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How equal should Ireland be?

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  • #212
    Santa Cruz
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3,126 ✭✭✭Santa Cruz


    speedboatchase wrote: »
    I'm all for equal opportunities, but not equal outcomes.

    I'm for equal outcomes but not equal incomes. If you work hard you deserve to have as good an income as possible. If you are a dosser basic subsistence is good enough for you


  • #213
    Qualitymark
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,824 ✭✭✭Qualitymark


    Santa Cruz wrote: »
    I'm for equal outcomes but not equal incomes. If you work hard you deserve to have as good an income as possible. If you are a dosser basic subsistence is good enough for you

    And we're back to how much we need to live well.

    Since nobody else has offered a starting point, I reckon it's easy to live pretty well on €12,000 a year, not counting rent or mortgage.


  • #214
    Vitaliorange
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 170 ✭✭Vitaliorange


    Qualitymark wrote: »
    From Wikepedia (I know, I know, but it's interesting) - the section on Germany in the article about minimum wages in different countries:



    And this, from the Atlantic is also interesting:

    http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/11/why-germanys-proposed-minimum-wage-could-be-good-news-for-europe/281905/



    We shall see…

    KB we'll bump this thread in a couple years and see who was right.


  • #215
    KyussBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,797 ✭✭✭KyussBishop


    I think it's moot either way given available alternatives: We already have the ability to provide a jobs program that could employ all of the unemployed (using the funding I mentioned), and if any increase in minimum wage did theoretically reduce private sector employment, it would not lead to unemployment anymore, but more people in the jobs program.

    The jobs program would give those people enough wages, to spend in the private sector and give it a boost, then as the private sector grows from that, the workers move out of the jobs program back into the private sector.

    It creates a homeostasis (self-correcting balance) between the private and public sector, and constantly pushes workers from the jobs program back into the private sector.


    This makes a lot of debate, over minimum wage and similar topics, irrelevant - since a way way better alternative is available, that allows minimum wage to be kept, no matter what theoretical or real effects it has.

    You actually could completely get rid of the minimum wage then - in that situation, the wage paid for the job program is what the private sector would have to outbid to attract workers, and that would effectively become the new minimum wage (without any laws needed).


  • #216
    CruelCoin
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,465 ✭✭✭CruelCoin


    Tiddlypeeps wrote: »
    I asked you what do you suggest we do with unemployed and poor people?

    Don't avoid the question by asking another.

    "The alternative being"

    I already alluded to my preference.


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  • #217
    Qualitymark
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,824 ✭✭✭Qualitymark


    I'm fascinated by the fact that so many people posting on boardsie clearly identify with millionaire entrepreneurs, senior civil servants and Clongowes-educated CEOs in the old-boys network, when they say the talented should be highly paid. Lads, a wake-up for you: this isn't you.


  • #218
    Vitaliorange
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 170 ✭✭Vitaliorange


    Qualitymark wrote: »
    I'm fascinated by the fact that so many people posting on boardsie clearly identify with millionaire entrepreneurs, senior civil servants and Clongowes-educated CEOs in the old-boys network, when they say the talented should be highly paid. Lads, a wake-up for you: this isn't you.

    A false assumption. Private companies should be allowed pay their employees as much as they want. Its as simple as that.


  • #219
    Qualitymark
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,824 ✭✭✭Qualitymark


    Vitaliorange wrote: »
    A false assumption. Private companies should be allowed pay their employees as much as they want. Its as simple as that.

    It's not as simple as that, Vitalorange, unless private companies get no tax breaks or funding whatsoever from the State.
    If the State is funding a company, the State is entitled to oversight of its financial decisions.


  • #220
    KyussBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,797 ✭✭✭KyussBishop


    Private companies exist because the government has written laws to say that they can exist, giving the people running the company the very special privilege, of limiting their liability for any damage their actions cause through running the company.

    Given the very special privilege companies and the people running them have, government can set whatever restrictions on these peoples pay that they like, in return for that privilege.


