Prime Time Heckle - The widening hole in the public accounts - carers, ideascampaign.ie

Prime Time is on with Dermot Ahern, Gilmore, Turlough O;Sullivan and ... Jack O'Connor Siptu

O'Sullivan mentioned the cost of electricity - is IBEC trying to get something honourable out of the politicians in fairness ??

Gilmore is saying the Government is fixated with public expenditure and should be focusing on the real economy.

Ahern is saying the NDP is the stimulus package. The Road to Nowhere ????

Gilmore saying he doesn't know where the Govt are leading us....like there's a roadmap out of this?? the big US idea seems to print, baby, print. Meanwhile, the UK is beginning to reap the first bitter harvest of devaluation; Ford and Vauxhall are raising their Sterling prices. By 4.5% (Torygraph, today). The others will follow suit. Are our neighbours starting to look inflation in the face??

Now they're on about the bonds/credit default swaps. Some guy from a French bank saying that todays measure should make the international banksters, bondbuyers etc happier.

To anyone unhappy about any perceived or actual inequities in todays measures; talking to an investment type who looks after the wealthy elite's money..... apparently they are now the impoverished elite; he thinks they've taken a fierce hammering, disproportionately, over the last year. I'll be very interested to see if the official figures re the division of wealth reflect this...

Bruton on now.....sigh. Loads of criticism, not much of help with suggestions of what they'd do

Auditor #9 wrote:

Prime Time is on with Dermot Ahern, Gilmore, Turlough O;Sullivan and ... Jack someone

O'Sullivan mentioned the cost of electricity - is IBEC trying to get something honourable out of the politicians in fairness ??

And why is electricity and gas so expensive?

One reason. Government decision.

McCreevy decided that Irish electricity and gas prices were too cheap (we used to have some of the cheapest gas and electricity in Europe). He wanted 'competition' on the basis that competition would lower prices. But our already low prices did not make it financially viable for international companies to enter the market. So regulators were told to shove up the price year after year to get prices sufficiently high to lure in private companies. That was done, and our prices went through the roof. But the private companies did not flock in. But then as anyone with cop-on knew, they never were likely to. The Irish market was simply too small in terms of number of customers to attract the big players.

So McCreevy's market mantra gave us the worst of all worlds - extremely expensive gas and electricity and still no competition. Before McCreevy we had cheap monopolies. He gave us expensive monopolies.

IBEC are in no position to complain. They were one of those who pushed the McCreevy agenda. So if they are being hit by high energy costs and are looking for someone to blame, they should start by looking in the mirror.

I just hope the ESB are spending at least some of this money on renewable infrastructure... and that UK interconnector. Just in case they have their act together better than us when the inevitable energy crunch happens...

expat girl wrote:

I just hope the ESB are spending at least some of this money on renewable infrastructure... and that UK interconnector. Just in case they have their act together better than us when the inevitable energy crunch happens...

That's turning into a bit of a bogeyman/strawman for me - if what Papal is saying above is correct and prices were artificially driven up then we've got a big evil bogeyman living with us as it is already.

And there is a strong suggestion on the other ESB thread that the ESB mucked with the market to actively discourage other companies from setting up. The other company was Airtricity who want to sue the ESB for dicking with the market .... evil or what ? It's not like the Irish to protect their precious cash cows when they're being threatened now is it?

Most companies will engage in anti competitive behaviour if they can get away with it.

johnfás wrote:

Most companies will engage in anti competitive behaviour if they can get away with it.

Arent't there big Laws with big punishments for those kinds of things though? If not we should make some and make em pay.

And don't tell me it's hard to make Laws, bucko - the Dáil were able to whip up some Banking Acts earlier quicker than you could say "I've never seen a hen's tooth".

We can make laws in a couple of minutes but they tend to be very bad laws with very bad consequences. Rushing a bank guarantee scheme in during the witching hour wasn't a great idea nor was changing the law relating to statutory rape overnight.

