Bernadette McAliskey interview

[Rossfan]

It's all the fault of the "economically inactive"
Damn sick, disabled, pensioners, children and the likes.
Put them out to work in their wheelchairs, zimnerframes, drips attached and all. Also close the schools and put them kids down the mines and up the chimneys.
Oh and put all them rural folks out growing spuds.

[seafoid]

Poverty is non existent now.In fact the welfare state culture discourages too many from seeking work and personal advancement and it is the working class (who actually work) and lower middle classes who foot the tax burden to pay for it all.

The Institute of Public Health published a report back in 2001 entitled Inequalities in Mortality 1989-1998 . It stated: "In both the North and the South the all causes mortality rate in the lowest occupational class was 100 per cent to 200 per cent higher than the rate in the higher occupational class"

[seafoid]

If she was 30 now she would make hay. The system is falling apart and the poor are being shafted.

You keep saying this. And it is garbage.

Certainly in Ireland.

It is a classic logical fallacy. Keep saying it and people start thinking it is true.

The welfare state means the the poor now are better off than in any time in history. That is not to say it couldn't be better for them. Obviously it could. But to pretend that somehow the rest of us are ripping them off is offensive bullshit. We are the reason they are not living like the poor among our ancestors and the poor in the 3rd world.

The people who are genuinely being shafted, are the productive in society, who are burdened with taxes for everything, especially sectors we will never benefit from, such as the banks, property developers, wars, EU Commision, etc, etc.

Muppet,  you are wrong
Why are interest rates on the floor?
Why can't the ECB generate growth ?
700,000 people in the UK are on zero hours contracts
Real wages in the UK (after inflation) are 15% lower than in 2007
Productivity in the UK and US is stagnant. Why?

The best way to measure genuine inequality is via mortality rates
Poor people in Ireland die at least 10 years earlier than respectable middle class people like Tony Fearon.
In the US white working class people are drinking themselves to death in their 50s.
http://scholar.princeton.edu/deaton/publications/rising-morbidity-and-mortality-midlife-among-white-non-hispanic-americans-21st

Something is seriously dysfunctional

Does personal responsibility come in to this .

Personal responsibility can only go so far in the face of systemic issues.
It is important but it is not the only issue

[muppet]

Seafoid nothing in your post is proof, or even remotely connected to, the statement that the poor are being shafted.

[muppet]

Here is a list of the richest people of all time (not to be taken too seriously):

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_historical_figures

Considering the population has risen rapidly over the last couple of centuries, the wealth of some of those people, relative to the world's population at the time, would have be many multiples of the wealth of anyone living versus today's population.

Slavery was shafting the poor. Throwing people off their meagre land and leaving them with nothing, was shafting the poor.

Society shouldn't allow useless people to be born rich because their great-grandfather struck oil. We should tax these inheritances to death.

[seafoid]

Seafoid nothing in your post is proof, or even remotely connected to, the statement that the poor are being shafted.

mortality stats not good enough?
Wages at the lower end being cut endlessly not good enough?
It all comes out in GDP numbers.
Median wage in the US is lower post inflation than in 1975.

[seafoid]

Muppet re the system it is ultra fragile

Martin Wolf of the FT
"Since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, the disadvantages of conventional bankruptcy have been all too apparent. In the US, government bailouts have been outlawed by the Dodd-Frank legislation.
The current consensus is that this should come from "bailing in" creditors so that they share the losses, while mechanisms for orderly resolution, or unwinding, are put in place. As Charles Goodhart, emeritus professor at the London School of Economics, has pointed out, creditors facing greater risk will either demand a higher return or place funds with banks in the form of deposits so as to be immune from bail-in. To prevent this, the authorities are likely to mandate that banks hold a required buffer of loss-absorbing capital over and above their equity. The unanswered question is what would happen when the buffer of loss-absorbing debt is used up.
A paradox at the heart of this new approach to systemic crises is that bailing in creditors is likely to have far-reaching effects because, unlike a bailout, it will inflict losses on other systemically important financial institutions. The Dodd-Frank Act looks to the banking industry to meet any losses in excess of what equity and debt are capable of absorbing. This is a recipe for panic"

What happens when banks run out of loss absorbing capital?
With negative interest rates they can't even generate profits to build up their capital
It is a total mess.

[lynchbhoy]

This Board is fast becoming a hero fest in honour of mediocrities who in actual fact have achieved little of note,Bernadette Devlin,Brendan Rodgers etc 

devlin was one of many who in turn put their shoulder to the wheel and progressed the rise of our people from oppression and second class citizenship

all these efforts bit by bit played their part and culminated in what is now the liveable plateau that is the staging ground for final reunification

[T Fearon]

Second class citizenship was largely a myth.My father was the only Catholic employed by a firm in Portadown,I assume that was a coincidence.Similarly my mother's workmates were overwhelmingly Protestant.They both had the same terms and conditions as their colleagues.

I lived in my early years,pre troubles,in areas containing a fair sprinkling of both Catholic and Protestants.We all had the same standard of housing.

Meanwhile Portadown had its fair share of Catholic Doctors,Dentists,Solicitors,Publicans and other business owners in the town centre.All of these enjoyed a much better standard of living than the Catholic and Protestant working classes.

[seafoid]

Second class citizenship was largely a myth.My father was the only Catholic employed by a firm in Portadown,I assume that was a coincidence.Similarly my mother's workmates were overwhelmingly Protestant.They both had the same terms and conditions as their colleagues.

I lived in my early years,pre troubles,in areas containing a fair sprinkling of both Catholic and Protestants.We all had the same standard of housing.

Meanwhile Portadown had its fair share of Catholic Doctors,Dentists,Solicitors,Publicans and other business owners in the town centre.All of these enjoyed a much better standard of living than the Catholic and Protestant working classes.

Bigoted housing allocation was also a myth. The Strabane man video was .made by MI5.  Catholics were half of the work force in HandW. Derry was the happiest town in Western Europe.

[T Fearon]

I'm not saying there weren't injustices,but my mum and dad were never out of work or accommodation in loyalist Portadown,also the Catholic middle classes everywhere in the North were never subject to discrimination and had a much better standard of living than Protestant working classes

[Oraisteach]

Really? The Catholic middle classes were never subject to discrimination? How did they fare as they sought to rise to the higher echelons of the Civil Service, for example? 

[T Fearon]

Was not Maurice Hayes for example not Head of the Civil Service in the 50s and 60s?

[longballin]

The Civil Rights movement was misguided says Uncle Tom...

[seafoid]

Was not Maurice Hayes for example not Head of the Civil Service in the 50s and 60s?

It is about the experience of the masses not talented individuals that determines the endurance of a system. There would have been no need for civil rights marches if people had them. Israel will collapse just like NI did in 1969. Same reason. People can only take so much injustice .