The 350 a week was a catastrophic and costly mistake

FVP3 · 08-05-2020 5:44pm

The right wing economists also championed reducing the stamp duty, if I recall, which would have put the country in a worse position coming into the crisis, as it would have lost that 20% tax take, but wouldn't have any effect at all on house prices except to make prices higher as people could have used the saved stamp duty for deposits.

coolshannagh28 · 08-05-2020 6:18pm

FVP3 wrote: »

The government was in surplus from about 1997 to 2007, with the exception of 2002. This meant we entered the crisis with low debt to GDP. It also meant we were living "within our means" by any reasonable measure.

If I recall it was right wingers who cheered most of the tax cuts, and right wing economists, who at the time didn't see much wrong with the property market.

Immediately after the banks collapsed, the same boyos were complaining about "beyond our means".

You are right that the stamp duty was too much of the tax take but not because it was extremely large as a percentage of the housing cost, but because near unlimited credit pushed prices of houses to absurd levels, and the number of transactions even higher.

Benchmarking anyone ?the govt may have balanced the books but it gave sequential massive increases in PS pay based on stamp duty ,vat and tax income from property and MNC s ,when the tide went out the money wasn't there to pay the bills hence the deficit which ran up to 200 billion of which maybe 40 went on the banks .

Banana Republic 1 · 08-05-2020 6:28pm

Fred Cryton wrote: »

No other country made people better off on welfare than when they had been working. 500,000 people are now better off taking the 350 and sitting on their backsides than they had been before this crisis when working. It's going to be enormously difficult to get these people back into the workforce now. Any politician trying to reduce the payment to incentivise work will be branded a right wing thatcherite by the usual suspects.

Who's going to go back to a minimum wage job 20 hours a week when they can earn nearly double that from the taxpayer while not having to work? This will starve businesses of much needed workers just when they need to get back going.

The costs to the exchequer are enormous. We could build a new hospital every month with the amount of money this is costing the state. Did anyone think of this? We have Regina Doherty, mother goose of the nation herself, to thank for this mess.

The key question is WHY IS IRELAND DOING THINGS DIFFERENTLY TO OTHER NATIONS?. When you have to ask this question, you know we've c**ked up.

Unlike sars 2 Ireland will never be rid of the begrudges but I suppose to be fare the poverty trap normally works the opposite way so people should really keep an eye on the sky case it falls in.

mariaalice · 08-05-2020 6:46pm

The money will be spent when the county reopens and will lead to a mini-boom for a while.

GazzaL · 08-05-2020 6:51pm

mariaalice wrote: »

The money will be spent when the county reopens and will lead to a mini-boom for a while.

I doubt the increasing numbers of people that won't have jobs to go back when the country reopens will share that sentiment.

salmocab · 08-05-2020 6:52pm

mariaalice wrote: »

The money will be spent when the county reopens and will lead to a mini-boom for a while.

What money? If you mean the 350 that will be gone already, people in the main are using it to pay bills and buy food.

mariaalice · 08-05-2020 6:56pm

GazzaL wrote: »

I doubt the increasing numbers of people that won't have jobs to go back when the country reopens will share that sentiment.

Of course not, but all the teens and twenties who are now getting 350 a week when they use to get 150 from the job in the bar/ restaurant will, plus lots are saving a fortune in child care and commuting costs because of the home working and will spend the money when we reopen.

Xertz · 08-05-2020 7:02pm

The payment is far better than a bailout for companies as it puts spending power into ordinary people's hands and keeps the economy flowing.

Hopefully as the economy starts to open back up again it means those people are in a position to feel comfortable about spending. That's what drives a huge % of the jobs that are most severely impacted by this as they're mostly customer-focused side of the economy.

If we'd had mass unemployment and no serious supports, apart from the human hardship, instability and damage it would have caused, it would also have left us in a far worse economic position, with diabolical consumer sentiment when we got back.

Also, furloughing the jobs makes a lot of sense as it is genuinely much more difficult to get a job when you don't have one in the first place and it also makes it a lot less likely that companies would default to trimming the size of workforces if they actually have on going commitments to their staff.

