Brexit

you want corbin to run the country?....

Either which way the choice appears poor. It's a sad state of affairs when your 2 main main political parties main canvass consists of encouraging people not to vote for the opposition because they will ruin the country. You guys have very poor political choice in my opinion. We have very poor political choice in this country at the moment too. If there were an election in the morning, a lot of rural people would find it difficult to make up their mind as to who to vote for - not because of the great things that the political parties have done, but because of their incompetencies.
 
Either which way the choice appears poor. It's a sad state of affairs when your 2 main main political parties main canvass consists of encouraging people not to vote for the opposition because they will ruin the country. You guys have very poor political choice in my opinion. We have very poor political choice in this country at the moment too. If there were an election in the morning, a lot of rural people would find it difficult to make up their mind as to who to vote for - not because of the great things that the political parties have done, but because of their incompetencies.
I think you've hit the nail on the head. Voting for someone because they're the supposed lesser of two evils is not a sound foundation for democracy is it.
 
you want corbin to run the country?....

I posted on another forum today in a discussion around your election. But yeah much and all as I dislike some of his policies, at least you know how you're getting f*cked. I wouldnt trust Boris Johnson as far as I could push him.

Dammed if you do and dammed if you don't kinda sums up the UK these days.

Personally I'd be marginally centre right, A capitalist but with a good shot of social justice thrown in.

I would view Corbyn as a borderline communist, but I think I'd still vote for him rather than live in a country run by Domnic Cummings.

At least you know what you're getting with Corbyn.
 

My God.

I pity the UK people for having this guy as the next potential PM. I wouldn’t trust the guy with anything, he’s just out to look after himself.

Corbyn is completely unconvincing, it’s such a poor contest.

If would certainly vote Lib Dem if I were in the UK.

We aren’t blessed with great leadership here in Ireland but I genuinely think we have much better politicians at or near the top here.
 
My God.

I pity the UK people for having this guy as the next potential PM. I wouldn’t trust the guy with anything, he’s just out to look after himself.

Corbyn is completely unconvincing, it’s such a poor contest.

If would certainly vote Lib Dem if I were in the UK.

We aren’t blessed with great leadership here in Ireland but I genuinely think we have much better politicians at or near the top here.
My God.

I pity the UK people for having this guy as the next potential PM. I wouldn’t trust the guy with anything, he’s just out to look after himself.

Corbyn is completely unconvincing, it’s such a poor contest.

If would certainly vote Lib Dem if I were in the UK.

We aren’t blessed with great leadership here in Ireland but I genuinely think we have much better politicians at or near the top here.

I wouldn't vote Illiberal if I were in the UK.. too much damaging woke bull for me,

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/puberty-blocker-drug-firm-donated-cash-to-lib-dems-cf3x77nh3

The one thing you can say about Corbyn is that he has principles and you won't see him off making a millionaire of himself once he leaves office like that war-criminal Blair. He is an old fashioned socialist and that's fair enough if you're into utopian unicorns.

Boris has very few principles really and doesn't really hide that he wants the power and prestige. He does want lower taxes though and a competitive economy, we could do with a drop of that here and a bit of right wing government will be no harm this side of Europe to counterbalance all the left wing governments in every other country including here.

Unfortunately successful politicians are normally not very nice people. Boris seems to have a bit more of a common touch though especially with the female voter and if I was the lad in the ad I wouldn't let the missus answer the door again.
 
If labour actually had a decent chap in there I could be tempted to give them my vote
Boris doesn't inspire confidence
Lid dems would never get my vote on the premise of their not respecting a democratic vote...


Tactical voting it will be
 
I wouldn't vote Illiberal if I were in the UK.. too much damaging woke bull for me,

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/puberty-blocker-drug-firm-donated-cash-to-lib-dems-cf3x77nh3

The one thing you can say about Corbyn is that he has principles and you won't see him off making a millionaire of himself once he leaves office like that war-criminal Blair. He is an old fashioned socialist and that's fair enough if you're into utopian unicorns.

Boris has very few principles really and doesn't really hide that he wants the power and prestige. He does want lower taxes though and a competitive economy, we could do with a drop of that here and a bit of right wing government will be no harm this side of Europe to counterbalance all the left wing governments in every other country including here.

