Irelands inverted anus economy

Right, I ain't no fancy economist type but here's my take on the Irish economy.

The 100k lads. These people seem to occupy a range of positions, pharmacists, dentists, doctors, insurance. These people are the high rollers in our economy, high stakes straight out off college. Without any risk involved, just a college course, you seem to be entitled to the highest starting salary grades. Good for them right? We reward the safe job joes, the jobs we understand. My personal hope is that as volumes increase into this false economy, people are going to realise that having a piece of paper doesn't really entitle you to a whole pile in life.

Public service workers I know seem to generally be doing ok. Ok in the irish ecomony is a salary band > 50 k. So your teachers and nurses, generally benefitting from the safest jobs will generally be below this, circa 40k by their early 30s. Higher paid public servants will no doubt shoot well past this, a majority around the 60k mark and upwards. Not complaining here, those are hard enough jobs to get to and are regularly supported by union meddling and government quangos.

Social welfare equates to the nextlower bracket, we have a society which supports unemployment. Taking a job actually lowers your salary and cuts off benefits in alot of cases. On front line last night, an unemployed couple with 2 children were used as an example, having an equivalent salary of 39k. Not bad for doing nothing.

Now onto the lowest point of the bucket. Internationally competitive jobs, often export driven seem to signify the new low for the Irish economy. Engineers, designers, developers, anything that's export driven is a low income scenario. A job, that in a healthy economy, would normally be rewarding is instead pushed down the paid ladder. To the point that some of the worst paid in our economy are engineers. 40k is considered a decent salary (note this is 1k more than social welfare, add work related costs this disappears). So you're probably better off on the dole than working in an export driven industry. I recently encountered software developers working for 20k. We're looking at indian wages, soon enough we might have a chance to become an offshore hub if there wasn't a realistic economy across the water from us that has and will suck up our talent.

Worse still, is the fact that the self employed are entitled to nothing in this great state. For taking on risk and entrepeneurial ventures, the government removes any welfare if you fail and any entitlement to medical benefits. If you fail you'll also be prevented from ever being allowed to attempt to launch another venture again. I think it makes sense to add an "if you fail - you will face casturation" clause to the constitution.

So I term Ireland, the inverted anus economy. It prevents exports from flourishing and promotes the retention of anti-competitive strategies. Holding onto the shit and acting exactly opposite as to how a healthy economy works.

So as a mantra for living here, I like to think the clever screw the system, reap the benefits, work as many nixers as you can, get your medical card, milk every entitlement. The sooner the state (or IMF) realises that EVERYTHING IS BROKEN, the quicker we can start from scratch at building somewhere worth living and working for.