This is Fine Gael’s entire goal, creating a landlord class and fucking the middle to lower class workers.
They practically ran for election on this campaign, by saying they would be hard on cheats and those that don’t wake up early and other bizarre conditions in which a citizen would be judged/discriminated as being worthy. What have they done other than fast forwarding the buying of homes and rent to buy schemes so they can be rented back to us indefinitely and as the article states making budgets that hurt the poorest. Judge them by their actions not their bullshit.
The rich being those who dont work – either living off the state or being landlords / children of mass inherritance, and the poor being the actual working and middle classes
This isn’t particularly smart analysis, deeply flawed imo. They’ve defined the ‘poor’ as those on unemployment benefit, not workers in low-paid jobs as is standard in other countries.
A widening gap behind social welfare benefits and working can be a good thing, as greater rewards from working are introduced, such as higher pay.
No. Fucking. Shit.
Pareto principle
But I was told that our ultra-progressive taxation made it not matter!
Did I miss it or what was their definition of “Rich”?
No shit sherlock, I could see this a decade ago
This is new to some?
All everyone in my town does is work some physical labour job for 600 a week and drink it all away every weekend…then get a loan out for a netflix acc and a shitty 2014 Golf… of course theyre poor
Is this article saying you should be considered ‘poor’ (in Ireland) as long as you make up to 50k a year?
Economic growth is always going to favour those in employment over those with no employment or minimum wage employment.
There isn’t really a way to avoid that.
Ireland is unusual in having a lot of highly-skilled and/or professional jobs but a comparatively small “middle” sector.
If you look at our economy, huge money is made in tech, financial services, etc, huge money is made in pharma and so on.
What then emerges are some unusual facets of Irish employment.
One of the first issues is the public sector. Ireland’s public servants are generally very well-paid. One thing that’s not often spoken about is how few of them there are.
All of the countries Ireland tends to want to ape employ more people in the public sector. There are two ways to achieve this – lower pay and/or higher taxes. We already tax high-income earners at high levels, so tax increases are politically impossible. Lower pay is also politically impossible.
This creates a scenario where areas that cannot sustain professional and/or high-end manufacturing jobs are falling behind, and doing so relatively rapidly. Public jobs would offer a huge support to the shithole parts of the country with nothing going on in them, but the people who live there are wildly opposed to the conditions required to fund them, and will continue to wonder why their children leave.
The other great issue in Ireland is building and tradesmen. Like a lot of Anglophone countries, Ireland took the view that third-level education was the most effective way to reduce inequality. Whilst true up to a point, it meant that the pool of people entering into trades has reduced enormously. This was heightened by the tendency in the Celtic Tiger to hire skilled tradespeople from abroad rather than to train our own.
A good plumber or electrician can make enormous money, but there’s a cultural stigma against going into a trade *in lieu* of third-level education. One of the consequences of this is we’re desperately short of tradespeople but oversubscribed with teachers, etc. An electrician has much better job prospects than a young teacher, but by the time people realise that, they’re often in their mid to late 20s or older.
Without those middle-rank jobs and roles, we will continue to be an economy propelled by the high-end roles, and inequality will increase as a result.
There are times when it’s *not* widening?
This has nothing to do with Ireland. It’s a global thing that’s been happening for a while and it wont stop any time soon. Ireland is in it for a ride same like any other country.
Pareto effect in action, although government policies on housing have accelerated this. It’s more profitable to own rather than produce.
What’s the general agreement on how much one has to be on a year to be considered well off? There’s fine lines between struggling, being comfortable and then being wealthy… Sorry for sounding stupid but how much does one need to be making nowadays to be considered wealthy?
Definitely burying the lede in this article;
Their research found that between 2014 and 2022 the gap grew overall, however
>This gap has decreased by 16% following the budgetary policies of the current government, which Bennett said can be explained by the full payment of the Christmas Bonus to jobseekers in 2020/21 and no other changes to income taxation or welfare payments for these individuals
In other words, the current FG/FF government has been working quite successfully to close the gap again since coming to power.
The actual change this year is that the gap has increased by 0.3%. Which is incredibly small and not the “no shit, I’m getting poorer” amount that people seem to believe it is.
This is a surprisingly small change given the soaring inflation, which typically sees rich-poor divides grow quickly.
This tells us that in fact the current government are doing far better than we think at controlling spiralling costs.