Unfortunately successful politicians are normally not very nice people. Boris seems to have a bit more of a common touch though especially with the female voter and if I was the lad in the ad I wouldn't let the missus answer the door again.
We have had center right parties in power for as far back as the 1920's, there has never been a semblance of a left wing government in Ireland.
 
If labour actually had a decent chap in there I could be tempted to give them my vote
Boris doesn't inspire confidence
Lid dems would never get my vote on the premise of their not respecting a democratic vote...


Tactical voting it will be
Have you a Brexit Party candidate in your constituency?
 
We have had center right parties in power for as far back as the 1920's, there has never been a semblance of a left wing government in Ireland.
It's really hard to believe that when paying 48.5% tax. We don't really have left and right here, just a single party who are bleeding us dry and wasting our money.
 
It's really hard to believe that when paying 48.5% tax. We don't really have left and right here, just a single party who are bleeding us dry and wasting our money.

Our problem is a bloated public sector. Something like 12% of the workforce are employed in public sector. The problem is twofold.

Firstly, try to get elected by saying you'll cut public spending. Not going to work. Secondly, if you do manage it, where do you cut? Trying to get money out of our public sector would be like trying to get blood out of a stone.

Take home pay here is still above UK levels. If you ignore USC and PRSI, the top tax rate is unchanged since 2003. In 1992 it was 52%. In 1986 it was 58% and before that it was 60%. So things are better than they were.

Our only options to cut back on spending to allow a tax cut would be to either decimate the HSE or cut social protection spending. Fat chance of either happening.

Alternatively we could do an America on it and elect a tangerine to cut taxes for all and run up ma-hoosive budget deficit. I've always thought of an economy as a fire. A tax cut is petrol.

Trump has a great fire. But he's running out of petrol. Us budget deficit for 2020 will be 1 trillion dollars. UK budget deficit for the year will be 32 billion pounds. I'm all for manageable debt to stimulate growth, but I can't help feel its getting out of hand.
 
@Kieran97, Agree wholeheartedly about the public sector. There are a total of 2.317m employed people in Ireland in the latest figures. The figure has to be more than 12%, the OECD said 19.5% in 2014, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_sector.
Then you factor in indirectly employed sectors, e.g. the FAI :lol:, all the big accounting, architectural and legal practices take a huge % of their income from government funds, all the retired public servants on their big pensions they got by selling out their own colleagues, people on the state pension (629,000), illness benefit (393,000). You are right the public sector is too big. I think the country is in big trouble. The numbers working in the real private sector will not be able to afford those their taxes are supporting. Saying someone in the public sector contributes too is like saying that Dublin Bus pay road tax.

Why ignore USC and PRSI?? You don't have an option not to pay it. Between the two it makes up an 8.5% tax rate on all income, and this rises to 12% over €70k. The issue then with income tax is not what the top rate is (40%), its the low threshold that it kicks in at, €35,000. For every euro you make above that amount you only get 52.5cent, 48cent over 70k. This is in marked contrast to the UK where the tax rate is 20% from £12.5k up to £50k , 40% thereafter and social insurance is 12% from £8.5k to £50k and drops back to 2% after that.

You are right that our electoral system has caused this. I think our PR system is a lot of the reason as there are always minority parties in government and also there can never be a proper majority government. So everyone is always thinking short term to the next election, keep everyone happy, don't rock the boat, give their friends a few cushy jobs.

You are also right about the government debts but not about the cause of them in our case anyway. You're thinking why cut spending to give a tax cut to the rich, that's classic left thinking. Maybe if you cut tax people wouldn't need all the government handouts? They might have some of their own money. Keeping taxes high and spending more and more only breeds inefficiency, if the HSE had double the budget they'd be double the mess.

Anyway that's enough of that for the night. It's a pity Economics is not compulsory in schools. Your analogy of an economy being like a fire is so wrong, it's not something you have to keep stimulating or else it dies:confused3:. This ignores enterprise, one of the factors of production that is innate in people if not taxed and regulated out of existence. It's not your fault though, I blame whatever Marxist lecturer you had.
 
Social Welfare recipients statistics for 2018.
 