Yes, we have a large ambit of Competition Law, mainly derived from European Competition Law which also exists in its own right. Most Competition Law only applies when one holds a dominant share of the market and then proceed to use that dominant market position in an abusive manner. I wouldn't want to comment on the nature of the ESB's conduct because I don't know anything about it but yes, if they were abusing their dominant position, there are laws to deal with that. On the otherhand, there are also loopholes and all the rest.

johnfás wrote:

We can make laws in a couple of minutes but they tend to be very bad laws with very bad consequences. Rushing a bank guarantee scheme in during the witching hour wasn't a great idea nor was changing the law relating to statutory rape overnight.

Yes, we have a large ambit of Competition Law, mainly derived from European Competition Law which also exists in its own right. Most Competition Law only applies when one holds a dominant share of the market and then proceed to use that dominant market position in an abusive manner. I wouldn't want to comment on the nature of the ESB's conduct because I don't know anything about it but yes, if they were abusing their dominant position, there are laws to deal with that. On the otherhand, there are also loopholes and all the rest.

Well there is some suggestion of impropriety on their part in an article published in the Wall Street Journal - do you think it might be a good source of information as Wall Street was good for little else.

Does 'subsidiarity' or one of those EU terms come into it when talking about our laws and EU ones ? And where one ends and the other begins.

European Competition Law applies when there is an issue regarding the Common Market - so really when you have something which affects inter state aspects of the Union but equally it can apply to a significant portion of the Common Market so is applicable to something like a Member State's entire energy market. The EU law naturally tends to deal in much larger figures whilst the Irish Competition Law regime deals with things on a more micro scale. In theory it should be easier to fall foul of Irish Competition Law than it is of European Competition Law.

I haven't seen the piece published in the WSJ. It probably has alot of credibility but I prefer commenting on the outcome of cases after the judiciary, or relevant authority, have examined the evidence.

Well typing away as I am from a snowbound(until 1 hour ago) hideway up the side of Mount Leinster - the whole conversation here and over at the other place has an air of total unreality about it - Do people actually realise the seriousness of the situation the whole country is in?

Both my folks are retired public servants - My Dad woke up this morning fully prepared to have his pension reduced by about 10-15% - he is totally non-political and politicians in general do his head in so he doesn't get involved - but he was an honours maths and physics teacher and union rep and he has an unerring capacity to spot a bullshitter a mile off and he can do his sums - he is stunned that he wont be effected his time around and he thinks the whole political and union cabal are completely away with the fairies in they think this tinkering around the edges is going to do anything - this is like taking an aspirin to treat gangrene - It is time that the brutal facts of the dire situation we are in were put central stage in simple black and white primary school mathematics.

And I agree with him - we are rapidly becoming the financial laughing stock of Europe - if not the world - our bonds are the most expensive in Europe - we're even worse than the fucking Greeks - the shame of it.

Young Dan (it fecking kills me to say this) is the only one coming close to the financial reality we are in - forget all the budget projections and look at the realities - the tax take for January was nearly a billion down on forecast - its going to be even worse this month as companies are closing up shop,letting off all unessential staff and cutting back massively in spending - its a vicious circle thats going to spiral and spiral - Tonys - you should give YD the 100 euros now - the projection of 40 billion income is going to be so far off its a joke - unless there is another budget next month and tax is increased across the board by about 20% -and the Gov are trying to save 2 billion? -and the unions are up in arms - FFS- the tax take is diminishing and diminishing - the real truth of the Celtic tiger post 1999 is that all the additional resources, wage increases and manpower put into the Public Service was financed by the Property Boom and now that is history - Throw in the fact that incomes taxes and any burdens directly on the public were considerably reduced during that time aswell and now you have the receipe for the truly horrendous car crash we are experiencing right now - We lived for today and didnt think about tomorrow - every single one of us - and we would shun any politician who would have tried to tell us any different - in fact we believed that there was even more in the pot that was our due - So I cant blame any political party for the election manifestos that they produced in 2007 - it was what we all wanted to hear - so the general bitching I hear now about the oppositions manifestos is a bit rich - everybodys a fucking genius with 20/20 hindsight - the manifestos were produced for that moment in time - and that is what we wanted to hear loud and clear.

