# Who's not paying their fair share?



## csirl

Dont want to debate whether or not we should pay to bail out banks as this is debated eslewhere - for the record, I dont agree with bailing out Anglo. Just want to 

Lets assume that the banking crisis is going to cost us €50bn - which is higher than the figures in the mid 30s being bandied around right now. 

With a population of 4.25m, this equates to €11,764 per capita.

Paid over a 10 year period, it equates to €1,176.4 per annum or €22.62 per week.


I, for one, am paying multiples of this amount in additional taxation/levies. So is my wife. So we are paying more than our fair share. 

Yes, this is a per capita figure, so it includes non-earners. We have 2 young children. Each has lost c.€24 per week in lost early childcare suppliment and reductions in child benefit. So my 2 young children, who have no earnings, and werent alive when the debts were run up, are also paying more than their fair share.

And remember, we've also suffered through cutbacks in Government services and additional stealth taxes. And doesnt include cutbacks and tax rises to come over the next couple of years.

So, who's not paying? If the "average" family is paying multiples of its quota, then it follows that the majority of the population must be paying little or nothing. Why?


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## Protocol

For example: public sector pensioners.

(1) No* pension cut*, unlike their fellow workers.


(2) No *income levy* if they have a med card (most do)
*"Exempt Categories:*


Where an individual's income for a year does not exceed €15,028 p.a.
Individuals aged 65 or over whose annual income does not exceed €20,000 p.a.
Full medical card holders
Social Welfare payments are also excluded from the income levy
(3) No *health levy*:


"A number of groups do not have to pay the Health Levy:

Everyone aged 70 or over
Medical Card holders (including those who have Medical Cards exclusively because of EU regulations or because they are aged 70 or over)
People who are getting Widow's/Widower's Pension, a One-Parent Family Payment or Deserted Wife's Allowance from the Department of Social and Family Affairs or a widow's pension from an EU country
(4) No income tax if you earn under 40k as a couple (770pw).


I know plenty of them. They are not affected by the recession / fiscal crisis, and have plenty of income. Many don't know what to do with all the income they get.


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## Protocol

Next group: medical consultants


Yes, they do pay the income levy and the increased health levy, ok.

And, yes, they have trained for a long time, and they have overheads to pay.

But their fees are so high (I've hear stories of 120-180 for 5-10 mins) that they amass huge incomes and wealth.

I would train 500 extra doctors pa, and flood the country with extra doctors, so as to keep a lid on fees.


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## Protocol

Next groups: commercial landlords

Many landlords are reasonable and flexible.

But some, esp institutional landlords, still charge huge rents.

*Excessive commercial rents are a contributory factor in our recession.*


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## Protocol

Next: some semi-state companies / workers


(1) No* pay cut*, unlike the public service.

(2) No pension levy


I am thinking here of the likes of ESB staff


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## Protocol

Next: barristers / sols

The strange thing here is that even though there are many unemployed sols, some legal fees are still way too high (but things have improved)

We are some fools paying 2250-2500 per day for the tribunal counsel


All over AAM there are cases of probate fees of 10k, etc.  MADNESS


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## Protocol

Next: accountancy / audit firms


Costs / fees still too high


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## Chris

Protocol said:


> I would train 500 extra doctors pa, and flood the country with extra doctors, so as to keep a lid on fees.



This is an excellent idea. There should be no cap on the amount of doctors that can practice as consultants as long as they have the qualification. This will flood the market with supply of consultants if the profits available are as high as they seem to be.


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## Protocol

One of the winners from the boom / bubble were landowners who sold.

Example: farmers / landowners who made millions from CPOs on new roads.

Example: Ennis bypass land costs = 37m, made several millionaires

The State should pay 5k per acre tops.


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## Protocol

Sorry for monopolising this thread!!  I'll go now.


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## Purple

Good post csirl. I'm in the same boat; we have 4 kids so that's €135.72 per week extra we should be paying. We are paying far more than that extra.

The government needs to get more people into the tax net, especially the old and those on lower incomes.
I went onto the highest income tax band as a third year apprentice. If I was a third year apprentice now I'd pay no tax. There's a middle ground there and we've missed it.

I also agree with the point about doctors; there are all sorts of barriers to entry for everyone from GP’s to consultants. GP’s should be required to do simple surgical procedures, stitching and scanning etc, like they do in most other countries, rather than charging €50-€65 to behave like a glorified nurse that can write a prescription.


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## fobs

Purple said:


> I also agree with the point about doctors; there are all sorts of barriers to entry for everyone from GP’s to consultants. GP’s should be required to do simple surgical procedures, stitching and scanning etc, like they do in most other countries, rather than charging €50-€65 to behave like a glorified nurse that can write a prescription.


 
Had a fight with the missus ? 

Definately doctors/gp's fees are very high and none in my locality have reduced since the recession

Pensioners definately are not paying their fair share given they probably have more disposable income (no mortgage,childcare fees etc) than most with young kids.

Long term unemployed - those who have never worked at all should not get the same benefits as newly unemployed who have stamps accrued.


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## Protocol

fobs said:


> Definately doctors/gp's fees are very high and none in my locality have reduced since the recession
> 
> *I heard of one case of GP fees going from 55 to 50.*
> 
> *I had cause to call a doctor to a city centre hotel in a large continental city recently.*
> 
> *Fri at noon - came within an hour = 45 euro*
> 
> *Sat at night - came within an hour approx = 60 euro*
> 
> Pensioners definately are not paying their fair share given they probably have more disposable income (no mortgage,childcare fees etc) than most with young kids.
> 
> *I would particularly focus on public sector pensioners, not people who depend solely on the State pension.*
> 
> Long term unemployed - those who have never worked at all should not get the same benefits as newly unemployed who have stamps accrued.
> 
> *Yes, I think JSB should actually be increased, for the first 6-9 months, then same as now for another 6 months tops.*
> 
> *JSA should have a time-limit.*


 
..


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## z107

Paying 'fair share' for what exactly?
Where are all these billions ending up?

That's the question I ask myself.

I also wonder why TDs have unvouched 'expenses'.


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## truthseeker

fobs said:


> Definately doctors/gp's fees are very high and none in my locality have reduced since the recession


 
My Gps standard fee is 60 euro. I was there last week and she only charged me 40 euro. When I queried it she said that it was because I had only been in recently (for a different problem) so she didnt think it was fair to charge me full whack.

Oh and Im not terribly sickly - I hadnt been all year and just happened to get a minor but painful injury followed by a common ailment in a 2 week period.


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## huskerdu

I agree with the OP that some of us are paying much more than others for the hole in the countries finances, but I disagree with these figures

"Lets assume that the banking crisis is going to cost us €50bn - which is  higher than the figures in the mid 30s being bandied around right now. 

With a population of 4.25m, this equates to €11,764 per capita.

Paid over a 10 year period, it equates to €1,176.4 per annum or €22.62 per week."

A lot of the increase in taxes/levies is to pay for the large gap in Irelands day to day balance sheet  and has nothing to do with the bank bailout.

Also, a lot of the cost has been borrowed, so we will not be paying back the capaital, 
just the interest, so the figure above of what the "average cost" per person is not correct. 

I dont know what the correct figure is though - problem is no-one does. 

THe one answer that is correct is " higher than the government think it is


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## Marietta

Time said:


> It is time to make pensioners pay. If pensions are not cut in the next budget I am leaving the country and all my debts behind.


 

That's a bit drastic


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## Kev

Time said:


> It is time to make pensioners pay. If pensions are not cut in the next budget I am leaving the country and all my debts behind.



 I think that pensioners should pay if their levels of income including pensions are above a certain level.  In the UK pensions are very low especially for women and they have to apply for pension credit to bring their income up to the minimum wage.  If they work after they retired of 60/65 in order to bring their level of income up to a minimum standard then they will pay tax on their income from employer minus NI and also their pensions are taking into account plus interest from savings as wel for tax reasons. 

Pensioners get free travel, but only on busses in the UK, they can travel on trains only in areas after 9.30am.  This is good for pensions as they would not be able to get out and about if their income was at minimum standard.  Some pensioners are very reluctant to ask for help as it is not in their nature to go cap in hand to the state, also they may not be aware of what is available for them by way of help either as most of them are not computer literate.  That is why so much is saved by the state  becaues most pensioners are living at and some below minimum wage standard compared to the rest of the country.   

Also it must be remembered that pensions have worked all their lives and rared brought up a large family (unlike todays families of 2. 3 children) and have paid their dues to the state and as such should be allowed a reasonable standard of living when they retired that is if they are not financially well off.  Also it is inevitable that pensioners will suffer from age related condition, which is not a life style choice unlike having children is nowadays.   Also pensioners may have to go into care homes, which is not cheape and that is another unhappy chapter at the end of their lives.


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## zztop

The self employed who do evade tax by the truck load.
The higher paid in the public service whose pay was returned as bonus add ons.


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## zztop

paying childrens allowances to people who can afford not to take it
and to little feckers outside the state(grrrrrr)


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## Kev

I agree zztop that cannot be good for the contry also the same applies to pensioners paying for their free travel and other standard payments that they can afford not to take it,  also the same applies to other standard benefits paid out to people do not beed it or take it.  What happens to that money does it go back into the government purse.


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## Claire1956

Here is an example of how some are taking a slice of the funds:

Chap in our office. We are offering him a full time job, €10/hour 39 hours a week. He has been on benefits for the past two years. He told us he loved Ire, nowhere else could he have an income of circa €400/week for doing nothing (includes his wife benefits, rent allowance etc.)

He was actually just back from a holiday in Ibiza, it was very hot he told us, 40 degrees. 
Anyway, my husband said, so Martin are you looking for full time work as we need someone. 
The answer was, no, not at all. Am heading home.
So husband said to do what
Answer was, 'My brother and I have a fleet of eight tour buses in our company at home and it is starting to grow now, so I am going back to that.'
Husband says, oh you have your own company?
Yes, yes it has been running for a few years now and really going well
Husband says, best of luck Martin, cheerio!

So our conclusion is that he has been living off our state for two years (this we know factually because we have used him on and off for a few hours here and there) while in ownership of company that is going well.

Don't lecture me about hiring for cash. No-one will come off benefits for a basic wage of €8.65 for a 39 hour week. I have spoken to all of the elected FF TDs in our constituency about this, small businesses cannot hire staff because the govt is paying more for folks to do nothing.........

Our sales have dropped 30% over the last 4 months. We have not had any cuts in staff wages. We wish to reduce our costs however one of the key cost of sale items has gone up by 15% this month. But everyone wants products on the shop shelves to get cheaper everyday. What do we do, we go out and try to get more customers and explain the product etc. blah blah

Wake up, the 400,000 on benefits are a huge cost to the country. The public servants on average do not appear to be productive, they might be very busy and overworked, but productive, not at all.........look at the HSE and the waiting lists.

As for middle management in Ireland (public and private), complete wasters. Only 36 months ago how many folks were having expensed trips/lunches as a regular feature in their daily schedule........Dublin restaurants were packed, couldn't get a seat at lunch time.

We are all contributors to this mess. I know lots of folks are going to slate me for my opinions, but I feel entitled to them, the VAT man and the P30 chap get paid on time everytime, as do our staff and our suppliers. I am not sitting at home thinking how can I screw the system for little more, or that it is not worth my while to work cos the benefits are so good. But it does appear that the psyche of the irish is just that! Thats where you missing funds are being swallowed-up!


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## Kev

Well I think this one caps it all hope the link work belwo this person is being £2000 a week on Housing Benefit and before that he was getting £900 a week benefit but did not want to stay there as it was in a poor arera.  He moved to a poser area and his benefit for housing is now £2000 a week.  

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-complaining-5-bed-London-home-poor-area.html

The new government in power since May is changing the Housing Benefit and there will be a cap at £400 a week.


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## Mpsox

Kev said:


> Well I think this one caps it all hope the link work belwo this person is being £2000 a week on Housing Benefit and before that he was getting £900 a week benefit but did not want to stay there as it was in a poor arera. He moved to a poser area and his benefit for housing is now £2000 a week.
> 
> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-complaining-5-bed-London-home-poor-area.html
> 
> The new government in power since May is changing the Housing Benefit and there will be a cap at £400 a week.


 
This is an Irish site and what happens in another country has no bearing on this discussion


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## Mpsox

One issue is that *everyone* perceives that they are paying their fair share, and others are not. Those on social welfare perceive the "fat cats getting away with it" whilst they struggle, the fat cats perceive the poor/those on social welfare  as spongers and those in the middle might believe both to be true.

The issue is compounded by the fact that the more money people have, the more they will spend. It's easy to say cut child benifit for those with high wages, but those with high wages often have bigger mortgages or spend more money in the economy. Hence there is a need for a balancing act between cutting govt spending/raising more taxes and not pulling the rug out from under whatever weak recovery is underway.

Some people here have also suggested examples of scrounging social welfare recipiants screwing the system. Those need to be dealt with on an individual basis and should not be used as a reason for inflicting further misery on the majority, who do not want to be on the dole in the first place.

The original question was "who's not paying their fair share". Perhaps a more realistic question is , who can afford to pay more?


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## Claire1956

Competely correct....Mpsox:

Can I afford to raise my kids without Child Benefit, bottom line is yes I can. This year I received money into my account for the children and it was the same as a mortgage payment. That is crazy. We received mortgage interest relief, which was great and well allocated since,but it was a mad amount of money and I was living without it. I don't want to pay more tax, but I don't need the funds in the two areas above, and if many people thought about it truthfully, they don't either!! My salary is €50k gross and is my husbands, so nothing outrageous there and we didn't inherit our home or have any shortcuts. We are an average example of mid 30- mid 40 couple with kids.

But it does come back to the attitude of lets not pay our way. I was at a social event this weekend and the amount of conversation re folks not paying mortgage because of the govt thing re no legal attack from banks for 12 months was staggering. People doing it for the heck of it cos they can.......madness


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## Mrmr

I agree with csirl and purple. I'd really like to see the golden oldies with generous pensions and benefit packages, and people paying no tax contribute properly in the next budget. I think there is huge scope to improve the 3Bn required through doing this.

I just calculated our tax contribution as a family of 4 (after tax reliefs back) is 19% of income. We then also have mortgage and childcare- another 42%. Another 13% on Transport and state controlled ESB/Gas. Thats a neat 75% of income on essential bills.

I'd love to see a similar breakdown for pensioners most of whom have moderate tax, decent home benefits package and no home/childcare bills. I'd also love to see some of the generous RA and other schemes made more difficult say for example if you've been on benefits your whole life.

On a separate note, a larger DIRT range on high level savings perhaps?


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## Protocol

zztop said:


> The higher paid in the public service whose pay was returned as bonus add ons.


 

Oh yes, those senior civil servants who argued to consider their bonus as base pay.

The cheek of them.

They should have taken the pay cut like the other public servants.


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## Shawady

I have wondered before whether having just one flat rate of tax on all income would be easier to administer.
For example, everyone pays 15% of all their income in tax. Therefore if the government ever needs to increase tax intake it would be simplier to do. And if people receive a pay rise they would not lose over half of it in income tax.

I just checked my pay slip. I would be considered a middle income earner and my income levy, prsi and paye represents 16% of my gross pay.


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## Kev

Mpsox said:


> This is an Irish site and what happens in another country has no bearing on this discussion



 I think what happens in other countries does have a bearing on how each county deals with their deficit, which is not good at present in any countries.  All courtiers are making cuts as well as the UK and other EU countries.  Considering that a great many people from the Irish Republic living the in the UK and has family in Ireland it is in their interest also that the deficit is dealt with fairly.  

  Perhaps you want Ireland to be isolated from others people comments regardless of where they reside.  It is no body interest that any country in made bankrupt as we all rely on each and everyone comments are valued. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_migration_to_Great_Britain#Irish_in_England

  Nobody want child benefit cuts to the middle and low income it is the upper class that does not even want it and used it for other reason that they children.  The same goes for all other benefits that made universally to people regardless whether they need them or not.


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## T McGibney

Shawady said:


> I have wondered before whether having just one flat rate of tax on all income would be easier to administer.
> For example, everyone pays 15% of all their income in tax. Therefore if the government ever needs to increase tax intake it would be simplier to do. And if people receive a pay rise they would not lose over half of it in income tax.



The flat tax model certainly works well for Corporation Tax in this country.


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## Mpsox

Kev said:


> Perhaps you want Ireland to be isolated from others people comments regardless of where they reside. It is no body interest that any country in made bankrupt as we all rely on each and everyone comments are valued.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_migration_to_Great_Britain#Irish_in_England
> 
> .


 
No I don't, I lived in England for 10 years and it always bugged me that I never had a vote.

However, I fail to see what housing a Somali family in London has to do with the state of Irish finances


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## Kev

Mpsox said:


> No I don't, I lived in England for 10 years and it always bugged me that I never had a vote.
> 
> However, I fail to see what housing a Somali family in London has to do with the state of Irish finances



 You obviously did not registered for your vote where you lived in the UJ otherwise you would have been able to vote. 

  The point I was trying to make is how unfair it is when it comes to getting benefits and UK as well as Ireland is looking to cuts benefits.   It seems that when people have large families nowadays they have no problems getting benefits, despite the benefactors not paying any tax or insurance towards it.  The tax payer has been forking out  £900 a week for accommodation for the person in the link however that was not enough as areas was not posh enough therefore hardworking people had to pay a further £1.100 extra so that person could move to a more salubrious area of the city.  

  I do not agree with benefits being cut for the disable and people who have lost their jobs with a family to provide for and has to put food on the table. That would be totally unfair. 

  Young people should not be left at home just waiting for benefits either. If they cannot find work then they should be made to voluntary work in the community for any benefits received. 

  A poster on here said that if cuts were not made to pensioners then they would leave the country.    Now I am a pensioner and still have to work to supplement my pension.  I have always works and not complaining that I am still able to work thank god. 

  I am not complaining about working, as work is good for people and especially now that I am pensioner and lot of my friends and family are not around anymore. Working part-time also helps me to keep in touch with reality.  

  I remember as back in the 70’s family allowance, as it was called then, was only ten shillings a week, which is equivalent to 50p today.   This was view as very good back then.

  My mother and father did not have any family allowance indeed there was no benefit for them whatsoever, we were very poor indeed no inside facilities, it was a tin bath in front of fire every couple of weeks. That was how it was like for most back then in Ireland.  I grew up knowing that we would not get anything free without working for it.  

  Compared with to today’s generation, every thing seems to hinged on how much benefits they can get and they expect regardless whether it has been worked for or not.


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## Mrmr

OK, Just to delve a little further. 

The low paid: A couple on min wage 8.65 for 39hrs a week earns 35,084 and pays 2% tax in levies of 702. 
We earn > twice that but our tax contribution is almost 10 times at 19%and we're middle income? Surely this group should pay a little more than this? When I started work I recall paying more tax than that, but could still manage ok.