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@Kieran97, Agree wholeheartedly about the public sector. There are a total of 2.317m employed people in Ireland in the latest figures. The figure has to be more than 12%, the OECD said 19.5% in 2014, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_sector.
Then you factor in indirectly employed sectors, e.g. the FAI :lol:, all the big accounting, architectural and legal practices take a huge % of their income from government funds, all the retired public servants on their big pensions they got by selling out their own colleagues, people on the state pension (629,000), illness benefit (393,000). You are right the public sector is too big. I think the country is in big trouble. The numbers working in the real private sector will not be able to afford those their taxes are supporting. Saying someone in the public sector contributes too is like saying that Dublin Bus pay road tax.

Why ignore USC and PRSI?? You don't have an option not to pay it. Between the two it makes up an 8.5% tax rate on all income, and this rises to 12% over €70k. The issue then with income tax is not what the top rate is (40%), its the low threshold that it kicks in at, €35,000. For every euro you make above that amount you only get 52.5cent, 48cent over 70k. This is in marked contrast to the UK where the tax rate is 20% from £12.5k up to £50k , 40% thereafter and social insurance is 12% from £8.5k to £50k and drops back to 2% after that.

You are right that our electoral system has caused this. I think our PR system is a lot of the reason as there are always minority parties in government and also there can never be a proper majority government. So everyone is always thinking short term to the next election, keep everyone happy, don't rock the boat, give their friends a few cushy jobs.

You are also right about the government debts but not about the cause of them in our case anyway. You're thinking why cut spending to give a tax cut to the rich, that's classic left thinking. Maybe if you cut tax people wouldn't need all the government handouts? They might have some of their own money. Keeping taxes high and spending more and more only breeds inefficiency, if the HSE had double the budget they'd be double the mess.

Anyway that's enough of that for the night. It's a pity Economics is not compulsory in schools. Your analogy of an economy being like a fire is so wrong, it's not something you have to keep stimulating or else it dies:confused3:. This ignores enterprise, one of the factors of production that is innate in people if not taxed and regulated out of existence. It's not your fault though, I blame whatever Marxist lecturer you had.
The reason I left them out was that I don't know if and what they were In the 2000s, before my time. But I do know what the income tax rates were down through the years.

The take home salary yes is larger for higher earners. If you earn 40000 or less, your take home in Ireland is better. At 50000, the UK is marginally better, 37500 vs 36800 ish here.

I think the reason we have a wider array of parties and politicians is due to our proportional representation. There is actually a purpose in voting for a party outside FF/FG if you so wish to do so. With the first past the post system in the UK, a vote for anyone other the few main parties is a wasted vote. Personally I feel our system is better but that is a whole matter entirely. What I meant about the system is that when you have a large percentage of people in the public sector, and an even a larger group of people that are connected to them/dependent on them, you're not going to get people to shit on their own doorstep.

Next, yes in our case it was the baking crisis and we're handling our debt well. I feel government debt can be useful but should be well managed. You either go too far one way (US, huge deficits), or you go too far the other way (Germany running big surpluses and hoovering up all the money from the southern European States).

I disagree with what you say about my thinking. I'm not in any way shape or form on the left, I might just be less right than you. I'd love a tax cut myself, I'm at the stage now my (extended) college career is coming to an end. We were discussing the benefits in doing a masters (engineering) in terms of starting salary. The amount of money you get more in your first year covers your fees, but we were just discussing the amount of your salary gone in tax usc etc. While I'd love to pay less tax, to take 2% off the top rate of tax would cost the exchequer a billion euros. That a big hole to plug. You do that, services suffer. Yes the HSE is over funded, but you need to improve it before you cut the money. Then you can cut the money. If you take the money out of one place, you have to get it in another, and then you end up like the UK with 9000 pounds a year university fees. I agree with your point on low taxes, I just don't see where you cut the money from. That we will suddenly be able to cut taxes lower than that of many of our European counterparts, and keep the wheels on the wagon is a unicorn
An attractive unicorn, but still a unicorn. Baby steps.

The fire analogy is that you can use petrol (a big tax cut) or be sparing with the fire (a balanced budget). The fire will be not as hot in the second scenario, but the first fire will be long out when the second one is still going. The US economy is strong atm, but when it crashes next time, its going to be a big one due to their huge national debt.

And I had no marxist lecturers, we leave that to the faculty of arts.
 
"yes in our case it was the baking crisis"
What is there more snow due or summit?.............................................................
 
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