Equality in Ireland?

Stephen Donnelly

"It turns out that the wealthiest 20% in Ireland own about 70% of the country's total wealth. And for the less well-off? The least well-off 20% own more or less nothing and actually, it's worse. The best data available on wealth distribution comes from the Central Bank, and it shows this: The least well-off 40pc of Irish households, nearly two million men, women and children, have an almost zero per cent share of Ireland's wealth. We're O.K. with a certain amount of inequality - the 'ideal' situation according to a recent poll was that the wealthiest 20% would own over 30% of all assets, the poorest 20% would own about 17%, and the middle 60% would own the rest.

We don't believe that we're anywhere close to that ideal, however. In fact, we believe the wealthiest own not 30%, but 60%. And we believe the poorest own just a little over 10%. And then there's the reality - 70% of everything for the wealthiest and nothing for four in 10 people.

The Irish have an inherent sense of fairness. If you work harder, it's fair that you get more. If you invest more in your education and skills, it's fair that you get more. But it's clear we're not living in anything remotely close to what we believe to be fair.

Imagine bringing a box of 100 sweets into a primary school with 100 students, and trying to sell the current situation in Ireland to them - 20 of you are getting 70 of the sweets to share between you, another 40 of you are getting 30 sweets to share, and the final 40 of you are getting nothing. And we're going to base this allocation on how much money your parents make.

The negative equity generation don't belong in Ireland's 40pc who have no assets. They are way below that - they are the students in the primary school who were told that they have minus 10 sweets, and if they worked hard, then the total tally against them would be changed to minus 9.

And if they kept it up, year after year, then some day they can be like the 40 kids who have no sweets. For many in the negative equity generation, they'll get back to zero in their 50s. Imagine the damage that's doing right now, and the impact it's having on their children.

So if we're at a level of inequality that's much worse than we want, how did we end up here? Part of the problem is that the 20% at the top have far greater influence over the political system, and so the laws, and the tax regimes, reflect what they want, rather than what's best for the country. Partly it's due to a conspiracy of silence - the data used was only published this year, and so the sort of analysis we're looking at now was difficult to do in the past.

Partly it's due to accepting a 'masters of the universe' orthodoxy - that there's a small number of people who must be paid vast sums of money to create the wealth which will, in time, trickle down to others. In 1980, top CEOs in the US earned about 40 times what the average worker earned. By 1990 it was 80 times. It's now nearly 400 times.

So what can be done? Progressive budgets help, by seeking higher contributions from the wealthiest. Serious investment in, and reform of, education is essential.

Deprived areas need a lot more help, schools need a lot more teachers, colleges need more funding and control over how they spend those funds.
Communities must be planned to ensure a cross section of society live together, rather than the current physical separation of poorer urban communities.

Now we know - Ireland is much less equal than we thought it was. It is much less equal than we want it to be.

And if theory and history are any guide, then without some serious changes, this inequality will get much worse. In America, a country Ireland tends to track socioeconomically, the wealthiest 1% now own a staggering 40% of the country's wealth. It's time we started to move in the opposite direction."
-Stephen Donnelly.

Ireland 20 Argentina 43

Still, despite the result above they played some great Rugby!
It could easily have been the other way around.



It is good to be irish in this day and age.

Ireland 24 France 9

When the going gets tough, the tough get going, and rarely has it got tougher than it did in the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff yesterday. But this has been a good hunting ground for Irish rugby, and never happier than yesterday. Even Muhammad Ali in his pomp didn’t roll with so many punches as this Irish team yesterday against a French team intent on beating them into submission.

I can hardly remember a more exciting match or ever seeing an irish team play so fearlessly. As Keith Wood commented quite rightly on TV “The most extraordinary level of bravery I have ever seen,”  Ireland thus beat France for the first time in four World Cup meetings. 

Schwarzwald Marathon

Erstmals 1984 und heute mit 67 immer noch dabei!

Ein herzliches vergelt´s Gott an alle Läufer/-innen auf der Strecke, an die begeisterten Zuschauer und an all die vielen engagierten Helfer. All diejenigen haben wieder dazu beigetragen, daß der "Klassiker unter den Naturläufen" wieder (in 1:43:08) erfolgreich zu Ende ging.

Will Greece soon be rich?

“Europe Should See Refugees as a Boon, Not a Burden” is a New York Times editorial that is typical of a view espoused by politicians eager to preside over a larger population. Young hard-working immigrants will make a country rich and enable schemes such as Social Security and Pensionfunds to keep going (a better ratio of workers to government-dependents).

At the same time we hear that roughly 3000 migrants arrive on the shores of Greece every day. “Greece’s Dismal Demographics” is a 2013 New York Times article on the aging/shrinking Greek population:

The most frightening figure is a Eurostat projection which estimates that, in 2050, 32.1 percent of the Greek population will be over 65, compared with 16.6 percent in 2000. And this projection was made in 2007, before the crisis hit Greece’s population. We were still living high, before widespread unemployment, hasty retirement and the emigration of those with the skills to succeed abroad. New projections will most likely be much worse.

If the Times is correct, won’t Greece benefit hugely from the waves of migrants arriving on her shores? If Greece can hold onto most of these new arrivals, and not let Germany lure them farther north, shouldn’t it be the case that Greece will soon be much richer than Germany?

And, if immigrants lead to wealth, why are European Union officials having to force EU members to accept immigrants?

-Thanks to Philip Greenspun.

Browser compatability now

In 1994, when Netscape Navigator was the most popular web browser, Marc Andreessen declared the browser would replace the OS. Clearly aimed at Microsoft, who proved them wrong with Windows 95, it still was a sign of things to come.


Now, Chromebooks and web-based tools like Google Apps routinely put everything on the Web. Faster, smaller, much cheaper computers, twenty years of development plus routine access to broadband have made “everything on the web” (or in the cloud) routine for us.

Up to recently however browser compatibility was a big headache. Now Html5 has changed all that, browser + Html5 = new OS! 

Html5test.com measures Html5 compatibility and provides a point score. Today Firefox 39 scores 467 of 555 points; Chrome 44 scores 526; Safari 9.0, 400.) In general, the four main browsers have improved hugely in the last few years.

Better browsers were supposed to replace operating systems since 1994.

Instead, they’re slowly replacing local applications, especially for mobile. Today, companies write applications and apps for iOS and Android, which you download through the App Store. Over time, many apps will become HTML5 wrappers, using CSS3 or JavaScript for many functions, then most, then all.

When browsers become “all” HTML5 or 5.1 (due next year), then more complex programs like Insight can become an URL instead of an app? Maybe.

The rich get richer

Upward social mobility, or at least the promise of upward social mobility, is what keeps most western societies going forward. This has been the case since I left school in the sixties.

 

People get out of bed in the morning because they expect today will be better than yesterday. We invest enormously in our children to give them the chance to do the best they can. Real life seems to be a constant striving for self-improvement for all. It’s like a conveyor belt.

 

This is what social mobility is all about and upward social mobility demands a bit of room on the hill for everyone. There has to be a chance.

 

But what happens if that social conveyor belt stops? What happens when the concentration of wealth at the top becomes so extreme that there is very little left to go around? What happens when policies all over the world explicitly work to make rich people richer?

 

This is exactly what has happened all over the West in the past 10 years. The recessions have provided a once-in-a-generation opportunity for rich people to become even wealthier. We have seen a massive transfer of wealth in the recession from the middle to the very rich. This has ensured a significant wealth divide – the sort of inequality not seen for over 100 years.

Not good for the future.

-Thanks to David McWilliams.