Huge protest over Irish economy

[depakid]

Source: BBC


Marchers said they wanted to avoid taking strike action
---------

Many are angry at plans to impose a pension levy on public sector workers. Trade union organisers of the march said workers did not cause the economic crisis but were having to pay for it. In a statement, the Irish government said it recognised that the measures it was taking were "difficult and in some cases painful".

There were conflicting estimates of the numbers of people at the march, which began on the north side of Dublin in the mid-afternoon. Police said 100,000 people were on the streets, while organisers said they expected 200,000 to protest in total.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu), which organised the march, said it was campaigning for "a fairer and better way" of dealing with the economic crisis. "Our priority is about ensuring that people are looked after, the interests of people are looked after, not the interests of big business or the wealthy," Sally-Anne Kinahan, Ictu's secretary general, told the BBC.

One protester said he was "sick and tired of the way this government conducts itself and what it's doing to this country." "I've worked all my life, I've never broke the law, never walked out on strike. Instead I've went to work and done my job," he said. "I've a mortgage to pay, I've children to put through school, and now I'm being told I have to take cutback, after cutback, after cutback."

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7903518.stm

[seemslikeadream]

1. It's that whole potato thing again

[cigsandcoffee]

22. "That potato thing" saw a million people die...

...and is still quite fresh for the Irish today. Would you make a Holocaust reference if Jews were marching in the streets?

My point is this: If you're trying to be clever, it didn't work.

[seemslikeadream]

23. You misunderstood me sorry I was not more clear

I believe we are on the same page about this


My great grandmothers parents were killed in County Wexford around 1800, she came here as an orphan

[Lost in CT]

2. Unfortunately the Irish are stuck with a lot of Foreign workers that refuse to go home.

One hopes that once the foreigners are repatriated into their own lands unemployment and the strains of social services will improve.

[CountAllVotes]

10. towns of immigrants have formed in areas

My in-law in Galway tells us about this. An entire town has formed of Polish immigrants just north west of where he lives. They wait for a bus to take them to their jobs every day (well if they still have jobs that is).

Poland is just one country of many that have had many many people flock to Ireland to live.

Other countries include: Brazil, Scotland, Nigeria, and Latvia just to name a few.

Global warming is also take a huge toll in Ireland.

All is very far from "well" sadly. :(

:dem: :kick:

[customerserviceguy]

3. I've looked through the article, and on Google news

but I still cannot determine exactly what a "pension levy on public sector workers" is. It sounds like it might be some sort of reduction in wages for government workers, but that word "pension" is throwing me here.

I guess the protesters would rather see some of their co-workers laid off instead?

[depakid]

5. It's essentially a dressed up pay cut

Labour argues that it's going to hit the lowest paid workers the hardest.

Sound familiar?

It's explained here:

http://www.rte.ie/money/2009/0203/budget.html

[customerserviceguy]

11. Thanks, that does explain it

However, I couldn't help but notice the following:

"Contributions will be deducted from gross pay by employers before income tax, PRSI and health levies are calculated and as such pension contributions will be effectively relieved of tax at the marginal rate."

Sounds like a better deal than I get with my FICA and Medicare taxes, I have to pay state and federal income tax on the sums deducted from my paycheck for those programs.

[Princess Turandot]

31. Pension contributions are usually pre-tax here as well...

such as payments into 401k's & 403b's. There are caps but they are fairly high. IRAs are also deductible pre-tax, subject to a cap.

My assumption is that they are requiring the employees to make a contribution to their pensions which they likely do not make now.

[jtbrick]

4. There goes the Emerald Miracle that the

Capitalist pig, corporate suck up right wing had been touting few years ago. It's the failure of their policies in a nutshell! It's the folly of business over people.

Only Government can end this cycle of boom and bust!