  • #221
    Qualitymark
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,824 ✭✭✭Qualitymark


    Even if you did believe that companies have the right to pay what they like, I'd find it difficult to trade with a firm that paid its executives an insanely high wage - it doesn't argue good commercial sense, tbh.


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  • #222
    Clandestine
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,466 ✭✭✭Clandestine


    Tiddlypeeps wrote: »
    Scandinavian countries have low unemployment, generous welfare rates, fantastic education systems, really good health care and all round pretty much excellent public services. They have a really high tax rate but they still manage to top the charts on how content the population are.

    If, as you say, a system like that will never work and is preposterous then how come it's working so well for them?
    And these countries are in massive debt, often 50%+ of their total GDP. Their free market policies are what have been helping them achieve success in some areas. Despite this, they have a very high cost of living and like you said, their tax rates are a joke.


  • #223
    Fukuyama
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,023 ✭✭✭Fukuyama


    KyussBishop wrote: »
    Private companies exist because the government has written laws to say that they can exist, giving the people running the company the very special privilege, of limiting their liability for any damage their actions cause through running the company.

    Given the very special privilege companies and the people running them have, government can set whatever restrictions on these peoples pay that they like, in return for that privilege.

    Limited companies are only limit the risk of debt not being passed onto shareholders.

    Directors are still criminally responsible for their actions or for running a company in an illegal manner. You're talking through a unicorns assh0le as per usual. Go back to the political theories forum where your 'theories' are entertained.


  • #224
    Tiddlypeeps
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,103 ✭✭✭Tiddlypeeps


    Clandestine wrote: »
    And these countries are in massive debt, often 50%+ of their total GDP. Their free market policies are what have been helping them achieve success in some areas. Despite this, they have a very high cost of living and like you said, their tax rates are a joke.

    Wikipedia disagrees with you. Norway and Sweden are quite low compared to the rest of the developed world at around 30%. Finland and Denmark are just over the 50% mark which is still not that high.

    Apparently Ireland is 117%, the US is 106% and Germany is 81%.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt

    Cost of living is only an issue for anyone going there from anywhere else in the world. If you live there wages etc. are all relative to the cost of living. So it's pretty much meaningless unless they decide they want to improve their tourism industries.

    You can say their tax rates are a joke but that's not really an argument. Why are high tax rates an issue? As I mentioned already those countries constantly rate very highly in any studies done on how happy people are across the world so it is obviously not that big of an issue for people. Any I have ever met obviously aren't delighted that they have to pay loads of tax (who is ever happy to pay tax) but they know their services are fantastic compared to the rest of the world so see it as worth it and it's not something that makes them unhappy or something they want changed.


  • #225
    Clandestine
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,466 ✭✭✭Clandestine


    Tiddlypeeps wrote: »
    You can say their tax rates are a joke but that's not really an argument. Why are high tax rates an issue? As I mentioned already those countries constantly rate very highly in any studies done on how happy people are across the world so it is obviously not that big of an issue for people. Any I have ever met obviously aren't delighted that they have to pay loads of tax (who is ever happy to pay tax) but they know their services are fantastic compared to the rest of the world so see it as worth it and it's not something that makes them unhappy or something they want changed.
    Because its not good enough that they should take people's money, but at such an exorbitant amount? If people want good services, they should be able to pay for them in their own time, they should not be "forced" to do so, regardless of how good the services are. I disagree with taxation in general anyway.


  • #226
    KyussBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,797 ✭✭✭KyussBishop


    Dean0088 wrote: »
    Limited companies are only limit the risk of debt not being passed onto shareholders.

    Directors are still criminally responsible for their actions or for running a company in an illegal manner.
    Except limited liability for debts, is only one way that corporations shield directors/management from responsibility.

    Limited liability laws shield from responsibility for debt, yet the corporations themselves are usable in a multitude of ways, to shield managers/directors from personal responsibility for their actions, by representing them as actions of 'the company'.

