Protest: Demonstration to protest against Government bail outs of property developers

plasmaguy

Ah, I see some people are still beating the 'public sector reform will plug the 10 billion deficit' drum.

As for who benefits from a reduced budget deficit, this is a no brainer...those who lie sick in hospitals benefit, after all I know that's the type of people I want to help.

Yes we are in hoc to the builders in this country, that's as much our fault as theirs. We all need homes to live in, many of us have speculated in the housing market and hence pushed up the prices, some of us actually need a home to live in and have to pay the market value, yes I know that makes us a criminal for wanting to buy our own home.

Without the demand there would be no high house prices.

And yes we can let the property market bomb out and forego the billions in stamp duty while paying billions in social welfare to unemployed tradespersons. But like I keep saying, that will mean, since its FF in government who have no alternative plan, large budget deficits. Large budget deficits mean cutbacks which affect the sick in hospitals. I guess again I will be viewed as dumb for trying to prevent the sick in hospitals suffering because of cutbacks.

Dalfiatach

Yer just ranting now plasmaguy.

Nobody said public sector reform will magically plug the deficit. But there is a billion or two per annum in pure waste that can be purged.

And the fundamental point remains:

Taking a few years of large deficits while we reform waste, cut costs, end price-gouging and price-fixing scams that this country is rife with, and encourage people into creating and building real sustainable export-led industry: all that will leave us in 3-4 years with a more competitive, cheaper, well-balanced economy, albeit with a fairly hefty increased national debt of an extra €30bn or so.

Going the bailout route will achieve nothing, will merely transfer €30 or €40bn of taxpayers money into the developers pockets (on top of the €30bn or so in deficits we'll be running up anyway), will do nothing to help create a balanced economy because everyone will be hoping the construction monster takes off again, will only drag out the decline in house prices over many more years (it will not stop the decline, only slow it temporarily), and will in the end up set us back a decade and twice as much money as just letting it collapse.

A bailout is the worst, most expensive, most damaging thing to do right now.

It doesn't work, costs far more in the long run, and only prolongs the adjustment

The only way to get the property market "moving again" is to allow prices to fall to sane levels. No ifs, ands, or buts about it, end of bloody story.

jackal

So the argument for measures to "help" first time buyers is that we have a deficit due to tax revenues being down, and we need to spend taxpayers money to help other taxpayers pay tax?

Its worse than a zero sum game. It creates no wealth. It is using taxes already collected to generate taxes, minus the profits to be made along the way by the businesses involved.

eh... Houston we have a problem.

SkepticOne

Hopefully the protest will show the powers that be that at least some FTBs want lower prices and less debt rather than the ability to take on extra debt to buy properties that are piling up unsold.

SimpleSam06

plasmaguy wrote: »

sick in hospitals
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the sick in hospitals
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the sick in hospitals

Since that seems to be the main gist of your argument, did you ever stop to wonder why we haven't seen any apparent increase in health service over the last eight years, despite pumping it to the gills with money, and that maybe "the sick in hospitals" might be better served by cutting out the cruft, greed and waste?

Appeal to emotion, -1.

jackal wrote:

Its worse than a zero sum game. It creates no wealth. It is using taxes already collected to generate taxes, minus the profits to be made along the way by the businesses involved.

Those profits would seem to be the point of the operation. If the construction industry funds these politicians so well that they are willing to turn against the good of the country, perhaps we should cut the pay of the politicians completely and let them go off and form their own country where they could legislate free houses for all, as many as you can handle, and 95% tax rates for all as well, anyone welcome.

regi

SimpleSam06 wrote: »

Since that seems to be the main gist of your argument, did you ever stop to wonder why we haven't seen any apparent increase in health service over the last eight years, despite pumping it to the gills with money, and that maybe "the sick in hospitals" might be better served by cutting out the cruft, greed and waste?

Appeal to emotion, -1.

And what about the people in hospital who aren't sick but injured instead? I think we should feel something for them too :-)

bill_ashmount

Best of luck to everyone on the protest.

ionapaul

bill_ashmount wrote: »

Best of luck to everyone on the protest.