Any Irish based pensioners out there bold enough to give us their comparisons?


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## Mpsox

Kev said:


> You obviously did not registered for your vote where you lived in the UJ otherwise you would have been able to vote.
> 
> .


 
I meant a vote in Ireland


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## Kev

I would have like a vote in Ireland also , indeed, I expect that there are many Irish people living in the UK would like there vote in Ireland.  
Pensioners in the North (part that is colonised by the UK) are allowed to travel free down to the South but not pensioners in the rest of the UK that hold an Irish passport, wonder why the disparity!


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## PaddyW

Shawady said:


> I have wondered before whether having just one flat rate of tax on all income would be easier to administer.
> For example, everyone pays 15% of all their income in tax. Therefore if the government ever needs to increase tax intake it would be simplier to do. And if people receive a pay rise they would not lose over half of it in income tax.
> 
> I just checked my pay slip. I would be considered a middle income earner and my income levy, prsi and paye represents 16% of my gross pay.



Mine amounts to roughly 20.5%. Would that be because of me being single maybe?


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## Purple

fobs said:


> Had a fight with the missus ?



Nope, I just call it as I see it.


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## number7

This country has a fiscal deficit as well as a banking crisis, you have managed to completely ignore the most important one. They can not be dealt with seperately.

The fiscal deficit is 20billion PER ANUM, your cuts in income and benifits and levies are trying to address the fiscal deficit. 

The banking bailout is going to cost 39 billion give or take a few billion, That money will be borrowed and the repayments will increase the burden on the exchequer therefore also increasing the amount of taxation that will have to be raised.

The fiscal deficit is by far the greater issue.

To try and give a basic annalogy.

I earn €30,000 but my outgoings are €50,000. I also have discovered that my wife has been very naughty and run up her credit card to €50,000. (lots of shoes)

I am desperately trying to cut my outgoings to bring the figure down towards the €30,000 income while at the same time I am trying to increase my income(this is the fiscal deficit). I am also having to bailout my wifes credit card debt and fund the repayments of that(bank bailout).

This thread is looking at the cuts being made to bridge the gap between income and expenditure and confusing it with the repayments being arranged for the finance of the bank bailout.

Society can not be based on the individual, it must allow for the collective. We have, weather we like it or not, a collective financial issue, the burden of this will not be shared equally just as the benifits of a good economy are not shared equally.

Suck it up bud, and get used to it theres more to come.


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## Complainer

WHo's not paying their fair share?

The Morketing folk over at EBS who (after getting a massive State bailout) still have the money to sponsor 2FM to run a roadshow about 'savings'. Must be nice to still be able to spend our money.


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## Purple

Great post Number7.


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## shnaek

number7 said:


> Suck it up bud, and get used to it theres more to come.



Or else abandon ship!


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## Time

There are enough people doing so already.


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## Kev

Quote by: JF Kennedy, 'ask not what _your country_ can _do_ for you; ask what _you can do for your country'_.


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## shnaek

Kev said:


> Quote by: JF Kennedy, 'ask not what _your country_ can _do_ for you; ask what _you can do for your country'_.



Ask also what you can do for yourself.


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## bluemac

No one wants to pay tax it seems, 

we were looking for a office cleaner few hours per week minimum wage (€8.65). no one's interested and certainly not unless its cash in hand... we dont want to do cash in hand we believe you should pay your part.  so we have no cleaner. I guess they don't want to lose there benefits.


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## T McGibney

bluemac said:


> No one wants to pay tax it seems,
> 
> we were looking for a office cleaner few hours per week minimum wage (€8.65). no one's interested and certainly not unless its cash in hand... we dont want to do cash in hand we believe you should pay your part.  so we have no cleaner. I guess they don't want to lose there benefits.



In fairness, this doesn't sound like the candidates 'not wanting to pay tax'. The combination of individual and PAYE tax credits means minimum wage earners generally are tax exempt anyway. Your guess about losing benefit entitlements may well be correct, on the other hand it mightn't be worth someone's while taking on a cleaning job for €20 or €25 per week. When travel and other costs are paid for, the amount left for themselves would be tiny.


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## z107

My fair share is €0.


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## shnaek

umop3p!sdn said:


> My fair share is €0.



Hear hear. With money being wasted as described here:



along with all the other ways our government throw away the money it takes from hard working people, who can blame us?


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## Purple

shnaek said:


> Hear hear. With money being wasted as described here:
> 
> 
> 
> along with all the other ways our government throw away the money it takes from hard working people, who can blame us?



So why do so many people want bigger government?


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## T McGibney

Purple said:


> So why do so many people want bigger government?



I think they don't realise that everything has a cost.


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## PaddyW

A bigger government? Hell no!


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## Purple

PaddyW said:


> A bigger government? Hell no!



That's what Happy Gilmore and Moan Burton will give us after the next election.

The electorate, led by the media, will treat the symptoms of crony capitalism with a dose of socialism. That’s akin to doctors of old treating a fever by bleeding the patient.


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## shnaek

Purple said:


> That's what Happy Gilmore and Moan Burton will give us after the next election.
> 
> The electorate, led by the media, will treat the symptoms of crony capitalism with a dose of socialism. That’s akin to doctors of old treating a fever by bleeding the patient.



This is probably the case, and is why I've got one foot in and one foot out of the country. I'd hate to leave, but there's only so much auld sh*te that a man can take.


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## number7

bluemac said:


> No one wants to pay tax it seems,
> 
> we were looking for a office cleaner few hours per week minimum wage (€8.65). no one's interested and certainly not unless its cash in hand... we dont want to do cash in hand we believe you should pay your part. so we have no cleaner. I guess they don't want to lose there benefits.


 
€8.65 is not the minimum wage for an office cleaner its €9.50 as per the JLC agreement.

You obviously dont want to play your part to the extent that you would comply with the employment law.


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## bluemac

number7 said:


> €8.65 is not the minimum wage for an office cleaner its €9.50 as per the JLC agreement.
> 
> You obviously dont want to play your part to the extent that you would comply with the employment law.




small company.. me... so not up to date... wow €9.50, going to give my job up and become a cleaner..  thanks for the update number 7


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## Kev

bluemac said:


> small company.. me... so not up to date... wow €9.50, going to give my job up and become a cleaner..  thanks for the update number 7



I was just thinking the same...this almost double to the UK minimum wage...


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## Claire1956

But the point is that the min wage for the lesser jobs are not enticing people to work. The small co cannot pay €12 an hour to make it worthwhile for person to work. The small co is expected to produce their goods for less money cos everyone believes that they are paying too much so we remain in an ever decreasing circle. How can we re-shape it? Our cost of sales are currently increasing, but the customer won't tolerate a price increase and the staff don't want to work for the min wage.......tell me all you folks in the know, how do I close this issue? In the longterm it is best to shut shop, settle bills and add 12 more people to the dole queue! The long term being Jan 2011.

And believe me, from talking to our customers there are many businesses thinking the same way, so that 400,000 on the dole could grow very quickly and quietly in Jan because we don't have the voice of the large corp.


----------



## Latrade

I like these kind of threads largely because the answer is always "every one else but me". 

Taking the OP:




> Lets assume that the banking crisis is going to cost us €50bn - which is higher than the figures in the mid 30s being bandied around right now.
> 
> With a population of 4.25m, this equates to €11,764 per capita.
> 
> Paid over a 10 year period, it equates to €1,176.4 per annum or €22.62 per week.


 
You'd also have to include deficit and the cost of borrowing onto that bill. Just for my own curiosity, where did the 10 years come from?

The genuine question though is what is "fair"? Is it fair that someone on minimum wage gets the same bill as someone on 6 figures? Whether it's €22 or €220 a week, as a percentage of wage, it hits the lower earners the hardest. I'll be honest and say I wouldn't think twice about dropping €22 a week, but then I can afford it (to be honest I spent that this week through the Marvel App).

Which comes back to my own definition of fair and my own opinion of who isn't paying their fair share: me. It's all well and good looking around for different scapegoats, but if I want this country back on its feet and I want a fair society and to not face the mess we're in again I have to accept that my years of a good salary and low tax are over. 

I can afford to pay more and in a fair society I should be paying more.


----------



## PaddyW

I'll echo that Latrade. I've a few bills to sort out and that, but once I was clear on them I'd be willing to pay extra every year. But not if they're gonna p*** it up against a wall.


----------



## shnaek

Latrade said:


> I can afford to pay more and in a fair society I should be paying more.


Don't worry, Latrade. They'll take your money. Then they'll use it to buy a field somewhere, or buy a 500k house for people who 'can't afford' to buy one, or to fly off to Australia on a fact finding mission, or to set up a comittee to report back in ten years on what steps we need to take to get to this 'fair' society.

I worry about fair, because the definition is so subjective. And when 'fair' is implemented by those of low general ability and IQ you just end up with some other excuse for money wasting and begrudgery. More money will not solve Ireland's problems - it never did. We need vision and solid thinking - and I see none of that alas.


----------



## z107

> Which comes back to my own definition of fair and my own opinion of who isn't paying their fair share: me. It's all well and good looking around for different scapegoats, but if I want this country back on its feet and I want a fair society and to not face the mess we're in again I have to accept that my years of a good salary and low tax are over.


Just because you're willing and able to pay extra, does not mean that that will get the country 'back on its feet'. It just means that you don't mind handing over your hard earned Euros to Anglo and associated cronies.

Even when the IMF/EU intercede and we have some form of leadership, I still do not have the appetite to bail out rich people.


----------



## shnaek

umop3p!sdn said:


> I still do not have the appetite to bail out rich people.


It's not just rich people you are bailing out. Look at the report of the CAG. You are bailing out the failed government of a failed country. We need to get the basics right before we can ask for anyone to pay for this mess.


----------



## Purple

I am now of the opinion that once BOI and AIB are anywhere near back on their feet the government should let Anglo fail and the bond holders who bought into it when it was a financial boil waiting to burst should have to share the pain. At that point we should concentrate on our real problem; the public spending cuts that need to be made. Even if Anglo costs 70 billion that still only three and a half years worth of what we are overspending just running the country.
I’m more than willing to pay more taxes but not to deliver increments to public sector employees or expenses to TD’s or stimulate the building sector again or for any other measure that doesn’t improve Irelands trade competitiveness and reduce.  

Labour are talking about job creation being their main priority when/if they are in power after the next election. While it’s a nice idea when you look back at the late 90’s when we were doing well economically but unemployment was remaining high it was the same sort of political rhetoric that let the government to stimulate the construction sector in order to provide jobs for low and unskilled people. Any steps to create jobs that are not skilled and export focused will just drag up back down into the mire.


----------



## orka

I'm resigned to having to pay more because there's really no other way out of this mess (although if there is any way at this stage to make the bondholders of Anglo accept the consequences of their 'higher return - allegedly higher risk - but not really because the Irish government are patsies' investments, that would make me a bit happier). But if we accept we are where we are, having to pay more would sit better with me if some of the unfairnesses (from the point of view of those who pay much more than a proportionate share) were dealt with. (1) We have too many people outside the tax net; (2) there seems to be a disincentive to take a job due to overly generous welfare and rent allowance - it seems wrong that an unemployed couple with 3 children and rent allowance should get the equivalent of a 42K salary (plus a medical card) and (3) better-off pensioners seem to be getting away too lightly.


----------



## shnaek

We are far to easily resigned to pay more without agreeing what it is we are going to be paying for. Is it any wonder the government shows such little respect for our hard earned money when we ourselves show so little respect for it?


----------



## orka

shnaek said:


> We are far to easily resigned to pay more without agreeing what it is we are going to be paying for.


Do you have any workable suggestions for how we can have a say in agreeing what we are going to pay for?  Our democratically elected representatives do the agreeing for us.  I want to let the bondholders pay for their investment decisions - this annoys me pretty much most out of this entire debacle as it is an area where we could still save ourselves a lot of money - and it would be nothing more than making the bondholders keep their end of the deal - if they wanted a risk-free investment, they should have bought German government bonds - they wanted a higher rate so went with private sector bonds but you don't get a higher return without higher risk - except our Governemnt kindly decided to guarantee them after the fact - muppets.  I've already written to my local TDs about it but I'm guessing not a lot will change.


----------



## Chris

number7 said:


> To try and give a basic annalogy.
> 
> I earn €30,000 but my outgoings are €50,000. I also have discovered that my wife has been very naughty and run up her credit card to €50,000. (lots of shoes)
> 
> I am desperately trying to cut my outgoings to bring the figure down towards the €30,000 income while at the same time I am trying to increase my income(this is the fiscal deficit). I am also having to bailout my wifes credit card debt and fund the repayments of that(bank bailout).
> 
> This thread is looking at the cuts being made to bridge the gap between income and expenditure and confusing it with the repayments being arranged for the finance of the bank bailout.
> 
> Society can not be based on the individual, it must allow for the collective. We have, weather we like it or not, a collective financial issue, the burden of this will not be shared equally just as the benifits of a good economy are not shared equally.
> 
> Suck it up bud, and get used to it theres more to come.


Your analogy is great, but for some reason people and especially politicians think that it's somehow different when government does the borrowing.
The only reason the financial issue is now a collective one is because of the government's trigger happy actions. I don't agree that the economic part of society should be treated as a collective. I want to live in a society where the mistakes of a few are not paid for by everyone. All this does is to encourage those few to take on ever more risk, as in the event of failure they will not bear the full loss.




umop3p!sdn said:


> My fair share is €0.


My fair share should be €0



shnaek said:


> This is probably the case, and is why I've got one foot in and one foot out of the country. I'd hate to leave, but there's only so much auld sh*te that a man can take.


I'm the same situation. Packing up and leaving is not the most happy thought, but in conversations with my wife in recent times it is becoming ever more appealing. Let's see what the next 1 or 2 budgets bring and if there will be some serious talk about limiting government powers (I know, this might be a utopian hope).



Claire1956 said:


> But the point is that the min wage for the lesser jobs are not enticing people to work. The small co cannot pay €12 an hour to make it worthwhile for person to work. The small co is expected to produce their goods for less money cos everyone believes that they are paying too much so we remain in an ever decreasing circle. How can we re-shape it? Our cost of sales are currently increasing, but the customer won't tolerate a price increase and the staff don't want to work for the min wage.......tell me all you folks in the know, how do I close this issue? In the longterm it is best to shut shop, settle bills and add 12 more people to the dole queue! The long term being Jan 2011.
> 
> And believe me, from talking to our customers there are many businesses thinking the same way, so that 400,000 on the dole could grow very quickly and quietly in Jan because we don't have the voice of the large corp.


This is exactly the problem with minimum wages. You as an employer can only offer a wage that your customers are willing to reimburse you for. This is the case no matter how big or small the company. In the public eye it is always perceived that it is businesses that exploit wages, when if you really want to point blame then it is the customer of the products. All that minimum wages achieve is unemployment.



shnaek said:


> We are far to easily resigned to pay more without agreeing what it is we are going to be paying for. Is it any wonder the government shows such little respect for our hard earned money when we ourselves show so little respect for it?


I completely agree. Handing over more money to government, while they are still in bed with the same lobbyists and still have the unrestrained power to drive the country into ruin is a ridiculous idea. Without some serious law making that restricts and prevents governments from certain actions, absolutely nothing will change.


----------



## Chris

orka said:


> Do you have any workable suggestions for how we can have a say in agreeing what we are going to pay for?  Our democratically elected representatives do the agreeing for us.  I want to let the bondholders pay for their investment decisions - this annoys me pretty much most out of this entire debacle as it is an area where we could still save ourselves a lot of money - and it would be nothing more than making the bondholders keep their end of the deal - if they wanted a risk-free investment, they should have bought German government bonds - they wanted a higher rate so went with private sector bonds but you don't get a higher return without higher risk - except our Governemnt kindly decided to guarantee them after the fact - muppets.  I've already written to my local TDs about it but I'm guessing not a lot will change.



Well my suggestion is make constitutional amendments that restrict the government's cavalier attitude to our money. Ideally it would state that the government was not allowed to take on any debt whatsoever, but I concede that that may be utopian. Maybe something like government debts is not allowed to rise above 20% of GDP and if you want to provide a service then sell the idea through taxation. There'd soon be some tightening of the belt.
As for you Anglo comment, I fully agree, the bondholders should lose everything, as that is the risk they entered. But unfortunately past and present bailouts of creditors has precedence that allows creditors to ignore the risk factor altogether. That's one sensational failure of crony capitalism.


----------



## Purple

Chris said:


> Without some serious law making that restricts and prevents governments from certain actions, absolutely nothing will change.





Chris said:


> Well my suggestion is make constitutional amendments that restrict the government's cavalier attitude to our money. Ideally it would state that the government was not allowed to take on any debt whatsoever, but I concede that that may be utopian. Maybe something like government debts is not allowed to rise above 20% of GDP and if you want to provide a service then sell the idea through taxation. There'd soon be some tightening of the belt.


I agree with everything you say but even if, by some miracle, the government and people wanted a properly run economy based on sound economic principles I see a major stumbling block when it comes to framing legislation. I simply don’t thing the senior officials in the respective government departments are capable of writing a finance bill or constructing legislation to create a properly regulated financial system that punished white collar criminals. While corruption and cronyism has been a major problem in Ireland since the foundation of the state in my opinion gross incompetence by our political leaders and the upper echelons of the civil and public service was the catalyst this time.


----------



## Latrade

umop3p!sdn said:


> Just because you're willing and able to pay extra, does not mean that that will get the country 'back on its feet'. It just means that you don't mind handing over your hard earned Euros to Anglo and associated cronies.
> 
> Even when the IMF/EU intercede and we have some form of leadership, I still do not have the appetite to bail out rich people.


 
I never said I minded anything, I'd love to not pay any tax whatsoever, but then I also want free education, social ambulance, etc etc, so I'm not going to have that luxury. Yes there's the bank bailout, but there's also the deficit which is unrelated to the bailout and which is part of what we're paying for.  

My point is I can accept that in my own definition of a "fair" society, I don't pay my fair share. That in any new system that closes/eliminates the deficit and has the country back on its feet, I accept that my days of relatively low tax are probably over. 

Maybe I'm the only one who thinks that, if so, then we'll never get back on our feet. I don't see that as socialism, I just see it as fair. 

I'll echo the sentiments that I don't trust this or any proposed administration we're presented with to actually provide us with the right balance of state and private means of running a country and a fair tax system, mainly because no other country has really managed that utopia. I don't even trust this or future administrations to get us anywhere near that utopia either. 

But again, that's not my beef. My real beef is 3 years of finger pointing and scapegoating (in many cases with some justification) at others and what others should do. I took all pay rises offered, I enjoyed the low taxes, I bought into the whole thing (though with caution) I can at least see how I was part of the problem. I can see how I can be part of the solution. 

We've a situation where the view is everyone else does their part except me. We've students and their supporters pressuring for free 3rd level education, but then quite happily telling me that they're going to take those qualifications and earn money abroad now. So I don't even get to see them earn money and pay it back.