    One such way (say, for a company wanting to illegally dump polluting material), is for managers to simply defer oversight over part of the company (that dealing with disposing of polluting waste) to someone lower down in the company, give them appropriate 'bonuses' for good performance, and have them illegally dispose of the material - if caught, management gets to claim ignorance, and the person lower down gets to take the blame.

    The worldwide financial/banking industry, took methods like this to such an extreme (with complex financial instruments, that allowed them to claim nobody could foresee the risks - thus nobody was at fault), that they management to bring down a significant portion of the world economy, with hardly anyone going to prison.
    Dean0088 wrote: »
    You're talking through a unicorns assh0le as per usual. Go back to the political theories forum where your 'theories' are entertained.
    Reported this bit, since this sneering seems to be a part of every reply now - like the smears you previously put forward in thread - not being able to back up a single one of them, with a quote.


  • #227
    KyussBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,797 ✭✭✭KyussBishop


    Clandestine wrote: »
    Because its not good enough that they should take people's money, but at such an exorbitant amount? If people want good services, they should be able to pay for them in their own time, they should not be "forced" to do so, regardless of how good the services are. I disagree with taxation in general anyway.
    If you don't have taxes, it's not really possible to have a legal system either (a private legal system might sound like a workable alternative, but it isn't practically possible); you can't do without a legal system, and you need government and taxes, to provide that.


  • #228
    Tiddlypeeps
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,103 ✭✭✭Tiddlypeeps


    Clandestine wrote: »
    Because its not good enough that they should take people's money, but at such an exorbitant amount? If people want good services, they should be able to pay for them in their own time, they should not be "forced" to do so, regardless of how good the services are. I disagree with taxation in general anyway.

    If it's working really well and people are happy with the system then why is that not good enough? You aren't really putting forward any argument you are pretty much just saying it's bad because I don't like it.

    There is no way to just opt out of all the services a government provides. The advantages of most services are availed of passively by all. Paying for police stations keeps crime rates low which means your house is less likely to be broken into and you are less likely to be stabbed on your way home in the evening etc. Free education and health care have similar knock on effects. Great infrastructure and public transport is a great way of attracting foreign investment, it makes the country an attractive place to set up a new business or expand an existing one creating jobs. All of these things contribute greatly to the lives of all of a countries citizens even if they never directly use many services themselves.

    Just saying you disagree with taxation in general isn't exactly a convincing argument. What sort of alternative do you suggest and can you show an example of it working in practice?


  • #229
    humanji
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,976 ✭✭✭✭humanji


    Dean0088 wrote: »
    Limited companies are only limit the risk of debt not being passed onto shareholders.

    Directors are still criminally responsible for their actions or for running a company in an illegal manner. You're talking through a unicorns assh0le as per usual. Go back to the political theories forum where your 'theories' are entertained.
    Cut the attitude. If you can't respond to a user with civility, then don't bother replying to them.


  • #230
    walt_white
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 20 ✭walt_white


    Tiddlypeeps wrote: »
    Wikipedia disagrees with you. Norway and Sweden are quite low compared to the rest of the developed world at around 30%. Finland and Denmark are just over the 50% mark which is still not that high.

    Apparently Ireland is 117%, the US is 106% and Germany is 81%.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt

    Cost of living is only an issue for anyone going there from anywhere else in the world. If you live there wages etc. are all relative to the cost of living. So it's pretty much meaningless unless they decide they want to improve their tourism industries.