+1 - I wish I could make it but I can't; have been emailing my TDs at least. I'm letting the Green Party know that if they remain in government and this bailout goes through, they'll never EVER get any vote (be it last preference) from me.

plasmaguy

Dalfiatach wrote: »

Yer just ranting now plasmaguy.

Nobody said public sector reform will magically plug the deficit. But there is a billion or two per annum in pure waste that can be purged.

And the fundamental point remains:

Taking a few years of large deficits while we reform waste, cut costs, end price-gouging and price-fixing scams that this country is rife with, and encourage people into creating and building real sustainable export-led industry: all that will leave us in 3-4 years with a more competitive, cheaper, well-balanced economy, albeit with a fairly hefty increased national debt of an extra €30bn or so.

Going the bailout route will achieve nothing, will merely transfer €30 or €40bn of taxpayers money into the developers pockets (on top of the €30bn or so in deficits we'll be running up anyway), will do nothing to help create a balanced economy because everyone will be hoping the construction monster takes off again, will only drag out the decline in house prices over many more years (it will not stop the decline, only slow it temporarily), and will in the end up set us back a decade and twice as much money as just letting it collapse.

A bailout is the worst, most expensive, most damaging thing to do right now.

It doesn't work, costs far more in the long run, and only prolongs the adjustment

The only way to get the property market "moving again" is to allow prices to fall to sane levels. No ifs, ands, or buts about it, end of bloody story.

Ah, the Robert Mugabe school of economics...encourage the contraction of our economy...sure we can survive on a budget of 5 billion a year if we just trim down the public sector...yup...hospital beds, who needs them....

Sure why do we need tax revenue at all...why don't we turn down certain forms of revenue because we don't like it...vat on cigerettes, we should turn down that because obviously its immoral and unsustainable to take revenue from those sectors...

Yup lets just keep contracting our economy and while we are at it ban the buying and selling of houses.

And let's keep running irresponsible deficits ala the US Republican school of economics until we are a 100 billion or maybe a trillion in debt, so long as people can get cheap houses who cares...let our grandchildren pay off the debt....

let me say this one more time so even someone like you can understand it...i am not in favour of the current scheme of giving money to assist the subprime market...i am in favour however of ordinary people like you and I being able to buy houses, as soon as possible..

Please read back over my other posts before jumping on one of my posts and saying I argued for this or that...it can be annoying to be accused of being in favour of something when I have said I am not in favour of that particular thing.

And no I'm not ranting, I'm proposing responsible economics of balancing budgets...while you are advocating irresponsible economics of running up massive deficits....

plasmaguy

plasmaguy wrote: »

Ah, the Robert Mugabe school of economics...encourage the contraction of our economy...sure we can survive on a budget of 5 billion a year if we just trim down the public sector...yup...hospital beds, who needs them....

Sure why do we need tax revenue at all...why don't we turn down certain forms of revenue because we don't like it...vat on cigerettes, we should turn down that because obviously its immoral and unsustainable to take revenue from those sectors...

Yup lets just keep contracting our economy and while we are at it ban the buying and selling of houses.

let me say this one more time so even someone like you can understand it...i am not in favour of the current scheme of giving money to assist the subprime market...i am in favour however of ordinary people like you and I being able to buy houses, as soon as possible..

Please read back over my other posts before jumping on one of my posts and saying I argued for this or that...it can be annoying to be accused of being in favour of something when I have said I am not in favour of that particular thing.

Why do you seek to destroy our economy?

plasmaguy

SimpleSam06 wrote: »

Since that seems to be the main gist of your argument, did you ever stop to wonder why we haven't seen any apparent increase in health service over the last eight years, despite pumping it to the gills with money, and that maybe "the sick in hospitals" might be better served by cutting out the cruft, greed and waste?

Appeal to emotion, -1.

Those profits would seem to be the point of the operation. If the construction industry funds these politicians so well that they are willing to turn against the good of the country, perhaps we should cut the pay of the politicians completely and let them go off and form their own country where they could legislate free houses for all, as many as you can handle, and 95% tax rates for all as well, anyone welcome.

