True and bigger companies also support minimum wage laws to knock out smaller competitors.
Larger companies that are top heavy will use the state to introduce regulations and tax schemes to protect their market share. The smaller firms cannot afford the regulatory overhead, however as regards minimum wage laws unless they operate in a closed economy they just move their operations to another country where they can get labour as I highlighted in a previous thread describing the side effects of the construction boom.
As long as you are proposing an alternative like mutual societies, it’s a great idea to deprive the existing rulers of power and wealth.
The Origin of the Welfare State in England and Germany, 1850-1914: Social Policies Compared → muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=s … oberts.pdf
Citizen, State, and Social Welfare in Britain 1830-1990 → amazon.co.uk/dp/0198227604
That supposition is completely incorrect, it’s further impoverishing the population. Essentially what they are doing is subsidising consumption and undermining local economies and their long term viability.
It reminds me of the first time buyers’ grant which if anything drove the prices of houses up.
And it now has to be paid back with interest.
UCD, back in 90s, the Engineering class got 1 course in Economics (from Des Norton). This was the subject of part of one lecture: how first-time buyers’ grants were ultimately a grant to builders/developers and drove prices up for hose-buyers. It opened my eyes, and made perfect sense to me at the time, but I don’t know how many people actually took it in.
The course made a big impression on me.
They do, but some don’t, and they’ll tend to stay put. I don’t think this is (strongly) intrinsic to an individual, I think it’s learned mostly (nurture not nature). If you spend a lot of time not working, and especially if you end up feigning a disability in order to get benefits, you ultimately end up becoming what you do. “Feigning” depression can become very much a self-fulfilling prophecy. Also dangerous is having depression and “benefitting” from it in terms of welfare: creates perverse incentives not to get better, which is especially dangerous with a psychiatric condition (I speak here from personal family experience and opinion, not medical knowledge).
…
A nice example of the welfare state having the exact opposite effect than intended.
A person who is likely to refuse a full time job because they won’t be able to move to a different council house.
I hadn’t tried to google him in a long time. Did so ages ago, and that’s not the link that used to pop up before, but I prefer it.
aside… looking now at google results, UCD seems to be putting more papers online than they used to, like: On Ireland’s national lottery (a.k.a. “idiot tax”, Norton).
Biggest problem with the welfare state is the quality and conditions of employment that go with entry level jobs in this country.
Weekend work, evenings, bank holidays etc totally hard to do if you have kids. Dead end jobs, no prospects, no promotion, no pension, menial repetitive tasks.
Then factor in what customers expect of workers nowadays. I was in tesco a while back and this utter wench, blonde hair, tan, just short of having sunglasses on her head started berating a young fella over capers. He was working his section and he said they were gone, sold out. She stood there demanding that he go off searching the stock room and if not she was going to talk to the manager.
Why the hell would you give up 4-500 a week on the dole if you had 2 kids and a partner. Dignity of work my ass.
i think a campaign to lobby the government regarding their policies would be a good idea
The customer is always right. His job and everyone in the store depends on being able to engage customers and gain their repeat custom, especially when you are losing market share to Aldi. By all means if the woman was being disrespectful then engage the manager, a look in the storeroom even when you know it’s not there could possibly have made the customer feel valued and she would come back again even though you did not have the product she was looking for that day. If you adopt an attitude like “not my problem, buddy”, then the customers will go elsewhere, Tesco is not a monopoly.
"]“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
The other thing about this is the danger of the welfare trap, somebody has to pay for every operation the state runs, the problem is those costs are passed on to the consumer, and the rising cost of living affects those on the lowest income the most, the state sector has been the greatest driver of the consumer price indices since the recession, who do you think that hits hardest?
So while Joan Burton “sees” the benefits of the welfare payments system as keeping the shopkeeper busy (the spurious grocer philosophy) she does not see or is wilfully blind to the negative consequences of that system.
, What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen"]
In the economic sphere an act, a habit, an institution, a law produces not only one effect, but a series of effects. Of these effects, the first alone is immediate; it appears simultaneously with its cause; it is seen. The other effects emerge only subsequently; they are not seen; we are fortunate if we foresee them.
There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.
Yet this difference is tremendous; for it almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the later consequences are disastrous, and vice versa. Whence it follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good that will be followed by a great evil to come, while the good economist pursues a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil.
The same thing, of course, is true of health and morals. Often, the sweeter the first fruit of a habit, the more bitter are its later fruits: for example, debauchery, sloth, prodigality. When a man is impressed by the effect that is seen and has not yet learned to discern the effects that are not seen, he indulges in deplorable habits, not only through natural inclination, but deliberately.