    You can say their tax rates are a joke but that's not really an argument. Why are high tax rates an issue? As I mentioned already those countries constantly rate very highly in any studies done on how happy people are across the world so it is obviously not that big of an issue for people. Any I have ever met obviously aren't delighted that they have to pay loads of tax (who is ever happy to pay tax) but they know their services are fantastic compared to the rest of the world so see it as worth it and it's not something that makes them unhappy or something they want changed.


    yes but people in scandanavia pay high tax even they earn very modest wages , people on low wages in ireland pay very little in tax

    irish people are not scanadanavians , we do not have the kind of collectivist - think of the greater good mindset which swedes and danes possess , irish people are me feiners for the most part , therefore small goverment would be a better fit , unfortunatley we have big goverment here but pretty mediocre public services


  • #231
    Tiddlypeeps
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,103 ✭✭✭Tiddlypeeps


    walt_white wrote: »
    yes but people in scandanavia pay high tax even they earn very modest wages , people on low wages in ireland pay very little in tax

    Why is this an issue?


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  • #232
    Clandestine
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,466 ✭✭✭Clandestine


    Tiddlypeeps wrote: »
    There is no way to just opt out of all the services a government provides.
    Thats why it is bad. It is not a mutual agreement between two people, it is forced by the state on the individual. If you don't want these services and refuse to pay taxes, you are threatened with violence/prison. Therefore, taxes become extortion.
    Tiddlypeeps wrote: »
    The advantages of most services are availed of passively by all. Paying for police stations keeps crime rates low which means your house is less likely to be broken into and you are less likely to be stabbed on your way home in the evening etc.
    Private police would work better. Public "protectors" enforced by the state have too much authority and are costly. The hiring of private firms and individuals would be cheaper and would be on a much fairer playing field with the public. Not to mention the amount of crimes that the police commit, in fact in America you are 5 times more likely to be killed by the police than a terrorist.
    Tiddlypeeps wrote: »
    Free education and health care have similar knock on effects.
    I agree both have their benefits, but I do not believe in a "right" to education or health care. I think the fact that people are expected to foot the bill for other people's expensive surgeries/medicines on an involuntary basis is unfair, especially when these taxpayers may be in perfect health. Private charity is a better idea if people want to make a contribution, hell Irish people already give away more money to charity than nearly every other nation on the planet.
    Tiddlypeeps wrote: »
    Great infrastructure and public transport is a great way of attracting foreign investment, it makes the country an attractive place to set up a new business or expand an existing one creating jobs.
    What sort of alternative do you suggest and can you show an example of it working in practice?
    Private companies are just as capable of providing solid infrastructure and good transport. Government schemes are usually costly and inefficient.

    What would I suggest? Well, I'm nearly entirely against the state and because of that fact there is very few real-life examples I can give you of my ideas in operation. I don't think taxes as a whole should be abolished, but they should be minimized to their lowest, fairest level and I think the government can be downsized too.


  • #233
    walt_white
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 20 ✭walt_white


    Tiddlypeeps wrote: »
    Why is this an issue?

    which ? , all scandanavians paying high taxes or a tonne of irish people paying very little


  • #234
    Tiddlypeeps
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,103 ✭✭✭Tiddlypeeps


    Clandestine wrote: »
    Thats why it is bad. It is not a mutual agreement between two people, it is forced by the state on the individual. If you don't want these services and refuse to pay taxes, you are threatened with violence/prison. Therefore, taxes become extortion.


    Private police would work better. Public "protectors" enforced by the state have too much authority and are costly. The hiring of private firms and individuals would be cheaper and would be on a much fairer playing field with the public. Not to mention the amount of crimes that the police commit, in fact in America you are 5 times more likely to be killed by the police than a terrorist.

    I agree both have their benefits, but I do not believe in a "right" to education or health care. I think the fact that people are expected to foot the bill for other people's expensive surgeries/medicines on an involuntary basis is unfair, especially when these taxpayers may be in perfect health. Private charity is a better idea if people want to make a contribution, hell Irish people already give away more money to charity than nearly every other nation on the planet.

    Private companies are just as capable of providing solid infrastructure and good transport. Government schemes are usually costly and inefficient.

    What would I suggest? Well, I'm nearly entirely against the state and because of that fact there is very few real-life examples I can give you of my ideas in operation. I don't think taxes as a whole should be abolished, but they should be minimized to their lowest, fairest level and I think the government can be downsized too.