How the fuck did they need an analysis to figure this out.
Yeah Jesus thanks for stating the obvious.
The comments on that article are depressingly stupid
No shit
Gap? Chasm more like.
Next up they will say that water is wet
Shocker.
Wonder why, couldn’t be that we’re ruled by landlords who have conspired to absolutely fuck the country for the working and lower middle class to appease giant corporations and other landowners.
Effectively demolishing the middle class and screwing over our youth so much that we see much of our youth emigrating?
No… couldn’t be that.
It doesn’t seem the most illuminating study – just showing that budget measures changed the take-home income of rich and poor by €3 a week.
Income inequality isn’t the big issue imo. Wealth inequality is – due to the housing crisis. Saying a budget made rich people better off by 3 quid a week doesn’t really tell me much.
I mean it’s not that hard to see. We had a ridiculous rise in inflation, this on lower wages will obviously feel the rising costs more. Then any tax they bring in, such as carbon tax, is more or less a poor tax too. It’s not going to have an effect on the wealthy but the poorer people will struggle. The poor will continue to get poorer and to offset it the government will keep raising minimum wage, which will continue to raise prices on everything and bring everything back to square one.
A rich person has a few million in the bank, still though they can play ever one off each other like the fools we are. 😉
Maybe the FFG bots can stop using their favorite ‘I’ll have you know inequality is reducing in Ireland’ stick.
It’s not just Ireland love
This is global.
Even in Scandinavia.
There is a book I read a few years ago about neo feudalism. The bare bones are basically that you will have a ruling class of “lords” such as gates and musk and the majority of the people will become the “peasant” class. We will own nothing and just working and consuming to support the ruling Lords.
Tbh when I first read it I thought it was shite but the more I see it happening around me the more I believe. “You will own nothing and be happy” seems to be the narrative now. We have the next generation of people that will probably never own a house and eventually a car as well.
It’s a dark future but we have been heading there for a while.
It’s called late stage capitalism
In other news Savile offended people with his sex.
There is no Solidarity though is there, it’s every man for himself. Where are the marches and protests, why isn’t everyone in a union?, Why do we pass picket lines?
Most of Real states is owned by bunch of companies here, Taxation is a lot here that people who can change economy (Like big white collar jobs) don’t want to work here anymore. Inflation is really high. Ireland is tax heaven for corporates but not for its employees. We can not boost travel industry as it is not part of Schengen area. Govt should be more critical towards big decisions.
Did we really need a full blown analysis to come to that conclusion? It’s always been that way. Stop voting in those shower of gowls…
No s@#t sherlock.
Going back to the early 1900s at thjs stage.
Ireland meeds to riot at this point.
I often feel, as an American immigrant here for a decade now, that Ireland follows many of the same trends as the US but lags a few years behind. I think, given where the US is at currently, it would be better for us to solve things now before it gets worse. But then I don’t get too involved because I’ve been told I’m not from here and it’s not my place, so
Unless the working man’s wage increases at a higher rate than the inflation rate then we’re all getting poorer aren’t we? The rich, business owners that employ the working man are more insulated against the reduction in quality of life so in that metric the gap does indeed grow.
WHO WOULD’VE FUCKING GUESSED STAGNANT WAGES AND POOR LABOUR ORGANISING POWER/RIGHTS WOULD LEAD TO GROWING WEALTH INEQUALITY.
It’s fine though because the GDP is great and the market will fix itself like it has been since 2008.
There’s barely any point in discussing this amongst the cutting analysis of “shocked Pikachu face” and “no shit” but:
1. This gap they’re highlighting is growing at an absolutely glacial pace. “Overall, the middle-poor gap has grown by a total of €21 per week (€1,070 per annum) over the period 2014-2022.”, 21 quid per week over 8 years. So under 3 quid a week over the course of a year
2. They’re highlighting that it is budget decisions causing it. Any cut in tax is obviously going to benefit people who actually pay tax over people who don’t, and low paid workers in Ireland pay basically no tax which is fairly unique in a European context. Remember the ERSI say our [tax system does the most of any European country to reduce income inequality](https://www.esri.ie/news/irish-tax-system-does-most-in-europe-to-reduce-inequality).
3. They claim the govt is increasing poverty, show me a single metric by which poverty in Ireland has increased since say 2011 when FG got in.
45 comments
keep the recovery (for the rich) going.
Join the club.
