Man Set's Himself On Fire During Social Protest

[Aliyah1995]

I suppose not having to go to war to often (if ever, who does Australia go to war with?) kind of helps the economy as well. What percentage of the GDP goes to defense in Australia compared to Israel? I can only guess, but I would fathom like comparing night and day.

That being said, like the Australian lawyer you mentioned above, I have no regrets about moving to Israel. True, I could live a nice religious Jewish life in America, but NOTHING beats being part of the first Jewish state in about 2,000 years (for me, at least)

[curlyg]

As you say, defence spending is probably miniscule by comparison (I don't actually know the data). I appreciate that for some people non-material considerations will do -- but as one Israeli expat living here who I speak to has told me, ideology doesn't pay the bills. The state of Israel's economy is really unacceptable, especially as people become more mobile internationally and it will be increasingly easy for skilled and educated people to just leave. I don't know what, but something really does have to be done to bring salaries up to a more competitive level internationally...

[Aliyah1995]

Curlyg, you are right. Ideology doesn't pay the bills and, truth be told, if I wasn't an ideological Zionist AND religious, I probably wouldn't still be here. That being said, the situation in America now is crapola as well. At least in Israel, with all the high taxes, low salaries, etc. my whole family is GUARANTEED health care and the costs for sending my kids to school (i.e. one of the best schools in Israel, in BOTH secular and Jewish studies) is petty change. In America, I would be paying five digits in dollars (for each child) to send them to a Jewish Day School (Orthodox or not) and health care if far from a guarantee. America is no where near the magnet for Israelis looking to live the "good life" like it was when I first made aliyah in 1995. And I do not have another passport (besides Israeli and American).

You are right though. Something needs to be done. I don't know what the solution is. G-d only knows economics is not my field.

[curlyg]

Curlyg, you are right. Ideology doesn't pay the bills and, truth be told, if I wasn't an ideological Zionist AND religious, I probably wouldn't still be here. That being said, the situation in America now is crapola as well. At least in Israel, with all the high taxes, low salaries, etc. my whole family is GUARANTEED health care and the costs for sending my kids to school (i.e. one of the best schools in Israel, in BOTH secular and Jewish studies) is petty change. In America, I would be paying five digits in dollars (for each child) to send them to a Jewish Day School (Orthodox or not) and health care if far from a guarantee. America is no where near the magnet for Israelis looking to live the "good life" like it was when I first made aliyah in 1995. And I do not have another passport (besides Israeli and American).

You are right though. Something needs to be done. I don't know what the solution is. G-d only knows economics is not my field.

I'm not an economist but some pretty basic ideas come to mind.

The most straightforward thing to do would be to get the underutilised portions of the population, mainly Haredim and Arab women, into the workforce. More workers = more growth = more tax revenues for government. This doesn't have to hurt anybody, it should be pretty uncontroversial if you can get the religious leaders on side. This was one of the major recommendations of the OECD recently too.

For more controversial stuff, imo, VAT needs to be dropped to a reasonable level - this is basically a tax on poor people (it's a tax on consumption, which means people with small budgets are paying a larger % of their income on necessities like food). Break up and privatise the government monopolies, especially the electric corporation and others built on the same model -- bring down costs by eliminating ridiculous benefits. Create a regulatory agency to aggressively crack down on the monopolistic/oligopolistic pricing of the major Israeli corporations. End protectionism for Israeli industries -- for heaven's sake allow importation of cheese from overseas then you won't need cottage cheese protests, the Israeli companies will drop their prices to match the foreign competition. Drop child subsidies, arnona subsidies, funding for private schools and yeshivot, and other anti-productive benefits and use the savings to cut income taxes and give people disposable income. Cut indirect taxes on fuel and electricity and make up the losses with a reasonable taxation regime over the new natural gas companies entering into production over the next few years in the off-shore natural gas fields. Take an axe to the holy cow that is the IDF - officers don't need to retire so early and they don't need such amazing retirement benefits, stop spending $120 million to buy a single American F-35... Cut the fat out of government. I don't want to name anything too specific, but I've seen how Israeli embassy and consular officials live overseas, and it ain't cheap. I'm sure this happens all over the world, and inside Israel too. The government should also take advantage of Israel's strengths - technological innovation, an innovative military industry, etc. - to generate civilian industries. I read recently that a relatively small investment in civilian space technology would create a massive return for Israel due to its existing space know-how within the military industry, but last I heard the government wasn't able to muster the money to implement this idea.

I'm sure that if you gave technocrats control of the country for 36 months they would just crush all of these corrupt entrenched interests and things would be running much more smoothly. Unfortunately, that will never happen. Instead you have a government with 47 ministers, 25 deputy ministers, 12 deputy prime ministers, each with 45 aides, and so on -- and not one of them seems to be competent!