Please grow up...sick and dying in hospital is not something you should try to lessen just so you can prove a point...

I have made the clear argument which you and others seem incapable or getting, and instead seem intent on shooting the messenger of this argument, that you either decide between irresponsible economics of massive deficits and in turn cutbacks across all vital public services or else you wait until house prices collapse so selfish people can get a cheap house.

Simplistically put, and I feel I must put it simplistically for most people, it's a choice between cutbacks and waiting for the property market to collapse. You can't have your cake and eat it, you must decide which you want, those are the tough decisions needed in government, and I can see that you wouldnt be able to make those tough decisions, only voice your opinion on the internet.

And again if you read my previous posts I am not in favour of helping the subprime market with the current scheme, but I am in favour of helping FTBs anyway possible.

Unfortunately waiting 4 or 5 years for the property market to reach the bottom is absolutely not an option for the government.

plasmaguy

Deleted User wrote: »

Why do you seek to destroy our economy?

I'm trying to save our economy and our public finances, the finances that are spent on hospitals..

It's the others with their acceptance of huge deficits and hence huge cutbacks are trying to destroy our economy.

The government and the country, including everyone who has purchased a house, and I presume there are some people like that on this thread, have backed themselves into a corner. Now they have no choice but to prop up the property market, and I mean no choice...there is no other choice, everything else is pie in the sky...no green technology is going to plug the hole in the public finances, no alternative industry, nothing is going to plug the hole...we have no fall back position, no parachute...we are stuck with property like it or not as money maker....we cannot wave our hands and say right lets get money from something else within the next 6 months, that's just fantacising to do that...economics is not about fantacising it's about the here and now...

So yeh shoot the messenger for telling the truth...that will get yee a long way...

SimpleSam06

plasmaguy wrote: »

I have made the clear argument which you and others seem incapable or arguing, and which instead seem intent on shooting the messenger of this argument,

Every single post you have made recently has mentioned sick people in hospitals. Every. Single. One. Sometimes more than once in the same post. This is a style of debate called "appeal to emotion", and is normally used by those with nothing else to offer in the way of realistic points.

Then you make this statement about shooting the messenger. What "message" are you delivering and from whom, exactly? Are you bringing the light of harsh reality to our warm and fuzzy debates here? I don't think so.

I think what you are doing is advocating any and all measures that can be taken in order to stop house prices falling any further. This looks suspiciously like someone in negative equity or soon to be in negative equity trying to talk themselves out of a bad situation.

Everyone is aware of the seriousness of the economic situation. Many people have ideas and suggestions to counteract the issues in the mid and long term. Short term is a hopeless case, courtesy of the incompetence of the government over the last eight years. So its the mid to long term we should be dealing with, damage control.

Of course, its easier to just keep repeating "sick people in hospitals" than to deal with the many excellent points they have raised.

plasmaguy wrote: »

or else you wait until house prices collapse so selfish people can get a cheap house.

Yes, not like those trojan martyrs who sacrificed themselves on the balance sheets of the banks in a selfless effort to bring economic power to the nation. Oh wait, no, my mistake, many of them were quick buck merchants who thought theuy'd never have to work a day in their lives again.

plasmaguy wrote: »

I am in favour of helping FTBs anyway possible.

No, I don't think thats what you are in favour of at all.

plasmaguy wrote: »

and the need for balanced budgets you would know that.

Yes, pity the government couldn't have thought of that eight years ago.

plasmaguy

plasmaguy wrote: »

I'm trying to save our economy and our public finances, the finances that are spent on hospitals..

It's the others with their acceptance of huge deficits and hence huge cutbacks are trying to destroy our economy.

The government and the country, including everyone who has purchased a house, and I presume there are some people like that on this thread, have backed themselves into a corner. Now they have no choice but to prop up the property market, and I mean no choice...there is no other choice, everything else is pie in the sky...no green technology is going to plug the hole in the public finances, no alternative industry, nothing is going to plug the hole...we have no fall back position, no parachute...we are stuck with property like it or not as money maker....we cannot wave our hands and say right lets get money from something else within the next 6 months, that's just fantacising to do that...economics is not about fantacising it's about the here and now...

