total-abolition based arguments, or to justify them without reference to unemployment.

I'll just point out that this is a paradox:

KyussBishop wrote: »

I didn't say there aren't any jobs that are only worth paying that much to do; I said that either the job is worth paying someone to do, or it is not.

If the job needs to be done regardless of minimum wage, then clearly it is still worth doing, and worth it enough to justify paying someone minimum wage to do it.

A job not worth the minimum wage should be done for the minimum wage if it is worth doing? Ok!

I'm happy to leave it at that - other folks can decide whose arguments stand up better as I think otherwise we are doomed to another forum death spiral...

Ah, didn't catch the edit.

Well yes, either a job is worth doing or it isn't; an employer might not like to pay minimum wage for it, but if the employer can't do without the job, then it's pretty much worth paying minimum wage for.

Phoebas wrote: »

Aw c'mon - you introduced eugenics into this. You're not seriously complaining about someone else building straw men!!!

I believe the poster was being sarcastic. Read the posts.

pH wrote: »

So for all the "austerity isn't working" the best people can come up with is some sort of magical borrowing where we get all the money we want but it doesn't add to our national debt (but we might have to pay it back?)

Surely you can do better than a deliberate misrepresentation? They've been flying left and right for a good while, so it would be nice to reply to an argument I actually made, when I've had to specifically point out I did not say the above multiple times.

pH wrote: »

As for the other alternative on the table - let's have a look at some numbers (some of these might be not exact but they're ball park enough for here).

We currently owe over 100 Billion - this year we need to "borrow" about 15 Billion more from our European allies - 15 Billion that the "market" won't lend us because they think there's very very little chance that we'd ever pay them back.

Servicing out debt costs us about 5 Billion per year.

So if we were to go nuclear - cut our ties to Europe and default on *all* our debt we'd save the 5 billion in interest but we'd still need to make another 10 Billion adjustment this year on top of our "austerity" budget.

People need to understand that there really aren't any sensible options under our control - yes is would be marvelous if the Germans etc. paid off a chunk of our debts and made even more money available to us so we could attempt to spend our way out of this - and if it was just Ireland then there might be a small chance of that happening - but the problem is too widespread - In the same way as our stupid decision to guarantee bank debt backfired on us spectacularly - there'd be a real risk that the amount of debt that Ireland and others have rung up could bankrupt the rest of Europe if they were called on to pay it.

The point of that, which I was at pains to emphasize yet you want to also directly ignore, is that if anti-austerity parties keep rising in parts of the EU, potentially leading to a member state exiting, then we probably won't have a choice in this as we'll be dragged out with.

The question with this, is if a breakup is inevitable (by no means a certainty), then what is to gain by delaying it, when we would have to deal with the damage from it anyway? We would just be dealing with the damage from austerity caused by waiting, in addition to the eventual damage of an exit, and recovery would be come later.

I don't advocate an exit, for sure (it would be ruinously damaging), I would much rather see EU recovery policies (which everyone can agree will never come at this stage), it's just a question now of whether it might be inevitable.

jackal wrote: »

Austerity in Ireland... I have not seen much of it. I have seen a lot of rubbish talked about it in the media, though, leading to a me too mentality amongst the general population. For instance, the Irish Independent spellchecker dislikes the word "homeowner". It instead seems to replace it with "hard-pressed homeowner".

You would swear we were all eating stone soup with a side of twigs.

Check the queues in starbucks - out the door, always.
Check the amount of Audi's BMW's and Merc's wafting gracefully around our streets.
Check the queues of people at property viewings in Dublin.
Try and get a seat in a restaurant Thursday, Friday or Saturday.
Try and get parking in a shopping centre on the weekend.

I think the people of Ireland have managed to somehow confuse "Austerity" with not having 2 foreign holidays a year and a shopping trip to NY for the sales.

Let me just climb another 2/3 rungs so I may talk to you. That's better. Oh yeah, there are more than 33,000 millionaires in Ireland (July 2012), not counting Lotto winners, so what is you point?

No one is denying that the deficit needs to be closed. But there is no evidence that unemployment is coming down through job creation, there is no proof that there is a slow down in the number of SMEs going out of business, the only evidence we can all agree on is that those still in employment and those owning property are paying more taxes and getting less services for it, so austerity isn't exactly working to improve anything other than reducing the deficit. There is more to an economy than its deficit.

We are already working on the deficit. We now need to work on allowing SMEs survive, the banks have become far too cautious and are essentially zombie banks. We need to reduce the amount of red tape starting a business and all the previous recommendations I posted earlier in the thread.

Again I'm not denying the deficit needs to be closed but its not the only thing we need to sort. We can already see early signs of the exports reducing. The current administration has thrown all its eggs into the export basket. They have neglected the domestic economy.

Bullseye1 wrote: »

We are already working on the deficit. We now need to work on allowing SMEs survive, the banks have become far too cautious and are essentially zombie banks. We need to reduce the amount of red tape starting a business and all the previous recommendations I posted earlier in the thread.

Again I'm not denying the deficit needs to be closed but its not the only thing we need to sort. We can already see early signs of the exports reducing. The current administration has thrown all its eggs into the export basket. They have neglected the domestic economy.

Agreed. And our whole strategy seems to rely on attracting giant multinationals that can and will leave at the drop of a hat (Dell etc,). Unfortunately, the notion of indigenous industry grown from SMEs seems to fall waaaaay down the priority list, and yet these are the jobs that are most likely to stay in the country and reward Irish entrepreneurs.

All of our 'entrepreneurs' threw their money into the property casino - and now banks don't even have the capital to fund SMEs, even if they knew how to assess business risk (which they no longer do since the property bonanza).

Vladimir Kurtains wrote: »

Unemployment is also falling the past few months.

I do think that emigration plays a big part in this figure.