[wat0n]

As you say, defence spending is probably miniscule by comparison (I don't actually know the data). I appreciate that for some people non-material considerations will do -- but as one Israeli expat living here who I speak to has told me, ideology doesn't pay the bills. The state of Israel's economy is really unacceptable, especially as people become more mobile internationally and it will be increasingly easy for skilled and educated people to just leave. I don't know what, but something really does have to be done to bring salaries up to a more competitive level internationally...

Australia spends 1.9% of its GDP in its military, for Israel the figure is 6.3%.

I'm not an economist but some pretty basic ideas come to mind.

The most straightforward thing to do would be to get the underutilised portions of the population, mainly Haredim and Arab women, into the workforce. More workers = more growth = more tax revenues for government. This doesn't have to hurt anybody, it should be pretty uncontroversial if you can get the religious leaders on side. This was one of the major recommendations of the OECD recently too.

For more controversial stuff, imo, VAT needs to be dropped to a reasonable level - this is basically a tax on poor people (it's a tax on consumption, which means people with small budgets are paying a larger % of their income on necessities like food). Break up and privatise the government monopolies, especially the electric corporation and others built on the same model -- bring down costs by eliminating ridiculous benefits. Create a regulatory agency to aggressively crack down on the monopolistic/oligopolistic pricing of the major Israeli corporations. End protectionism for Israeli industries -- for heaven's sake allow importation of cheese from overseas then you won't need cottage cheese protests, the Israeli companies will drop their prices to match the foreign competition. Drop child subsidies, arnona subsidies, funding for private schools and yeshivot, and other anti-productive benefits and use the savings to cut income taxes and give people disposable income. Cut indirect taxes on fuel and electricity and make up the losses with a reasonable taxation regime over the new natural gas companies entering into production over the next few years in the off-shore natural gas fields. Take an axe to the holy cow that is the IDF - officers don't need to retire so early and they don't need such amazing retirement benefits, stop spending $120 million to buy a single American F-35... Cut the fat out of government. I don't want to name anything too specific, but I've seen how Israeli embassy and consular officials live overseas, and it ain't cheap. I'm sure this happens all over the world, and inside Israel too. The government should also take advantage of Israel's strengths - technological innovation, an innovative military industry, etc. - to generate civilian industries. I read recently that a relatively small investment in civilian space technology would create a massive return for Israel due to its existing space know-how within the military industry, but last I heard the government wasn't able to muster the money to implement this idea.

I'm sure that if you gave technocrats control of the country for 36 months they would just crush all of these corrupt entrenched interests and things would be running much more smoothly. Unfortunately, that will never happen. Instead you have a government with 47 ministers, 25 deputy ministers, 12 deputy prime ministers, each with 45 aides, and so on -- and not one of them seems to be competent!

Economists would generally be against lowering VAT or fuel taxes - they are not as distortonary as other taxes and collect significant revenues.

[Madeline]

It's basically impossible for any country to provide completely free housing, food, healthcare, and spending cash to every single citizen.

I don't want to sound uncaring, because this is definitely a big tragedy. But this man started a business. It failed due to his mismanagement and mental condition. His creditors went to court and won a judgement against him for non-payment of loans and equipment, and wound up taking back their equipment and also foreclosed on his house to pay off his business debt.

Well, not every business succeeds, and the risks were known from the beginning. But it's not the country's fault. It's his. Maybe instead of hanging around cursing the government, he would have just gotten a job like most people? Not to oversimplify, but that's what the vast majority of people whose businesses close tend to do. They don't set themselves on fire. They move on to the next job.

It says in the article that he didn't have any choices left. I would like to disagree. As long as you are alive and kicking, you will always have a choice. Setting yourself on fire might be an act of desperation, but in the end, as we see here, this man threw away his remaining choices. He did it, no one else.
I can't help but think that there is more to this story, a very dark and troubled mind perhaps.

[curlyg]

Australia spends 1.9% of its GDP in its military, for Israel the figure is 6.3%.



Economists would generally be against lowering VAT or fuel taxes - they are not as distortonary as other taxes and collect significant revenues.

Maybe so. Like I said, I'm not an economist - but these are the taxes that seem to me to hit the poorest people hardest because they take up so much of their income on basic necessities.