So yeh shoot the messenger for telling the truth...that will get yee a long way...

you want to use taxes to enable people to pay taxes and to take on more debt. Its not productive its counter productive. It doesnt generate money it sends it out of the country.
It doesnt make sense. The money should be spent to enable us to generate money........

Again I ask why do you seek to destroy our economy?

plasmaguy

SimpleSam06 wrote: »

Every single post you have made recently has mentioned sick people in hospitals. Every. Single. One. Sometimes more than once in the same post. This is a style of debate called "appeal to emotion", and is normally used by those with nothing else to offer in the way of realistic points.

Then you make this statement about shooting the messenger. What "message" are you delivering and from whom, exactly? Are you bringing the light of harsh reality to our warm and fuzzy debates here? I don't think so.

I think what you are doing is advocating any and all measures that can be taken in order to stop house prices falling any further. This looks suspiciously like someone in negative equity or soon to be in negative equity trying to talk themselves out of a bad situation.

Everyone is aware of the seriousness of the economic situation. Many people have ideas and suggestions to counteract the issues in the mid and long term. Short term is a hopeless case, courtesy of the incompetence of the government over the last eight years. So its the mid to long term we should be dealing with, damage control.

Of course, its easier to just keep repeating "sick people in hospitals" than to deal with the many excellent points they have raised.


Yes, not like those trojan martyrs who sacrificed themselves on the balance sheets of the banks in a selfless effort to bring economic power to the nation. Oh wait, no, my mistake, many of them were quick buck merchants who thought theuy'd never have to work a day in their lives again.


No, I don't think thats what you are in favour of at all.


Yes, pity the government couldn't have thought of that eight years ago.

So fecking what if I mention sick people...I am trying to put it in stark terms for people like you who cannot get the picture...I am using sick people in hospital as an example...

Fine if it helps I will use a different example....there will be cutbacks for autistic children...

There will be cutbacks in services to the homeless..

There will be cutbacks in out of hours social services the type of out of hours service that could have prevented several tragedies lately..

There will be cutbacks in everything acorss society, in teacher to student ratios in schools, in unemployment assistance, in help to pensioners.

There will also be a rise in taxes including stealth taxes because you have to balance the budget somehow, you cannot keep running deficits.

The price of everything will rise, we will become uncompetitive, companies will leave the country because of our lack of competitiveness, we will have 300,000 on the dole, then 400,000 and a while later 500,000 on the dole...

The dark days of the 1980's will seem a paradise to what will come.

All as a consequence of running large deficits...

Happy?

Or do you want to keep playing semantics and word games?

plasmaguy

Deleted User wrote: »

you want to use taxes to enable people to pay taxes and to take on more debt. Its not productive its counter productive. It doesnt generate money it sends it out of the country.
It doesnt make sense. The money should be spent to enable us to generate money........

Again I ask why do you seek to destroy our economy?

You are a fool...I have said at least 10 times I don't approve of taxpayers paying money under the current scheme....how many more times do I have to say it before it finally registers with you?

I do approve of stimulating the housing market but not in the current way.

First rule of economics (or economics for dummies)....all consumer spending is good...regardless of what it is spent on...

Anyone who thinks consumer spending is bad for an econonmy is a clown.

plasmaguy

SimpleSam06 wrote: »

Every single post you have made recently has mentioned sick people in hospitals. Every. Single. One. Sometimes more than once in the same post. This is a style of debate called "appeal to emotion", and is normally used by those with nothing else to offer in the way of realistic points.

Then you make this statement about shooting the messenger. What "message" are you delivering and from whom, exactly? Are you bringing the light of harsh reality to our warm and fuzzy debates here? I don't think so.

I think what you are doing is advocating any and all measures that can be taken in order to stop house prices falling any further. This looks suspiciously like someone in negative equity or soon to be in negative equity trying to talk themselves out of a bad situation.