We've people who won't move to a different county to get a job, but will upsticks and leave the country and leave their debt behind for everyone else.

Basically we've everyone unwilling to do their fair share, but expecting everyone else to carry the can and clean up the mess.


----------



## z107

I believe it's gone too far. There's nothing left to save. Budget 2011 will just be cosmetic.

BoI and AIB are never going to get back on their feet. The government can't afford the 'blanket guarantee' - and when enough people realise this there will be trouble.

All that's left now is either sell up and leave the country now, or to wait and see what happens with the IMF/EU and see if you can weather the storm.


----------



## shnaek

Latrade said:


> I'll echo the sentiments that I don't trust this or any proposed administration we're presented with to actually provide us with the right balance of state and private means of running a country and a fair tax system, mainly because no other country has really managed that utopia.


No, but many countries have done far better than us. Many have done worse, but I don't believe in comparing oneself to the worst.  There are lessons we should have learned from our EU neighbours. We didn't have to make all these mistakes. 



Latrade said:


> I don't even trust this or future administrations to get us anywhere near that utopia either.


I agree. And that saddens me greatly. I don't know if I can commit to that, or commit my children's futures to that either.


----------



## Latrade

shnaek said:


> No, but many countries have done far better than us. Many have done worse, but I don't believe in comparing oneself to the worst. There are lessons we should have learned from our EU neighbours. We didn't have to make all these mistakes.
> 
> 
> I agree. And that saddens me greatly. I don't know if I can commit to that, or commit my children's futures to that either.


 
All agreed, but we look at these good systems and don't always realise the shift in how we as individuals are taxed or live required. Yes many of our EU counterparts didn't do as badly and that was down in part to state control, but it was also down in part because their citizens didn't get caught in a credit/house buying frenzy. 

I despair to hear from the opposition a whole load of counter measures to the current government that are the same old fire fighting measures and nothing long term. Yes we have to fix the problem, but we need to fix the entire system too. It requires a root and branch new system but it's easier to talk about fire fighting than anything constructive.

But I also despair that no one is really prepared to see the changes in lifestyle and costs necessary or willing to personally do such.


----------



## number7

I think that the current crop of politicians as so embedded in the swill trough that it will require really radical action to change the course of the country and adress some of the issues in this thread so here are my suggestion for some solutions to our countries problems.

*Modern day Bloodless revolution*
I see the current political establisment as an impediment to resolving our countries problems as they have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. So as a starting point we need a modern day bloodless revolution.

I propose that a new political party is started "New Democracy". In its articles of association there would be a self destruct clause which all members would sign up to. This would read as follows " I, as a member of New Democracy, undertake to resign my membership and desolve this party on _date_ 3 years after the next general election. Should New Democracy be in government at that time it will call a general election. 

New Democracy will approach well known experts in their fields to act as Ministers of the proposed new government. These will be unveiled at the launch of the party. All of these will come from outside of politics and will promise to resign from politics at the successful conclusion of the project.

The aim of New Democracy is to gain power in order to change the way this country is governed and to hand back to the people a system of government radically changed.

*Now you see them, Now you don't*
In order to achieve the stated aims it will be necessary to maximise the number of elected TD'S  and to minimise the opposition numbers. To do this New Democracy will stand a candidate for every seat, for example in Galway west (a 5 seater) they will stand 5 candidates numbered 1 to 5.There will be 166 candidates including the 12 on the national executive. All of these will agree to vote for the changes in numbers in the dail on election allowing the national executive to change the numbers in the dail. 

I call these the invisable TD's.

Ideally this will result in at least 84 td's from New Democracy giving control of the dail. This will give the power to pass law as required.

First thing on the agenda will be the promise of reducing the dail and senate to a more realistic number. New election will again follow the same format as the one before, Ideally at least 31 members of New Democracy will be elected in the 2nd election again giving control of the reduced dail .

Now we have a chance to take some decisions that would benifit the country not just the usual blood suckers.

Personally I would like to see the new government standardise the tax system, abolish all of the stealth tax's and levies, take back our natural resources and infastructure and fishing rights, make all public transport free, outlaw clamping, make parking free again in public parking spots, make all buildings have a water harvesting facility, make teachers work the same number of days as everyone else, abolish the minimum wage, abolish the premium on sunday working, bring in social conscription, make bankruptcy 3 years, outlaw recourse mortgages, make all home harvested energy free, abolish road tax, abolish stamp duty, abolish airport tax. 

Anyway theres my ramblings.


----------



## Chris

Purple said:


> I agree with everything you say but even if, by some miracle, the government and people wanted a properly run economy based on sound economic principles I see a major stumbling block when it comes to framing legislation. I simply don’t thing the senior officials in the respective government departments are capable of writing a finance bill or constructing legislation to create a properly regulated financial system that punished white collar criminals. While corruption and cronyism has been a major problem in Ireland since the foundation of the state in my opinion gross incompetence by our political leaders and the upper echelons of the civil and public service was the catalyst this time.



I don't think it should be coming up with laws on how to run an economy, but rather with rules restricting the government's power to intervene and "run" the economy in the first place, as this is at the core of this and all past financial crises. This is not difficult at all to achieve.


----------



## plendoza

*Modern day Bloodless revolution*
I see the current political establisment as an impediment to resolving  our countries problems as they have a vested interest in maintaining the  status quo. So as a starting point we need a modern day bloodless  revolution.

Dont waste your time I say. Best thing is to keep the current lot in power, let things take their natural course and the IMF can come in and slash the public costs etc. This will be the quickest way to sort things out. Anyone who thinks the opposition or any politicans can sort this mess out is dreaming. Bring on the armegeddon that's what I say


----------



## number7

plendoza said:


> *Modern day Bloodless revolution*
> I see the current political establisment as an impediment to resolving our countries problems as they have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. So as a starting point we need a modern day bloodless revolution.
> 
> Dont waste your time I say. Best thing is to keep the current lot in power, let things take their natural course and the IMF can come in and slash the public costs etc. This will be the quickest way to sort things out. Anyone who thinks the opposition or any politicans can sort this mess out is dreaming. Bring on the armegeddon that's what I say


 
Or we could do that.


----------



## Chris

plendoza said:


> *Modern day Bloodless revolution*
> I see the current political establisment as an impediment to resolving  our countries problems as they have a vested interest in maintaining the  status quo. So as a starting point we need a modern day bloodless  revolution.
> 
> Dont waste your time I say. Best thing is to keep the current lot in power, let things take their natural course and the IMF can come in and slash the public costs etc. This will be the quickest way to sort things out. Anyone who thinks the opposition or any politicans can sort this mess out is dreaming. Bring on the armegeddon that's what I say



Yes indeed, the financial crisis was created by governments and their central banks; they neither have the vested interest nor political will nor brains to do what is needed. The recession is the cure to the crisis and every single politician is suggesting "solutions" to end the cure. While I don't agree with most of what the IMF come out with I agree that they would do a better job.


----------



## csirl

Below is a post I made on another thread on this forum. It bugs me that people keep on asking when the IMF are coming when the reality is, that as bad as things are here, they are not as bad as other countries such as our neighbours, the UK. 

The reality is that the IMF will be in the UK before they are in Ireland, so dont worry about them coming here until they turn up there. 

Interestingly, a lot of the negative press about Ireland seems to stem from "reports" from financial institutions. Do these institutions have a vested interest in throwing the spotlight off other countries and onto Ireland? Answer is yes, especially if they are nationalised/partially nationalised or dependant on guarantees from a government or receiving loan repayments from a government. Financial institutes wont bite off the hand that feeds them and if the IMF were to go into the UK, a lot of UK and US banks would lose out.



> According to the IMF's own projections, the general Government debt in Ireland will be 93% of GDP and the budget deficit will be 11.5% by the end of 2011. The corresponding figures for the UK are 94% and 12.5%.
> 
> Therefore, however bad we've got it, the UK is in a worse off position and, according to IMF figures, more likely to go bust.
> 
> The debt figures for USA and France will be even worse at 100% and 99% respectively.
> 
> So you must ask yourself the question, why so much negative press for Ireland? You would think that given that the UK is a much bigger economy and is in worse shape than Ireland, that it would be getting all the headlines?


----------



## Chris

I agree with you that the US and UK are in far worse shape. But the difference is that their monetary policies are focusing on inflating away their debts, which is basically a dishonest way of defaulting. 
While the ECB is also on an infaltionary path, their actions so far have been no where near as inflationary as the US and UK. So from that point of view I believe that the IMF will not be called into the UK and the US before Ireland. 
There would also be not much point for the IMF to go into the US and UK as they could not cover even a fraction of their debt levels.


----------



## z107

> The reality is that the IMF will be in the UK before they are in Ireland, so dont worry about them coming here until they turn up there.


I'm not worried about them coming in. I want them to!
Unfortunately, they have to be invited.


----------



## Booter

number7 said:


> This country has a fiscal deficit as well as a banking crisis, you have managed to completely ignore the most important one. They can not be dealt with seperately.
> 
> The fiscal deficit is 20billion PER ANUM, your cuts in income and benifits and levies are trying to address the fiscal deficit.
> 
> The banking bailout is going to cost 39 billion give or take a few billion, That money will be borrowed and the repayments will increase the burden on the exchequer therefore also increasing the amount of taxation that will have to be raised.
> 
> The fiscal deficit is by far the greater issue.
> 
> To try and give a basic annalogy.
> 
> I earn €30,000 but my outgoings are €50,000. I also have discovered that my wife has been very naughty and run up her credit card to €50,000. (lots of shoes)
> 
> I am desperately trying to cut my outgoings to bring the figure down towards the €30,000 income while at the same time I am trying to increase my income(this is the fiscal deficit). I am also having to bailout my wifes credit card debt and fund the repayments of that(bank bailout).
> 
> This thread is looking at the cuts being made to bridge the gap between income and expenditure and confusing it with the repayments being arranged for the finance of the bank bailout.
> 
> Society can not be based on the individual, it must allow for the collective. We have, weather we like it or not, a collective financial issue, the burden of this will not be shared equally just as the benifits of a good economy are not shared equally.
> 
> Suck it up bud, and get used to it theres more to come.



Great analogy. It would have been almost perfect if the credit card belonged to someone else's wife, and you were being forced against your will to assume the debt!


----------



## csirl

Anglo has a high percentage of loans in relation to UK properties. Cant provide a link, but I remember reading somewhere that the % was much higher than those for other banks. And that a lot of the bonder holders (even a majority?) are UK based.

Someone mentioned an interesting theory to me recently - that maybe the refusal to pull the plug on Anglo is for political rather than financial reasons.

Firesale of Anglo loans, properties etc. would hit the UK very hard. Property market in London is fragile right now, may not take much to set off a chain of events. This coupled with bond holder losses, would have a material effect on their economy. And, as we've seen from IMF data, UK is in a more fragile state than Ireland.

The political reason is Northern Ireland, which is totally dependant on State subsidies from UK taxpayer. UK gets into further trouble, particularly if that trouble is perceived to be due to Ireland, then the appetite and ability to subsidise NI goes. Particularly with conservatives in power. Net result is cuts to NI budget, consequential mass unemployment up there which will result in social disorder thus risking a return of sectarianism and the break down of the Good Friday agreement. 

This theory may be a bit far fetched, but who knows. There's no other explaination for the Governments lack of action.


----------



## z107

Very interesting theory csirl.

At this stage, I am convinced it's not for financial reasons that the plug has not been pulled on Anglo. No one is that stupid or incompetent that they would keep pumping billions into it, so it must be something else.

I had always thought it was for good old corruption reasons.


----------



## Claire1956

csirl, i think you theory is the most plausible to date.


----------



## Purple

Was Anglo really that big a player in the UK property market?


----------



## Latrade

csirl said:


> Someone mentioned an interesting theory to me recently - that maybe the refusal to pull the plug on Anglo is for political rather than financial reasons.


 
I think that side of the theory is pretty much spot on. While the wool was pulled over people's eyes as to the extent just how much it will cost to save Anglo by the bank, i think there was a political willingness to believe those figures and reports due to exposure in the UK.

However, i think extending that to NI is the far-fetched side of the theory. I don't believe that card was played, I do think there would have been pressure put on, but not with NI in mind.


----------



## tiger

umop3p!sdn said:


> Very interesting theory csirl.
> 
> At this stage, I am convinced it's not for financial reasons that the plug has not been pulled on Anglo. No one is that stupid or incompetent that they would keep pumping billions into it, so it must be something else.
> 
> I had always thought it was for good old corruption reasons.


 
I doubt it was done to protect the UK property market.
However I am of the belief it was not done to protect the depositors and bond holders, but rather to protect the borrowers (Sean Quinn & others).


----------



## csirl

Purple said:


> Was Anglo really that big a player in the UK property market?


 
I think so. Remember reading something about it recently, but can't find the article online. A lot loaned to Irish people investing in UK projects.

Anglo has only 1 office in Ireland. It has 5 in the UK.


----------



## Protocol

[broken link removed]


Anglo have several offices in Ireland - Cork, Galway, etc.


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## shnaek

Removed


----------



## Protocol

Another group exposed on RTE's Consumer show this evening as not doing their fair share - the pharmacists.

Yet another massively profitable group fighting to retain their massive incomes and margins.

The Govt negoiated with the manufacturers to reduce costs, fair enough.

The Govt decided to reduce the wholesale margin from 17.64% to 10%.  Up to half of this margin was being shared with pharmacists.

Then they cut the margin on DPS drugs from 50% to 20%, but also increaed the dispensing fee.

At long last says I, price drops, great, not as many complaints about the prices in Irl vs UK, Spain, etc.

*Now it turns out that they still use the 50% mark-up.*

A good while ago a poster here mentioned that a Dublin pharmacist was drawing 40,000 per month in profit.  Unreal.


----------



## RMCF

Artists ?


----------



## Neg Covenant

[broken link removed]

John McHale (NUIG): 
_The social partners, while battered from their recent experiences, could also play a role in preparing their constituencies for the pain they will face in the context of a fair overall fiscal adjustment. *Each group will always feel they should bear less and others more, but hopefully the best (or better) will not be allowed to become the enemy of the good.* Shared understanding of national challenges is one of the things social partnership is supposed to be about._


----------



## goosebump

csirl said:


> Dont want to debate whether or not we should pay to bail out banks as this is debated eslewhere - for the record, I dont agree with bailing out Anglo. Just want to
> 
> Lets assume that the banking crisis is going to cost us €50bn - which is higher than the figures in the mid 30s being bandied around right now.
> 
> With a population of 4.25m, this equates to €11,764 per capita.
> 
> Paid over a 10 year period, it equates to €1,176.4 per annum or €22.62 per week.
> 
> 
> I, for one, am paying multiples of this amount in additional taxation/levies. So is my wife. So we are paying more than our fair share.



Sorry to state the blindingly obvious here, but the extra tax your paying has nothing to do with Anglo or the Banking crisis. The banks are currently being funded with promissory notes, which they are using for  collateral for borrowing. When we start honouring those notes, then you'll be paying for the banking crisis.

The extra tax you are currently paying concerns reducing our €20bn current account deficit to €16bn, of which about €2bn is tax increases.

That €2bn is spread out across the income tax base, ranging from people who earn > €100k pa who are paying an extra 12% and people who earn less than €15k pa who are paying nothing extra.

If you are paying a lot more than €22 per week in extra tax, you're clearly in a higher income bracket.

Welcome to the world of progressive taxation.


----------



## Chris

Protocol said:


> *Now it turns out that they still use the 50% mark-up.*



If pharmacists and their businesses are "price gouging" and taking the public for a ride, and profit opportunity is so high, then why is there not an ever increasing stream of more pharmacies?
Basic economics dictates that if demand increases while supply stays the same, then prices rise. In the case of pharmacies, the state controls its numbers directly through restricting licences and applying a huge cost to the actual licence. Pharmacists are also limited to what suppliers they use, i.e. they cannot go to a cheaper Spanish supplier.
You want to blame someone for high pharmacy prices? Blame government interference.


----------



## fobs

Chris said:


> If pharmacists and their businesses are "price gouging" and taking the public for a ride, and profit opportunity is so high, then why is there not an ever increasing stream of more pharmacies?
> Basic economics dictates that if demand increases while supply stays the same, then prices rise. In the case of pharmacies, the state controls its numbers directly through restricting licences and applying a huge cost to the actual licence. Pharmacists are also limited to what suppliers they use, i.e. they cannot go to a cheaper Spanish supplier.
> You want to blame someone for high pharmacy prices? Blame government interference.


 
THere are 5 pharmacists in the small town where I live. 2 opened in the last 3 years and 2 others had major refurbishment. Lots of other retail businesses have closed in the town including fashion,pubs etc... so there must be plenty of profit still to be made.


----------



## Complainer

Chris said:


> You want to blame someone for high pharmacy prices? Blame government interference.


What interference?


----------



## number7

What do you mean suggesting that the government is actually doing something, thats slander.


----------



## Protocol

Chris said:


> If pharmacists and their businesses are "price gouging" and taking the public for a ride, and profit opportunity is so high, then why is there not an ever increasing stream of more pharmacies?
> 
> *There is. There has been an expansion of the numbers of outlets, as it is so profitable.*
> 
> 
> Basic economics dictates that if demand increases while supply stays the same, then prices rise. In the case of pharmacies, the state controls its numbers directly through restricting licences and applying a huge cost to the actual licence.
> 
> *I don't know that the State charge for the right to have a HSE pharmacy contract?  They issue the contracts, yes, but I don't think the contracts can be traded, unlike pub licences.*
> 
> Pharmacists are also limited to what suppliers they use, i.e. they cannot go to a cheaper Spanish supplier.
> 
> *Yes, fair enough, their wholesale cost is fixed by negotiations between the State and the suppliers.*
> 
> *Note that the wholesale mark-up used to be 17.65%, and that the wholesalers passed on maybe half of this mark-up as discounts to the pharmacy.*
> 
> *(NB: of the 3 wholesalers, some own pharmacies, some are owned by pharmacies)*
> 
> *Recently, the HSE decided to pay a 10% wholesale mark-up, which is still plenty, IMO.*
> 
> You want to blame someone for high pharmacy prices? Blame government interference.
> 
> *The new deal offers pharmacies a 5 euro fee per prescription, for the first 20,000 transactions.  This is a big increase on the old fees.*
> 
> *In return, the DPS retail mark-up on the wholesale cost was reduced from 50% to 20%, which is reasonable, IMO.*
> 
> *Yet some still use the old 50% mark-up.*


 
..


----------



## Protocol

The key point that I am trying to make is that many people are willing to take pay cuts, if they see prices fall.

I took two pay cuts.

But then I see pharmacists refusing to cut their massive margins.

*We are all in this together.*  Where is their solidarity?  Their massive profits must fall to more normal European levels.

Costs and prices must fall.