So where do we go from here - not very far going on most responses on the web - everybody is too busy defending their entitlement to the pie and tearing strips off everybody else. Aragons responses dont surprise me - then again I think both of us acknowledge the fact that we live in parallel universes intellectually and politically speaking - but I would like to hear her ideas about what we should do hear from a real left point of view - all we've had so far is the usual demonisation of the percieved rich and lots of shots at the admittedly target rich environment of the Banking sector , nit-picking at anything that FF are doing and anything that the party of the Great Satan (FG) proposes to do - Apart from Eamon (Bob the Builder) Gilmore only postive contribution to the debate (We'll set up a progamme to wrap every house in the country up in two coats of insulation and hey presto all our unemployment problems solved overnight - "get the country moving, get the economy moving,movin,movin,movin- Vote Eamo") - there has been precious little from both the mainstream and fringe left about where the country is going, where they would like to see the country going and where they see the country in 10-15-20 years time - apart from the lots of mass burial sites containing bankers,developers,Yankee Imperialists,Fine Gaelers and Israelis - so I challenge them - come on here and give a coherent,thoughtful response - I am familar with Marx,Engels and the left (I used to be a serious leftie after all!) - you can think outside the box as much as you like (which I thought was the whole raison d'etre of Communism) - you might surprise yourselves and come up with something good that might actually sell on the doorstep- but give us more than the usual OTT denunciations of the "elites"and cheap negative shots at Fine Gael - which for a party that has only been in power for 11 years out of the last 50, normally dealing with the usual shipload of crap left behind by Fianna Fail and in 1994-1997 was part of ,IMO, the most egaliatarian,Financially responsible,socially liberal, Forward looking administration in the countrys history - I really wonder what we do to deserve such unmitigated abuse from the Leftist elite and their fellow travellers in this country - probably something do with the fact that we just wont go away and leave the field open for the arrival of the much anticipated "left wing" arrival, which in true Beckett Fashion , will arrive anyday now - might be more to the point and more profitable to look at the fact that the majority of people in this country who would describe themselves as left of centre voted and have voted for the last 70 years for Fianna Fail and try work out how to untie that particular granny knot.

Anyway back to reality

Well from a personal point of view - I got word from the receiver of my company today that on the completion of his duties in the near future I will get the princely sum of 0 euros from the demise of the company - there is virtually no money in the companies accounts and what there is ,goes to the government -its a limited company so we can't chase the shareholders and anyway they've already lost their entire investment in the company which was not inconsiderable - Yippee -so all I can get is my statutory redundancy, which I have paid for thru my social insurance for such an adventuality - direct from the Government for which I will have to jump through a good few hoops to get - so next stop the Employees tribunal - next available date is August - after that all going well - 12 weeks until the Department pay out - and sods law the next budget will probably cut the amount I can claim , to save money - to pay for the Public services , to pay for my dole probably - which will probably be cut again to pay for the Public services -I have been looking around for alternative employment and reviewing whats available in my line of work - salary offers are coming in at around 25-30% less than I would have expected 2-3 years ago - nearly all perks cut to the bare minimum [- I have been called to 3 interviews so far - no success yet - first one - I turn up at the company to find them all walking out the door with the pink slips as the company went into liquidation on the day of my interview - second one - I was called the evening before I was due to attend to say that the company was rationalising and that the department I was interviewing for was being transferred back to Germany for the forseeable future - 3rd one - Well I actually got to the interview at least! -3/4 way thru it - the interviewer was polite enough and honest enough to tell me that because of cutbacks the position would be filled internally and they were just going thru the legal motions and he said I was doing a great interview and was the best candidate he'd seen, but the decision was out of his hands - I said Fair play to ya, I needed the practice and day out anyway. As you can see its a barrel of laughs in the private sector -at the rate things are going -the Social Welfare office on signing on day will be the social event of the month - you are starting to meet all types there, engineers, architects,estate agents,journalists,sales people - what do they all have in common - their employers are going to the wall - everybody had taken pay cuts - but even this wasnt enough -the country finances and economic activity are drying up at a rate of knots so you can probablyy understand why I look at todays events with a certain degree of disbelief.