Everyone is aware of the seriousness of the economic situation. Many people have ideas and suggestions to counteract the issues in the mid and long term. Short term is a hopeless case, courtesy of the incompetence of the government over the last eight years. So its the mid to long term we should be dealing with, damage control.

Of course, its easier to just keep repeating "sick people in hospitals" than to deal with the many excellent points they have raised.


Yes, not like those trojan martyrs who sacrificed themselves on the balance sheets of the banks in a selfless effort to bring economic power to the nation. Oh wait, no, my mistake, many of them were quick buck merchants who thought theuy'd never have to work a day in their lives again.


No, I don't think thats what you are in favour of at all.


Yes, pity the government couldn't have thought of that eight years ago.

You might find this hard to believe but I don't own a house and so no I wouldn't suffer from negative equity. As a potential FTB I could avail of the current scheme on offer but on principle I won't because I have principles. Does that answer your question?

Like I said in my previous post, encouraging consumer spending is good for an economy, that's the first and most basic rule of economics...surely you know that, if you don't know that then go and read an economics book.

But I repeat I don't approve of the current scheme.

As for bailling out developers, that is also an appeal to emotion, because developers are an emotive term in this country, so yeh you are appealing to people's emotions too and that makes you a hypocrite.

But different to you I am in favour of helping tens of thousands of ordinary tradespersons, ie ordinary human beings with kids and mortgages find employment again..oh sorry am I appealing to emotion again?

And no I am not a FFer, far from it.

subway

The price of everything will rise, we will become uncompetitive, companies will leave the country because of our lack of competitiveness, we will have 300,000 on the dole, then 400,000 and a while later 500,000 on the dole...

The dark days of the 1980's will seem a paradise to what will come.

this is already happening, we have a huge deficit, we have just covered it up by getting poeple to pay huge amounts of money for eveything, hence bringing in more taxes.
people wised up a few months back and now no one is willing to "take one for the team" anymore. i vertainly will not buy an overpriced house becuase its my patriotic duty. i will buy when i can afford it, until then i will rent and if i cant afford the rent i will probably have to leave the country.

just becuase the bank will lend me 450k, that i openly admit, i cannot pay back, and i am not low paid by any stretch of the imaginination, does not mean that i should take it.
hppily tho, the bank wont lend it to me, or to anyone else, so we can now get back to normal.

when people can afford to buy things they will buy them.
when they cant they wont.

a lot of people confuse credit for their own money and will happily take it and spend it.
thats the disconnect we have here. people in 400k houses CANNOT afford them, but they are stuck. the rest of us wont / cant buy 400k houses anymore.

apoliogies for the long disjointed post, feel free to pick it apart

SkepticOne

plasmaguy wrote: »

You are a fool...I have said at least 10 times I don't approve of taxpayers paying money under the current scheme....how many more times do I have to say it before it finally registers with you?

What are you in favour of? How should the market be stimulated without public money?

plasmaguy

SkepticOne wrote: »

What are you in favour of? How should the market be stimulated without public money?

Between you and me? stamp duty reform...

I know that's going to get under the skin of a lot of people on here who will start whinging more about how we would be propping up the property market..

Fine if people want to run up big deficits, yeh, let the mob run the country...like FF appealed to the mob in 1977...

And if we let the mob run the country, what's the first thing they would demand? ....No more taxes! Because taxes are evil right.

20goto10

subway wrote: »

when people can afford to buy things they will buy them.
when they cant they wont.

There is ample proof on this forum that suggest this is not true. People will wait and keep their fingers crossed that prices keep plumetting. Not so they can afford a home but that they can get a nicer bigger home. Its the bubble turned on its head.

Easy cheap credit + positive sentiment = positve bubble
Tight expensive credit + negative sentiment = negative bubble (for want of a better word)

No doubt we need a correction in prices as we're never going back to the days of cheap easy credit. But people want more than a correction and everyone knows it.

subway

20goto10 wrote: »

There is ample proof on this forum that suggest this is not true. People will wait and keep their fingers crossed that prices keep plumetting. Not so they can afford a home but that they can get a nicer bigger home. Its the bubble turned on its head.

