The Big Bailout of the Eurozone (Another crisis coming? - Seriously)

[muppet]

If I got €100 last week and €90 this week that's a pay cut as I have less money to give Tesco LIDL at the checkout.
The so called pension levy was simply a device to avoid using the word pay cut dreamed up by a Union Executive.
It is simply a saving to the exchequer and is not used for paying pensions to anyone , fat or thin.
Ask the Dept of Finance if you wish.
Civil Servants can't retire till at least 60 - 65 or 66 for entrants after 1995.
Only Gardai/Soldiers and full time firemen can retire earlier.
As for your other oul cliched stereotyping comments... you're just another oul anti public service bigot.
Dinny -for your info

"Grade 7 Administrative Officer, Senior Executive Librarian
47,013 - 48,187 - 49,559 - 50,935 - 52,313 - 53,541 - 54,800 - 56,020 - 57,235 - 59,3221 - 61,4182"
The last 2 amounts are reached after  11 and 14 years service at that rank.

http://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Job=Librarian/Salary

UK
Librarian 2013 Total Pay (?)
£13,892 - £34,273
0 14K 19K 24K 28K 34K
MEDIAN: £24,331
10% 25% 50% 75% 90%

I don't know how much of the above goes towards their pension.

[highorlow]

While there are always examples of particular situations, and situations differ greatly, private sector pay in aggregate is now slightly higher than in 2008 and increasing.

Where is this aggregate derived from - have you a link to the site?

In any case the private sector isn't borrowing from the IMF on a day to day basis to fund any of this.

Bottom line is and everyone bar some of the PubS workers themselves (how many were in support of CP II based on the overall vote?)  agree that to keep borrowing the way we are to feed the PubS pay bill in its current state can't continue. It's a real pity that Croke Park I didn't implement the reforms that were promised.

[armaghniac]

Where is this aggregate derived from - have you a link to the site?

EU stats on labour costs per hour in euro, for whole economy (excluding agriculture and public administration)
Show these 0.8% higher (granted, not a huge amount) in 2012 than 2008.

also part of the picture of increasing private wages
http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/economy/2012/isanonfin_q42012.pdf
Gross disposable income of households (B.6g) increased from €84,196m in 2011 to €86,273m in 2012 – an increase of €2078m (+2.5%). Higher wages (D.1) (+€711m) and profits of the self employed (B.2g/B.3g) (+€1948m) were the main factors which contributed to this increase.

It's a real pity that Croke Park I didn't implement the reforms that were promised.

I fully agree on this one. There has been no effort recently to identify where there were reforms and where there were not. Instead of taking a big stick to the areas slow to reform, they simply propose to cut everyone, regardless of the worth of their work or the extent that have worked the previous agreement.

[Rossfan]

All public servants can look forward to a pension of 50pc of final income, as well as a tax-free lump sum of 150pc of their salary when they retire.

Only if you have "full service" - usually 40 years.
Most of the non Executive/Professional staff  ( operatives/drivers/ maintenance etc - the bucks who do the work  ) wouldn't have next or near that as we wouldn't be "lifers".
Some of us lads don't get lump sums either depending on the scheme you joined at starting - usually you'd pick the cheapest one and .....

[Rossfan]

we can all cherry pick rossfan



TV3 presenters get 40-50k per year

RTE is a semi state and is not part of the present negotiations/discussion.
Any organisation giving that sort of money to Duffy or Tubridy needs to be abolished quick.
" Ahhh but they'll go elsewhere if we don't pay them that much "
The quicker the effin better.

[macdanger2]

I can understand some public sector workers being p*ssed off at having to take more cuts but for me the problem is the fact that all public sector workers are treated the same regardless of what they actually do in work.

It's pretty much impossible to sack someone in the public sector regardless of how useless they are - we all know of teachers / guards / govt office work workers / council workers who haven't done a days work in years and yet get their annual increments and guaranteed pension regardless. If you're one of the people who actually do a good job then you'd be feeling fairly p*ssed off having to take pay cuts because some people can't do an honest days work for an honest days pay - and these clowns are always the ones with the huge sense of entitlement.

[Rossfan]

Why do you have to keep personalizing your arguments?

Oh but he doesn't ... according to himself.

Who asked you    ya ***** 

[muppet]

http://economic-incentives.blogspot.ie/2013/04/10-year-yield-at-349.html

Irish 10 year yields at 3.49%.

I am beginning to think the link between market confidence and yields is not as strong as we are led to believe.

