Brian Lenihan blames euro and Eastern cheap labour for recession

airhorn

We were advised by the English not to let them in, years ago, Pity we did'nt listen to them.

K-9

airhorn wrote: »

We were advised by the English not to let them in, years ago, Pity we did'nt listen to them.

We did. We adopted the same policy as them!

P. Breathnach

free to prosper wrote: »

... Last poster may be technically correct only if these workers are not being hired through foreign sub-contractor.
This is however, quite likely to be the case.

That doesn't really merit an answer, but I'll give you one anyway: bollocks.

ixtlan

free to prosper wrote: »

K-p
No one is blaming the Poles.

The blame lies with those who told us to vote Yes to Nice and who gave us mass immigration.

This is mixing up cause and effect.

Immigration was precipated by the boom and housing bubble. Yes, I'm sure it fed back into that bubble to a certain extent, but the solution was not to block immigration but rather to remove tax reliefs, not cut taxes, not cut stamp duty, not increase mortgage interest relief, not massively increase public spending. Yes, being able to increase interest rates would have helped but it was by no means the only way a bubble could have been avoided.

Ix.

djpbarry

free to prosper wrote: »

Foreign workers themselves are being exploited for lower conditions than is normal in Ireland.

What percentage of foreign workers are being exploited? In what way are they being exploited?

free to prosper wrote: »

This is helped by the Laval and Ruffert judgements from the European Court of Justice - relying on the Charter of "Fundamental" Rights which copperfastens the exploitation of foreign labour and the displacement of workers from their jobs.

I believe you’ve been asked this already, but you might explain how the Laval and Ruffert rulings impact upon the Mr. Binman dispute?

asdasd

You’re just repeating this ad nauseum, without actually demonstrating that we would have been better off without the euro and better off without immigration.

What he was repeating was that the low interest rates of the Euro, and the immigration, added to the boom. While there is some dispute about the latter on this thread, I dont think there is any dispute about the former.

we had low interest rates at a time when an independent Irish central bank would have had interest rates a few hundred basis points higher, we had negative real interest rates.

Surely that is not in dispute? Surely the results are not in dispute either.

asdasd

Yes, I'm sure it fed back into that bubble to a certain extent, but the solution was not to block immigration but rather to remove tax reliefs, not cut taxes, not cut stamp duty, not increase mortgage interest relief, not massively increase public spending.

This argument is basically saying: We handed over the major control of credit in the economy to the ECB, which clearly ran the economy for German conditions, and we should have reacted to that by imposing whatever controls we could have on what was left to sovereign nations. This is a counter factual, we dont know if any of these ( very stringent) controls would even have worked, and none would have been necessary had we had control of our own currency in the first place.

The argument that immigration was caused by lack of credit control, and not cause of the boom, ignores the positive feedback inherent in both.

free to prosper

Ireland is of course one of the PIIGS, who have been roasted by inappropriate interest rates from the ECB.

Cowen and Co have admitted that because we can't devalue the euro - we shall have to cut wages rates and income.

Do you know- this wage cutting can go on for years - to make our exports internationally competitive again -

and at the end of it all - the dollar and pound can plummet, the euro go through the roof on foreign exchnge and we are back at square one - of being overpriced because of the euro.

The eurofanatic establishment who told us all to join the euro should be taken out and shot.

They have done incredible damage to our society and our economy. Hopefully at the Lisbon referendum they will get their just desserts - with a huge NO from Irish workers and the many unemployed.

Berlusconi has now been elected prime minister three times, on a campaign platform of promoting free enterprise and cutting red tape. By and large, those promises have simply not been kept. The country remains one of the southern ‘pigs’ (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain) that lag behind their northern cousins, making it virtually impossible for the European Central Bank to set an appropriate interest rate for everyone.

sbpost July 12, 2009

thebman

free to prosper wrote: »

Ireland is of course one of the PIIGS, who have been roasted by inappropriate interest rates from the ECB.

Cowen and Co have admitted that because we can't devalue the euro - we shall have to cut wages rates and income.

Do you know- this wage cutting can go on for years - to make our exports internationally competitive again -

and at the end of it all - the dollar and pound can plummet, the euro go through the roof on foreign exchnge and we are back at square one - of being overpriced because of the euro.

The eurofanatic establishment who told us all to join the euro should be taken out and shot.

They have done incredible damage to our society and our economy. Hopefully at the Lisbon referendum they will get their just desserts - with a huge NO from Irish workers and the many unemployed.

Hopefully people won't believe your tabloid like ranting more like. Your just ignoring everything people say that shows it is our governments fault and not the EU.

Of course that doesn't help your agenda, does it? Well nobody with any brains believes what your writing here so you might as well come up with a better way to try to convince people to vote no maybe using things in the treaty as reasons to vote no instead of going on mad rants about things our government was perfectly happy to let happen and are only protesting now that their artificial property bubble collapsed the poor babies, throwing their toys out now is no use.

Scofflaw

free to prosper wrote: »

Ireland is of course one of the PIIGS, who have been roasted by inappropriate interest rates from the ECB.

Cowen and Co have admitted that because we can't devalue the euro - we shall have to cut wages rates and income.

Do you know- this wage cutting can go on for years - to make our exports internationally competitive again -

and at the end of it all - the dollar and pound can plummet, the euro go through the roof on foreign exchnge and we are back at square one - of being overpriced because of the euro.

The eurofanatic establishment who told us all to join the euro should be taken out and shot.

They have done incredible damage to our society and our economy. Hopefully at the Lisbon referendum they will get their just desserts - with a huge NO from Irish workers and the many unemployed.

Since most of what we buy is imported, there's very little difference between devaluation and an income cut.

cordially,
Scofflaw

K-9

free to prosper wrote: »

Ireland is of course one of the PIIGS, who have been roasted by inappropriate interest rates from the ECB.

Cowen and Co have admitted that because we can't devalue the euro - we shall have to cut wages rates and income.

Do you know- this wage cutting can go on for years - to make our exports internationally competitive again -

and at the end of it all - the dollar and pound can plummet, the euro go through the roof on foreign exchnge and we are back at square one - of being overpriced because of the euro.

The eurofanatic establishment who told us all to join the euro should be taken out and shot.

They have done incredible damage to our society and our economy. Hopefully at the Lisbon referendum they will get their just desserts - with a huge NO from Irish workers and the many unemployed.

Well there'd be no recession if we didn't join the Euro as we all know!

This point probably is better for the Economics forum, if you want an educated thread on it.