Hung out to dry -Latest D Mc Williams offering

johnnyskeleton

P. Breathnach wrote: »

I'm not sure whether, on balance, I agree with you more than I disagree. Or the other way about.

The property bubble has burst, and that's pretty well the end of that. There has been a great deal of damage done to individuals and institutions. But I think we have just about enough capacity to recover from that, albeit set back considerably. Idiocy can be very persistent: there are still people trying to find angles for making quick turns on trades in similar ways to those used in the past few years. I think, however, that most people are learning the lesson.

It may have been punctured, but it is by no means fully deflated yet. As much as I'd like to move away from property altogether, it was such a large part of our economy for so long, there is simply no ignoring it. We must allow that part of the economy to fully deflate before we can move on. ISEQ fell to next to nothing and now is in a position to bounce back (I'm not saying it will anytime soon, just that at least share prices have now returned to a more realistic level. House prices however, have not. Until we can get past the mess of the property bubble, our economy will be overburdened and won't function properly.

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Over the next couple of years I think people will adjust to a new set of realities, those of higher unemployment, higher taxes, lower earnings, lower prices, more modest expectations. Those of us who were economically active in the 1970s know it is survivable. It won't be fun, and it bothers me greatly that we will not all share the pain anything like equally. But we will survive, simply because there is nothing else for us to do.

I don't think we should share the pain equally, but if the taxpayers are going to have to shoulder the blame, there should at the very least be a fall from grace of our political and business leaders who were responsible or directly contributed to the country. Apart from my own feeling that that is the right thing to do, we will have no international credibility if we still have the same people who caused the mess running the country. Even if it is only for the optics of it, we would benefit from a change at the top. I also find all this "Don't criticise FF or you'll make the country worse" rhetoric to be disgusting. We need a cleanout and we should take the pain upfront rather than over a long period of years. Some people will be worse hit than others, but that's capitalism. While I would not ideologically be a capitalist, that is the system we live in.

P. Breathnach wrote: »

The other important circumstance, the international environment, is simply too big for us to have any noticeable influence on affairs. Which is just as well, because I think we don't have the right talent in the right places to do much good. I feel a little spark of optimism about the international response because there seems to be some will in the international polity to work co-operatively on it (in parallel with the self-interested policies which they are also adopting -- political life is messy). Given how open our economy is, and how trade-dependent, any recovery in the international situation will benefit us greatly.

I disagree. Put simply, if Ireland was a well functioning economy, we would by now have moved production to goods and services which people need during a recession. We wouldn't have had a property bubble, and our banks would have been in good shape. If things went south in the international community, that would have been an ideal time for us to make a few quid. So the international climate, far from being an excuse for our domestic economy, is a wasted opportunity for us.

P. Breathnach wrote: »

In sum, my view is that we should tighten our belts and hang in there; things will eventually get better.

Personally that's fine, but it's not an option that should be open to our leaders. Our economy won't simply get better by itself, you can't pull yourself up by your own bootstraps so to speak. We need a plan that involves making or doing things which have economic value, and then selling them to other countries. We need to strip out the old dead wood as Lemass said. Only then will we see things getting better. If you don't believe me, I might suggest you read Prof. Tom Garvin's book Why Ireland Was So Poor For So Long.

P. Breathnach

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

It [the property market] may have been punctured, but it is by no means fully deflated yet...

You may be right. It's an extremely difficult market to read, and opinions vary greatly.

I don't think we should share the pain equally...

Neither do I, and I didn't mean to suggest that we should. What I was thinking of is that some people have had huge pain visited on them through losing their jobs or their businesses; others have suffered some losses, but not on the same scale; others have suffered no noticeable pain. The amount of pain suffered seems to bear little relation to the individual's responsibility for contributing to our situation. I think the pain should be distributed equitably.

but if the taxpayers are going to have to shoulder the blame, there should at the very least be a fall from grace of our political and business leaders who were responsible or directly contributed to the country...

Agreed.

I disagree [that we are too small to have a noticeable effect on international affairs]. Put simply, if Ireland was a well functioning economy, we would by now have moved production to goods and services which people need during a recession...

That sort of solution might be relevant on a micro scale, but it is difficult to envisage tho entire economy making such an adjustment swiftly.

Personally that's fine, but it's not an option that should be open to our leaders. Our economy won't simply get better by itself, you can't pull yourself up by your own bootstraps so to speak. We need a plan that involves making or doing things which have economic value, and then selling them to other countries. We need to strip out the old dead wood as Lemass said. Only then will we see things getting better. If you don't believe me, I might suggest you read Prof. Tom Garvin's book Why Ireland Was So Poor For So Long.

I intended that as relating to personal positions. Of course I agree that the economy needs a guiding hand linked to a wise head.