[Dinny Breen]

I see Iceland has returned to Government the crowd that were held responsible for their economic collapse in 2008.

[Denn Forever]

I see Iceland has returned to Government the crowd that were held responsible for their economic collapse in 2008.

As we are going to do at the next election.

[Declan]

New Research: Economic Austerity in US and Europe 'Is Killing People'
HIV/AIDS, malaria outbreaks, shortages of essential medicines, lost healthcare access, and an epidemic of drug abuse, depression and suicide

Despite assurances by financial elites that austerity economics is a prescription to improve the lives of the masses, research contained in a newly published book shows that the push for steep cuts in wages, social programs, and public health programs is literally killing people throughout Europe and the US.

The book—http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465063985?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0465063985&linkCode=xm2&tag=commondreams-20, written by David Stuckler, an Oxford University political economist, and Sanjay Basu, an epidemiologist at Stanford University—uses historical case studies from around the globe and throughout history to show "how government policy becomes a matter of life and death" during deep or prolonged financial crises.

Discovering that the cure to the financial crisis of 2008 was in some ways worse than the affliction, Stucklet and Basu argue that countries "turned their recessions into veritable epidemics" by championing austerity measures that ultimately "ruined or extinguished" thousands of lives in series of "misguided" attempts to balance budgets, appease financial markets, and bow to the economic elite.

"The harms we have found include HIV and malaria outbreaks, shortages of essential medicines, lost healthcare access, and an avoidable epidemic of alcohol abuse, depression and suicide," said Dr. Stuckler in a statement. "Austerity is having a devastating effect."

As Reuters reports:

the researchers say more than 10,000 suicides and up to a million cases of depression have been diagnosed during what they call the "Great Recession" and its accompanying austerity across Europe and North America.

In Greece, moves like cutting HIV prevention budgets have coincided with rates of the AIDS-causing virus rising by more than 200 percent since 2011 - driven in part by increasing drug abuse in the context of a 50 percent youth unemployment rate.

Greece also experienced its first malaria outbreak in decades following budget cuts to mosquito-spraying programs.

And more than five million Americans have lost access to healthcare during the latest recession, they argue, while in Britain, some 10,000 families have been pushed into homelessness by the government's austerity budget.
As the authors explain in the introduction to their book, it is not only the dire impacts of the policies they found troubling, but the heartlessness of the policy-makers who so vigorously endorse them. They write:

We were shocked and concerned at the illogic of the austerity advocates, and the hard data on its human and economic costs. We realized the impact of the Great Recession went far beyond people losing their homes and jobs. It was a full-scale assault on people's health. At the heart of the argument was the question of what it means to be a society, and what the appropriate role of government is in protecting people.
Compounding the problem, the authors conclude, is the fact that alternative paths did exist, and continue to exist, but that nations remain unwilling or unable to break free from the purveyors of austerity.

Citing examples from the historical and current record, Stuckler and Basu show that many countries have weathered financial and other crises by investing in public health and innovative social programs.

"Ultimately what we show is that worsening health is not an inevitable consequence of economic recessions. It's a political choice," said Professor Basu.

[ludermor]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/greece/10032988/Greeks-only-soup-kitchen-sparks-protests-in-Athens.html
Greeks only' soup kitchen sparks protests in Athens
Members of Greek extremist political party Golden Dawn try to open a 'Greeks only' soup kitchen in Athens, as anti-immigrant feeling bubbles against a backdrop of increasing pover

