Unfortunately there are many people, far too many people, in this country who will do what ever they are told too, they are so use to living on their bended knee, doffing the cap to the local lord (TD, Councilor, priest), yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir.
It has been ingrained into at least 4 generations that the state knows best in all things, that questioning the powers that be is a crime in itself, and retribution will follow any dissenters, that the government are always right and can never be wrong.
Even after all the scandals, the tribunals, the national humiliation of the bail out, there are people who will still jump through hoops just because the TD told them to, we don't work for them, they work for us, we should never fear them, they should fear us, about time people realised that.
MarsMan: Unfortunately there are many people, far too many people, in this country who will do what ever they are told too, they are so use to living on their bended knee, doffing the cap to the local lord (TD, Councilor, priest), yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir.
It has been ingrained into at least 4 generations that the state knows best in all things, that questioning the powers that be is a crime in itself, and retribution will follow any dissenters, that the government are always right and can never be wrong.
Even after all the scandals, the tribunals, the national humiliation of the bail out, there are people who will still jump through hoops just because the TD told them to, we don't work for them, they work for us, we should never fear them, they should fear us, about time people realised that.
We live in a democracy where the people we vote in lie to us and threaten us with fines and jail if we don't give them our money to squander and do as we are told.
They don't represent us, they look out for themselves. It's a charade.
MarsMan: Unfortunately there are many people, far too many people, in this country who will do what ever they are told too, they are so use to living on their bended knee, doffing the cap to the local lord (TD, Councilor, priest), yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir.
It has been ingrained into at least 4 generations that the state knows best in all things, that questioning the powers that be is a crime in itself, and retribution will follow any dissenters, that the government are always right and can never be wrong.
Even after all the scandals, the tribunals, the national humiliation of the bail out, there are people who will still jump through hoops just because the TD told them to, we don't work for them, they work for us, we should never fear them, they should fear us, about time people realised that.
thelad2007: im hearing what your saying but i would highly recommend checking out the links i posted earlier. i do think its a much bigger problem than what your saying but that does play a part. ellen brown would explain it far better than i ever could. i whole thing is actually down to the fact, we stupidly handed our monetary control over to private financial institutions and they have no interest in serving us at all. in fact their interests is to make as much money, as quickly as possible on the backs of us all. our politicians are only assisting them in doing so by virtue of fear as far as i can see. ellen brown explains it better
I don't think they are in fear of the banks, I think they and their political parties do very well from the banks.
One td who whose party wasn't even in power during the celtic tiger got loans from a bank that were soft loans. He did not have to repay capital just interest and if things didn't work out he could hand the keys of the house to the bank and suffer no loss. That's how politicians make money. What did banks do for tds that were in power?
From memory charlie hockey and gary fitsgerild got loans written off for them by banks despite being wealthier than people with small loans and visas who the banks go after.
I would be interested in knowing how much banks donated in the interests of democracy to the main political parties over the years.
BentlyBoy: I don't think they are in fear of the banks, I think they and their political parties do very well from the banks.
One td who whose party wasn't even in power during the celtic tiger got loans from a bank that were soft loans. He did not have to repay capital just interest and if things didn't work out he could hand the keys of the house to the bank and suffer no loss. That's how politicians make money. What did banks do for tds that were in power?
From memory charlie hockey and gary fitsgerild got loans written off for them by banks despite being wealthier than people with small loans and visas who the banks go after.
I would be interested in knowing how much banks donated in the interests of democracy to the main political parties over the years.
im not talking about aib or anglo here, im talking about the real banks, the banks that actually run the show on this planet, i.e. JPMorgan Chase etc. but you do bring up an interesting thing regarding the relationship of our politicians and our banks.
I made a video expressing my opinion a few months back on this on Youtube. Gods was it 8 months ago. Anyway, I haven't changed my mind at all. Watch if you are interested.
TLDR yes I will be paying the bills. Especially since more information about how our water system is falling apart due to decades of under-investment has come out since.
As a side note, I hope ye all apply for your water conversation grant, after all, how many times in your life are you ever going to be given 100 yoyos by the state for nothing.
Sir_T: I made a video expressing my opinion a few months back on this on Youtube. Gods was it 8 months ago. Anyway, I haven't changed my mind at all. Watch if you are interested.
TLDR yes I will be paying the bills. Especially since more information about how our water system is falling apart due to decades of under-investment has come out since.
I just watched the first couple on minutes of the video and decided against watching the rest. A couple of points:
"Irish people don't like taxes"...I'd say that this applies to everyone in the world. But the Irish pay plenty of taxes. What the Irish have a huge issue with when the government cut the water support grant to the local authorities in 1983 and allowed for local government to levy charges was that they conveniently forgot to reduce the Income Tax and VAT increases which were applied to create a central fund for the "water support scheme". So double taxation...(As an aside, if we look at the funding model for Irish Water no, it is based on direct charges, local government fund, and general taxation. Amazingly, they felt this model would pass the EU market corporation test...) Your assertion that local government had no means to raise water charges is false. They were given legal rights to use water levies if they wanted. Also, your assertion that business/non-domestic water rates paid for all our water is false. Specifically since 1997, cross subsidy of water charges between non-domestic and domestic users is illegal. I stopped the video there because it seemed that I was also listening to a certain amount of misinformation. Think of this...if everyone had of paid the water charges the first time around, this entity would have still failed the market cooperation test. Our statistics agency got the discount rate completely wrong.... This company and the Irish governments handling of the issue means there exists no confidence in this entity. Irish water is dead. A debate will then take place on funding for our water services. I think there is 6.5 billion needed between now and 2021. Unfortunately, we have thrown away anywhere between 2-3 billion on this farce already...