----------



## iball123

*Depressing*

Hi all,

First time poster here. I think today will go down in Irish history as one of the blackest days ever with the full cost of the banks. Having said that it is shown that the full bailout will be 59 billion put another 10/11 billion on to this and 70 billion will probably be the final figure. I have yet to see this government get a figure right. So if we are paying 70billion back. Thats one thing. What should be done is bondholders should be paying there share they took the risk and should lose everything but some kind of deal should be done with them.

But this is not our problem this is a once off payment and will last say 10 years. Our problem is the 20 billion a year deficit that we have and the silly croke park aggrement which means that 70% of what pay out which is wages to the public sector can not be cut. The other 30% which is used for actual services such as roads health, etc will have to be cut.

Now I would like to ask Brian Cowen 1 simple question and if he can answer this and prove that he is spending it wisely I will vote him in again in 2 years or when ever we have an election

*Question is : what are my taxes used for.*

I pay nearly 25% of my wage to the gov.

Now on a day to day basis I get up in the morning in my pjs -VAT

I go wash my face and brush my teeth - soap/toothpaste -VAT and water charges are set to come in

I eat my brekkie - More VAT and FAT 

I drive to work - CAR - VAT, Road Tax, Petrol - VAT, M50 toll

I work - see above 25%

My kids go to school (wow something free here - no wait books, uniforms, trips - not really free is it)

I have an accident I call an ambulance/fire brigade there is now a charge for this. I have to pay medical costs aswell

I drink a beer more vat...

I go home depressed and think of the new property tax I will have to face in the next budget even do I have paid circa nearly 50k on stamp duty

So Mr Cowen where does this 25% of my wage go. 
Its not on roads - I am paying for this
Its not on hospital or medical care -I am paying for this
Its not on food - I am paying for this
I will give you schooling - but if I can stop paying tax I would save a bundle sending my kids to private school.

I dont know guys I think that the guy in the middle, earning a middle wage is being f$%£$cked in the ass. Its so depressing and the worse thing is and I know I had a slight dig at the public sector above but it has everyone regardless of the category your in 

Public sector
Unemployed
Middle the road
OAP
foreigner

Everyone is now fighting with each other an no one to date bar the truck driver who rammed the gates at leinster house no one has done anything or are we all waiting for the 1916 centernary to come around?


----------



## Protocol

Here's an example of where some of your taxes go:

Example couple, both retired, one aged 70.

Public sector pensioner = 700 pw typical pension
OACP pensioner = 230 pw

They both get medical cards, even though they earn approx 1000 pw.
They both get free travel.
They will get the Household Benefit Package (free TV licence, subsidised elec and telephone)
They did not suffer any cut in pension.

They do not pay the Health levy or Income levy

They pay very little tax.


----------



## Purple

Protocol said:


> Here's an example of where some of your taxes go:
> 
> Example couple, both retired, one aged 70.
> 
> Public sector pensioner = 700 pw typical pension
> OACP pensioner = 230 pw
> 
> They both get medical cards, even though they earn approx 1000 pw.
> They both get free travel.
> They will get the Household Benefit Package (free TV licence, subsidised elec and telephone)
> They did not suffer any cut in pension.
> 
> They do not pay the Health levy or Income levy
> 
> They pay very little tax.



I agree. The one group that is definitely not paying their far share is well off pensioners. When the government tried to take the medical card from the ones earning over 1350 per week the selfish louts had the audacity and gall to protest about it. Shame on them.


----------



## Mynydd

edit


----------



## Kev

I am a pensioner and live in the UK; I have to work part time to subsidies my state pension of £150 a week.  I pay tax on my earnings and all income over 6k a year and if I got saving I pay tax on interest on that also as it is classed as income.  

  Free travel here is only in the borough/county that pensioners reside in and that is for buses only, which the cuts in the next couple of week will take that away also. The new collision government will be given pensioners an increase pension by changing it to wage related from next April.  As it is at present I remember a couple of years ago we got 75p rise a price of a loaf of bread.  Also from next year the threshold for pensioners and low earners will be going up to 10k a year before they pay tax. 

  We do not get free travel on trains outside the borough we live in and it is only available in some boroughs not all and where it is available there is a restriction on it that pensioners cannot travel on it before 9.30 am. 

  I think Ireland is very generous to pensioners unlike the UK. 



Also the sick notes for people with a disability has changed and it stats on what you can do instead of what you cannot do due to a disabiliy or illness.


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## hauliesleap

Oct).


----------



## Protocol

By this do you mean employed wage-earning PAYE pharmacists?

Or owner-phamacists who earn profits?


It is the excessive profit margins of the business that I am criticising, not the wages of any regular pharmacy staff.


----------



## z107

> Some pharmacists have also taken TWO pay cuts.
> 
> Prices of drugs have also fallen TWICE already this year (Feb and Oct).


So?
What's your point exactly?

I'm still far better off getting medication abroad and hoping it's not confiscated by customs.


----------



## Complainer

hauliesleap said:


> Some pharmacists have also taken TWO pay cuts.



From what level?


----------



## Perplexed

Do you really begrudge pensioners having a decent living ?  These are the people who brought up their children pre Celtic Tiger, got measly childrens allowances & had to pay fees to put them through college, and for the most part lived fairly frugal lives. Also unlike nowadays contraception wasn't available so a lot of the children weren't even planned.
They paid horrendous taxes during the 80's. I believe they deserve any break they get now.

I actually admire them for their protest!!!


----------



## z107

> I actually admire them for their protest!!


So do I.

I also admire cement truck guy, despite what the underlying circumstances for his protest might be (failed developer) At least he did something and made international news.

I don't think it's any good me sitting here letting the government do this. I'm as meek as a lamb - meanwhile the government walks all over me.


----------



## Dirtypeasant

umop3p!sdn said:


> So do I.
> 
> I also admire cement truck guy, despite what the underlying circumstances for his protest might be (failed developer) At least he did something and made international news.
> 
> I don't think it's any good me sitting here letting the government do this. I'm as meek as a lamb - meanwhile the government walks all over me.



I agree.


----------



## venice

> Do you really begrudge pensioners having a decent living ?


 
No, however I think priority should be given to the young, not trying to sound heartless but the young are the future while the old are the past. Any money available should be invested in education and special needs in schools.


----------



## Protocol

Perplexed said:


> Do you really begrudge pensioners having a decent living ?
> I actually admire them for their protest!!!


 
No, and I would not cut the OACP.

However, I do begrudge pensioners earning 750pw paying 0% income tax, when everybody else has taken a pay cut, or tax rise, or both.

I also begrudge pensioners over 70 getting the Household Benefits package (free TV licence, subsidised elec and telecom) even though they have high incomes.

Example: Garret Fitzgerald qualifies for the Household Benefits package, as do all sitting and retires TDs aged over 70.  This is even though they may earn 100-200k.


----------



## Perplexed

Perhaps the Benefits package should be means tested. 
I had in mind your average pensioner, who contributed to a pension scheme, as well as PRSI.
I don't think that one size fits all. 
It's the same with the Childrens Allowance etc.  I see no reason why this shouldn't be means tested either.


----------



## Purple

Perplexed said:


> Perhaps the Benefits package should be means tested.
> I had in mind your average pensioner, who contributed to a pension scheme, as well as PRSI.
> I don't think that one size fits all.
> It's the same with the Childrens Allowance etc.  I see no reason why this shouldn't be means tested either.



The pensioners who protested outside the Dail were the ones earning over €1340 a week who didn't think they should pay their already sibsidised (community rated) health insurance of around €25 a week and for their GP visits. basically a bunch of selfish rich people looking to keep their hand-outs.


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## z104

Means test everything. This is the fairest way.


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## hauliesleap

umop3p!sdn said:


> So?
> What's your point exactly?
> 
> I'm still far better off getting medication abroad and hoping it's not confiscated by customs.


 
Of course you're better off going abroad but you'll have lost the saving on the cost of the flights


----------



## Purple

Niallers said:


> Means test everything. This is the fairest way.



That's a very expensive way of doing things. Don't give hand-outs to rich old people, remove the public sector pension levy and reduce pay by the same amount instead, thus reducing pensions, and tax all childrens allowance. Then get everyone earning over €10'000 a year into the PAYE tax net. That would be a good start.


----------



## z107

> Of course you're better off going abroad but you'll have lost the saving on the cost of the flights


If you use the post, you don't have to physically visit the countries.
If you are in the country anyway, it certainly makes sense to get medication while you are there.

With more expensive medication, maybe it would still make financial sense to get a cheap flight!


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## hauliesleap

..


----------



## hauliesleap

ner.


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## z107

> If you order online there is a danger you could end up buying counterfeit medication.


I suppose if you buy from some random pharmacy, that could happen

However, there are also very reputable pharmacies online.


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## Purple

Starting salaries for Pharmacists a few years ago were as high as €70’000 a year. Is this still the case? 

In many cases, the cases where the highest cost drugs are being prescribed, the Pharmacist is completely unnecessary. These are the cases where very sick people have their entire healthcare micro-manager by their consultant. 

The notion that the pharmacist is a safeguard against the patient taking drugs that have side-effects with other drugs they are taking is also flawed; I can fill a prescription in any pharmacist in the country. There’s little chance that a pharmacist will know most patient histories that well. 

Pharmacists are yet another group of self-important people who have enjoyed super normal profits for years due to restrictive entry to their sector. The points that were/are required to study it in university are indicative of this; people wanted to do it because they knew it was a very well paid job, not because it was exciting or rewarding (no 6 year old lies awake at night dreaming of being a pharmacist).  
Don’t get me wrong; doctors are worse, with even more self-important assumptions of entitlement, for example many GP’s still think that they should get paid €500 to €600 a day for 4-6 hours work and get their knickers in a twist about the HSE cutting their payments for medical card patients by a few percent. There’s two groups that are still not paying their fair share; pharmacists and doctors, add them to well off pensioners.


----------



## Chris

Purple said:


> Pharmacists are yet another group of self-important people who have enjoyed super normal profits for years due to restrictive entry to their sector. The points that were/are required to study it in university are indicative of this; people wanted to do it because they knew it was a very well paid job, not because it was exciting or rewarding (no 6 year old lies awake at night dreaming of being a pharmacist).



I actually think that more important than restricting the amount of pharmacist that qualify is the restriction and financial hurdle oput in place on pharmacy businesses. I think wages and profits should always be as high a level as attracts most competition.

@hauliesleap, as you are a professional in the medication business, maybe you could confirm to us how difficult it would be for you open your own pharmacy, from a licence and cost of licence point of view alone, i.e. dealing with government. Your post already hinted at the restrictions that are placed on where a pharmacist can source medication. This does mean that your boss cannot buy the same drugs cheaper in another country, isn't it?

All these things are forms of government intervention "for the public good", which result in higher costs to the consumer. I really do not care how much someone in the private sector is paid or how high their profits are. If it were so easy to make such huge profits then a lot more entrepreneurs would be attracted. So either it is an extremely difficult business to be in, or something is standing in the way of allowing more competition.


----------



## truthseeker

umop3p!sdn said:


> I suppose if you buy from some random pharmacy, that could happen
> 
> However, there are also very reputable pharmacies online.


 
You can check the bona fides of any online pharmacy. I use a place in the UK, not for prescription meds, but simply for cheaper bits and pieces (things like heat patches) - before I ever used them I checked out who the website was really registered to, and also the company registration info of the pharmacy itself. 

The savings are definitely there to be made - presctiption meds or not.


----------



## Purple

Chris said:


> I actually think that more important than restricting the amount of pharmacist that qualify is the restriction and financial hurdle oput in place on pharmacy businesses. I think wages and profits should always be as high a level as attracts most competition.
> 
> @hauliesleap, as you are a professional in the medication business, maybe you could confirm to us how difficult it would be for you open your own pharmacy, from a licence and cost of licence point of view alone, i.e. dealing with government. Your post already hinted at the restrictions that are placed on where a pharmacist can source medication. This does mean that your boss cannot buy the same drugs cheaper in another country, isn't it?
> 
> All these things are forms of government intervention "for the public good", which result in higher costs to the consumer. I really do not care how much someone in the private sector is paid or how high their profits are. If it were so easy to make such huge profits then a lot more entrepreneurs would be attracted. So either it is an extremely difficult business to be in, or something is standing in the way of allowing more competition.



Medication is licensed by the Irish  Medicines Board. This is an utterly unnecessary function of a body of questionable necessity. All medications will first be licensed by the EU and the IMB will then rubber stamp their approval for the Irish market. Sometimes they restrict or change the labelling but it’s all pretty superficial and acts as a barrier to the European single market. Without their active cooperation with the pharmaceutical companies we could all source our medicines from any pharmacy in the EU. Simple legislation requiring that the supplier must ship the goods with packaging in a language that the purchaser specifies is all that is necessary.  

We all know that the ability to control supply allows the supplier to earn huge profits (super normal profits). It was true for taxi drivers pre deregulation and it is true for pharmacists and doctors. I agree that price control is not the answer, I am never in favour of price controls, the answer is open access to the market.


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## Kev

Your should see the amount of medication that is prescribed by GP for care homes, which is not necessary for patients.   A matron of a care home told me that they could not manager without certain drugs for some their patients as they do not have other means of helping the patients and making time for carers to keep the home looking good for visitors and protentional clients, I could go on but I think the post will be deleted by moderator.


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## hauliesleap

*!!*


----------



## Purple

hauliesleap said:


> The days of starting on 70K are history. It is as low as 35K now, going up to circa 45K.


 So the day you walk out of college you might earn as little as €35’000? The good news is that is a fantastic starting salary for anyone.




hauliesleap said:


> Too right, "Doctors are worse"
> 
> Pharmacy has been hit much harder than doctors!!!


Pharmacists were paying themselves far more than GP’s and let’s be honest, a doctor is a far more skilled job. Most of what a pharmacist does can be done by reading the MIMS. The ability to count is also necessary.


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## truthseeker

Purple said:


> Most of what a pharmacist does can be done by reading the MIMS. The ability to count is also necessary.


 
Ive often wondered about this. Why cant I just buy my medications without the middle man? If a doctor says I need 'xyz' so what if a pharmacist gives it to me or a regular person gives it to me? What special knowledge is required to read the prescription and count the correct number of XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX? Ive never ever had a pharmacist change what was prescribed. Ive also worked in a pharmacy and could not see what special job the pharmacist was doing by comparison to just an average joe soap looking for the correctly named item on the shelf.


----------



## hauliesleap

I'd


----------



## Purple

hauliesleap said:


> I'd like to see a doctor perform difficult pharmaceutical calculations and make up extemp preps in a hospital or act as a qualified person in an industrial environment.
> Pharmacists aren't just qualified to fling labels on boxes in a shop.
> Doctors study on average 50 hours of pharmacology during their university course whereas we spend nealy the whole 4 years on pharmacy related subjects.
> I'd like to see you get a 1st in pharmacy and by the way I had 575 points in my LC and could have done medicine and I still could. Doctors know very little on interactions and side effects, they have to go to refer to their "little book" called MIMS.
> The way you guys are talking we may as well go to Dublin zoo and train a few monkeys to operate a dispensary computer. Don't belittle the job of a pharmacist when you know nothing about the job or course. Your average Joe Soap wouldn't get through the tricky pharmacy exams. You guys make me laugh!!!


I'm related to a pharmacist. They spend most of their time reading an order, taking the order and putting it on a bottle or box, printing a label on it and putting it in a bag. The interactions that drugs may have with other drugs is important but the Doctor, with the aid of a MIMS and the information that they get from the drug companies, can deal with that. While a pharmacist may ask the relevant questions about two drugs that are being prescribed at the same time they are far less likely than the GP that prescribed them to know the full patient medical history and so are less likely to be able to spot a potential problem with existing medication. 

Pharmacy has very high points in the leaving cert because of the demand for the course. There is high demand because of the  money that pharmacists can earn. I’m not saying it is easy but it’s no harder than many courses that have far lower points requirements. Pharmacists, like so many other “professionals” in this country, think that they, by virtue of their qualification alone, are somehow entitled to a high income.

Doctors very much fall into that group. My sister in law is a GP in the UK. She earns around one third of what a GP here earns.


----------



## hauliesleap

..


----------



## Purple

hauliesleap said:


> I don't want to argue anymore. The fact of the matter is and you will agree with me on this one is that most people earned far too much and some people are still earning far too much.
> I know it is scandalous what pharmacists and doctors get paid here compared to the UK. €50-70 here to see a GP when it is free in the UK and £6.85 for every prescription item in the UK regardless of the cost price.
> If the IMF come in, it will be very easy to talk to us then. I for one will be out of here in a flash.



It isn't free to see a GP in the UK, if it was the GP would not get paid (nor would their staff). It is paid for through taxation, i.e. it is a universal welfare payment to all people who visit a GP. Universal payments are a bad idea as those who can afford to pay for it don't. The problem is the amount GP's (and others) expect to earn and do earn.


----------



## Kev

How much do GP's get paid in Ireland, in UK they are grossely overpaid.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/stand...out-high-salaries-says-pound-300000-doctor.do


----------



## Chris

Purple said:


> It isn't free to see a GP in the UK, if it was the GP would not get paid (nor would their staff). It is paid for through taxation, i.e. it is a universal welfare payment to all people who visit a GP. Universal payments are a bad idea as those who can afford to pay for it don't. The problem is the amount GP's (and others) expect to earn and do earn.



Very important point and one that politicians love to bring up. Just like those public health services here that you do not pay for when you use them, they are not free, we pay for them through taxation. Even a child with no income pays tax when making any purchase that attracts VAT.
All those wonderful "cheap" services like the Libraries? Paid for out of our taxes.
Wonder why there is little or no competition to public transport? Private companies cannot compete with the subsidised public service, paid for out of taxation.
Wonder why UPS don't offer regular postal like service of letters? Cannot be done at the price directly charged by An Post without subsidy from the taxpayer.
Of course these arguments will attract the typical political and socialist response of "if government didn't provide and subsidise these services they wouldn't exist or people couldn't afford them". How then is it that people can afford to buy food from private enterprises, or shoes, or any of the other daily necessities and niceties?
Apologies, rant over.


----------



## Purple

Who's not paying their fair share?
Well when you compare us to the European average for income tax take as a proportion of total income the low to middle paid are not. The "well off", those on around €70'000 a year pay around 75% of the EU average. People on €35'000 pay around 25% of the EU average.
So, the old and the poor, that's who we need to hit first


----------



## Complainer

Chris said:


> Of course these arguments will attract the typical political and socialist response of "if government didn't provide and subsidise these services they wouldn't exist or people couldn't afford them". How then is it that people can afford to buy food from private enterprises, or shoes, or any of the other daily necessities and niceties?



Yep, here's the typical response.

Food and shoes are just a little bit different from roads, and from education, and from disability residential services, and from environmental protection regulation. Governments are not businesses, and those who seek to run them like businesses are on the wrong track completely.