12:19PM BST 02 May 2013
An attempt by the extremist far-right Golden Dawn party to hand out food to Greeks only in defiance of a municipal ban degenerated into chaos on Thursday with the city's mayor saying a party lawmaker tried to punch him and draw a gun.
The punch missed its target, landing instead on a 12-year-old girl, Greek media said.
Security guards restrained the legislator, Giorgos Germenis.
The party, whose members have been repeatedly linked with violent attacks on Greece's large immigrant population, had said it would give food to needy Greeks in Syntagma Square, opposite Parliament, ahead of Sunday's Orthodox Easter.
Mayor Giorgos Kaminis had banned such events in the city's central square and vowed not to allow the "soup kitchen of hate" to take place.
Related Articles
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Cost of austerity measures is poor health 29 Apr 2013
Greece's great fire sale 20 Apr 2013
Greek farm staff 'shoot unpaid strawberry pickers' 18 Apr 2013
Greek unemployment hits a fresh record 11 Apr 2013
Aristotle Onassis' Greek island 'sold for £100 million' 10 Apr 2013
Party members, with the Golden Dawn logo emblazoned across the back of their black T-shirts, arrived at the square more than two hours earlier than announced and began handing out bags of food after checking recipients' identity cards.
"Golden Dawn will stand beside Greeks, it will stand by the suffering Greeks whatever decisions the immigrant loving Mr. Kaminis takes. Greeks, keep your heads high, Happy Holidays! We will take our country back," said Christos Pappas, Head of the Golden Dawn parliamentary group.
Scuffles broke out between party members and riot police as authorities prevented the party's truck from unloading its cargo of meat and other goods.
Police used pepper spray to repel party members holding Greek flags on thick wooden sticks, and the truck was eventually forced to move on.
The party resumed its distribution from party offices in an inner Athens neighbourhood.
Mr Kaminis later visited a municipal food distribution centre in the same area when he was confronted by Mr Germenis.
Greek media said the girl who was hit by the punch was not badly hurt, and suffered a bruised forehead.
Golden Dawn, a once-marginal group fond of Nazi literature and symbols but which rejects the neo-Nazi label, is now Greece's third most popular party and won 18 of Parliament's 300 seats in elections last year.
With the country mired in the sixth year of a deep and poverty levels spiralling, it has staged Greeks-only food distributions elsewhere in the past that have proved popular.

[Dinny Breen]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/greece/10032988/Greeks-only-soup-kitchen-sparks-protests-in-Athens.html
Greeks only' soup kitchen sparks protests in Athens
Members of Greek extremist political party Golden Dawn try to open a 'Greeks only' soup kitchen in Athens, as anti-immigrant feeling bubbles against a backdrop of increasing pover

12:19PM BST 02 May 2013
An attempt by the extremist far-right Golden Dawn party to hand out food to Greeks only in defiance of a municipal ban degenerated into chaos on Thursday with the city's mayor saying a party lawmaker tried to punch him and draw a gun.
The punch missed its target, landing instead on a 12-year-old girl, Greek media said.
Security guards restrained the legislator, Giorgos Germenis.
The party, whose members have been repeatedly linked with violent attacks on Greece's large immigrant population, had said it would give food to needy Greeks in Syntagma Square, opposite Parliament, ahead of Sunday's Orthodox Easter.
Mayor Giorgos Kaminis had banned such events in the city's central square and vowed not to allow the "soup kitchen of hate" to take place.
Related Articles
Golden Dawn's 'Greeks only' soup kitchen ends in chaos 02 May 2013
Cost of austerity measures is poor health 29 Apr 2013
Greece's great fire sale 20 Apr 2013
Greek farm staff 'shoot unpaid strawberry pickers' 18 Apr 2013
Greek unemployment hits a fresh record 11 Apr 2013
Aristotle Onassis' Greek island 'sold for £100 million' 10 Apr 2013
Party members, with the Golden Dawn logo emblazoned across the back of their black T-shirts, arrived at the square more than two hours earlier than announced and began handing out bags of food after checking recipients' identity cards.
"Golden Dawn will stand beside Greeks, it will stand by the suffering Greeks whatever decisions the immigrant loving Mr. Kaminis takes. Greeks, keep your heads high, Happy Holidays! We will take our country back," said Christos Pappas, Head of the Golden Dawn parliamentary group.
Scuffles broke out between party members and riot police as authorities prevented the party's truck from unloading its cargo of meat and other goods.
Police used pepper spray to repel party members holding Greek flags on thick wooden sticks, and the truck was eventually forced to move on.
The party resumed its distribution from party offices in an inner Athens neighbourhood.
Mr Kaminis later visited a municipal food distribution centre in the same area when he was confronted by Mr Germenis.
Greek media said the girl who was hit by the punch was not badly hurt, and suffered a bruised forehead.
Golden Dawn, a once-marginal group fond of Nazi literature and symbols but which rejects the neo-Nazi label, is now Greece's third most popular party and won 18 of Parliament's 300 seats in elections last year.
With the country mired in the sixth year of a deep and poverty levels spiralling, it has staged Greeks-only food distributions elsewhere in the past that have proved popular.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Zvl9N9GdraQ

[Declan]

http://namawinelake.wordpress.com/2013/05/10/average-salary-at-nama-in-2012-was-e102579/

Average salary at NAMA in 2012 was €102,579 - Great little country we have

[Declan]

This made me smile