I think if you just took a laissez faire approach it would be very over simplistic and you would be returning in far worse state. Economies are part of societies and you can't really just see economics without the social dynamics, the psychology and all of those aspects too.

A cushioned rollercoaster ride is far better than a hard wallop into a brick wall.

coolshannagh28 · 08-05-2020 7:03pm

mariaalice wrote: »

The money will be spent when the county reopens and will lead to a mini-boom for a while.

Showing up the divide in our country , very comfortable older class of semi and fully retired saving money now and a struggling younger class left behind when the ladder is pulled up .

jimmycrackcorm · 08-05-2020 7:06pm

FVP3 wrote: »

The government was in surplus from about 1997 to 2007, with the exception of 2002. This meant we entered the crisis with low debt to GDP. It also meant we were living "within our means" by any reasonable measure.

If I recall it was right wingers who cheered most of the tax cuts, and right wing economists, who at the time didn't see much wrong with the property market.

Immediately after the banks collapsed, the same boyos were complaining about "beyond our means".

You are right that the stamp duty was too much of the tax take but not because it was extremely large as a percentage of the housing cost, but because near unlimited credit pushed prices of houses to absurd levels, and the number of transactions even higher.

We were in surplus due to unsustainable growth in consumption taxes. Public spending massively increased but couldn't be reduced sufficiently once those bubble taxes disappeared because no one is going to vote for a party that suggests sensible sustainable taxation policies.

how much was the state pension in 1997? How much did it get reduced by following the economic crash?
Health spending has balooned from a few billion to the middle teens in the intervening time - you'd think that waiting lists would disappear when we're spending 4 times as much on health now but don't have 4 times the population.

To put the national debt from the banking crisi into perspective. It's less than 10 years worth of our social welfare budget alone.

mariaalice · 08-05-2020 7:13pm

coolshannagh28 wrote: »

Showing up the divide in our country , very comfortable older class of semi and fully retired saving money now and a struggling younger class left behind when the ladder is pulled up .

That is a good point.

LuasSimon · 08-05-2020 7:15pm

If the likes of Larry Goodman who is making hundreds of millions out of the lease of his private hospitals paid tax in this country as opposed to some Micky mouse tax channelled through Luxembourg it would help .
The same for JP McManus and all the other super rich tax avoiders that are allegedly Irish .

mariaalice · 08-05-2020 7:16pm

There may well be a very strong bounce back next year.

Steer55 · 08-05-2020 8:44pm

LuasSimon wrote: »

If the likes of Larry Goodman who is making hundreds of millions out of the lease of his private hospitals paid tax in this country as opposed to some Micky mouse tax channelled through Luxembourg it would help .
The same for JP McManus and all the other super rich tax avoiders that are allegedly Irish .

Very well said, vast majority are humming and hawing about people getting a measly 350 a week when they failing to see the bigger picture. You don't need a master's to spot that.

Steer55 · 08-05-2020 8:48pm

mariaalice wrote: »

There may well be a very strong bounce back next year.

Hopefully, it's good to take positive stance

Steer55 · 08-05-2020 8:49pm

mariaalice wrote: »

There may well be a very strong bounce back next year.

Hopefully, it's great to have a positive outlook

kippy · 08-05-2020 8:49pm

Fred Cryton wrote: »

I have a Masters in the subject, thanks so much. McWilliams is a charaltan and a spoofer, yeah free money into everyones account. Sure why not make everyone a millionaire so, what could possibly go wrong.

As you can see every country in the world, where it can, has tried to directly support their citizens as well as provide a shed load of supports to business. Tis fairly obvious to many why they did this. Providing cash directly to people is the best way to support them in the short term.
A masters in economics? Or something else

i57dwun4yb1pt8 · 08-05-2020 9:09pm

'i have a masters '

basically

' i have thoughts in my head , that have never been put to practical use '

MOH · 08-05-2020 9:14pm

Fred Cryton wrote: »

This is number of part time workers in the economy who earned less than 350 a week pre-crisis. Publicly available information, you shouldn't have to ask. You should have looked it up yourself.

Or, you know, you could provide supporting links for the argument you're trying to make.

You're 100% wrong. There's plenty of publicly available information proving this, go look it up yourself.