----------



## Chris

Complainer said:


> Food and shoes are just a little bit different from roads, and from education, and from disability residential services, and from environmental protection regulation. Governments are not businesses, and those who seek to run them like businesses are on the wrong track completely.



How so? Food and clothing are some of the most basic human necessities. The socialist argument that all these services would not exist if it weren't for government cannot be backed up by any facts.
Let's take a look at history. 
Socialism has been tried and has failed on every single occasion. There is not one success story.
Free market capitalism has been tried and has succeeded on every single occasion. Most notably the industrial revolution, but the most recent success was West Germany after WWII. Erhard told the occupying allies that he was going to put an end to all price controls, abolish the punitive taxes that attempted to redistribute wealth, ended minimum wages, pretty much everything that the SPD said was going to ruin the country. What happened? Within days shops were filled with goods and Germany experienced an "economic miracle". Houses were rebuilt by private individuals and companies, until after a few years the government decided to regulate the residential housing market. This resulted in shortage and lower quality residential housing while commercial real estate, which was not regulated, was flourishing.
Look at what the private sector and capitalism has achieved:
- electric lighting was once reserved for the richest, now ubiquitous
- central heating was once reserved for the richest, now ubiquitous
- high protein and diverse diets were once reserved for the richest, now ubiquitous
- telephony was once reserved for the richest, now ubiquitous
- computers were once reserved for the richest, now ubiquitous
- antibiotics were once reserved for the richest, now ubiquitous
- flat screen TVs were once reserved for the richest, now ubiquitous
- air travel was once reserved for the richest, now ubiquitous

Now let's look at what government monopolies have achieved:
- schools while widely available are bad
- roads while widely available are bad
- health care somewhat available is bad
- the list goes and stretches all its services

How is running government like a business being on the wrong track? Are you seriously suggesting that it is ok for government to waste billions of taxpayer's money?
Government should be restricted from what it can forcefully take from individuals and companies to then dictate what is done with it and monopolies the service.


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## alastair

Post-war German recovery under Erhard?

Massive Marshall Plan subvention - check
State road building without tolls - check
Mandatory health insurance - check
State education system - check
Social welfare system - check

Free Market Capitalism? Not really. Smacks of another variation on the successful Social Democracy model tbh.


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## Chris

alastair said:


> Post-war German recovery under Erhard?
> 
> Massive Marshall Plan subvention - check
> State road building without tolls - check
> Mandatory health insurance - check
> State education system - check
> Social welfare system - check
> 
> Free Market Capitalism? Not really. Smacks of another variation on the successful Social Democracy model tbh.



I think you need to get you facts in place first:
1) Massive Marshall Plan subvention: the Marshall plan was in place from 47 to 51. The receivers of the largest amounts were UK, Sweden and Greece, and their economies grew least at the time and recovered later than others. The receivers of the lowest amounts were Germany, Austria and Italy, and their economies recovered fastest. In addition to this, economic recovery and boom happened *after* the plan ended and market prices were no longer dictated by the US. The Marshall plan forced the receivers of the money to spend it on US products shipped by US companies. This resulted in domestic demand being reduced and therefore a strain on the domestic economy.
2) German construction boom came mainly from rebuilding houses. It was the famous "Trummerfrauen" (rubble-women) who collected bricks from the rubble and sold them to private builders who were rebuilding houses at an enormous speed.
3) Health insurance in Germany was/is mandatory, but private
4) Education is indeed state run, but is not counted in economic wealth or growth
5) Social welfare was less than under Hitler and Bismarck. Germany didn't become a welfare state until Helmut Schmidt in the 70s. Apart from that welfare does not create an economic boom.

Erhard was a free market advocate who strongly opposed all policies recommended by the SPD. The SPD at the time said that getting rid of price controls was not only going to be ineffective but would result in even less food for sale. As it turned out, the exact opposite happened.
Erhard's policies reduced government intervention and price controls against all attempts by allied occupiers and socialists to keep price controls in place.
Hans Sennholz gives a nice summary in this article: http://mises.org/daily/3635
Here are some further articles on the era and Marshall plan that explain why it made things worse not better:
http://mises.org/freemarket_detail.aspx?control=120
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/GermanEconomicMiracle.html


----------



## RonanC

Chris said:


> Free market capitalism has been tried and has succeeded on every single occasion.


 
Free market capitalism and the greed has got us into the mess that we are now in... Banks wanted no interference from the state, no further state regulation because they were regulated enough already and sure they were all fine if you listened to Seanie and his mates.


----------



## T McGibney

RonanC said:


> Free market capitalism and the greed has got us into the mess that we are now in... Banks wanted no interference from the state, no further state regulation because they were regulated enough already and sure they were all fine if you listened to Seanie and his mates.



Free market capitalism has nothing to do with the combination of kleptocracy and incompetent public sector administration that bled Ireland dry in the past decade.


----------



## RonanC

T McGibney said:


> Free market capitalism has nothing to do with the sort of kleptocracy that bled Ireland dry in the past decade.


 
The Government is to blame for the decisions it took with tax amongst others, but the banking system who made billions in profits while recklessly trading and then putting out its hand for help at the very last minute.


----------



## T McGibney

RonanC said:


> The Government is to blame for the decisions it took with tax amongst others, but the banking system who made billions in profits while recklessly trading and then putting out its hand for help at the very last minute.



But neither phenomenon can hardly be properly described as free market capitalism?


----------



## shnaek

RonanC said:


> Free market capitalism and the greed has got us into the mess that we are now in... Banks wanted no interference from the state, no further state regulation because they were regulated enough already and sure they were all fine if you listened to Seanie and his mates.



This is the mantra at this stage, but you have to ask yourself - "cui bono"? Putting the blame on capitalism and free markets deflects the blame from government and regulators - the main culprits in this mess.


----------



## RonanC

shnaek said:


> This is the mantra at this stage, but you have to ask yourself - "cui bono"? Putting the blame on capitalism and free markets deflects the blame from government and regulators - the main culprits in this mess.


 
And they are still in power and some others still in their jobs while some have retired on nice pensions


----------



## Chris

RonanC said:


> Free market capitalism and the greed has got us into the mess that we are now in... Banks wanted no interference from the state, no further state regulation because they were regulated enough already and sure they were all fine if you listened to Seanie and his mates.





RonanC said:


> The Government is to blame for the decisions it took with tax amongst others, but the banking system who made billions in profits while recklessly trading and then putting out its hand for help at the very last minute.



Your second post directly contradicts your first and makes my point. We do not have anything remotely like free market capitalism. What we have is crony-capitalism and interventionism. Government interference in all parts of the economy and then bailing out entire industries is not free market capitalism.
Banks were and are regulated more than enough. But they operate in an environment where their creditors know 100% certain that their money is not at risk, because if something goes wrong the government will step in. That is why we are in this mess, not because of free markets that never existed.


----------



## RonanC

I probably am contradicting myself a little but the point i'm trying to make is that the banking system was and is regulated for a reason - to ensure that the system operates safely for all stakeholders, which includes the State.

But these were also private corporations run for the benefit of its shareholders who risked everything by investing their own money. The banks were operated by their directors and we now know that they were operated in a wreckless manner and I believe they should have been allowed go to the wall but I dread to think what would have happened if this was the case. The bankers came knocking at the 11th hour on the Governments door crying for help, and we also now know this was after seeking the help of other financial institutions who closed the door in their face. 

The banks wanted to be part of the free market and to an extent were allowed with dodgy regulation and oversight but then when the dirt hit the fan they knew they had a get out clause - us!


----------



## Chris

RonanC said:


> I probably am contradicting myself a little but the point i'm trying to make is that the banking system was and is regulated for a reason - to ensure that the system operates safely for all stakeholders, which includes the State.
> 
> But these were also private corporations run for the benefit of its shareholders who risked everything by investing their own money. The banks were operated by their directors and we now know that they were operated in a wreckless manner and I believe they should have been allowed go to the wall but I dread to think what would have happened if this was the case. The bankers came knocking at the 11th hour on the Governments door crying for help, and we also now know this was after seeking the help of other financial institutions who closed the door in their face.
> 
> The banks wanted to be part of the free market and to an extent were allowed with dodgy regulation and oversight but then when the dirt hit the fan they knew they had a get out clause - us!


I understand where you are coming from, but it is very important to clarify what free market capitalism is and that it cannot be blamed.

Shareholders invested and pretty much have been wiped out. Who was bailed out is the bond holders. And it is the bond holders that are the ones that put restraint on banks' actions if they actually had to fear losses. Shareholders have a stake in the risks that banks take by capital gains and dividends. Bond holders, in theory, should ask for higher coupon rates (interest rates) for riskier investments. But this never happens because they do not fear any loss. 

Banks do not want to have free markets, they want, and indeed cannot exist without, government protection. What we need is for the profit and *loss* system to be allowed to work.


----------



## Complainer

Chris said:


> How so? Food and clothing are some of the most basic human necessities. The socialist argument that all these services would not exist if it weren't for government cannot be backed up by any facts.
> Let's take a look at history.
> Socialism has been tried and has failed on every single occasion. There is not one success story.
> Free market capitalism has been tried and has succeeded on every single occasion. Most notably the industrial revolution, but the most recent success was West Germany after WWII. Erhard told the occupying allies that he was going to put an end to all price controls, abolish the punitive taxes that attempted to redistribute wealth, ended minimum wages, pretty much everything that the SPD said was going to ruin the country. What happened? Within days shops were filled with goods and Germany experienced an "economic miracle". Houses were rebuilt by private individuals and companies, until after a few years the government decided to regulate the residential housing market. This resulted in shortage and lower quality residential housing while commercial real estate, which was not regulated, was flourishing.
> Look at what the private sector and capitalism has achieved:
> - electric lighting was once reserved for the richest, now ubiquitous
> - central heating was once reserved for the richest, now ubiquitous
> - high protein and diverse diets were once reserved for the richest, now ubiquitous
> - telephony was once reserved for the richest, now ubiquitous
> - computers were once reserved for the richest, now ubiquitous
> - antibiotics were once reserved for the richest, now ubiquitous
> - flat screen TVs were once reserved for the richest, now ubiquitous
> - air travel was once reserved for the richest, now ubiquitous
> 
> Now let's look at what government monopolies have achieved:
> - schools while widely available are bad
> - roads while widely available are bad
> - health care somewhat available is bad
> - the list goes and stretches all its services
> 
> How is running government like a business being on the wrong track? Are you seriously suggesting that it is ok for government to waste billions of taxpayer's money?
> Government should be restricted from what it can forcefully take from individuals and companies to then dictate what is done with it and monopolies the service.


You seem to be arguing against yourself, Chris, rather than arguing against my position. I've certainly never claimed that " all these services would not exist if it weren't for government", and I haven't seen anyone else around here claiming that either. 

But once again, I'm amazed at your breathtaking liberties in allocating sole credit for many social improvements to the capitalist system, without any evidence to back this up. Perhaps the availability of antibiotics is down to the state-subsidised drug schemes (which is anathema to your perfect capitalist system). Perhaps the improved availability of computers is down to state subsidised education system, and indeed, state supported purchase schemes. 

And again, you take breathtaking liberties in claiming that everything provided by Govt is 'bad', including healthcare, schools and education. What measures are you using for good and bad? 



Chris said:


> Banks were and are regulated more than enough. But they operate in an environment where their creditors know 100% certain that their money is not at risk, because if something goes wrong the government will step in. That is why we are in this mess, not because of free markets that never existed.


So what's the alternative? How do ensure the moral hazard and let banks fail without screwing up the economy (even worse than it is already screwed up). 

Should the Govt have let AIB and BOI crash two years ago?


----------



## Chris

Complainer said:


> You seem to be arguing against yourself, Chris, rather than arguing against my position. I've certainly never claimed that " all these services would not exist if it weren't for government", and I haven't seen anyone else around here claiming that either.
> 
> But once again, I'm amazed at your breathtaking liberties in allocating sole credit for many social improvements to the capitalist system, without any evidence to back this up. Perhaps the availability of antibiotics is down to the state-subsidised drug schemes (which is anathema to your perfect capitalist system). Perhaps the improved availability of computers is down to state subsidised education system, and indeed, state supported purchase schemes.


Maybe I didn't make my point clear enough. I am not saying that governments haven't done good. What I am saying is that the private sector always does better, because governments do not have the same incentives to use resources efficiently. Therefore, government action of taxing money out of the private sector, and then using that money in a more wasteful way, means a net loss to the economy. 
I have repeatedly given evidence and the post you replied to had examples. The most obvious evidence is the industrial revolution where the role government was miniscule, there was no welfare system and negligible amounts of taxation. At the same time the western world saw the longest and most sustainable period of economic growth. This was capitalism, not some sort of government steered or led policy.
Medication is cheaper in countries that do not have an Irish style subsidised drug scheme. And where do you think the subsidy comes from in the first place?
Computers are cheap not because of some state subsidies. You can by a cheap computer, brand new from Dell without any subsidy. The education system did not make a difference to the price of computers, neither directly nor indirectly. Some of the greatest leaders in IT dropped out of university. Others like Hewlett and Packard went to a private university. Computers became cheap precisely because the IT industry has little or no regulation and pretty much no barriers to entry.




Complainer said:


> And again, you take breathtaking liberties in claiming that everything provided by Govt is 'bad', including healthcare, schools and education. What measures are you using for good and bad?


Are you actually saying that health care and education in this country are even remotely decent?



Complainer said:


> So what's the alternative? How do ensure the moral hazard and let banks fail without screwing up the economy (even worse than it is already screwed up).
> 
> Should the Govt have let AIB and BOI crash two years ago?


Yes indeed, letting banks fail is the only way that the financial industry will learn a lesson. Ideally this would coincide with constitutional changes that prohibit government from bailing out any industry. Politicians would have us believe that this would have led to financial armageddon, but we are on our way there anyway and still have the moral hazard looming over the financial industry, who *never* learn. 
The other thing that needs to be done is make access to the financial market a lot easier and cheaper. When you have an entire industry so concentrated in a few companies the value of risk increases immensely, even when the probability of risk is very low. An analogy would be shoe shops. Even if a large chain of shoe shops went bust it would not be detrimental, because access to the market is relatively simple and cheap.


----------



## Complainer

Chris said:


> Maybe I didn't make my point clear enough. I am not saying that governments haven't done good. What I am saying is that the private sector always does better, because governments do not have the same incentives to use resources efficiently. Therefore, government action of taxing money out of the private sector, and then using that money in a more wasteful way, means a net loss to the economy.
> I have repeatedly given evidence and the post you replied to had examples. The most obvious evidence is the industrial revolution where the role government was miniscule, there was no welfare system and negligible amounts of taxation. At the same time the western world saw the longest and most sustainable period of economic growth. This was capitalism, not some sort of government steered or led policy.
> Medication is cheaper in countries that do not have an Irish style subsidised drug scheme. And where do you think the subsidy comes from in the first place?
> Computers are cheap not because of some state subsidies. You can by a cheap computer, brand new from Dell without any subsidy. The education system did not make a difference to the price of computers, neither directly nor indirectly. Some of the greatest leaders in IT dropped out of university. Others like Hewlett and Packard went to a private university. Computers became cheap precisely because the IT industry has little or no regulation and pretty much no barriers to entry.


Chris, I'm giving up. I just cant debate sensibly with anyone who comes out with "the private sector always does better". This is just factually untrue, from my direct personal experience. Here's a few examples;
1) My daughter needed some speech therapy. She did an assessment with the HSE at our local health centre, and they had her on the waiting list for services. We were concerned about the impacts of any delay on her development, so we started looking for a private therapist. We had two good contacts within that profession, and we looked for recommendations for a therapist to work with our daughter. We got a few names and contact details. We started calling and email. Some never returned calls. Some got back but couldn't take her for the moment, and couldn't commit to when they would take her. In the meantime, the HSE came back and invited her to join a 'group' session. The group turned out to be two kids, so she got lots of attention from the therapist. The treatment was very effective, and she was signed off at the end of the treatment as not requiring any more. So the public health service was better than the private alternatives.

2) I've spoken to  my brother-in-law and a few of his friends about his private secondary school, one of the big name private schools in Dublin. His feedback indicates it was much the same as my public Christian Brother secondary schools in terms of class sizes and teacher quality (most good, some great, one or two terrible). So the very expensive private system wasn't better than the public alternative.

3) My wife was in Holles St quite a lot before the birth of our daughter. Many of her room mates were mums who had been diverted from Mount Carmel because their cases were too risky for Mt Carmel.  For those mums, the public system was better than the private system.

Your claim doesn't stand up. Just to be clear, I'm not in any way suggesting the reverse of your claim, i.e. that the public system is always better than private. I've had my share of problems with public service providers, just like I've had my share of problems with private service providers.

Your claims about Dell don't stand up. Dell of course benefits substantially from public subsidies from your much-criticised IDA. Every job in Dell was subsidised by IDA, as is every job in HP. I'd hazard a guess that the value of goods produced by HP in Leixlip has more to do with the public education provided by the Irish state to their many employees than it has to do with the Harvard education of Messers Hewlett and Packard. 



Chris said:


> Are you actually saying that health care and education in this country are even remotely decent?


Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't. Now back to my question, what measures are you using to value our roads, our health care and our education?

I'm not going to argue further with you on these issues. Feel free to answer or not. IMHO, your posts are so bounded in theory and so far from reality, there is no point in further debate.

But I would like to explore the banking issue further.



Chris said:


> The other thing that needs to be done is make access to the financial market a lot easier and cheaper. When you have an entire industry so concentrated in a few companies the value of risk increases immensely, even when the probability of risk is very low. An analogy would be shoe shops. Even if a large chain of shoe shops went bust it would not be detrimental, because access to the market is relatively simple and cheap.


Banks aren't shoe shops. Treating them like shoe shops is not going to benefit consumers. If your shoe shop goes bust, you'll manage. If you bank that carries your life savings, the deeds of your house and the money you're going to spend in Tesco tomorrow goes bust, the impact is a bit more serious. We actually already have a large number of local, independent financial services providers already in place - they're called credit unions, and some of them are showing significant risk exposure. I really don't think consumers interests will be well served by a large number of small banks appearing and crashing over time. 


Chris said:


> Yes indeed, letting banks fail is the only way that the financial industry will learn a lesson. Ideally this would coincide with constitutional changes that prohibit government from bailing out any industry. Politicians would have us believe that this would have led to financial armageddon, but we are on our way there anyway and still have the moral hazard looming over the financial industry, who *never* learn.


OK, so please get more specific about this. You are saying that letting pretty much the entire Irish banking industry crash in Sept 2008 would put us in a STRONGER position today than we are now - right? Have you anything to back this up, beyond your theoretical positions. How on earth could that mess have been unwound? What costs would have been involved? What new banking services would have evolved? Please give some concrete details on your view on how we could have recovered from wiping out the entire banking industry.


