Incidentally, are there diplomatic relations between the two blogs?
Brendan Keenan’s conclusion that we should jack up taxes by €6 bn does not explicitly address the imbalance between the burden sharing of the public and private sectors this might imply, whereby private sectors are paying more tax on lower wages with no pension perks, while the public sectors are only paying more taxes.
One way around this, I was thinking, might be to jack up taxes across the board, but provide some kind of additional tax relief to private sector workers who are not in a defined benefit pension scheme. Public sector workers would not qualify for this relief, because they have the pension benefits.
This would essentially do the same thing as the pension levy, but in a way that does not explicitly target the public sector (it’s kind of like the army thing where everyone takes two steps backwards and the guy who doesn’t has ‘volunteered’)
i wonder when the reality of what we need to do to solve this will kick in?
strikes and stoppages will only make the situation worse, when will reality begin and delusion end?
good man brendan keenan, a healthy dose of common sense.
We will never have any Financial Stability in Ireland until we change our corrupt modus operandi. That is, change the way we collect, spend and account for the money our government takes out of our pockets and the pockets of our children not yet born.
The tax system needs to be Simplified it is mind bogglingly complex. AND the tax system needs to be broadened it is mind bogglingly too narrow. If you have a passport that says you are “Irish” you pay tax in Ireland full stop…. Simplify, simplify, simplify. It needs to include every sector of Irish society including the farmers big and small simplify, simplify. At the moment, we have 10% of people paying 70% of taxes. This is Insane, unjust and impossible to operate. We are all supposed to be treated equally in this country but we are all treated anything but! Some of us, are too big for our boots, do not know the meaning of patriotic and believe that taxes and the tax system are for other people. Personally, I know and thousands of people know, that the system is too corrupt and too far gone to pull itself back from the brink.
The government is morally bankrupt and this will soon lead to the other type of bankruptcy. However, lets pretend just for another minute or two that it did have the capacity to change.
What Mr. Sutherland instinctively knows is that If recalcitrant countries such as Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Italy and Spain (the piigs) do not step up to the plate the Eurozone will fail. No fund will save us and no fund of funds will save the Euro itself. It will disintegrate within one or two years.
The above can be argued another day, moving back to the taxation issue in Ireland. What is the point of increasing taxation when taxes have been and continue to be wasted at an alarming rate. Everyday, more and more stark examples of the profligacy of the government and its cronies come out. We have quango upon quango upon quango with public relations quango’s in tow to make them look good it is sickening, immoral and in my view theft of our taxes.
The criminal waste needs to be tackled head on by the people who CREATED, SANCTIONED AND PARTICIPATED in the rip off. Otherwise they will become the headline victims. I am talking about Dail Eireann and the Public Sector Unions. I agree with Brendan Keenan whole heartedly on that point.
Also, why should the taxpayer of tomorrow, our children, tolerate any taxes going to the then retired politicians, quango’s or civil servants who ran the country into the ground?
This country is becoming ungovernable and can go into the receivership of the ECB or IMF over night. Then the marches can continue until they are blue in the face. It is a miracle that the people in this country have acquiesced to the levels of corruption that we have had for so long.
People who are abject failures have to go and the government that has failed has to go. As a country, we can ill afford to replace them with the same DNA dressed in a different pin stripe suit, while what is left of FF slinks off to the opposition benches as the new pin stripes try to continue as before.
Colm McCarthy needs to create a website called “An Board Snip.ie” so that, we can watch, in real-time, on a day by day basis, one by one, the fall of the quango’s which are a plague on Irish life. The committees have to go, the sub committees have to go and the junior minister debacle has to go. We need to be told which government department has been slimmed down today and which one’s have been got rid of etc., etc. On this site, I want to see a running counter, up in the top corner of the screen, which shows the total amount of money coming back to the Exchequer as a result of each saving. If he does not have that power then it really is too late! The last thing we need is more recommendations we are dying on our feet from recommendations we need action! We are at least six months behind the survival curve. Today, was the beginning of lent in a predominantly Christian country called Ireland. Lets see in 40 days time, if we as a people, are willing to cut the crap and act as the proud people we once were or will we just continue to wander in the economic and social quagmire we have created for ourselves. I even suspect, that by 17th of March we will all know the answer!
The 40 days of lent have come and gone and so has thousands more jobs! Lent has come and gone and of course there is still no plan. Somers has just blown the lid clean off of the NAMA thing. Seems he is unprepared to put the reputation of the NTMA (national treasury management agency) on the line!
We are still borrowing 50 to 60 million Euro a day for current consumption and breaking every rule of prudent economic management.
Until the idea of jobs for life is done away with we will continue to collectively edge closer to the abyss. We know the answers we just don’t have the leadership or the courage.