Shocked Pikachu Face
This is Fine Gael’s entire goal, creating a landlord class and fucking the middle to lower class workers.
They practically ran for election on this campaign, by saying they would be hard on cheats and those that don’t wake up early and other bizarre conditions in which a citizen would be judged/discriminated as being worthy. What have they done other than fast forwarding the buying of homes and rent to buy schemes so they can be rented back to us indefinitely and as the article states making budgets that hurt the poorest. Judge them by their actions not their bullshit.
The rich being those who dont work – either living off the state or being landlords / children of mass inherritance, and the poor being the actual working and middle classes
This isn’t particularly smart analysis, deeply flawed imo. They’ve defined the ‘poor’ as those on unemployment benefit, not workers in low-paid jobs as is standard in other countries.
A widening gap behind social welfare benefits and working can be a good thing, as greater rewards from working are introduced, such as higher pay.
No. Fucking. Shit.
Pareto principle
But I was told that our ultra-progressive taxation made it not matter!
Did I miss it or what was their definition of “Rich”?
No shit sherlock, I could see this a decade ago
This is new to some?
All everyone in my town does is work some physical labour job for 600 a week and drink it all away every weekend…then get a loan out for a netflix acc and a shitty 2014 Golf… of course theyre poor
Is this article saying you should be considered ‘poor’ (in Ireland) as long as you make up to 50k a year?
Economic growth is always going to favour those in employment over those with no employment or minimum wage employment.
There isn’t really a way to avoid that.
Ireland is unusual in having a lot of highly-skilled and/or professional jobs but a comparatively small “middle” sector.
If you look at our economy, huge money is made in tech, financial services, etc, huge money is made in pharma and so on.
What then emerges are some unusual facets of Irish employment.
One of the first issues is the public sector. Ireland’s public servants are generally very well-paid. One thing that’s not often spoken about is how few of them there are.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_sector_size
Slightly simplistic, but as a source it will do.
All of the countries Ireland tends to want to ape employ more people in the public sector. There are two ways to achieve this – lower pay and/or higher taxes. We already tax high-income earners at high levels, so tax increases are politically impossible. Lower pay is also politically impossible.
This creates a scenario where areas that cannot sustain professional and/or high-end manufacturing jobs are falling behind, and doing so relatively rapidly. Public jobs would offer a huge support to the shithole parts of the country with nothing going on in them, but the people who live there are wildly opposed to the conditions required to fund them, and will continue to wonder why their children leave.
The other great issue in Ireland is building and tradesmen. Like a lot of Anglophone countries, Ireland took the view that third-level education was the most effective way to reduce inequality. Whilst true up to a point, it meant that the pool of people entering into trades has reduced enormously. This was heightened by the tendency in the Celtic Tiger to hire skilled tradespeople from abroad rather than to train our own.
A good plumber or electrician can make enormous money, but there’s a cultural stigma against going into a trade *in lieu* of third-level education. One of the consequences of this is we’re desperately short of tradespeople but oversubscribed with teachers, etc. An electrician has much better job prospects than a young teacher, but by the time people realise that, they’re often in their mid to late 20s or older.
Without those middle-rank jobs and roles, we will continue to be an economy propelled by the high-end roles, and inequality will increase as a result.
There are times when it’s *not* widening?
This has nothing to do with Ireland. It’s a global thing that’s been happening for a while and it wont stop any time soon. Ireland is in it for a ride same like any other country.
Pareto effect in action, although government policies on housing have accelerated this. It’s more profitable to own rather than produce.
What’s the general agreement on how much one has to be on a year to be considered well off? There’s fine lines between struggling, being comfortable and then being wealthy… Sorry for sounding stupid but how much does one need to be making nowadays to be considered wealthy?
Definitely burying the lede in this article;
Their research found that between 2014 and 2022 the gap grew overall, however
>This gap has decreased by 16% following the budgetary policies of the current government, which Bennett said can be explained by the full payment of the Christmas Bonus to jobseekers in 2020/21 and no other changes to income taxation or welfare payments for these individuals
In other words, the current FG/FF government has been working quite successfully to close the gap again since coming to power.
The actual change this year is that the gap has increased by 0.3%. Which is incredibly small and not the “no shit, I’m getting poorer” amount that people seem to believe it is.
This is a surprisingly small change given the soaring inflation, which typically sees rich-poor divides grow quickly.