----------



## Chris

Complainer said:


> Chris, I'm giving up. I just cant debate sensibly with anyone who comes out with "the private sector always does better". This is just factually untrue, from my direct personal experience. Here's a few examples;
> 1) My daughter needed some speech therapy. She did an assessment with the HSE at our local health centre, and they had her on the waiting list for services. We were concerned about the impacts of any delay on her development, so we started looking for a private therapist. We had two good contacts within that profession, and we looked for recommendations for a therapist to work with our daughter. We got a few names and contact details. We started calling and email. Some never returned calls. Some got back but couldn't take her for the moment, and couldn't commit to when they would take her. In the meantime, the HSE came back and invited her to join a 'group' session. The group turned out to be two kids, so she got lots of attention from the therapist. The treatment was very effective, and she was signed off at the end of the treatment as not requiring any more. So the public health service was better than the private alternatives.
> 
> 2) I've spoken to  my brother-in-law and a few of his friends about his private secondary school, one of the big name private schools in Dublin. His feedback indicates it was much the same as my public Christian Brother secondary schools in terms of class sizes and teacher quality (most good, some great, one or two terrible). So the very expensive private system wasn't better than the public alternative.
> 
> 3) My wife was in Holles St quite a lot before the birth of our daughter. Many of her room mates were mums who had been diverted from Mount Carmel because their cases were too risky for Mt Carmel.  For those mums, the public system was better than the private system.
> 
> Your claim doesn't stand up. Just to be clear, I'm not in any way suggesting the reverse of your claim, i.e. that the public system is always better than private. I've had my share of problems with public service providers, just like I've had my share of problems with private service providers.


I'm truly delighted that you have had some positive experience with the HSE, but I believe this is the exception not the norm. 
I recently needed an x-ray done on a back injury. The district hospital gave me an appointment 4 weeks later, the regional one 10 days later. the private one the following day.
During my wife's pregnancy we didn't have the luxury of a private maternity hospital, but we did pay to go private. When my wife had complications during labour this more than paid off. The consultant was at hand and was able to deliver the baby naturally. Every midwife told us that had we been public patientys a c-section would have been done immediately.
My wife's cousin spent 2 years going in circles with the HSE who completely missed what was wrong with her. The private hospital immediately diagnosed Crohn's disease, and she is now suffering because of the delay.
A colleague of mine had a fractured arm which required surgery. HSE option was 10 months waiting list, private was 10 days.
Or how about the woman in Cork a few years ago who found a lump in her breast and got an appointment for 2 1/2 years later.
Or the poor 6 year old girl last winter whose meningitis was misdiagnosed as swine flu. 
I have heard far far more bad stories about the HSE than good ones.
I could go on all day.



Complainer said:


> Your claims about Dell don't stand up. Dell of course benefits substantially from public subsidies from your much-criticised IDA. Every job in Dell was subsidised by IDA, as is every job in HP. I'd hazard a guess that the value of goods produced by HP in Leixlip has more to do with the public education provided by the Irish state to their many employees than it has to do with the Harvard education of Messers Hewlett and Packard.


Yes they do benefit from the subsidy, as does anyone who receives a subsidy. But there is a giant leap to assume that the taxes taken from the private sector to pay the subsidy are actually paying off. 
And I mentioned technology companies like Dell not in isolation to Ireland. The facts that these companies came into existence in the first place, and that it is still a pretty open industry where access is not hampered by regulations, and where new and great companies like Google come into existence very quickly, and where products are not subsidised or controlled by government, are perfect examples of how well free markets work to make products available to the masses at affordable prices. Mises summarised it well by saying that "capitalism is mass production for the masses".
Misters Hewlett and Packard went to Stanford not Harvard, and many others in the IT industry dropped out of universities or went to private ones; yet they still created some of the best products and companies in the world. 



Complainer said:


> Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't. Now back to my question, what measures are you using to value our roads, our health care and our education?
> 
> I'm not going to argue further with you on these issues. Feel free to answer or not. IMHO, your posts are so bounded in theory and so far from reality, there is no point in further debate.


I am using my own experience and the experience of so many that I work with and I hear with such regularity on the radio.
Look at the state of our secondary roads. I have "driven" on roads with craters in them. At the same the the NRA will spend the last of their budget in November on a patchwork of resurfacing work that is not needed. I asked a local councillor about this last year, and he said that was normal and that any left over money cannot be used to improve secondary roads as they have a separate budget. That's some great value for money the taxpayer is getting!
My wife has worked in both the private and public health service, and the differences are truly staggering. One thing she noticed was how many less "clip-boards" (admin staff walking around with no function) there are in the private hospitals.
I have friends who are teachers, but see their function more as damage limitation. One of them left Ireland with his family, because he didn't want his children going through the education system here.
I really do not know how you have so much faith in government services when they have done everything possible to show how wasteful and incompetent they are.



Complainer said:


> But I would like to explore the banking issue further.
> 
> 
> Banks aren't shoe shops. Treating them like shoe shops is not going to benefit consumers. If your shoe shop goes bust, you'll manage. If you bank that carries your life savings, the deeds of your house and the money you're going to spend in Tesco tomorrow goes bust, the impact is a bit more serious. We actually already have a large number of local, independent financial services providers already in place - they're called credit unions, and some of them are showing significant risk exposure. I really don't think consumers interests will be well served by a large number of small banks appearing and crashing over time.


The analogy of the shoe shops was merely to illustrate the idea of value of risk increasing as the amount of competition decreases. I never intended it to compare the two industries in the way you are highlighting. Risk of an entire industry failing increases when the industry is made up of very few players. This has become very evident in the financial crisis.
The credit unions are indeed no replacement for banks, as they do not offer all the services for day to day banking. 



Complainer said:


> OK, so please get more specific about this. You are saying that letting pretty much the entire Irish banking industry crash in Sept 2008 would put us in a STRONGER position today than we are now - right? Have you anything to back this up, beyond your theoretical positions. How on earth could that mess have been unwound? What costs would have been involved? What new banking services would have evolved? Please give some concrete details on your view on how we could have recovered from wiping out the entire banking industry.


You are buying into the political mantra that banking would have seized to exist or would have been wiped out. When companies become insolvent and administrators are appointed they do not evaporate into thin air (Quinn is a perfect example). What happens is that the functioning part of the company is sold off and the non-functioning part wound down. The one thing that did actually function in the banking industry was personal and branch banking. These would not simply have closed down.


----------



## shnaek

Complainer said:


> Chris, I'm giving up. I just cant debate sensibly with anyone who comes out with "the private sector always does better". This is just factually untrue, from my direct personal experience. Here's a few examples;


I am glad to see that arguements involving direct experiences and stories about friends are acceptable in our debates here. I can't say for sure whether the private sector always does better from my own experience, but I would look to the best services world wide and seek to copy them, rather than Irelands usual method of constantly re-inventing the wheel, badly.


----------



## Complainer

Chris said:


> I'm truly delighted that you have had some positive experience with the HSE, but I believe this is the exception not the norm.
> I recently needed an x-ray done on a back injury. The district hospital gave me an appointment 4 weeks later, the regional one 10 days later. the private one the following day.
> During my wife's pregnancy we didn't have the luxury of a private maternity hospital, but we did pay to go private. When my wife had complications during labour this more than paid off. The consultant was at hand and was able to deliver the baby naturally. Every midwife told us that had we been public patientys a c-section would have been done immediately.
> My wife's cousin spent 2 years going in circles with the HSE who completely missed what was wrong with her. The private hospital immediately diagnosed Crohn's disease, and she is now suffering because of the delay.
> A colleague of mine had a fractured arm which required surgery. HSE option was 10 months waiting list, private was 10 days.
> Or how about the woman in Cork a few years ago who found a lump in her breast and got an appointment for 2 1/2 years later.
> Or the poor 6 year old girl last winter whose meningitis was misdiagnosed as swine flu.
> I have heard far far more bad stories about the HSE than good ones.
> I could go on all day.
> 
> 
> Yes they do benefit from the subsidy, as does anyone who receives a subsidy. But there is a giant leap to assume that the taxes taken from the private sector to pay the subsidy are actually paying off.
> And I mentioned technology companies like Dell not in isolation to Ireland. The facts that these companies came into existence in the first place, and that it is still a pretty open industry where access is not hampered by regulations, and where new and great companies like Google come into existence very quickly, and where products are not subsidised or controlled by government, are perfect examples of how well free markets work to make products available to the masses at affordable prices. Mises summarised it well by saying that "capitalism is mass production for the masses".
> Misters Hewlett and Packard went to Stanford not Harvard, and many others in the IT industry dropped out of universities or went to private ones; yet they still created some of the best products and companies in the world.
> 
> 
> I am using my own experience and the experience of so many that I work with and I hear with such regularity on the radio.
> Look at the state of our secondary roads. I have "driven" on roads with craters in them. At the same the the NRA will spend the last of their budget in November on a patchwork of resurfacing work that is not needed. I asked a local councillor about this last year, and he said that was normal and that any left over money cannot be used to improve secondary roads as they have a separate budget. That's some great value for money the taxpayer is getting!
> My wife has worked in both the private and public health service, and the differences are truly staggering. One thing she noticed was how many less "clip-boards" (admin staff walking around with no function) there are in the private hospitals.
> I have friends who are teachers, but see their function more as damage limitation. One of them left Ireland with his family, because he didn't want his children going through the education system here.
> I really do not know how you have so much faith in government services when they have done everything possible to show how wasteful and incompetent they are.
> 
> 
> The analogy of the shoe shops was merely to illustrate the idea of value of risk increasing as the amount of competition decreases. I never intended it to compare the two industries in the way you are highlighting. Risk of an entire industry failing increases when the industry is made up of very few players. This has become very evident in the financial crisis.
> The credit unions are indeed no replacement for banks, as they do not offer all the services for day to day banking.


You are still using almost exclusively anecdotal evidence as a basis for your proposed policy changes. Your negative experiences and my positive experiences with HSE are pretty irrelevant. What really matters is a set of solid metrics that compares HSE performance and funding against its peers. Compariing the HSE to private hospitals is meaningless. It is easy to have a nice clean lobby and nice clean patients if you get to cherrypick the patients and procedures you take on. The HSE doesn't have that luxury.

(For the record, a friend's wife nearly died from MRSA picked up in Blackrock Clinic, so the private hospitals ain't so perfect either).



Chris said:


> You are buying into the political mantra that banking would have seized to exist or would have been wiped out. When companies become insolvent and administrators are appointed they do not evaporate into thin air (Quinn is a perfect example). What happens is that the functioning part of the company is sold off and the non-functioning part wound down. The one thing that did actually function in the banking industry was personal and branch banking. These would not simply have closed down.




Again, you seem to be mixing up banks with shoe shops. If the bank was insolvent, the entire business was insolvent. You can't cherrypick the bits you like and say that they should continue. The liquidator won't have the assets to support the personal and branch banking - it couldn't be sold off without the asset base to back it up.

Are you seriously suggesting that AIB and BOI should have been let collapse?


----------



## Chris

Complainer said:


> You are still using almost exclusively anecdotal evidence as a basis for your proposed policy changes. Your negative experiences and my positive experiences with HSE are pretty irrelevant. What really matters is a set of solid metrics that compares HSE performance and funding against its peers. Compariing the HSE to private hospitals is meaningless. It is easy to have a nice clean lobby and nice clean patients if you get to cherrypick the patients and procedures you take on. The HSE doesn't have that luxury.
> 
> (For the record, a friend's wife nearly died from MRSA picked up in Blackrock Clinic, so the private hospitals ain't so perfect either).


Of course you can compare public and private hospitals. Just because a public hospital doesn't get to choose its patients or procedures doesn't excuse the filth in so many of them. Are you really saying that all the reports by media, the public and health care professionals about long waiting lists and lack of equipment and facilities is just anecdotal evidence? When is the last time you heard something positive reported about the HSE that didn't come out of the mouth of a politician?
The Irish health system is broken, even if only by measuring waiting times to other countries that have private health insurance systems. So please don't go on about how good the system is and how bad private competition is and would be.
I hope your friend is recovering, but mentioning one isolated incident doesn't make a case. Maybe there are some statistics as to incidence of MRSA per patient in public and private hospitals. I don't know whether they exist, but given my wife's professional experience with infection control in public and private hospitals I will have to say that I would be surprised if the rate was lower in public hospitals.



Complainer said:


> Again, you seem to be mixing up banks with shoe shops. If the bank was insolvent, the entire business was insolvent. You can't cherrypick the bits you like and say that they should continue. The liquidator won't have the assets to support the personal and branch banking - it couldn't be sold off without the asset base to back it up.
> 
> Are you seriously suggesting that AIB and BOI should have been let collapse?



Yes I am indeed. I would even go one step further to suggest a total reform of the monetary system. The flaws, fraud and destruction that come with frational reserve banking of a government controlled and enforced fiat currency, should be all too evident after this crisis. But of course it is the free market that is to blame, or so our politicians would like us to believe.
And the splitting up of insolvent banks would not have been an issue if it hadn't been for the governments totally incompetent and uninformed decision to blanket guarantee all deposits.


----------



## onq

Chris,

Why stop at fractional reserve banking?

Why not address the ruination of every person with creditors, the charging of interest?

This usury is known as the Universal Banking System - christened by the Americans I believe who have their World Series of Baseball because no other country plays it.

But while its fairly widespread and has been involved in many a boom and bust cycle - all of them I think - its not Universal.

Other systems of exchange also exist, whether its the basic Barter System or the Islamic Banking System.

Should we revert to Barter or try the Islamic Banking System in your opinion?

Would changing the changing the system we use to feed our greed make us less greedy.

Would wilfully overpaying for goods and services based on a perceived added-value stop because the system changed?

I don't think so myself - I'm looking back over Complainer's posts and find myself agreeing with him - there's good and bad in public and private.

The only fair means of comparison is some sort of independent metric who allow a like-for-like comparison.

ONQ.


----------



## Chris

onq said:


> Chris,
> 
> Why stop at fractional reserve banking?
> 
> Why not address the ruination of every person with creditors, the charging of interest?
> 
> This usury is known as the Universal Banking System - christened by the Americans I believe who have their World Series of Baseball because no other country plays it.


Fractional reserve banking is fundamentally fraudulent. Two parties agreeing without coercion to a credit agreement of a certain interest is not fraud but a freedom of choice. Banking and the monetary system are a core function of an economy and whether an interest rate can be defined as usury is a very subjective matter. If someone is willing to pay a "high" interest, and is doing so without coercion or fraud, then they should be free to do so.



onq said:


> But while its fairly widespread and has been involved in many a boom and bust cycle - all of them I think - its not Universal.


Indeed, all boom/bust cycles are down to government interference in money supply and interest rates.



onq said:


> Other systems of exchange also exist, whether its the basic Barter System or the Islamic Banking System.
> 
> Should we revert to Barter or try the Islamic Banking System in your opinion?
> 
> Would changing the changing the system we use to feed our greed make us less greedy.


I am not suggesting an end to banking or the way we do business. I am suggesting to put an end to fractional reserve banking and currency by fiat. This does not mean that we wouldn't have anymore banking and would have to resort to a barter system.



onq said:


> Would wilfully overpaying for goods and services based on a perceived added-value stop because the system changed?
> 
> I don't think so myself - I'm looking back over Complainer's posts and find myself agreeing with him - there's good and bad in public and private.


Value is a completly subjective matter, and as long as both parties to an economic transaction are willing participants who are free to choose then there is no losing party to the transaction.
What an end to fractional reserve banking would do, is severely reduce the artificial increase in the money supply, which is one of the major reasons why overall prices keep rising. Contrary to political belief, dropping prices are good for the economy and especially for the consumer, but bad for those with the highest debts, e.g. governments.


----------



## onq

Chris said:


> Fractional reserve banking is fundamentally fraudulent.


Not it isn't - it is a convention allowing wealth to be created in proprtion to deposits held.


> Two parties agreeing without coercion to a credit agreement of a certain interest is not fraud but a freedom of choice. Banking and the monetary system are a core function of an economy and whether an interest rate can be defined as usury is a very subjective matter. If someone is willing to pay a "high" interest, and is doing so without coercion or fraud, then they should be free to do so.


More apologia for the outrageous practice of "Light regulation".
There is no reason why any bank should be charging interest on loans at anything mroe than two percentage points on what it offers as interest on deposits.
Anything more than this is excessive and amounts to theft in my book.


> Indeed, all boom/bust cycles are down to government interference in money supply and interest rates.


The current boom was an unsustainable growth promoted by tax incentives not money supply and lax regulation and lowering of standards by lenders not government interference and there was no control of interest rates.


> I am not suggesting an end to banking or the way we do business. I am suggesting to put an end to fractional reserve banking and currency by fiat. This does not mean that we wouldn't have anymore banking and would have to resort to a barter system.


Islamic banking isn't barter.


> Value is a completly subjective matter, and as long as both parties to an economic transaction are willing participants who are free to choose then there is no losing party to the transaction.


There is every possibility that parties will lose or profit from any transaction depending on the context in which it occurs. Transactions do not occur in isolation and they have a cumulative social impact, although the emotionally cauterized financial gurus of the world might suggest otherwise.


> What an end to fractional reserve banking would do, is severely reduce the artificial increase in the money supply, which is one of the major reasons why overall prices keep rising. Contrary to political belief, dropping prices are good for the economy and especially for the consumer, but bad for those with the highest debts, e.g. governments.


You cannot "disappear" the money supply overnight.
Fractional reserve banking allows banks to loan a multiple of their capital reserve deposits.
Annulling that would collapse the banks and the money system.

ONQ.


----------



## Chris

onq said:


> Not it isn't - it is a convention allowing wealth to be created in proprtion to deposits held.


No, it is a convention that creates money out of thin air. Money is not wealth, it is merely a method of exchange. You do not create wealth by creating more money. If that were the case then poverty in Africa would be very easily solved.



onq said:


> More apologia for the outrageous practice of "Light regulation".


We did not have light regulation. At the very best you can say we had wrong regulation, but regulatory rules and cost of compliance with them have been increaseing for decades. What makes people confident that any ragulation will prevent crises, when governments have proven themselves incompetent at the task?



onq said:


> There is no reason why any bank should be charging interest on loans at anything mroe than two percentage points on what it offers as interest on deposits.
> 
> Anything more than this is excessive and amounts to theft in my book.


The only reason a bank can charge "excessive" interest rates is because people are willing to pay them. It is simple supply and demand, which applies to credit as much as it does to apples and oranges.
No private organisation can put its hand into your pocket. If you want lower interest rates, then ask for less barriers for new competition to enter the financial market. The more competitive a market is, the more choice the customer has, the more companies must do to attract customers.



onq said:


> The current boom was an unsustainable growth promoted by tax incentives not money supply and lax regulation and lowering of standards by lenders not government interference and there was no control of interest rates.