Easy cheap credit + positive sentiment = positve bubble
Tight expensive credit + negative sentiment = negative bubble (for want of a better word)

No doubt we need a correction in prices as we're never going back to the days of cheap easy credit. But people want more than a correction and everyone knows it.

its likely that any bublle will always over correct in the opposite direction, due to feelings of concern etc.
thats not a good thing either for the economy, but its almost certain to happen, just as no one can predict the real top, no one can predict the real bottom.

similar to everyone buying before they get dearer, now noone will buy before they get cheaper - its human nature.

what we do need to see is a quick snap to the bottom, a quick correction and things to get moving again. people are not able to afford huge mortgages so they wont get them.

the government should not do anything to prevent this being over as quickly as possible.
we all know that a short, sharp shock is a lot more preferable to years of drawn out agony as people second guess what will happen and keep on waiting for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

if the government needs to do something, then dont give money to FTBs that dont want, and certainly dont transfer it to builders and developers. they could do something to help all the poor souls in commuter land stuck in negtaive equity.
i, as a FTB, am supposedly being offered moeny i dont want in the next budget.
why not give it someone who is really struggling - perhaps in the form of extended interest relief. that way prices can fall without anyone losing face - so what if your house drops 100k, if you save that much in tax you'll be laughing.

this "relief" is to get people buying at high prices and get money to delvopers. it will only apply to new builds so NE owners will be doubly screwed.

SkepticOne

plasmaguy wrote: »

Between you and me? stamp duty reform...

I know that's going to get under the skin of a lot of people on here who will start whinging more about how we would be propping up the property market..

Fine if people want to run up big deficits, yeh, let the mob run the country...like FF appealed to the mob in 1977...

And if we let the mob run the country, what's the first thing they would demand? ....No more taxes! Because taxes are evil right.

How should stamp duty be reformed? I've always regarded it as a bit of a red herring in the property market. If it fails to stimulate the market then it is simply foregone tax revenue for the government who will have less money to pay for the sick in hospitals. If it does stimulate the market then it simply drags out the much needed correction in prices.

gurramok

One thing you missing in your argument plasmaguy is that we do not have the population to support building 90,000 houses a year.
The market for that is simply not there and has resulted in a chronic oversupply hence that factor of the correction is not reversible.
The only way to rescue this economy(it's officially in recession today), is to invest in export related industries which willl create highly valued jobs, thats what we need.

SimpleSam06

plasmaguy wrote: »

So fecking what if I mention sick people...I am trying to put it in stark terms for people like you who cannot get the picture...I am using sick people in hospital as an example...

No you're using it to lend weight to your argument, an unoriginal and uninspiring tactic.

plasmaguy wrote: »

There will also be a rise in taxes including stealth taxes because you have to balance the budget somehow, you cannot keep running deficits.

Ultimately we will, but in the short term, its better to let the market die off completely. That means we have a chance in the mid to long term. If we try to prop it up in the short term, we lose all hope for the mid to long term. Get it?

plasmaguy wrote: »

The price of everything will rise, we will become uncompetitive, companies will leave the country because of our lack of competitiveness, we will have 300,000 on the dole, then 400,000 and a while later 500,000 on the dole...

What do you think will happen if the property market gets propped up? You can't eat private debt with the public money, you're effectively printing money which causes inflation, and in a recession that leads to stagflation, which is the fast track to the end of your middle class and your first world status.

plasmaguy wrote: »

Or do you want to keep playing semantics and word games?

I'm not the one playing word games, baby.

plasmaguy wrote: »

First rule of economics (or economics for dummies)....all consumer spending is good...regardless of what it is spent on...

Like I said in my previous post, encouraging consumer spending is good for an economy, that's the first and most basic rule of economics...surely you know that, if you don't know that then go and read an economics book.