This tells us that in fact the current government are doing far better than we think at controlling spiralling costs.
How the fuck did they need an analysis to figure this out.
Yeah Jesus thanks for stating the obvious.
The comments on that article are depressingly stupid
No shit
Gap? Chasm more like.
Next up they will say that water is wet
Shocker.
Wonder why, couldn’t be that we’re ruled by landlords who have conspired to absolutely fuck the country for the working and lower middle class to appease giant corporations and other landowners.
Effectively demolishing the middle class and screwing over our youth so much that we see much of our youth emigrating?
No… couldn’t be that.
It doesn’t seem the most illuminating study – just showing that budget measures changed the take-home income of rich and poor by €3 a week.
Income inequality isn’t the big issue imo. Wealth inequality is – due to the housing crisis. Saying a budget made rich people better off by 3 quid a week doesn’t really tell me much.
I mean it’s not that hard to see. We had a ridiculous rise in inflation, this on lower wages will obviously feel the rising costs more. Then any tax they bring in, such as carbon tax, is more or less a poor tax too. It’s not going to have an effect on the wealthy but the poorer people will struggle. The poor will continue to get poorer and to offset it the government will keep raising minimum wage, which will continue to raise prices on everything and bring everything back to square one.
A rich person has a few million in the bank, still though they can play ever one off each other like the fools we are. 😉
Maybe the FFG bots can stop using their favorite ‘I’ll have you know inequality is reducing in Ireland’ stick.
It’s not just Ireland love
This is global.
Even in Scandinavia.
There is a book I read a few years ago about neo feudalism. The bare bones are basically that you will have a ruling class of “lords” such as gates and musk and the majority of the people will become the “peasant” class. We will own nothing and just working and consuming to support the ruling Lords.
Tbh when I first read it I thought it was shite but the more I see it happening around me the more I believe. “You will own nothing and be happy” seems to be the narrative now. We have the next generation of people that will probably never own a house and eventually a car as well.
It’s a dark future but we have been heading there for a while.
It’s called late stage capitalism
In other news Savile offended people with his sex.
There is no Solidarity though is there, it’s every man for himself. Where are the marches and protests, why isn’t everyone in a union?, Why do we pass picket lines?
Most of Real states is owned by bunch of companies here, Taxation is a lot here that people who can change economy (Like big white collar jobs) don’t want to work here anymore. Inflation is really high. Ireland is tax heaven for corporates but not for its employees. We can not boost travel industry as it is not part of Schengen area. Govt should be more critical towards big decisions.
Did we really need a full blown analysis to come to that conclusion? It’s always been that way. Stop voting in those shower of gowls…
No s@#t sherlock.
Going back to the early 1900s at thjs stage.
Ireland meeds to riot at this point.
I often feel, as an American immigrant here for a decade now, that Ireland follows many of the same trends as the US but lags a few years behind. I think, given where the US is at currently, it would be better for us to solve things now before it gets worse. But then I don’t get too involved because I’ve been told I’m not from here and it’s not my place, so
Unless the working man’s wage increases at a higher rate than the inflation rate then we’re all getting poorer aren’t we? The rich, business owners that employ the working man are more insulated against the reduction in quality of life so in that metric the gap does indeed grow.
WHO WOULD’VE FUCKING GUESSED STAGNANT WAGES AND POOR LABOUR ORGANISING POWER/RIGHTS WOULD LEAD TO GROWING WEALTH INEQUALITY.
It’s fine though because the GDP is great and the market will fix itself like it has been since 2008.
There’s barely any point in discussing this amongst the cutting analysis of “shocked Pikachu face” and “no shit” but:
1. This gap they’re highlighting is growing at an absolutely glacial pace. “Overall, the middle-poor gap has grown by a total of €21 per week (€1,070 per annum) over the period 2014-2022.”, 21 quid per week over 8 years. So under 3 quid a week over the course of a year
2. They’re highlighting that it is budget decisions causing it. Any cut in tax is obviously going to benefit people who actually pay tax over people who don’t, and low paid workers in Ireland pay basically no tax which is fairly unique in a European context. Remember the ERSI say our [tax system does the most of any European country to reduce income inequality](https://www.esri.ie/news/irish-tax-system-does-most-in-europe-to-reduce-inequality).
3. They claim the govt is increasing poverty, show me a single metric by which poverty in Ireland has increased since say 2011 when FG got in.