You are right tax incentives that increased demand had a lot to do with the Irish property bubble as had bad lending practices. But prices, as a whole, can only go up when the amount of money and credit is increased. If the money supply had been static, then prices of other things would have had to go down in order for prices of houses to go up.
The ECB dictates the interest rate and money supply, and the ECB is government controled. The fact that Ireland does not have sole control over monetary policies is no excuse for Irish politicians and central bankers to not have called for higher interst rates.



onq said:


> Islamic banking isn't barter.


I never said that, I was referring to the other part of your comment. The little I know about Islamic banking is that there is a limit on how much interest can be charged. When a price ceiling is forced that is below what the market would allow, then you will end up with scarcity; some producers will not be able to produce at that price and others will decide that other ventures are more lucrative. When you mess with supply and demand you send conflicting signs to producers and consumers, which should be very evident given the crisis we are facing.



onq said:


> There is every possibility that parties will lose or profit from any transaction depending on the context in which it occurs. Transactions do not occur in isolation and they have a cumulative social impact, although the emotionally cauterized financial gurus of the world might suggest otherwise.


Yes indeed, every human action is influenced by other factors than just the transaction. But the transaction is a result of those factors. A person dying of thirst will not lose out by paying someone €100 for a bottle of water, quite the opposite. As long as a transaction is not a result of coercion both parties to a transaction receive something they value as beneficial.



onq said:


> You cannot "disappear" the money supply overnight.
> Fractional reserve banking allows banks to loan a multiple of their capital reserve deposits.
> Annulling that would collapse the banks and the money system.



You can exchange the old money supply for a new non-fractional reserve one. As I already said, fractional reserve banking allows banks to create money out of thin air, which is inflationary, which robs your hard earned money of its value, which is deceiptful and fraudulent. Annulling that would put an end to fractional reserve banking, but not banking per se. 
I have already recommended Rothbard's "What has government done to our money" and "The mystery of banking", I cannot recommend them enough.


----------



## Purple

onq said:


> christened by the Americans I believe who have their World Series of Baseball because no other country plays it.


 It's called the World Series because a newspaper called "The World" or some such thing was their first sponsor.


----------



## PaddyW

Purple said:


> It's called the World Series because a newspaper called "The World" or some such thing was their first sponsor.



Nope, incorrect. Had nothing to do with the New York World newspaper, as some think. It was originally known as the "World's Championship Series" and shortened over time to become the "World Series".


----------



## Purple

PaddyW said:


> Nope, incorrect. Had nothing to do with the New York World newspaper, as some think. It was originally known as the "World's Championship Series" and shortened over time to become the "World Series".



I stand corrected!


----------



## onq

Chris said:


> No, it is a convention that creates money out of thin air. Money is not wealth, it is merely a method of exchange. You do not create wealth by creating more money. If that were the case then poverty in Africa would be very easily solved.


I'm happy you have defined your terms - I see nothing to argue with in general, but the poverty in Africa comment is a non-sequitur. I don't want to get into the rape of Africa's resources by western powers and their cultural destruction of peoples by colonialism and the division of the continent by imposed boundaries that did not reflect tribal boundaries.


> We did not have light regulation. At the very best you can say we had wrong regulation, but regulatory rules and cost of compliance with them have been increaseing for decades. What makes people confident that any ragulation will prevent crises, when governments have proven themselves incompetent at the task?


We either had light regulation or no regulation which you could argue was wrong intrinsically.
Governments have bought into the "free market" fantasy, claiming markets self-regulate, failing to acknowledge that "self regulation" of a system isn't designed to support all of a given population - for example. it is based on large numbers of deaths and extinctions in the natural world


> The only reason a bank can charge "excessive" interest rates is because people are willing to pay them. It is simple supply and demand, which applies to credit as much as it does to apples and oranges.


High rates, and therefore large profits are generated when there is limited freedom of choice. The Banks in Ireland operated an effective cartel for decades. Limited choice and lack of competition is what allows these rip-off rates to be charged.


> No private organisation can put its hand into your pocket. If you want lower interest rates, then ask for less barriers for new competition to enter the financial market. The more competitive a market is, the more choice the customer has, the more companies must do to attract customers.


That seems to be such a naive thing to post - its never that simple, but at least you seem to agree its a lack of competition that allows high interest rates to be charged.


> You are right tax incentives that increased demand had a lot to do with the Irish property bubble as had bad lending practices. But prices, as a whole, can only go up when the amount of money and credit is increased.


AFAICS putting more printed money in circulation is not the same as providing credit to borrowers.


> If the money supply had been static, then prices of other things would have had to go down in order for prices of houses to go up.


If by "money supply" you mean availability of credit, I agree.


> The ECB dictates the interest rate and money supply, and the ECB is government controled. The fact that Ireland does not have sole control over monetary policies is no excuse for Irish politicians and central bankers to not have called for higher interst rates.


The ECB is heavily influenced by the Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland, the Central Bankers Central Bank.
You may need to research this before suggesting that Government control central banks.


> I never said that, I was referring to the other part of your comment.


Fine


> The little I know about Islamic banking is that there is a limit on how much interest can be charged.


I know very little about it, just that the interest isn't unlimited, and its this unlimited charging of interest that leads to the destruction of debtors in our own banking system.

It seems to be a fundamentally inequitable system, with the justification being given that the banks run the risk of default and so charge higher interest on loans as a result.
In fact the fractional reserve systme factors in the risk of default and of a run on the banks.
The banks also reinsure the loans, they don't provide for defaults out of their own funds.
Its this massive potential for defaulting on loans that nearly destroyed AIG and therefore the insurance industry and thereby the banking industry in the last two years.
The reason this occured is partly becauase of the repackaging of toxic debt as securitized assets/loans, and partly because of the interrelationship of all sectors in the financial system.

Its like a Windows server without adequate anti-virus measures.
Once an attack gets underway, there is no way to prevent it spreading except by disconnection.
Except in this case the infection was widely spread before it was triggered - like  a stealth virus.

The uncharitable migh say someone did this deliberately, just like somone repackeged the Greek Loan as a sale of Greek currency, but that would point the finger towards American companies like GOldman Sachs and our own, our very own, Peter Sutherland and Peter would never do that, shure he wouldn't?
That is why this whole sector, insurance and banking, and the relationship between the two - needs serious oversight, leading to review and remedy.

Otherwise the next attempt at the financial end of Full Spectum Dominance will become full spectrum Meltdown.
Its quite celear that the BIS and the Masters of the World have no clue what they are at any more.


> When a price ceiling is forced that is below what the market would allow, then you will end up with scarcity; some producers will not be able to produce at that price and others will decide that other ventures are more lucrative.


Who is "forcing" a price ceiling?
We were talking about the Irish situation where there was hardly any regulation, never mind forcing.
I was talking about the two stimuli that drove the market higher and the fact that they weren't addressed.


> When you mess with supply and demand you send conflicting signs to producers and consumers, which should be very evident given the crisis we are facing.


*This isn't about sending conflicting signals.
*

* The banks aren't lending*
*NAMA isn't making decisions to release certain monies which it is apparently supposed to do*
*government departments are not spending their allocated amounts*
* These three things together are preventing recovery and forcing a recessionary spiral upon us.*
*Half of the shops in Patrick Street in Dun Laoghaire are closed - Limerick according to reports on another forum, is like a wasteland.*


> Yes indeed, every human action is influenced by other factors than just the transaction. But the transaction is a result of those factors. A person dying of thirst will not lose out by paying someone €100 for a bottle of water, quite the opposite. As long as a transaction is not a result of coercion both parties to a transaction receive something they value as beneficial.


That has to be the most nonsensical thing I have ever seen posted on the internet.
Getting ripped off for a necessity for human life is never beneficial except to the person doing the ripping off.
But like most rip-off merchants they are short sighted enough to fail to see that this will eventually come back to haunt them.

*The banks appear to have gone from "lending stupidly" to "not lending stupidly".
Of 22 loan applications made through one branch on Q1 this year only 10% were approved by Head Office.*

*I told Robert Mulhall of AIB at the 2010  Photo Journalism Awards in AIB Corneslcout in the spring of this year, that if they banks didn't stop mouthing platitudes about "partnering" people through this recession and start lending again the economy would shrink, the recovery would fail and next year THEY would be the ones ending up on the Jobseekers.*

*The frightening implication of this massive restriction of loan approval to 10% of applications is that they expected 90% of applicants to default.
This was relatively recently at a time when only the building industry was looking like it was taking a hit, but the implication is that they expect 90% of applcants to default.
And of course, by not lending to the economy which had come to depend on the easy availability of credit our banks are feeding into a self-fulfilling prophecy - the destruction of Ireland Inc.*

*Light regulation of imprudent lending practices led to this recession - now no regulation of the banks who have been bailed out by the taxpayer is leading us downward into a ten year recession.
Someone needs to give the banks, NAMA and the government departments a good kick in the proverbials or take their powers away from them - the banks are nearly nationalised, NAMA is ours, we are the government - let them get on with it.*


> You can exchange the old money supply for a new non-fractional reserve one.


No.
You cannot.
What is the viable alternative you are offering?
Borrowing the money from a third party government or institution - what changes?
I am aware of no means of providing the amount of credit required except through the fiction of the fractional reserve method.
No body or group of bodies has the funding to lend the amounts needed - are you expecting some rich Sheik to finance lending - even they don't have enough.



> As I already said, fractional reserve banking allows banks to create money out of thin air, which is inflationary, which robs your hard earned money of its value, which is deceiptful and fraudulent. Annulling that would put an end to fractional reserve banking, but not banking per se.
> I have already recommended Rothbard's "What has government done to our money" and "The mystery of banking", I cannot recommend them enough.


You seem to have read a couple of books and think you are competent to look at the long term effects of fractional reserve banking on currencies - maybe you are, I don't know, but what you say here bear little relevance to the problems Ireland faces.

*Your comments aren't helping in a dicsussion about the short term effects of withdrawl of 90% of credit from an economy which had come to rely on credit, the apparently tardy management of funds by the largest financial institution in the state [NAMA] and the massive underspend by government departments which represents the final betrayal of taxpayers trust.*

*The Banks, NAMA and the Government Departments fail to realise that an economy that is shinking will never recover.
Money spent increases economic transactions and the multiplier effect takes over, regardless of the intrinsic value of those transactions.
Economic activity and therefore strength depends not only on the total amounts exchanged but also on the number of transactions - which involes the multiplier effect.
Now unless people stop focussing on "money supply" and start seeing this  lack of credit, lack of spendng and resultant lack of activity for what it is, our economy will be worse in two years than it is now.*

*In fact it'll be worse in two months that it is now, with no hope in sight for another other than a paper recover based on sales figures for international companies based here which are not translating into economic activity or jobs.
In America, their own "jobless recovery" is seen for what it is, and Baldy Noonan was bang on the button when he said we're skipping along the bottom.
Except the "bottom" is tilted downward into Depression, from Recession and the reason the stone is still skipping is that its still falling doen a slope.

We are so screwed.*

*ONQ.*


----------



## Complainer

Chris said:


> Of course you can compare public and private hospitals. Just because a public hospital doesn't get to choose its patients or procedures doesn't excuse the filth in so many of them. Are you really saying that all the reports by media, the public and health care professionals about long waiting lists and lack of equipment and facilities is just anecdotal evidence? When is the last time you heard something positive reported about the HSE that didn't come out of the mouth of a politician?
> The Irish health system is broken, even if only by measuring waiting times to other countries that have private health insurance systems. So please don't go on about how good the system is and how bad private competition is and would be.
> I hope your friend is recovering, but mentioning one isolated incident doesn't make a case. Maybe there are some statistics as to incidence of MRSA per patient in public and private hospitals. I don't know whether they exist, but given my wife's professional experience with infection control in public and private hospitals I will have to say that I would be surprised if the rate was lower in public hospitals.


I'd guess that you're right, the MRSA rates are probably lower in private hospitals. But as I said, this is an unfair comparison. Private hospitals don't take in A&E patients, they pick and choose the patients they like, and the patients who will pay. Infection control rates are directly related to overcrowding. It is a bit easier to manage infections when you have private rooms. It is a bit easier to manage infections when you don't have six patients squeezed into a 4-bed room with little space between beds, and another two patients on the corrider. If you can pick and choose your patients coming in, it is much easier to manage infections. That's a luxury that public hospitals don't have.


Chris said:


> Of
> Yes I am indeed. I would even go one step further to suggest a total reform of the monetary system. The flaws, fraud and destruction that come with frational reserve banking of a government controlled and enforced fiat currency, should be all too evident after this crisis. But of course it is the free market that is to blame, or so our politicians would like us to believe.
> And the splitting up of insolvent banks would not have been an issue if it hadn't been for the governments totally incompetent and uninformed decision to blanket guarantee all deposits.


I think you're getting caught up with ideology and you are forgetting about the practical issues. So you're proposing that AIB and BOI should have been allowed fail, along with Anglo and INBS. So explain it to me like I'm 10 years old. What happens on the morning after?

What happens when 70% of the country can't get money for food? What happens when 70% of the shops can't process credit card or laser payments? What happens when 70% of the employers can't pay their staff? What happens when 70% of landlords stop getting rent?

Tell me clearly what damage would be caused and how this could be unwound? How long would it take for alternative banking services to be available?


----------



## Chris

onq said:


> I'm happy you have defined your terms - I see nothing to argue with in general, but the poverty in Africa comment is a non-sequitur. I don't want to get into the rape of Africa's resources by western powers and their cultural destruction of peoples by colonialism and the division of the continent by imposed boundaries that did not reflect tribal boundaries.
> We either had light regulation or no regulation which you could argue was wrong intrinsically.


I agree with you that the colonial impact and interference of the "white man" has had a detrimental effect. My point was that creating money out of thin air does not create wealth, as this would mean a very simple solution to global prosperity.



onq said:


> Governments have bought into the "free market" fantasy, claiming markets self-regulate, failing to acknowledge that "self regulation" of a system isn't designed to support all of a given population - for example. it is based on large numbers of deaths and extinctions in the natural world


No, governments have not bought into free markets. Governments have bought into controlling and interfering with everything. Governments control the money supply and interest rates. Governments enforce legal tender laws. Governments guarantee banks. Governments regulate all aspects of economic life. Governments decide who can register as a bank. Governments bail out entire industries. Nothing in this picture is free market, it is all interventionism.


onq said:


> High rates, and therefore large profits are generated when there is limited freedom of choice. The Banks in Ireland operated an effective cartel for decades. Limited choice and lack of competition is what allows these rip-off rates to be charged.
> That seems to be such a naive thing to post - its never that simple, but at least you seem to agree its a lack of competition that allows high interest rates to be charged.


Yes indeed, limited choice due to lack of competition is what drives up prices. But the reason there is limited choice when it comes to banking is because the cost of entry into the financial industry is so high that it is impossible for a new small bank to be set up. Why do you think banks are not complaining about new or increased regulations? Existing banks have the financial capacity to absorb costs of new regulations, which make it more difficult for new competition to emerge. Competition would make the lives of bankers more difficult.



onq said:


> AFAICS putting more printed money in circulation is not the same as providing credit to borrowers.
> If by "money supply" you mean availability of credit, I agree.


Credit is built upon the money supplied by central banks. Fractional reserve banking allows banks to lend out more money than they have, i.e. creating money out of thin air. The only way you can increase credit is by increasing the base money suply, which is controlled by central banks. The different measures of money supply show the effect of fractional reserve banking based on M1, which is the base supply. Increasing the base money supply and lowering interest rates causes an increase in credit, which is why we are in such a mess.



onq said:


> The ECB is heavily influenced by the Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland, the Central Bankers Central Bank.
> You may need to research this before suggesting that Government control central banks.


The ECB and all other central banks are members of the BIS and control it. The BIS is not some omnipotent, super-natural being that tells banks what to do. It's like the ECB is to € member central banks.
The whole central banking system is however a very fraudulent system, but it is ultimately controlled by government appointed central bankers.



onq said:


> Fine
> I know very little about it, just that the interest isn't unlimited, and its this unlimited charging of interest that leads to the destruction of debtors in our own banking system.


What leads to the "destruction" of debtors, is debtors taking on too much debt. How much debt a person or organisation takes on is ultimately the responsibility of the debtor. Banks carry the responsibility of risking not getting the money back, but the bail outs (past and present) have ensured that they do not need to fear such losses.



onq said:


> It seems to be a fundamentally inequitable system, with the justification being given that the banks run the risk of default and so charge higher interest on loans as a result.
> In fact the fractional reserve systme factors in the risk of default and of a run on the banks.


But banks do not run risk of default, as they will always be bailed out by governments and central banks. That is what is inequitable about the system, i.e. that the system cannot stand on its own two feet without implicit and explicit government guarantees. What other industry do you know of that is in a constant state of government protected insolvency, as the fractional reserve banking system. And if the system factored in bank runs then we wouldn't be in such a mess now.




onq said:


> The banks also reinsure the loans, they don't provide for defaults out of their own funds.
> Its this massive potential for defaulting on loans that nearly destroyed AIG and therefore the insurance industry and thereby the banking industry in the last two years.
> The reason this occured is partly becauase of the repackaging of toxic debt as securitized assets/loans, and partly because of the interrelationship of all sectors in the financial system.


Yes indeed, the entire financial system made extremely bad mistakes, but all of it was only possible because the money was supplied to them ultimately from central banks. And the banks knew they didn't have to account for a risk of default because there was a lender of last resort if their system came collapsing down.



onq said:


> Its like a Windows server without adequate anti-virus measures.
> Once an attack gets underway, there is no way to prevent it spreading except by disconnection.
> Except in this case the infection was widely spread before it was triggered - like  a stealth virus.


I think that a more apt analogy is setting up a windows server with a virus built in deliberately. If all it takes is a situation where people want to collect what is rightfully their property, i.e. their cash deposits, to bring an entire system to its knees, then the system has a fundamental flaw or disease built in.



onq said:


> The uncharitable migh say someone did this deliberately, just like somone repackeged the Greek Loan as a sale of Greek currency, but that would point the finger towards American companies like GOldman Sachs and our own, our very own, Peter Sutherland and Peter would never do that, shure he wouldn't?
> That is why this whole sector, insurance and banking, and the relationship between the two - needs serious oversight, leading to review and remedy.
> 
> Otherwise the next attempt at the financial end of Full Spectum Dominance will become full spectrum Meltdown.


Yes indeed, the more the financial industry is consolidated into fewer companies the higher the value of risk is within one company. But the bail outs have achieved exactly that. There are fewer banks now world wide, and regulations are making it impossible for new companies to enter the market. Regulations are also always one step behind, so there will never be an end to new risks created by financial institutions, as they know they do not carry the risk alone. The taxpayer will always be there. Unless you allow the full force of the profit and loss system to apply to the financial sector you will never ever see an end to financial crises.



onq said:


> Its quite celear that the BIS and the Masters of the World have no clue what they are at any more.