What’s happening our generous welfare system is displacing people who work, they have to carry the burden of the higher taxation while receiving reduced services, instead of becoming more affordable the cost of state provided services is rising, while at the same time the availability and quality of service is falling (hospital waiting lists, school classroom sizes, garda stations), one might ask whose interests does that serve, the consumer or the taxpayer? The rising price should be a signal to more people to get involved in serving the market, why not? The organs of the state are effectively a monopoly (health, education, security, welfare) and the only game in town so tough luck.
There is a further problem with the >€13 billion deficit, the state is paying people to consume with other peoples money, the interest on the debt accrued must be paid and as they tend to keep rolling over the debt, the interest payments continue to increase. Where do those interest payments come from? - exports. Since we borrow a large portion of the money from abroad and money is a medium of exchange then if follow at some point we must exchange goods and services with people outside the country for a profit in order to earn the money to pay the interest on the debt.
I 100% agree that the customer is always right. I’m talking about the sheer hell of working in service industries. You are almost expected to be on hand to kiss a customers ass for minimum wage.
Someone is not going to walk into a job as paper shufflers in the town council planning dept. with every bank holiday, weekend, proper sick pay, pension etc and your line manager must talk to you respectfully. He’ll even you customers must talk to you respectfully or you don’t have to deal with them.
By and large if you are on he dole its a 20 hour a week in tesco or Aldi. All weekends and evenings. Or factory work on short term contracts etc. faced with the dearth of proper jobs no wonder so many people stay on the dole.
You would want to be substantially better off to leave the dole and start working in the service industry.
The other thing about this is the danger of the welfare trap, somebody has to pay for every operation the state runs, the problem is those costs are passed on to the consumer, and the rising cost of living affects those on the lowest income the most, the state sector has been the greatest driver of the consumer price indices since the recession, who do you think that hits hardest?
So while Joan Burton “sees” the benefits of the welfare payments system as keeping the shopkeeper busy (the spurious grocer philosophy) she does not see or is wilfully blind to the negative consequences of that system.
, What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen"]
In the economic sphere an act, a habit, an institution, a law produces not only one effect, but a series of effects. Of these effects, the first alone is immediate; it appears simultaneously with its cause; it is seen. The other effects emerge only subsequently; they are not seen; we are fortunate if we foresee them.
There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.
Yet this difference is tremendous; for it almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the later consequences are disastrous, and vice versa. Whence it follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good that will be followed by a great evil to come, while the good economist pursues a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil.
The same thing, of course, is true of health and morals. Often, the sweeter the first fruit of a habit, the more bitter are its later fruits: for example, debauchery, sloth, prodigality. When a man is impressed by the effect that is seen and has not yet learned to discern the effects that are not seen, he indulges in deplorable habits, not only through natural inclination, but deliberately.
What’s happening our generous welfare system is displacing people who work, they have to carry the burden of the higher taxation while receiving reduced services, instead of becoming more affordable the cost of state provided services is rising, while at the same time the availability and quality of service is falling (hospital waiting lists, school classroom sizes, garda stations), one might ask whose interests does that serve, the consumer or the taxpayer? The rising price should be a signal to more people to get involved in serving the market, why not? The organs of the state are effectively a monopoly (health, education, security, welfare) and the only game in town so tough luck.
There is a further problem with the >€13 billion deficit, the state is paying people to consume with other peoples money, the interest on the debt accrued must be paid and as they tend to keep rolling over the debt, the interest payments continue to increase. Where do those interest payments come from? - exports. Since we borrow a large portion of the money from abroad and money is a medium of exchange then if follow at some point we must exchange goods and services with people outside the country for a profit in order to earn the money to pay the interest on the debt.
exactly. and that principle extends to all professions. why cannot the politicians, explain this to the electorate?
why aren’t they addressing the nation and taking the right steps - instead they introduce rent relief, which just increase rent???
its total and utter stupidity of the highest degree. I expected more joan. this may win votes short term, but it increases the misery of the people they mean to help?
i fully believe that if the solution was correctly communicated to the people, and they understood what they had to do - and that they would benefit long term, that they would go along with it.
as long as the most vulnerable were protected.
It’s late in the evening so I don’t have time to expand on this, what do you do when everyone casts themselves as the victim and leverages “the vulnerable” to protect the status quo?
You’re very strong on problem BR, that’s what has them eating out of your hand.
I suspect you will lose most of your audience when you tell them what kind of solution you have in mind however.
Do you at least agree that he has nailed the problem accurately? Is it clear to you that borrowing money to pump into the economy through social welfare is part of the problem rather than being the solution?
Touche…