What we really need is a politician who is brave enough to stand up and show vision - tell us straight in the eye where just how totally in the crapper we are - tell us where he wants to bring us - where he wants the country and me to be in 10-20 years time,in detail( smaller time spans are utterly pointless and they smack of indecision and fear - we will be crucified for that - if we havent already self-inflicted the mortal wound already) and what we need to do to get there - no matter how tough it might be - if it sounds anyway sane - spreads the pain as much as is possible among all - I'll go along with it - just shut the fuck up about the past - whats done is done - we suck it up, learn our lessons and try and make the future better than today.

Good post.

Edo

I think we're trying to scale back on the level of dooming that's going around here - some people are losing hair and their diet is affected etc.

Of course it's not funny anymore, simple as that and it'll get much much worse and maybe it has to. I think Cowen at that press conference looked like he was going through some motions before having to hand the whole thing over to someone else - God knows who - do the EU bodies have a national receiver to clean up the mess of a country, Harvey Keitel/Pulp Fiction style? Because it's getting to be a slaughterhouse with the deficit we saw today - there is only going to be an exponential snowball effect from this now as tax receipts fall, demand will fall, more unemployment will result.

Sorry to hear the likes of your folks losing their pensions - I have friends who are thoroughly mortgaged and working in the public sector - I dread to think of what will happen to them... This place could experience another kind of Famine, maybe worse.

Part of our solution has to be in communing with each other here and in the real world - that's often hard because there's tension and angry emotion because you have no job, your friend has a job, you have no debts your friend has debts and all sorts of combinations relating to that thing, the root of all evil, money.

We need to do something either very new or very old to get through this.

Auditor #9 wrote:

Edo

I think we're trying to scale back on the level of dooming that's going around here - some people are losing hair and their diet is affected etc.

Of course it's not funny anymore, simple as that and it'll get much much worse and maybe it has to. I think Cowen at that press conference looked like he was going through some motions before having to hand the whole thing over to someone else - God knows who - do the EU bodies have a national receiver to clean up the mess of a country, Harvey Keitel/Pulp Fiction style? Because it's getting to be a slaughterhouse with the deficit we saw today - there is only going to be an exponential snowball effect from this now as tax receipts fall, demand will fall, more unemployment will result.

Sorry to hear the likes of your folks losing their pensions - I have friends who are thoroughly mortgaged and working in the public sector - I dread to think of what will happen to them... This place could experience another kind of Famine, maybe worse.

Part of our solution has to be in communing with each other here and in the real world - that's often hard because there's tension and angry emotion because you have no job, your friend has a job, you have no debts your friend has debts and all sorts of combinations relating to that thing, the root of all evil, money.

We need to do something either very new or very old to get through this.

Thing is - my folks are keeping their pensions! - not losing a penny - as my auld lad said - his are the generation that made off like bandits out of the Celtic tiger - with the property prices and all that - he sold our apartment in Monkstown in 2001 for outrageous money - cleared off 2 mortgages and all the debts you accumulate bringing up and educating 4 kids in one foul swoop - with a few quid still in the bank (which he invested in Irish Blue chips - heh heh -dont mention the war around here!)

Will be pulling McWilliams "Generation Game" out of the Library anyday now

Your folks not losing anything ?? Well that's better news anyway. I don't understand what's going on after today - people have to pay for their own pensions is it on a sliding scale ?

tonys there believes it will bottom out soon and then start to swing up later in the year, early in the next - if it does then maybe a harsh period in between might learn us to keep away from debt in future - or at least so many of us with so much debt.

