Discussion to ensure Bertie Ahern never becomes President of the Republic of Ireland

bernardo mac

Bertie's ungramattical "boom times are getting even boomer" along with his many other Ahernisms could put him on a par with George W Bush in terms of clangers.If he did become president,at least we would be entertained.

Het-Field

Fighting Irish wrote: »

I've no love for Bertie but he didn't pressure anyone into buying 400K 3 bed houses

Well, the tax breaks were there on both sides i.e for the developer and the purchaser. Hence, I am not one of those who will blame the public for a boom which was created and exacerbated by the likes of Bertie. This boom was equally to the detriment of the small, and large businessman was was priced out of the market through minimum wages, and unwavering 12.5% corpo tax. This never happpened to the construction sector.

Plus there should be an incumbancy on a Government to ensure that banks are properly regulated, and the development of a sub prime culture be kept to a minimum. Handing over 200,000 Euro loans to low paid individuals, with low earning capacity to purchase properties in Malaga, Alacante, and Portugal was just plain wrong. While those people were greedy, and living way beyond their means, the crucial mistake occured when the Government didnt call time on it.

Subsequently, it is the middle class, and the PAYE worker who is getting screwed for this profligacy, which was first proffered by Bertie, and premissed by Cowen.

Iskenderun

Would it be possible to stop talking about Mr Ahern? It's so...... 2007!

paddyland

No, no, no, it is imperative that Bertie stays high in the media for some time to come.

He must NOT be let drift out of public minds, allowing Cowen to become the fall guy for the state of the nation. Cowen takes his share of the blame, but it was Bertie who almost single handedly poisoned the whole political system, with his unprincipled electoral shenanigans and blatant buying of friends and votes. Admittedly, it is hard to pin any criminal act on him, but he does not have to be criminal to be morally repugnant.

Bertie would like more than anything to disappear into the woodwork between now and the presidential election, by which time he will have the great whitewash prepared in his official biography, to cleanse the record for yet another gut turning campaign.

Many, many people stoked up the horrors this country faces today. But one man represented it all, the Taoiseach of this country, the man who shamelessly bought his way through three general elections, shafted everyone who got in his way, and promoted and supported every fraudster that had the misfortune to be exposed, not to mention the hundreds who didn't. Everything he stood for, every glorification of greed and rot, every public utterance he made, was bent towards the creation of an entirely unsustainable sham of an economy, for which generations of Irish people will now pay. The dreams of a generation of this country have been shredded and ruined by the very deliberate policies of this man. There was nothing accidental about it. The only accident was that he really seemed to believe it could be magically made to last forever, or at least last his lifetime.

It is IMPERATIVE that he be remembered DAILY, as a warning from history about just how self delusional and self destructive the human psyche can become. This generation of FF should be renamed the Bertie Party, and I will refer to them as that in every post I make from now on. They should never be let forget the legacy this man left to them. Let a whole generation of them ponder this lesson. Preferably from a cold, dark place for a very long time.

Any inferences of corruption or criminality upon Mr. Ahern in this post will be entirely misconstrued. I never accused either.

cfcj

Still nobody has explained which policies in particular that have caused the economic downturn... There is lots of personal gripes and generalisations on here and in general but nothing about the policies.

Housing isn't controlled by the government, its controlled by the markets. If someone took out a mortgage way beyond their means and the risk hasn't paid off thats surely their own fault for taking the risk.

But I really, I want responses on the specific policies that caused this crisis... I wasn't in Ireland for it and everyone says its the governments fault but I am wondering what they did (keep it to policies)!!

El Stuntman

cfcj wrote: »

Still nobody has explained which policies in particular that have caused the economic downturn... There is lots of personal gripes and generalisations on here and in general but nothing about the policies.

Housing isn't controlled by the government, its controlled by the markets. If someone took out a mortgage way beyond their means and the risk hasn't paid off thats surely their own fault for taking the risk.

But I really, I want responses on the specific policies that caused this crisis... I wasn't in Ireland for it and everyone says its the governments fault but I am wondering what they did (keep it to policies)!!

cfcj, if you look at government fiscal policy from about 2001\2 - you will see that it was wildly expansionary in terms of government spending. Benchmarking, SW increases, quangos, massive jumps in the numbers employed by Government etc. etc. - all of this brought us to the position today that our cost base (as a State) is effectively 60bn.