Was this dramatic change the luck of the Irish? Not at all. It resulted from a series of hard-headed decisions that shifted Ireland from big government stagnation to free market growth. After years of high inflation, double-digit unemployment rates, and soaring government debt that topped 100 percent of GDP, Irish policymakers began to cut spending in the late 1980s in a desperate bid to recover financial stability.

Irish government spending fell from more than 50 percent of GDP in the 1980s to 34 percent by 2005. For Europe that is a triumph of restraint, given that the average size of government across 25 EU countries today is 47 percent of GDP.

And Ireland has steadily reduced its tax rates. The top individual income tax rate was cut from 65 percent in 1985 to 42 percent today. The capital-gains tax rate was cut from 40 to 20 percent in 1999.

However, the key to Ireland’s success has been its excellent tax climate for business. In 1980, Ireland established a corporate tax rate for manufacturing of just ten percent. That low rate was subsequently extended to high-technology, financial services, and other industries. More recently, Ireland established a flat 12.5 percent tax rate on all corporations — one of the lowest rates in the world, and just one-third of the U.S. rate.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NzUzMzA0N2UxM2E0MTg4Mzk5YmI1Zjk3YzU4ZGVlZmE=

Is there any doubt left that we must heed Marx and Engles?

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/ch09.htm

[pnwmom]

6. Marx and Engles have been tried and found wanting. n/t

[jtbrick]

9. And free market capitalism hasn't?

Capitalistic corporate and individual greed has proved to be an EPIC-FAIL. Centralized Government planning and worker ownership of the means of production needs to be imposed.

Obama said, "It is only government that can break the vicious cycle."

From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

All that a man owns is his labor!

[pnwmom]

12. Obama is NOT a Marxist, though some on the right claim that he is.

As to your question about whether the free market has been tried. Those on the far right argue vehemently that it has not, that market restrictions and taxes have been the real problem -- just as those on the far left would argue that we've never had a pure Marxist government.

Those who would promote either extreme fail to take into account human nature.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

13. Cute platitudes that have been tried and failed in our lifetimes

Centralized planning is the largest of the epic fails.

[depakid]

14. A smart bet would be that the poster wasn't serious

[ProgressiveProfessor]

15. There are enough academics who still thinks Marx matters that I

take comments that way as serious vice jocular.

[depakid]

16. How many academics have read Capital (both books) or Wealth of Nations?

Pretty esoteric stuff.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

17. I think those and others are banned

Seriously, career academics who have done nothing outside the University often lack the real world experience to give perspective and depth to their instruction. From where I sit as a 2nd career academic, there is clear divide in many faculties that way.

[depakid]

18. Understood- yet seriously

Those are tough reads.

So are articles expanding on them.

Kinda end up flipping though dogear pages and/or otherwise checking cites.

[pnwmom]

19. Another divide is between humanities professors and some of

the other colleges, for example, engineering.

[depakid]

20. True enough

On the other hand, there are places that still reckon- and still believe:

Doctrina Urbi Serviat.

(Our knowledge gained will serve our community) - or some such thing...

[Odin2005]

27. I thought "acedemics" were pimping Derrida, Foucault, and other Postmodernist garbage nowdays.

Marx is dead. Unfortunately he got replaced with something even worse, Postmodernist sophistry.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

28. I'm on the geek side...we aren't allowed know about such things

:sarcasm:

[pnwmom]

21. Or that the poster has motives

other than to contribute to a serious discussion.

[The Traveler]

25. If ya don't have a plan

then ya have a plan to fail.

Centralized planning is necessary for those things the market cannot be expected to accommodate. For example, a nation can plan for future energy crunches and ecological impact by mandating through policy and law development, implementation, and deployment of technologies that achieve established requirements. An enterprise compelled to maximize investor profits cannot be expected to impose that kind of burden on itself.

Now how those requirements are met ... it turns out markets are really good at figuring at the hows of things. Centralized planning gets into trouble when it mandates stuff like "30% of all fuel will be made of corn based ethanol". Better to say, "30% of all fuel will be based on non fossil based alternatives, suitable for combustion in OBD-II compliant or better internal combustion engines, and which are limited to x milligrams net carbon emissions per joule", or something like that. I think you get the idea.