Unfortunately it is likely that it'll take us ten years to clear our collective debts - that's ballbreaking scrounging all the time and the uplift would want to be pretty good to give people a boost. Trouble is, interest rates could go up too. It'd be nice if the ECB in that event did that much for us and kept interest rates low but how much power have we to affect that - feck all. Although it perhaps could tie in with other countries undergoing a rise now - could the Eastern European countries be getting the cheap interest rates that we got earlier on this century and which resulted in this now ?

Is this all co-ordinated by the ECB in effect ? Could be your ideal job/lass/house/dog/pickett fence be waiting for you in Eastern Europe...

What's the likelihood of my job offer still being on the table in a years time when I am due to start... my keeping a job for the duration of my three year training contract and thereafter... and the housing market coinciding so that I buy a house at a rock bottom price in three years time.

Someone has to be optimistic .

johnfás wrote:

What's the likelihood of my job offer still being on the table in a years time when I am due to start... my keeping a job for the duration of my three year training contract and thereafter... and the housing market coinciding so that I buy a house at a rock bottom price in three years time.

Someone has to be optimistic .

Are you sure that the job will be there when the slot comes up free I've a feeling that you are one of the illuminatti people who are actually creating all this. Amateur investments my backside - you're a shark aren't you?

You'll be retired by 40 with three houses or more - some of them abroad but I hope they tax the bejesus out of you lads before you get your first investment in,

But that won't happen - you aren't one of the Beaten Generation. Although there's always someone worse off than yourself and maybe you could turn out to be one of the Thoroughly Utterly Beaten Generation Who Went Hungry in the Second Great Famine.

I'm not bitter.

Auditor #9 wrote:

tonys there believes it will bottom out soon and then start to swing up later in the year, early in the next - ...

Not quite, I think it will continue to slide for the first half of this year, maybe until October or so, we will then stabilise and in all probability stay that way for much if not all of 2010, in a bad way but not getting any worse. After that there is hope of a slow pick up in 2011.

Edo
They have outlined the size of the savings that will have to be made year by year, but no specifics, maybe they don’t want to be tied down on specifics at this early stage, but we know there is only one way it can go from here, increases in taxes, expansion of the tax base, cutting out tax breaks and a decrease in the numbers employed in the public service.

Are those people who retire not going to be having their places refilled? What kinds of savings are ye seeing there ?

Seriously - are ye not nervous that there won't be an upturn like you want ? And have ye looked at how much ye'd be hoping to get in tax from such an upswing?

Really - have ye looked at what the substance of such an upturn might be?

I really hate it that there are secrets and hidden information involved in public terms. It's immoral in my book. Everyone should be told everything, whether they understand it or not. So have Govt. economists really looked at what's coming ?

Isn't it heartwarming to see that the Guinness company pays just 2% tax in the UK?

soubresauts wrote:

Isn't it heartwarming to see that the Guinness company pays just 2% tax in the UK?

More like "stomach-turning". It pays tax on the UK-based profits though ... ?

Quote :

But this British firm has been paying very little UK corporation tax, relatively speaking. Despite average annual profits of almost £2bn over the last decade, its accounts disclose a mere £43m a year in average UK corporation tax charges. This is little more than 2% of its profits.

The tax bill would be nearer £144m a year if it reflected Diageo's actual physical UK presence rather than the present system of taxing only those financial profits said to arise in this country. Some 30% of Diageo's production is located in Britain.

The rest goes elsewhere and the drink goes everywhere .

Auditor #9 wrote:

So have Govt. economists really looked at what's coming ?

It'd be a first - according to Dermo tonight - they were driving along dandy, not a care in the world, and then suddenly in the rear view mirror this calamity appeared out of nowhere at the speed of light

Lest the Guardian forget, a significant part of the Diageo company is still in Irish hands. I gather the Guinness family owns nigh on 10% of Diageo and there are some other institutional investors from the old days of Guinness who enjoy large shareholdings in Diageo. It is thus slightly disengenuous to describe Ireland as a foreign tax authority vis-a-vis Diageo.