Actually I think they know exactly what they are doing, i.e. defrauding the public of the value of their money to the benefit of large financial institutions. 



onq said:


> Who is "forcing" a price ceiling?


You suggested it by saying that 2% interest above the ECB rate was more than enough for banks to work with.



onq said:


> We were talking about the Irish situation where there was hardly any regulation, never mind forcing.
> I was talking about the two stimuli that drove the market higher and the fact that they weren't addressed.
> *This isn't about sending conflicting signals.
> *
> 
> * The banks aren't lending*
> *NAMA isn't making decisions to release certain monies which it is apparently supposed to do*
> *government departments are not spending their allocated amounts*
> * These three things together are preventing recovery and forcing a recessionary spiral upon us.*
> *Half of the shops in Patrick Street in Dun Laoghaire are closed - Limerick according to reports on another forum, is like a wasteland.*


1) The banks aren't lending because (a) they are broke and (b) the risk of default is too high at the moment.
2) I thought NAMA was meant to take bad loans off the banks' books, maintain the collection of payments and sell them on in the future. I never heard anything mentioned about them actively lending money.
3) The result of the artificial boom was that too many businesses came into existence that should never have been created. The unfortunate thing is that a lot of them will have to shut down, as we simply do not need their services.



onq said:


> That has to be the most nonsensical thing I have ever seen posted on the internet.
> Getting ripped off for a necessity for human life is never beneficial except to the person doing the ripping off.
> But like most rip-off merchants they are short sighted enough to fail to see that this will eventually come back to haunt them.


Could you please explain how it is "nonsensical"? Here is an example from New Orleans after the hurricane hit. People in neighbouring unaffected areas came with truck loads of water because they knew it would be needed. But because their intention was to sell it FEMA turned them away. The result was that rather than having some water at a price,  people in desperate need of water got no water. And what happens when "huge profits" are available is that more people will come increasing supply and pushing down prices. This is the very basic effect of supply and demand imbalances. If on the other hand FEMA had made a public announcement welcoming anybody that can bring water to charge whatever they wanted, you would have seen thousands of people filling up cars and trucks with essential items, which is exactly what was needed at the time.
How is having something at a cost worse than having nothing?



onq said:


> *The banks appear to have gone from "lending stupidly" to "not lending stupidly".
> Of 22 loan applications made through one branch on Q1 this year only 10% were approved by Head Office.*
> 
> *I told Robert Mulhall of AIB at the 2010  Photo Journalism Awards in AIB Corneslcout in the spring of this year, that if they banks didn't stop mouthing platitudes about "partnering" people through this recession and start lending again the economy would shrink, the recovery would fail and next year THEY would be the ones ending up on the Jobseekers.*
> 
> *The frightening implication of this massive restriction of loan approval to 10% of applications is that they expected 90% of applicants to default.
> This was relatively recently at a time when only the building industry was looking like it was taking a hit, but the implication is that they expect 90% of applcants to default.
> And of course, by not lending to the economy which had come to depend on the easy availability of credit our banks are feeding into a self-fulfilling prophecy - the destruction of Ireland Inc.*


But what you are suggesting is like treating an alcoholic with alcohol. It is precisely the dependence on easy credit that has to be ended. Yes, in the short term the effects of this will be harsh, but at least the economy will be able to be rebuilt based on real savings and productivity, not consumer spending.
Ireland has the largest level of foreign debt on earth. Adding to that level will only make things worse. And as I have mentioned before, Germany is recovering by increasing production and decreasing levels of debt. By your argument this shouldn't be possible.



onq said:


> *Light regulation of imprudent lending practices led to this recession - now no regulation of the banks who have been bailed out by the taxpayer is leading us downward into a ten year recession.
> Someone needs to give the banks, NAMA and the government departments a good kick in the proverbials or take their powers away from them - the banks are nearly nationalised, NAMA is ours, we are the government - let them get on with it.*


No, what caused this mess was too much cheap credit being available. And the only reason banks were able to lend so much and so cheap was because the central banks provided it. And the only reason banks' behaviour was not reigned in by bond holders, was because bondholders knew their investments were not at any risk. The riskier a business, the more a bond holder will require in interest, but when it comes to banks there just is no risk to bond holders.



onq said:


> No.
> You cannot.
> What is the viable alternative you are offering?
> Borrowing the money from a third party government or institution - what changes?
> I am aware of no means of providing the amount of credit required except through the fiction of the fractional reserve method.
> No body or group of bodies has the funding to lend the amounts needed - are you expecting some rich Sheik to finance lending - even they don't have enough.


Unless you can explain why this is not possible you are only showing your ignorance of existing and alternative banking systems. You have on many occasions posted with criticism of the BIS, which I agree with. But yet you do not think that the only reason the BIS exists, i.e. to ensure that the fractional reserve system is kept alive internationally, is reason enough to put an end to.
My alternative would be at the very least a non-fractional gold standard, but ideally a free banking system. This would not require foreign funding.



onq said:


> You seem to have read a couple of books and think you are competent to look at the long term effects of fractional reserve banking on currencies - maybe you are, I don't know, but what you say here bear little relevance to the problems Ireland faces.
> 
> *Your comments aren't helping in a dicsussion about the short term effects of withdrawl of 90% of credit from an economy which had come to rely on credit, the apparently tardy management of funds by the largest financial institution in the state [NAMA] and the massive underspend by government departments which represents the final betrayal of taxpayers trust.*


I have read many books on the topic and have many more on a pile waiting to be read. And my suggestions certainly bear on Ireland's problems of having too much debt, both public and private. I don't know why people think that the solution to a problem of too much easy credit is more of the same.

The short term effect of no or lack of credit is exactly what the solution is. The economy has to rid itself of the phony system and idea of consumer and credit driven "growth". This has ended in tears already, and re-igniting it is not a solution. An alcoholic has to go through withdrawal to become sober, the same is the case with an economy hooked on credit.



onq said:


> *The Banks, NAMA and the Government Departments fail to realise that an economy that is shinking will never recover.
> Money spent increases economic transactions and the multiplier effect takes over, regardless of the intrinsic value of those transactions.
> Economic activity and therefore strength depends not only on the total amounts exchanged but also on the number of transactions - which involes the multiplier effect.
> Now unless people stop focussing on "money supply" and start seeing this  lack of credit, lack of spendng and resultant lack of activity for what it is, our economy will be worse in two years than it is now.*
> 
> *In fact it'll be worse in two months that it is now, with no hope in sight for another other than a paper recover based on sales figures for international companies based here which are not translating into economic activity or jobs.
> In America, their own "jobless recovery" is seen for what it is, and Baldy Noonan was bang on the button when he said we're skipping along the bottom.
> Except the "bottom" is tilted downward into Depression, from Recession and the reason the stone is still skipping is that its still falling doen a slope.*


I agree that worse is to come, not only here, but in all countries that are trying to spend their way out of a recession/depression. The economy will hit bottom no matter what. Prolonging the inevitable is not a solution.



onq said:


> *We are so screwed.*
> 
> *ONQ.*


I agree 100%, but for different reasons.



Complainer said:


> I'd guess that you're right, the MRSA rates are probably lower in private hospitals. But as I said, this is an unfair comparison. Private hospitals don't take in A&E patients, they pick and choose the patients they like, and the patients who will pay. Infection control rates are directly related to overcrowding. It is a bit easier to manage infections when you have private rooms. It is a bit easier to manage infections when you don't have six patients squeezed into a 4-bed room with little space between beds, and another two patients on the corrider. If you can pick and choose your patients coming in, it is much easier to manage infections. That's a luxury that public hospitals don't have.


As I said before, that is no reason for bad infection control and cleaning practices. My wife's experience with cleaning staff has shown that cleanliness in public hospitals is more than lacking. You have staff that will not clean above a certain height because it was against union rules. Waiting 4 hours for a blood stained toilette to be cleaned because cleaning staff would not respond to calls. Introducing new cleaning agents was impossible without "union approval". Any reprimands by management for not sterilising instruments properly (which could kill someone having an operation) resulted in an "I don't care shrug" followed by the arrival of a union official on the ward. In the private hospital she worked this simply did not happen. Everything was scrubbed top to bottom on a daily basis without any complaints from cleaning staff.



Complainer said:


> I think you're getting caught up with ideology and you are forgetting about the practical issues. So you're proposing that AIB and BOI should have been allowed fail, along with Anglo and INBS. So explain it to me like I'm 10 years old. What happens on the morning after?
> 
> What happens when 70% of the country can't get money for food? What happens when 70% of the shops can't process credit card or laser payments? What happens when 70% of the employers can't pay their staff? What happens when 70% of landlords stop getting rent?
> 
> Tell me clearly what damage would be caused and how this could be unwound? How long would it take for alternative banking services to be available?


You are wrongly assuming that the doors would just be shut. What happened when Quinn was declared insolvent? An administrator was appointed, but it was business as usual. People's deposits were "guaranteed" by the state up to €100000. If you are saying that this guarantee would not have been practical to implement or work then it wasn't worth the paper it was written on.
Now I am not suggesting that everything would be fine and rosy, there certainly would be quite a few difficulties. But what you would achieve in the long term would far outweigh the short term effects. In the long term, you would send a clear message to banks operating here that they cannot expect to get paid and not bear any of the risk. You would put an end to banking and financial crises of the magnitude the world has become so accustomed to.


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## Complainer

Chris said:


> As I said before, that is no reason for bad infection control and cleaning practices. My wife's experience with cleaning staff has shown that cleanliness in public hospitals is more than lacking. You have staff that will not clean above a certain height because it was against union rules. Waiting 4 hours for a blood stained toilette to be cleaned because cleaning staff would not respond to calls. Introducing new cleaning agents was impossible without "union approval". Any reprimands by management for not sterilising instruments properly (which could kill someone having an operation) resulted in an "I don't care shrug" followed by the arrival of a union official on the ward. In the private hospital she worked this simply did not happen. Everything was scrubbed top to bottom on a daily basis without any complaints from cleaning staff.


Funnily enough, my wife has direct experience with hospital cleaning staff in public hospitals too, over 15 years of experience as it happens. She never had a union problem that couldn't be sorted out, and most problems could be avoided by good communication up front. Most hospitals have now outsourced cleaning to external providers that don't recognise unions now. The 'don't care' attitude says far more about management than unions or staff. If management used to let people get away with this, then shame on them.

But regardless of staff, capacity is certainly a huge issue. There is a direct relationship between overcrowding and MRSA. See [broken link removed]



Chris said:


> You are wrongly assuming that the doors would just be shut. What happened when Quinn was declared insolvent? An administrator was appointed, but it was business as usual. People's deposits were "guaranteed" by the state up to €100000. If you are saying that this guarantee would not have been practical to implement or work then it wasn't worth the paper it was written on.
> Now I am not suggesting that everything would be fine and rosy, there certainly would be quite a few difficulties. But what you would achieve in the long term would far outweigh the short term effects. In the long term, you would send a clear message to banks operating here that they cannot expect to get paid and not bear any of the risk. You would put an end to banking and financial crises of the magnitude the world has become so accustomed to.


With all due respect, Quinn is not a retail bank. It is a completely different situation. Retail banks need to be able to allow customers to withdraw money every day. 

What you describe as 'a few difficulties' would actually be blood on the streets. You haven't thought this one through.


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## Chris

Complainer said:


> Funnily enough, my wife has direct experience with hospital cleaning staff in public hospitals too, over 15 years of experience as it happens. She never had a union problem that couldn't be sorted out, and most problems could be avoided by good communication up front. Most hospitals have now outsourced cleaning to external providers that don't recognise unions now. The 'don't care' attitude says far more about management than unions or staff. If management used to let people get away with this, then shame on them.
> 
> But regardless of staff, capacity is certainly a huge issue. There is a direct relationship between overcrowding and MRSA. See [broken link removed]


I agree that these situations were a failure of management as well, but that is only a further bad indictment of public hospitals. and their cleanliness.
Overcrowding is most cetainly a huge problem, not only from an MRSA point of view. But running hospitals at 110+% of capacity cannot be excused with the fact that public hospitals cannot pick and choose their patients. It doesn't take an expert to realise that such capacity management cannot be sustained.



Complainer said:


> With all due respect, Quinn is not a retail bank. It is a completely different situation. Retail banks need to be able to allow customers to withdraw money every day.
> 
> What you describe as 'a few difficulties' would actually be blood on the streets. You haven't thought this one through.


I disagree, banking would not simply come to a halt.
But as I have mentioned before, having a monetary system that essentially fails as soon as a significant amount of people want what is rightfully their property is fundamentally flawed.


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## Complainer

Chris said:


> I disagree, banking would not simply come to a halt.


It would be helpful if you could give some detail on what would actually happen if AIB/BOI were insolvent. What happens next day when I go to the AIB ATM?


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## Chris

Complainer said:


> It would be helpful if you could give some detail on what would actually happen if AIB/BOI were insolvent. What happens next day when I go to the AIB ATM?



The banks' initially faced a solvency issue, this does not mean that they didn't have any money, it was a case of that they were unable to keep up with their reserve requirements at an affordable interst. This was the now infamous "freezing of the credit markets".
An administrator would have been appointed, and just like with any other bank run in history a restriction would have been put in place on withdrawal amounts. If such a process were not possible then our baning and monetary system is more flawed than even I believe it to be.

The Great Depression saw hundreds of bank runs and subsequent bankruptcies at a time when there wasn't even a deposit guarantee. I'm not saying that life at this time was easy, but it was very far from the "blood on the street" scenario you paint.

As I said before, the benefits of having a banking industry that actually lives in fear of losses and bankruptcy far outweighs the consequences of allowing banks to fail. Crony-capitalism caused this mess and now crony-capitalism is stronger than it ever was before.


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## Complainer

Chris said:


> An administrator would have been appointed, and just like with any other bank run in history a restriction would have been put in place on withdrawal amounts. If such a process were not possible then our baning and monetary system is more flawed than even I believe it to be.


When has there been a bank similar to the significance of AIB/BOI in Ireland, given their overwhelming market share. NR and Lehmans were in the half-penny place compared to AIB/BOI. Can you give some examples of comparable bank runs in history?


Chris said:


> The Great Depression


You're not doing a great job at reassuring us that this is the path we should have chosen...


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## Chris

Complainer said:


> When has there been a bank similar to the significance of AIB/BOI in Ireland, given their overwhelming market share. NR and Lehmans were in the half-penny place compared to AIB/BOI. Can you give some examples of comparable bank runs in history?


The Bank of the United Sates was the largest bank failure at the time (1931), and hundreds of other banks went out of business. This did not result in "blood on the streets" as you would have us believe.



Complainer said:


> You're not doing a great job at reassuring us that this is the path we should have chosen...



The Great Depression was the result of the bubble created by the Hoover administration, and became Great because of FDRs interventions, not because bank runs were allowed to continue (which didn't happen). Liquidation of bad investments and businesses is the cure, not the disease.
FDR made the same mistakes that are now being repeated throughout most of the western world.


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## Complainer

Chris said:


> The Bank of the United Sates was the largest bank failure at the time (1931), and hundreds of other banks went out of business. This did not result in "blood on the streets" as you would have us believe.


It was the 28th largest bank in the USA at the time that it crashed, so its ranking in the US was somewhere similar to where Dundrum Credit Union ranks in the Irish context. It is in no way comparable to a simultaneous crash of AIB/BOI in the Irish context.


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## Chris

Complainer said:


> It was the 28th largest bank in the USA at the time that it crashed, so its ranking in the US was somewhere similar to where Dundrum Credit Union ranks in the Irish context. It is in no way comparable to a simultaneous crash of AIB/BOI in the Irish context.



But the US at the time suffered some 8000+ bank failures, which is arguably more difficult to contain than several large ones. The fact that the Irish banking system was concentrated into a few large banks, thus exacerbating the value of risk, is a whole different issue. But this still does not mean that there would be blood on the streets! This scenario is purely based on the fictitious idea that bankrupt businesses simply stop trading. This doesn't happen in the real world, and this "too big to fail" concept is typical of political speak around the world. What our current mess is proving is that the banks were too big to save, as it becomes more and more likely that Ireland will go bankrupt. That's hardly a compelling alternative to allowing the banks to fail in the first place.


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## Complainer

I give up, Chris. I've tried teasing it out with you, but you've given me nothing that shows that anything like a simultaneous crash of AIB/BOI has every happened before. Without that evidence, it is very, very dangerous for you to say that this is the route we should have taken.


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## Chris

Complainer said:


> I give up, Chris. I've tried teasing it out with you, but you've given me nothing that shows that anything like a simultaneous crash of AIB/BOI has every happened before. Without that evidence, it is very, very dangerous for you to say that this is the route we should have taken.



I have provided more than enough evidence that large scale bank failures do not result in a total collapse of the banking system or blood on the street, but you choose to deem them insufficient. There is absolutely nothing that would support such an idea, except for the "too big to fail" concept, which is purely fallacious.


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## Sunny

Chris said:


> I have provided more than enough evidence that large scale bank failures do not result in a total collapse of the banking system or blood on the street, but you choose to deem them insufficient. There is absolutely nothing that would support such an idea, except for the "too big to fail" concept, which is purely fallacious.


 
No you haven't. For anyone to suggest that Ireland could have survived BOI and AIB failing is absurd. How long did Iceland last following the collapse of their banks?


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## maureen

My sister in law recently received a nice lump sum and retired from nursing, now has gone back very part time and gets better pay than ever.....it's a joke


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## Complainer

maureen said:


> My sister in law recently received a nice lump sum and retired from nursing, now has gone back very part time and gets better pay than ever.....it's a joke



It's not unusual in many industries that part-time casual staff get paid more on an hourly basis than permanent staff. The reflects the fact that they have no holiday pay, sick pay or permanency.


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## Chris

Sunny said:


> No you haven't. For anyone to suggest that Ireland could have survived BOI and AIB failing is absurd. How long did Iceland last following the collapse of their banks?


That is not an argument. You could reverse it and ask by what experience would a bailout of the Irish magnitude not lead to sovereign default and blood on the streets?
Icelandic banks collapsed, and people went to the streets to and polls to stop the government from bailing out the bond holders (over 90% voted No). Iceland did not get catapulted into the stone age, and is now in a position to rebuild its economy on more solid foundations. Now I am always skeptical of government and IMF issued data, but Iceland is expected to return to growth this year (), that is more than Ireland can boast.



Complainer said:


> It's not unusual in many industries that part-time casual staff get paid more on an hourly basis than permanent staff. The reflects the fact that they have no holiday pay, sick pay or permanency.



Indeed, non-permanent contract pay is always a good but higher than full time pay. These situations do make a good point though for taxing pension income.


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## number7

Sunny said:


> No you haven't. For anyone to suggest that Ireland could have survived BOI and AIB failing is absurd. How long did Iceland last following the collapse of their banks?


 
Last time I checked Iceland was still there!!!


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