Markets suck at determining long term requirements. We've known about the potential for climate change and the national security risks of dependency on foreign fuel sources for over a generation. Free markets have accomplished precious little to address the requirements implicit in that knowledge. It is my argument it is unreasonable to assume that markets would (or could) do so.

The lesson learned from the past fifty years I think is clear. When governments intrude too heavily in realms best addressed by market forces, things get bogged down. When people count on markets to self regulate and address long term requirements that do not directly boost short term profits, things blow up.

Just my take on it.

Trav

**edited to clean up a couple of really pooly worded phrases **

[ProgressiveProfessor]

29. The problem is that centralized planning fails to account or react adequately to distruptive

technologies.

[The Traveler]

30. Elucidate

I presume you mean "disruptive technologies". Define, please.

My next question would be "What characteristic of free markets makes them automatically superior than governments in their response to these technologies?" For example, what is the free market solution to the introduction of the "Johnny Science Biological Weapons Lab Kit for Angry Adolescent Extremists"? (Certainly, that would be a disruptive technology ...)

My follow up question would be: "What constitutes a superior response?"

There is something axiomatic about much political discussion. Axiom: "Government is less efficient than the free market." Is this really an axiom ... an assumption, from which logical discussion can follow? Or is it a conclusion of logical discussion which deserves analysis and possible contradiction? It was once a conclusion. This conclusion is usually presented as an article of faith, an established fact. I do not accept that ... I think that it is a statement that is quite open, and indeed vulnerable, to analysis.

I have a problem with the word "efficiency" ... a word slung by free marketeers on a regular basis. As an engineer I have been taught to always ask, "Efficient with respect to what value/parameter?" My heavily modified 1991 Camaro with the 350 ci V-8 and over sized throttle body injectors very efficiently converts gasoline to torque. However, it is somewhat less efficient at turning a gallon of gas into miles traveled. Free market economies seem to have become efficient at turning the talent and effort of workers into cash for the rich, and far less efficient at contributing to the economic structures that provide the basis of a dynamic culture capable of adapting to unforeseen events. Pardon me if I have a problem with that.

I am not sure why corporate bureaucracies are inherently superior to government bureaucracies. The usual arguments are, after 30 years in corporate America, less than convincing to me.

For these reasons, and the course of recent events, the axioms of free market ideology can no longer be sacrosanct fundamental statements or assumptions.

None of the above should indicate to you I am a fan of centrally planned economies. Rather, I advocate that it is possible to achieve a creative tension between active markets and active government can be quite productive to the national interest. I propose that there are some areas in which we cannot expect businesses to perform in a manner that advances the public good, and that in those areas government must needs exert its influence.


Trav

[Odin2005]

26. Central Planning is an EPIC-FAIL.

The lie that socialism automatically refers to central planning is right-wing BS, same with the Right-wing lie conflating Capitalism with Free Enterprise.

[trthnd4jstc]

7. End the Tyranny of Banking over Humanity. End Fake Money created by Debt. Have a Currency Based On

Labor. Labor should be the Basis for all currency. End the Rule of the Rich over the rest of us. They are no better, nor any smarter than the rest of us. There desires should never carry more weight than any other group of people end Tyranny. The collapse of the global economy is tied to the collapse of the financial industry. The problem is lack of sufficient regulation, created by A$$holes who control our governments.

[mainegreen]

8. It's Hugh!

O'Mally.

[Peace Patriot]

24. Sorry I'm too late to recommend this. THANKS FOR POSTING!

The Irish workers' message is clear and compelling: DON'T TAKE THE CRISIS CREATED BY THE RICH OUT OF THE HIDES OF THE POOR!

Hear that, President Obama? Hear that, Congress? The Irish are not the only people who are onto this putrid Bushwhack game!