Sir_T: I made a video expressing my opinion a few months back on this on Youtube. Gods was it 8 months ago. Anyway, I haven't changed my mind at all. Watch if you are interested.
TLDR yes I will be paying the bills. Especially since more information about how our water system is falling apart due to decades of under-investment has come out since.
I watched the rest. Your view of austerity wishy-washy at best. Your views on the danger of privatisation are nonsense. The difference between the privatization and deregulation that has occurred over the years is that these privatizations/deregulations destroyed monopolies and increased competition. Public monopolies failed to exist. However, Irish water will create a public monopoly. Privatization of this monopoly will lead to a private monopoly, not increased competition. I would rather our incompetent government, which are someway accountable to us, to run this system and not some amalgamation of Wall Street hedge funds. Every hedge fund or investment fund will jump at a chance of buying Irish Water. They don't fear being voted in or out. And they will really use the stick approach. They will just shut off your water. Why wouldn't any rational investor not take a chance of buying a monopoly. This is the market structure that means greatest profit potential. And actually cutting off people's supply will be welcome for them. Monopolies generate their greatest profits by restricting quantities supplied....People should fear this possibility especially with trade agreement like TTIP's.
Sir_T: And they did. BUSINESS OWNERS have been paying water rates to the local authorities for years. They have been subsidising your free water.
Well gee where did the money for your water that you were not paying for come from, the sky? And why do you think there was shocking levels of underinvestment in the water system for 30 odd years?
No, it has been written in law since 1997 that cross-subsidy between non-domestic and domestic users is illegal. Central government provided the funds for domestic water rates. The 1997 Act will probably state this. I will not argue this point over and back constantly.
So, you are basing this line on the trumpeted 40% complaince rate? The problem with this is that its based on a 2 month period. where bill had been going out constantly over all that time. Bills didnt go out all at once, but had been going out in batches every week. Plus the bills had a 3 month timeframe afaik. This means
(a) Not everyone had their bill yet. (b) Not a single person had not actually failed to pay their bill yet, as they still had a month to go if they were among the first people to receive their bills (c) Some had only had their bills for a week. (d) Some people typically pay their bills at the last minute.
So with all that in consideration 40% having already paid is actually rather good.
No, I didn't say that. I said they would have failed the EU market corporation test even if everyone had of paid their first bill. The reason I said was that the discount rate the CSO used was wrong. The EU statistics office clearly stated this in their report. All discounted revenues using the EU discount figure would still have led to a need for central government support.
Sir_T: And they did. BUSINESS OWNERS have been paying water rates to the local authorities for years. They have been subsidising your free water.
Well gee where did the money for your water that you were not paying for come from, the sky? And why do you think there was shocking levels of underinvestment in the water system for 30 odd years?
No, it has been written in law since 1997 that cross-subsidy between non-domestic and domestic users is illegal. Central government provided the funds for domestic water rates. The 1997 Act will probably state this. I will not argue this point over and back constantly.
Sir_T: So, you are basing this line on the trumpeted 40% complaince rate? The problem with this is that its based on a 2 month period. where bill had been going out constantly over all that time. Bills didnt go out all at once, but had been going out in batches every week. Plus the bills had a 3 month timeframe afaik. This means
(a) Not everyone had their bill yet. (b) Not a single person had not actually failed to pay their bill yet, as they still had a month to go if they were among the first people to receive their bills (c) Some had only had their bills for a week. (d) Some people typically pay their bills at the last minute.
So with all that in consideration 40% having already paid is actually rather good.
No, I didn't say that. I said they would have failed the EU market corporation test even if everyone had of paid their first bill. The reason I said was that the discount rate the CSO used was wrong. The EU statistics office clearly stated this in their report. All discounted revenues using the EU discount figure would still have led to a need for central government support.
Yeats1980: No, it has been written in law since 1997 that cross-subsidy between non-domestic and domestic users is illegal. Central government provided the funds for domestic water rates. The 1997 Act will probably state this.
I'll correct this. It was the "1998 water services pricing policy" that contained the issue of cross-subsidy. The idea behind this was that domestic and non-domestic users could not subsidize each other. If local councils had a surplus of money from non-domestic users, the surplus had to be carried forward to use in the next year for non-domestic users. Similarly domestic users could not subsidize non-domestic users. The plan of action was to have a fully metered non-domestic water sector by 2006. My point still stands on cross subsidies.
I think the next round of bills will be the test for IW, if payment levels remain at about 46% then the Government have a big problem with an election at most only a few months away.
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