JamesM · 08-05-2020 9:32pm

coolshannagh28 wrote: »

Showing up the divide in our country , very comfortable older class of semi and fully retired saving money now and a struggling younger class left behind when the ladder is pulled up .

My parents lived through the early years of the State and WW2, worked hard and didn't have much. I started working in the mid 60s. I am now retired, having been self employed for over 40 years with no help from the state (I paid a lot of tax and gathered VAT for the Government). We might be in trouble if I hadn't received a share of the sale of my parents house after they died. The young have many years ahead of them to work and earn 'Comfortable'.

Kermit.de.frog · 08-05-2020 9:35pm

Not quite understanding the OP.

The measure is temporary and targeted so that seems to remove the premise of the thread?

sydthebeat · 08-05-2020 9:36pm

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

Not quite understanding the OP.

The measure is temporary and targeted so that seems to remove the premise of the thread?

The premise of the thread is obvious.

Its a shinners reaction to the kicking Mary lou got yesterday in the Dail.

Plumbthedepths · 08-05-2020 9:58pm

sydthebeat wrote: »

The premise of the thread is obvious.

Its a shinners reaction to the kicking Mary lou got yesterday in the Dail.

Whatever Fred is, he ain't a Shinner. Fred was appalled the commemoration for the RIC/ Black&Tans was cancelled.

onedmc · 08-05-2020 10:03pm

The bottom line is that this will need to be paid for.

Either by us now in higher taxes

or by our children in years to come

satguy · 08-05-2020 10:05pm

Some people just hate to see others do well..

So some young teens that were serving tables or mind kids in a creche,, maybe doing 20 hours a week for €10 or €11 an hour are doing a bit better.

In the 08 crash we bailed out the banks for Billions and Billions,, and all they did was give themselves a bonus and make people homeless.

If these teens had any sense,, they would refuse to go back serving tables and minding kids until they got €350 a week in pay.

Topgear on Dave · 08-05-2020 10:08pm

satguy wrote: »

If these teens had any sense,, they would refuse to go back serving tables and minding kids until they €350 a week in pay.

They won't have to refuse. A good few cafes and restaurants will not reopen after this debacle anyway.

Infini · 08-05-2020 10:39pm

onedmc wrote: »

The bottom line is that this will need to be paid for.

Either by us now in higher taxes

or by our children in years to come

Or the cost's from a national emergency to keep as many buisnesses from going under and people without jobs having no money are cordoned off on ultra long term bonds or loans.

Despite all the arguing I expect Europe will eventually have to agree to some form of corona or euro-bonds for use in pure long term debts resulting from emergencies such as this. They tried Austerity before and all it did was make things worse as well as fuel the retard wing parties across Europe. They have to try something else this time and that's the logical one.

Kermit.de.frog · 08-05-2020 10:45pm

Infini wrote: »

Or the cost's from a national emergency to keep as many buisnesses from going under and people without jobs having no money are cordoned off on ultra long term bonds or loans.

Despite all the arguing I expect Europe will eventually have to agree to some form of corona or euro-bonds for use in pure long term debts resulting from emergencies such as this. They tried Austerity before and all it did was make things worse as well as fuel the retard wing parties across Europe. They have to try something else this time and that's the logical one.

Germany along with the other northern creditor countries will never agree to that (ever).

That's like Italy saying "we want to borrow money on your credit card and when we screw it up we'll split the bill 50/50!"

That's what that is.

fryup · 08-05-2020 10:46pm

Steyr 556 wrote: »

Have some sympathy for the long-term unemployed on 200 a week before the corona virus showed up. They showed amazing loyalty and tenacity to stay out of work, and how are they rewarded? :pac:

but all jokes aside, its a bit unfair that those made unemployed before covid get 200 odd and those made unemployed after covid get 350....i know its exceptional circumstances but still

Plumbthedepths · 08-05-2020 11:16pm

fryup wrote: »

but all jokes aside, its a bit unfair that those made unemployed before covid get 200 odd and those made unemployed after covid get 350....i know its exceptional circumstances but still

I genuinely don't see any unfairness.

The 350 a week was a catastrophic and costly mistake

Comments