    What you are advocating is pretty much anarchy or very close to it anyway. There is no precedent of a system like that working at any sort of scale. At a tribal or very small community level MAYBE, but I cannot see how this type of system could possibly work at a level past that.

    The system you are advocating is in my opinion incredibly unfair. It punishes those born to poverty and traps them in it. It would be nice to think that people of means would be charitable enough to ensure that poverty isn't an issue but historically this has not been the case.


  • #235
    Tiddlypeeps
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,103 ✭✭✭Tiddlypeeps


    walt_white wrote: »
    which ? , all scandanavians paying high taxes or a tonne of irish people paying very little

    Why is it an issue that even people on modest wages in Scandinavian countries pay high taxes?

    I'm not even sure it's true, the wiki page on income tax isn't exactly straightforward to figure out. They definitely have lower tax bands but I have no idea what the cut off points are.

    Either way if it's true then it would only be an issue if the taxes on people at that level were causing poverty. This is not the case tho so I don't see a problem.


  • #236
    KyussBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,797 ✭✭✭KyussBishop


    Clandestine wrote: »
    I don't think taxes as a whole should be abolished, but they should be minimized to their lowest, fairest level and I think the government can be downsized too.
    See the trouble with this is, you can't call taxes extortion, while at the same time advocating that there should be some taxes (even if at a minimal level) - that makes the narrative/arguments used inherently inconsistent.

    As soon as you acknowledge the need for any government, then you can't avoid undermining and chucking-away, all arguments about taxes being extortion and such.

    Once you give that much ground, it's also no longer about government being good or bad, only of how much government there should be, and what social purposes should be fulfilled by government.


  • #237
    Qualitymark
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,824 ✭✭✭Qualitymark


    Figures from the Nevin Economic Research Institute quoted in TheJournal.ie in January:

    http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/high-earner-ireland-755580-Jan2013/
    • 33% of households have a gross income of less than €30,000 per annum
    • 2% of households have gross incomes above €200,000 per annum


  • #238
    KyussBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,797 ✭✭✭KyussBishop


    Qualitymark wrote: »
    Figures from the Nevin Economic Research Institute quoted in TheJournal.ie in January:

    http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/high-earner-ireland-755580-Jan2013/
    I noticed they have a blog too - which puts out a lot of good information/analysis:
    http://www.nerinstitute.net/blog/

    Good for spotting/pulling some up-to-date figures as well, such as unemployed per job vacancy (useful in any debate about jobs):
    http://www.nerinstitute.net/blog/2013/07/15/over-thirty-unemployed-people-for-each-vacancy/


  • #239
    Qualitymark
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,824 ✭✭✭Qualitymark


    How much cothrom na Féinne we want depends on ourselves. How we decide will have a big influence on how good a place Ireland is to live.

    Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz http://news.columbia.edu/stiglitz has just won the Moynihan prize http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-13/stiglitz-wins-moynihan-prize-for-research-on-income-inequality.html for his work on the social effects of inequality.
    Stiglitz: "Those at the top have learned how to suck out money from the rest in ways that the rest are hardly aware of; that is their true innovation."
    "With inequality at its highest level since before the Depression, a robust recovery will be difficult in the short term, and the American dream — a good life in exchange for hard work — is slowly dying."
    "It might not be so bad if there were even a grain of truth to trickle-down economics – the quaint notion that everyone benefits from enriching those at the top. But most Americans today are worse off – with lower real (inflation-adjusted) incomes – than they were in 1997, a decade and a half ago. All of the benefits of growth have gone to the top."
    "Inequality leads to lower growth and less efficiency. Lack of opportunity means that [a country's] most valuable asset – its people – is not being fully used. Many at the bottom, or even in the middle, are not living up to their potential, because the rich, needing few public services and worried that a strong government might redistribute income, use their political influence to cut taxes and curtail government spending. This leads to underinvestment in infrastructure, education, and technology, impeding the engines of growth."


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