Tell me, what does the Keynesian neoclassical synthesis injection-leakage model have to say about tax and publc expenditure? What you have here is classic leakage with finances going to overextended developers, and thus to banks, and being removed from the economy, in an effort to shuffle money around in the hopes that people won't notice, aiming for a net loss on tax revenues.

People noticed.

plasmaguy wrote: »

As for bailling out developers, that is also an appeal to emotion, because developers are an emotive term in this country, so yeh you are appealing to people's emotions too and that makes you a hypocrite.

Meh, a developer is a profession that stands to make immense profits off the taxpayers back if this goes through. This is a fact, not an appeal to emotion. Or do other professions make you emotional as well? Would a bus driver make you feel an emotion?

plasmaguy wrote: »

But different to you I am in favour of helping tens of thousands of ordinary tradespersons, ie ordinary human beings with kids and mortgages find employment again..oh sorry am I appealing to emotion again?

Yes, not that it matters. Even if you weren't you wouldn't find much support for the snouts that got fat at the trough over the last few years around here.

plasmaguy wrote: »

And no I am not a FFer, far from it.

Thought never crossed my mind.

plasmaguy wrote: »

And if we let the mob run the country, what's the first thing they would demand? ....No more taxes! Because taxes are evil right.

They are in Keynesian neoclassical economics.

20goto10 wrote: »

No doubt we need a correction in prices as we're never going back to the days of cheap easy credit. But people want more than a correction and everyone knows it.

That really depends on your definition of a correction. For a wide variety of people who are up to their necks in property and construction, a correction would be prices stopping now. I present plasmaguy as an example of this. For the rest of the world, the market, and the economy, a correction would be prices around 1999-2000 levels or thereabouts. But you don't want to hear that.

Victor

plasmaguy wrote: »

You are a fool...

Take it easy.

Boggle

But different to you I am in favour of helping tens of thousands of ordinary tradespersons, ie ordinary human beings with kids and mortgages find employment again..oh sorry am I appealing to emotion again?

How about this then - it'll raise taxes and force the correction to take place quicker...
Place a tax on unsold or unoccupied property that has been that way for over 6 months!

That way developers and speculators will not be able to afford to sit on their houses indefinitely and it will force them to reduce the prices much more quickly to an affordable level. Once an affordable level, people like me and you who desperately want to own a home (and have prevented ourselves from doing so in the knowledge that a speculative bubble was underway) will be able to afford one quicker thus clearing off unsold stock. Once this stock is offloaded then we will have to build more houses for the continuing demand, thus returning to a climate of normalised production sooner rather than later.

Downside is that a) homes will no longer be the cash cow they once were for the government and b) those speculators who were trying to make a quick buck off my misery will get burned.

Those who find themselves in negative equity for their home will also have a tougher time of it but then again, they bought a house at the price and if they could not afford it then shouldn't have. Anyway, if they move home then the value of the house they move to will still be relative to the house they moved from - the only difference being they will need to shell out less extra money for the larger (family) home.
Those who bought appartments are screwed though.

ionapaul

Anyone attend the protest? How did it go?

jackal

ionapaul wrote: »

Anyone attend the protest? How did it go?

Yes, I was there. Approximately 30 people, and about 6 or 7 members of the media. Tv3 were there, and someone else with a video camera... RTE I suppose, as well as the irish independent and others.

Very well behaved protest obviously, but we got lots of onlookers and made our point. Thankfully we had a couple of lads who were very savvy with the media and gave great interviews.

A success all round I think, hopefully it will be on the news later.

20goto10

SimpleSam06 wrote: »

But you don't want to hear that.

Why is that? Oh yeah right I'm an estate agent or some shill like that. :rolleyes:

SimpleSam06 wrote: »

That really depends on your definition of a correction. For a wide variety of people who are up to their necks in property and construction, a correction would be prices stopping now. I present plasmaguy as an example of this. For the rest of the world, the market, and the economy, a correction would be prices around 1999-2000 levels or thereabouts. But you don't want to hear that.

Nobody can define a correction. Technically something becomes affordable when you can afford to pay cash. So maybe with about 200 years of decline and stagnation you might see a correction.