5 replies on “Brendan Keenan Broadly Agrees with Peter Sutherland”
Interesting article on the left-econ blog too:
http://www.progressive-economy.ie/2009/02/ireland-is-bankrupt-now-lets-get-over.html
Incidentally, are there diplomatic relations between the two blogs?
Brendan Keenan’s conclusion that we should jack up taxes by €6 bn does not explicitly address the imbalance between the burden sharing of the public and private sectors this might imply, whereby private sectors are paying more tax on lower wages with no pension perks, while the public sectors are only paying more taxes.
One way around this, I was thinking, might be to jack up taxes across the board, but provide some kind of additional tax relief to private sector workers who are not in a defined benefit pension scheme. Public sector workers would not qualify for this relief, because they have the pension benefits.
This would essentially do the same thing as the pension levy, but in a way that does not explicitly target the public sector (it’s kind of like the army thing where everyone takes two steps backwards and the guy who doesn’t has ‘volunteered’)
i wonder when the reality of what we need to do to solve this will kick in?
strikes and stoppages will only make the situation worse, when will reality begin and delusion end?
good man brendan keenan, a healthy dose of common sense.
We will never have any Financial Stability in Ireland until we change our corrupt modus operandi. That is, change the way we collect, spend and account for the money our government takes out of our pockets and the pockets of our children not yet born.
The tax system needs to be Simplified it is mind bogglingly complex. AND the tax system needs to be broadened it is mind bogglingly too narrow. If you have a passport that says you are “Irish” you pay tax in Ireland full stop…. Simplify, simplify, simplify. It needs to include every sector of Irish society including the farmers big and small simplify, simplify. At the moment, we have 10% of people paying 70% of taxes. This is Insane, unjust and impossible to operate. We are all supposed to be treated equally in this country but we are all treated anything but! Some of us, are too big for our boots, do not know the meaning of patriotic and believe that taxes and the tax system are for other people. Personally, I know and thousands of people know, that the system is too corrupt and too far gone to pull itself back from the brink.
The government is morally bankrupt and this will soon lead to the other type of bankruptcy. However, lets pretend just for another minute or two that it did have the capacity to change.
What Mr. Sutherland instinctively knows is that If recalcitrant countries such as Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Italy and Spain (the piigs) do not step up to the plate the Eurozone will fail. No fund will save us and no fund of funds will save the Euro itself. It will disintegrate within one or two years.
The above can be argued another day, moving back to the taxation issue in Ireland. What is the point of increasing taxation when taxes have been and continue to be wasted at an alarming rate. Everyday, more and more stark examples of the profligacy of the government and its cronies come out. We have quango upon quango upon quango with public relations quango’s in tow to make them look good it is sickening, immoral and in my view theft of our taxes.
The criminal waste needs to be tackled head on by the people who CREATED, SANCTIONED AND PARTICIPATED in the rip off. Otherwise they will become the headline victims. I am talking about Dail Eireann and the Public Sector Unions. I agree with Brendan Keenan whole heartedly on that point.
Also, why should the taxpayer of tomorrow, our children, tolerate any taxes going to the then retired politicians, quango’s or civil servants who ran the country into the ground?
This country is becoming ungovernable and can go into the receivership of the ECB or IMF over night. Then the marches can continue until they are blue in the face. It is a miracle that the people in this country have acquiesced to the levels of corruption that we have had for so long.
People who are abject failures have to go and the government that has failed has to go. As a country, we can ill afford to replace them with the same DNA dressed in a different pin stripe suit, while what is left of FF slinks off to the opposition benches as the new pin stripes try to continue as before.
Colm McCarthy needs to create a website called “An Board Snip.ie” so that, we can watch, in real-time, on a day by day basis, one by one, the fall of the quango’s which are a plague on Irish life. The committees have to go, the sub committees have to go and the junior minister debacle has to go. We need to be told which government department has been slimmed down today and which one’s have been got rid of etc., etc. On this site, I want to see a running counter, up in the top corner of the screen, which shows the total amount of money coming back to the Exchequer as a result of each saving. If he does not have that power then it really is too late! The last thing we need is more recommendations we are dying on our feet from recommendations we need action! We are at least six months behind the survival curve. Today, was the beginning of lent in a predominantly Christian country called Ireland. Lets see in 40 days time, if we as a people, are willing to cut the crap and act as the proud people we once were or will we just continue to wander in the economic and social quagmire we have created for ourselves. I even suspect, that by 17th of March we will all know the answer!
The 40 days of lent have come and gone and so has thousands more jobs! Lent has come and gone and of course there is still no plan. Somers has just blown the lid clean off of the NAMA thing. Seems he is unprepared to put the reputation of the NTMA (national treasury management agency) on the line!
We are still borrowing 50 to 60 million Euro a day for current consumption and breaking every rule of prudent economic management.
Until the idea of jobs for life is done away with we will continue to collectively edge closer to the abyss. We know the answers we just don’t have the leadership or the courage.