We live in a redistributive kleptocracy that has institutionalised Robin Hood

[sauntersplash]

Eh, the system here is that the people are in charge and the politicians do as they are told. Literally.

Bless your cotton socks.


"Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act...
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response

Falls the shadow"

[skev]

And just how hard should someone work for a piece of gods green earth ? Should they be slaves for 40 years ?

If your talking about 40 year mortgages I think they should be banned. 20 years maximum. This crap about making it easier for people to buy houses is a joke. Between 40 year mortgages and the special savings scheme there was no way house prices weren't going to be artificially inflated.

If you can't afford a house you can't afford a house. When my parents bought their first house they saved and saved until they could afford the downpayment. then they got a mortgage. Society today is all about right here and right now. Somebody decides on Monday they are going to buy a house and a week later they are in a new 3 bed semi piece of crap thats not worth half the price they paid for it.

As for how hard they should work for it? Thats entirely up to them. But if they decide to work harder than next guy than they should be congratulated when they buy the bigger house. They worked for it. They shouldn't have to listen to people complaining that its not fair. It is fair. The harder you work the better off you are. It's that simple.

[Pauli]

Sounds like a great idea. I would imagine that it would be very expensive to run referenda every 3 months but at the same time it would encourage more people to get involved in politics and I suppose there are a lot of volunteers helping to make it work?

It would also imagine that it would weed out a lot of corruption at county level.

I'm going to go have a read about this.

Basically it is democracy from the bottom up rather than the top down. Community ----> Canton ------>federal government. VAT is fixed at 7.6%. There is a lot of voluntary commitment there to make it work. The Swiss are imbued at a very young age to value their unique system and civics is very important here. Because the people making the main decisions affecting the population are local and not remote in Berne, there is a strong culture of accountability. Corruption of the type endemic in Ireland is unknown and anybody attempting it can expect serious retribution. I am not saying corruption in Switzerland does not exist but it is more likely to be found in banks than in politics.

If our Cabinet were here and not in Ireland, many of them would either be in court or in jail.


Referenda are basically online these days

[BrendanGalway]

I won' go into great detail, Cael, but in this democracy, the system, because it works from the bottom up rather than the top down, actually works. There is very little political corruption because everybody is directly accountable and the canton is more powerful than the state. The power of the state is very limited. Hence national politicians are not really important at all. Read up on it and you will be surprised and anything you want to ask me afterwards, be my guest.

I believe the system is called Direct Democracy. It allows citizens to propose their own Bills and get them signed into Law through a popular referendum if the can collect enough signatures. It also allows citizens to veto Government proposals/bills if enough signatures can be collected. My personal favroite : Recall elections, where an elected official can be immeadiatley impeached through a citizens vote if they are found to have violated their trust.

Pauli lives in a coutnry that takes its Democracy Seriously. Imgaine a system like that over here....

[Gadfly]

At first glance the OP looked like a heavy-handed attempt at satire. Apparently it is not.

This may explain why this poster won so comprehensively, when he wrestled with his conscience on the whether to support NAMA.

The much oppressed wealthy are fighting back! We have stumbled upon a wonderful vehicle for the special purpose of transferring resources from the taxpayers to the wealthiest. Could we have gotten away with this but for the economic downturn? As the man said, never let a good crisis go to waste!

[Pauli]

Bless your cotton socks.


"Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act...
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response

Falls the shadow"

Referenda are held every 3 months. The people vote. A result is declared and the politicians implement the result. Works fine as far as I can see.

[Cael]

Landless. As am I. But I must admit I'm landless cause I don't work hard enough. Why are you landless? Are you being held back by the rich?

Pure bollix, a chara. You are landless mostly because your father didnt leave you land. Most landowners in Ireland are lazy bástards who just inherited land.

[Cael]

And just how hard should someone work for a piece of gods green earth ? Should they be slaves for 40 years ?

Its even worse thatn that, because land in Ireland is so expensive (ten times more expensive than French land) that it could never pay for itself. Land in Ireland is a gentleman's sport (mostly paid for by the taxpayer) - unless you get it rezoned, and then its winning the lotto.

[ibis]

Well it is partially relevant as the OP throws a number of things into the rhetorical mix.

Several of his points attack pure and simple the notion of redistribution of wealth from rich to poor:

My data simply corrects the unsubtle claim that in comparative OECD terms, Ireland is anywhere near being a country where wealth is redistributed in significant quantities to those who have least. Thus his overblown assertions about the tyranny of the poor (an oxymoran if ever there was one) and the massively redistributive nature of our system are seen to be what they are, factually incorrect.

He also takes issue with the relatively low taxes paid by median earners and attempts to meld this into the same argument criticisng too much redistribution of wealth in Ireland (eg. "institutionalised Robin Hood"). However, this is an entirely seperate argument. The facts do indeed indicate that relative to other EU countries, the lower and middle earners of Ireland pay less tax than is the norm. This policy has formed part of FF's bizarre neoliberal-esque attempt to make Ireland a "low-tax economy", a policy which is continuing, as Garret Fitz notes, with the Govt's apparently reflexive about-turn on raising some of the revenue required to stabilise this years budget by €4bn through increased taxes.

This however has very little to do with redistribution of wealth because although median earners are paying less income tax than the norm in EU terms, they are simultaneously receiving far less from the state in terms of public services relative to EU norms.

Clearly if a median earner has to pay for one's health care, even if one is paying lower taxes, s/he is still at a net loss in terms of wealth distribution across the economy.

Relative income tax levels in this scenario have nothing to do with the spreading of wealth across the different levels of society.

Yes, I think we're both saying that - I appreciate the OP is being very over-dramatic, but leaving aside the question of whether one agrees with the OP or not (and I don't, on balance) I think Cyp's point is purely about taxation. That is, it's set within the general frame of the wealth redistribution by taxation that occurs in most wealthy countries - in other words, 'redistribution' there refers purely to a movement of money (as in money is taken from those who are net contributors and distributed to those who are net beneficiaries), not to a resulting change in the distribution of the wealth in different socio-economic quartiles.

Obviously, the fact that the rich remain rich means that redistributive taxation isn't making the rich poor...but, and this is important - we're talking about the taxation of wealth that is being continually created.

Say you earned €250,000, and paid 50% of it in tax, whereas I earned €25,000, paid no tax, but received €5,000 in services paid for by your taxes. If we further assume that anything over €100,000 a year means that you'll be able to build up capital, then after a year you'll have built up €25,000 in actual 'wealth' (capital), while I still won't have any. So despite the income redistribution you're still much wealthier than me, but there's no denying that your money is being taken off you and given to me. It's not at all unreasonable to say that too much money is being taken off you, given that none is being taken off me - from a social point of view, I'm getting a free ride off whatever it is that you do that makes so much money. Why is that fair? Do I work harder than you? Am I more worthy because I earn less?

Now if we extend that to the point where the median earner isn't paying any tax (on balance), the situation is pretty silly - I can accept that the poor can and should benefit, but why should the median earner be getting a free ride?

[YoungLiberal]

Yes but under the constitution, the federal government has its powers limited in law. The canton is the tax-collecting entity, the canton will decide how much corporation tax it levies above the 8% allotted to the federal government, Therefore there is inter-cantonal competition in the tax system.

Because the "county councillors" have such power, the people are very careful who they elect. Also every 3 months there are referenda on one issue or another where the people get their say. The function of politicians in this area is to obey the peoples will.

You'd end up with possibly, maybe competent government in Dublin. The rest of the country would turn into Jackie-Healy-Rae land.