Unfortunately, as a qualified mechanic, he is relatively low paid €14ph. With rent and childcare etc there is not much left over. He is a good lad, 27, would love to buy his own home but it is out of reach.
He must be a rubbish mechanic if he’s only getting €14 per hour and not getting any overtime or nixers.
I was talking about the setting up of a business, like a factory for instance. I borrow a million and then out of that I hire you to look after IT requirements. If the business crashes I go bankrupt and leave a tab for others to pick up. You can claim state redundancy. If the business works I keep lions share, do whatever to avoid paying taxes and keep your pay rise to a minimum.
The vast majority of businesses like that make small profits and spend the vast majority of their income on wages.
By a left-wing government? Yes? Or no?
It was very left wing.
Left-wing governments, again?
Again, it was very left wing.
A combination of taxes and cuts has been the austere policy for 6-7yrs
We have continued to borrow money to fund day to day expenses. That’s hardly austerity.
Im not disputing that the economy is growing. Im disputing the manner in which it is growing. It is being propped up on unsound economic money printing policy designed to create, in Draghis words, "a wealth effect", so that we can start our borrowing spree again.
Agreed.
What on earth could he mean by being the employer of last resort?
My guess is he is advocating fiscal stimulus (hopefully in a productive way) that will result in a transfer of wealth from capital to labour.
The State being the employer of last resort, i.e. employing people for the sake of it. We did it here in the 70’s.
We constantly hear how public sector workers are over-burdened, so I don't think reducing numbers further would be sustainable.
They are but much of it is to do with inefficient processes.
firefly theBigShort pick a country Lets say Germany seeing they helped bail us out . Benchmark Ireland to services to Germany services or any other country for that matter . Do we want and are we prepared to pay to have them. Are we prepared to unwind Everything stopping us from achieving our goals.Lets say pensions public/private. child care .health service. Dole.Housing.
Take Sweden or New Zealand. Both are much better run. Both have better public services. Both have much fairer income tax systems and a generally broader tax base.
Yes, it goes back the 'how' it should be achieved. No doubt reducing corporate tax can induce an pressure on wages, but the benefit will predominantly felt in higher capital returns. This would defeat the purpose.
I would more agree with this sentiment from Bill Gross.
I agree that there has been a general move from a return on labour to a return on capital. It’s happened since the 80’s and early 90’s, mainly since the opening up of South East Asia and a huge increase on capital due to their very low wage costs. On a global level, as per your original post, this has resulted in massive wage increases, just not in the part of the globe where wages were already high.
So, in answer to your first post yes; it is time for wages to increase and there have been increasing well ahead of inflation for the vast majority of those in the labour force (or “workers” as you like to call them) in the world. Just not for those who are already very highly paid. Everyone in Ireland, even those who have no job, are very highly paid in the global context.