At the same time, the government financed this rise in spending by windfall taxes from a property market that had, literally, gone mad. An insane bubble was allowed to grow and the government were amongst its biggest cheerleaders as they raked in illusory amounts of stamp duty, VAT on construction and CGT. This created a vast structural deficit in the public finances which has now been uncovered as our current revenue base has been exposed as about 30bn (this after widespread tax increases).

In short, the government was either too stupid or too duplicituous to manage the country's finances in a prudent, sustainable fashion (personally I like a little of both). When the ridiculous, credit and property bubble popped, the insanity of the government's fiscal policies was exposed for all to see - of course anyone who dared to mention this during the bubble years was derided as a doomonger and told to 'commit suicide' by our marvellous ex-Taoiseach.

In order of culpability for this monumental folly:

1. Ahern
2. Cowen
3. McCreevy

cfcj

El Stuntman wrote: »

cfcj, if you look at government fiscal policy from about 2001\2 - you will see that it was wildly expansionary in terms of government spending. Benchmarking, SW increases, quangos, massive jumps in the numbers employed by Government etc. etc. - all of this brought us to the position today that our cost base (as a State) is effectively 60bn.

At the same time, the government financed this rise in spending by windfall taxes from a property market that had, literally, gone mad. An insane bubble was allowed to grow and the government were amongst its biggest cheerleaders as they raked in illusory amounts of stamp duty, VAT on construction and CGT. This created a vast structural deficit in the public finances which has now been uncovered as our current revenue base has been exposed as about 30bn (this after widespread tax increases).

In short, the government was either too stupid or too duplicituous to manage the country's finances in a prudent, sustainable fashion (personally I like a little of both). When the ridiculous, credit and property bubble popped, the insanity of the government's fiscal policies was exposed for all to see - of course anyone who dared to mention this during the bubble years was derided as a doomonger and told to 'commit suicide' by our marvellous ex-Taoiseach.

In order of culpability for this monumental folly:

1. Ahern
2. Cowen
3. McCreevy

I asked for specific policy that caused the crisis. Many people like yourself have said that the government caused this crisis. I think it depends on what you define as the 'crisis'. The crisis is that we are in a rapid economic recession (i.e. multiple period of negative growth)

Like I said before government do not control the housing market and are not responsible for it either going up or down. The fact that the bubble burst and there is lost revenue from housing is part and parcel of the wider picture. There is also lost revenue from other sectors that you haven't focused on and I think its safe to say that being in a recession that revenue is of course down. Does it not say something to you that every country in the western world is dealing with the same thing, worse for Iceland of course, and how quick the recession hit. Nobody predicted the magnitude of this (they may have predicted that there would be a slowdown but not exactly what happened) with the banks engaged in very vague policies they didn't even understand themselves, and almost collapse because of this. Its a tough market now and a lot of counties are going to make it even tougher for us with incentives to prop up their own businesses.

There is a lot of vague bashing and generalisation of what government did and didn't do on here. While personally I wouldn't vote for Bertie Ahern, I do think there is questions of some of his dealings on donations etc that I am not satisfied about.

El Stuntman

cfcj wrote: »

I asked for specific policy that caused the crisis. Many people like yourself have said that the government caused this crisis.

I gave you specific examples of government fiscal policies; what more do you want?

Riskymove

cfcj wrote: »

I asked for specific policy that caused the crisis. Many people like yourself have said that the government caused this crisis. I think it depends on what you define as the 'crisis'. The crisis is that we are in a rapid economic recession (i.e. multiple period of negative growth)

Like I said before government do not control the housing market and are not responsible for it either going up or down. The fact that the bubble burst and there is lost revenue from housing is part and parcel of the wider picture. /QUOTE]

The Government did nothing to try and control the housing market, and they do in fact have powers to do so and have a great influence on it. to say they are not responsible for it going up or down is naive.

they continually made decisions which allowed the sector to get out of control from developer-led planning and re-zoning decisions to not clamping down on bank lending policies such as 100% mortgages etc

they continually stoked up demand through stamp duty policy, tax breaks etc and house prices soared as supply did not improve enough until it was too late.

they continued to increase public spending, particularly as a way to win votes at election time, knowing state revenue was based mainly on the construction sector, never putting any proper funds away for times of trouble

Het-Field

cfcj wrote: »

Still nobody has explained which policies in particular that have caused the economic downturn... There is lots of personal gripes and generalisations on here and in general but nothing about the policies.