[JerichoMissile]

You really can't compare Australia and Israel. Israel has a decent economy given its historic circumstances and the fact that it's a relatively young country. There's certainly a lot to be proud of (but still, a LOT of room for improvement). But Australia is, pardon the bluntness, filthy rich. Australians don't even realise how good they have it here because so many have never lived anywhere else and never experienced real hardship. This country hasn't had a recession in two decades, unemployment is at historic lows, house prices are at historic highs, mineral resource prices are at historic highs, etc. If you're willing to work hard here, you will make a decent living. In Israel, you can work your ass off and still barely have enough money to pay your bills at the end of the month. When I was in high school and I worked as a checkout person in a supermarket, I earned $12 an hour. That's about 50 sheqel per hour. In Israel, fully grown people doing the same work get paid about 1/4 of that. It's more or less the same ratio throughout the economy. That's why Israel is facing such a major brain drain.

I guess the saying how does one make a small fortune in israel? its to arrive in israel with a big fortune

[NewsGuy]

All I was saying is that a country such as Israel should have some sort of safety net to stop such a situation. I know it's easy for someone like me to say but it's much harder to do. But if we won't even say it, then it has less chance of happening.

Reffo, you're a good guy. It bothers me too that there is so much poverty in Israel (and elsewhere, too).

[NewsGuy]

I'm not an economist but some pretty basic ideas come to mind.

The most straightforward thing to do would be to get the underutilised portions of the population, mainly Haredim and Arab women, into the workforce. More workers = more growth = more tax revenues for government. This doesn't have to hurt anybody, it should be pretty uncontroversial if you can get the religious leaders on side. This was one of the major recommendations of the OECD recently too.

For more controversial stuff, imo, VAT needs to be dropped to a reasonable level - this is basically a tax on poor people (it's a tax on consumption, which means people with small budgets are paying a larger % of their income on necessities like food). Break up and privatise the government monopolies, especially the electric corporation and others built on the same model -- bring down costs by eliminating ridiculous benefits. Create a regulatory agency to aggressively crack down on the monopolistic/oligopolistic pricing of the major Israeli corporations. End protectionism for Israeli industries -- for heaven's sake allow importation of cheese from overseas then you won't need cottage cheese protests, the Israeli companies will drop their prices to match the foreign competition. Drop child subsidies, arnona subsidies, funding for private schools and yeshivot, and other anti-productive benefits and use the savings to cut income taxes and give people disposable income. Cut indirect taxes on fuel and electricity and make up the losses with a reasonable taxation regime over the new natural gas companies entering into production over the next few years in the off-shore natural gas fields. Take an axe to the holy cow that is the IDF - officers don't need to retire so early and they don't need such amazing retirement benefits, stop spending $120 million to buy a single American F-35... Cut the fat out of government. I don't want to name anything too specific, but I've seen how Israeli embassy and consular officials live overseas, and it ain't cheap. I'm sure this happens all over the world, and inside Israel too. The government should also take advantage of Israel's strengths - technological innovation, an innovative military industry, etc. - to generate civilian industries. I read recently that a relatively small investment in civilian space technology would create a massive return for Israel due to its existing space know-how within the military industry, but last I heard the government wasn't able to muster the money to implement this idea.

I'm sure that if you gave technocrats control of the country for 36 months they would just crush all of these corrupt entrenched interests and things would be running much more smoothly. Unfortunately, that will never happen. Instead you have a government with 47 ministers, 25 deputy ministers, 12 deputy prime ministers, each with 45 aides, and so on -- and not one of them seems to be competent!

Very impressive, curlyg. I agree with more than 90% of what you're saying.

Surprising that in Israel (and in much of the world), special interest groups (like the Hareidim and Arabs) are able to get so much special treatment, even at the expense of the overall economy, and even though it is tearing apart the rest of society.

It comes down to the problem with the current voting system that allows EVERY citizen to have an equal vote regardless of whether they contribute to society or not. This way the politicians are beholden to non-productive segments of society and they perpetuate the welfare payments to the special interests in exchange for votes at election time.

I would bet that if the right to vote was conditioned on paying taxes, for example, the politicians would be jumping to fix the inequalities that are causing so many problems today. I agree with you that if the Hareidim were dependent on working for a living, the overall economy would improve by leaps and bounds.

[Andromeda]

A man who is voluntarily willing to endure the pain of being set on fire is truly strong and courageous. I won't comment on the rest, but simply make the point that I wish I had such courage. Personally, if I were to commit suicide, I would take the least painful option.

[JerichoMissile]

A man who is voluntarily willing to endure the pain of being set on fire is truly strong and courageous. I won't comment on the rest, but simply make the point that I wish I had such courage. Personally, if I were to commit suicide, I would take the least painful option.

i andromeda, the guy was trying to make a point in public by making it a spectacle,
if he had had gone home and bitten down on a cyanide capsule, it wouldnt have even
made the back page of any newspaper, but when you burn yourself alive to death in public, it gets the medias attentions, i guess this was the guys point too,
not just to kill himself and escape his pitiful existance, but to draw attention as to the reason he was doing it, namely israels cuts to the disabled etc...