Housing isn't controlled by the government, its controlled by the markets. If someone took out a mortgage way beyond their means and the risk hasn't paid off thats surely their own fault for taking the risk.

But I really, I want responses on the specific policies that caused this crisis... I wasn't in Ireland for it and everyone says its the governments fault but I am wondering what they did (keep it to policies)!!

Its impossible to select single policies, unless you are a real pedant. However, there is a body of policy which has been to the detriment of the Irish people.

1.The low tax-high spend model which existed in 1977, which doomed the country to a decade of poverty, emmigration, and unemployment. There is nothing different between 1977 and 2009. I have mentioned it before. McCreevy's failings have not come from his low tax model, it was the person, or people (most likely Bertie) who told him to keep the people onside by handing them sweetners on budget day. The medical card debacle is a prime example. Free OAP healthcare for all was a populist decision (regardless of my personal feelings towards those who propped up the State in the bad time, and the card acting as some deserved recompense for doing so), which was geared towards an overall majority in 2002. FF and Bertie didnt need to do that, they had that election won. Equally SSIA schemes were squandered, however, that was not the people's fault. Naturally, people who have never had huge money before will be prone to blowing it on swimming pools, cars, villa, and other needless extravagence. I blame the Government (led by Bertie) who was happy to encourage such a savings scheme which encouraged people to squander the earnings, which those who were more prudent lost it all. These were all budgetary sweetners, which were not tenable, as the country didnt have the money to cover them.

2.Consistent tax breaks for the construction sector, and those who chose to avail of it. The likes of the Minimum wage legislation were designed to screw the small businessman, and FDI. Nothing like that was done to the property sector. When McDowell saw fit to see the abolition of stamp duty, to gradually bring down Governmental reliance on the taxes associated with the bubble, Cowen told him to get stuffed. Bertie was a friend to the builders, while not giving a hoot about developing a sustainable economic base (as had been done by McCreevy and Harney between 1997-2002).

3.The lax regulation (which is reflected in Governmental legislation, and the failure of Ministerial deference to the regulator on a regular basis. This alowed the likes of Anglo to do what they liked, with money which was effectively on trust to them. Cowen should not be forgotten as a part of this. However, Bertie headed up the Government whcih vindicated that.

4.His ministerial reshuffles were all geared towards giving him more power. I suggest you familiarise yourself with who Bertie replace with who in September 2004. When you see the names Cullen, Martin and Cowen replacing Brennan, Harney and McCreevy you knew what Bertie wanted i.e a free reign of things.

Its impossible to pick out single policies, as it was the body of policies which has dragged us down.

Het-Field

El Stuntman wrote: »

cfcj, if you look at government fiscal policy from about 2001\2 - you will see that it was wildly expansionary in terms of government spending. Benchmarking, SW increases, quangos, massive jumps in the numbers employed by Government etc. etc. - all of this brought us to the position today that our cost base (as a State) is effectively 60bn.

At the same time, the government financed this rise in spending by windfall taxes from a property market that had, literally, gone mad. An insane bubble was allowed to grow and the government were amongst its biggest cheerleaders as they raked in illusory amounts of stamp duty, VAT on construction and CGT. This created a vast structural deficit in the public finances which has now been uncovered as our current revenue base has been exposed as about 30bn (this after widespread tax increases).

In short, the government was either too stupid or too duplicituous to manage the country's finances in a prudent, sustainable fashion (personally I like a little of both). When the ridiculous, credit and property bubble popped, the insanity of the government's fiscal policies was exposed for all to see - of course anyone who dared to mention this during the bubble years was derided as a doomonger and told to 'commit suicide' by our marvellous ex-Taoiseach.

In order of culpability for this monumental folly:

1. Ahern
2. Cowen
3. McCreevy

McCreevy had been a fiscal conservative all his life. I believe he was complicit, however, I dont believe he has the moral culpability of many of his FF counterparts. Im glad that you also picked up on the 2001/2002 expansion, that was the time that FF began to butter Ireland's bread. Now we are eating it in spades.

Het-Field

Het-Field wrote: »

2.Consistent tax breaks for the construction sector, and those who chose to avail of it. The likes of the Minimum wage legislation were designed to screw the small businessman, and FDI. Nothing like that was done to the property sector. When McDowell saw fit to see the abolition of stamp duty, to gradually bring down Governmental reliance on the taxes associated with the bubble, Cowen told him to get stuffed. Bertie was a friend to the builders, while not giving a hoot about developing a sustainable economic base (as had been done by McCreevy and Harney between 1997-2002).

Sure the minimum wage slegislation applied to construction workers? And as many of them were not skilled and came from economies where construction work was badly paid, I would have thought it hit hardest in that sector.

I agree with the charge that they failed to regulate though. I think that is patent.

Het-Field

Deleted User wrote: »

Sure the minimum wage slegislation applied to construction workers? And as many of them were not skilled and came from economies where construction work was badly paid, I would have thought it hit hardest in that sector.

I agree with the charge that they failed to regulate though. I think that is patent.

In fairness they were not under the economic thumb of the Government like the other sectors.

I suspect more construction companies, or at least trades based employers, were hauled before Labour Courts and EATs for alleged breaches of employee protection legislation than any other type of employer.

jmayo

cfcj wrote: »

Still nobody has explained which policies in particular that have caused the economic downturn... There is lots of personal gripes and generalisations on here and in general but nothing about the policies.

Housing isn't controlled by the government, its controlled by the markets. If someone took out a mortgage way beyond their means and the risk hasn't paid off thats surely their own fault for taking the risk.

But I really, I want responses on the specific policies that caused this crisis... I wasn't in Ireland for it and everyone says its the governments fault but I am wondering what they did (keep it to policies)!!

cfcj wrote: »

I asked for specific policy that caused the crisis. Many people like yourself have said that the government caused this crisis. I think it depends on what you define as the 'crisis'. The crisis is that we are in a rapid economic recession (i.e. multiple period of negative growth)

Like I said before government do not control the housing market and are not responsible for it either going up or down. The fact that the bubble burst and there is lost revenue from housing is part and parcel of the wider picture. There is also lost revenue from other sectors that you haven't focused on and I think its safe to say that being in a recession that revenue is of course down. Does it not say something to you that every country in the western world is dealing with the same thing, worse for Iceland of course, and how quick the recession hit. Nobody predicted the magnitude of this (they may have predicted that there would be a slowdown but not exactly what happened) with the banks engaged in very vague policies they didn't even understand themselves, and almost collapse because of this. Its a tough market now and a lot of counties are going to make it even tougher for us with incentives to prop up their own businesses.

There is a lot of vague bashing and generalisation of what government did and didn't do on here. While personally I wouldn't vote for Bertie Ahern, I do think there is questions of some of his dealings on donations etc that I am not satisfied about.

HELLO is there anybody listening ?
So far you have been given some very good examples of the way government directed policy to allow an eoncomy deteriote into a one trick pony show where public spending was based on taxes form people selling property to each other.
Yet you persist in the garbage that ff mouthpices are trying to peddle to exonerate them of any blame in the creatioin of the mess we are now in.

I hear you say it is a global recession, but why were we one of the first in it and why is our deficit so bad ?
Why was public spending based on transactional property related taxes ?
Why are our banks in deep sh**, unlike lets say Canada or New Zealand ?
And our banks were not even involved in US subprime exposure.

The Irish banks did not get involved in some very vague policies (I presume you meant subprime derivatives etc) but they did adopt a policy (seemingly pioneered by Anglo) where they lent silly money to developers based on a property bubble that could never continue.
It is not the ordinary mortgage holders that have the banks in crisis but the billions they lent to developers.
The credit crunch exposed the fact that they could no longer avail of cheap credit but it's not the fault that the securities on their loans come nowhere near to the original loans.

If you want example of exact specify policies that did actually perpetuate the property bubble look up Section 23/Section 50 grants.
It has created a huge volume of unwanted property in the likes of Roscommon and Leitrim.
That was government policy to entice investors into the market and it was extended, thus helping fuel the bubble.
Look up policy whereby property speculation and investing was not taxed more hebvily to dissuade people forminvesting in property thus driving prices higher.

bernardo mac

Touche El Stuntman!