Ireland does not deserve any better

Cork Boy

hiorta wrote: »

Deserved or not, it was entirely preventable and fueled by blind greed.
Like crazed sheep competing to be fleeced.

On the front of every school book should be written large: 'there are NO free lunches'. Get this drummed in so that it can never be repeated.

Examine the role played by the politicians, the professional people, the journalists, the clergy, estate agents/ property sales people.

Who among them told you the true position? How many urged caution? They weren't all in ignorance of what was happening. Which among them encouraged you to swim beyond your depth?
Do such as these dserve your future custom?

Eh, why are you blaming the clergy? Might as well blame a tarot card reader for giving you bad advice...

ei.sdraob

Cork Boy wrote: »

Eh, why are you blaming the clergy? Might as well blame a tarot card reader for giving you bad advice...

don't forget its the taxpayer that is gonna foot the 1billion+ in compensation to clergy rape victims

first they rape you physically then they make you pay for it via your taxes

you couldn't make it up

AMIIAM

A Great Irish Weakness. Inability to listen to constructive critism. Politicians immerse the Irish flock in GAA sports and they always glibly fall for the bait. Takes an outsider to spot it.

ardmacha

Politicians immerse the Irish flock in GAA sports and they always glibly fall for the bait.

If the country was as well run as the GAA it would not be bust.

AMIIAM

Let's not forget that the Irish taxpayer subsidised the overcosted Croke Park venture to the tune of 20 million Irish punts on several occassions, when completion of the venture was in doubt.

DJDC

Don't tar us all with the same brush. The problem is that its only a small country so its has been losing its best and brightest since the 1840's to the UK and US. The last few years have shown a brief halt in this emigration but from its seems to be accelerating again. How many 550 LC + point students are living in the country 10 years later. I'd guess at less than 50%.

techdiver

AMIIAM wrote: »

Let's not forget that the Irish taxpayer subsidised the overcosted Croke Park venture to the tune of 20 million Irish punts on several occassions, when completion of the venture was in doubt.

And how much did other sporting organizations receive and squander and not even have a stadium?? The GAA managed to build Croke Park on time and have it completely paid for already.

Are suggesting that the GAA overcosted it in order to receive more funding??

maninasia

techdiver wrote: »

I'm not sure I understand your statement about me needing to be honest in my statement?? Can you elaborate? I was posting my opinion based on experience of the business. I can comment on my experience and some one else can comment on theirs. It doesn't make either of us right or wrong, it just means we have had different experiences.

From your viewpoint the reason people were being hired from outside Ireland was that there were not enough qualified candidates. Depends on what you are working on I guess. But in general, the reason why foreign developers are hired is for cost reasons, the fact their English is not great, long distance distributed work and different time zones bring down productivity compared to having a worker as part of an integrated team in Ireland but the up to 2/3rds cost savings more than offsets the inconvenience and drop in productivity.

AMIIAM

Techdriver, No I am not assuming the GAA overcosted Croke Park. John Sisk did. "Ah sure, if we get into financial difficultieswon't the nice FF government hand us the cash we need" I presume you are referring to the FAI about being homeless after squandering their cash assets? Another example of Irish inadequacies.Took an Englishman to get Paddy crowing about football.

techdiver

maninasia wrote: »

From your viewpoint the reason people were being hired from outside Ireland was that there were not enough qualified candidates. Depends on what you are working on I guess. But in general, the reason why foreign developers are hired is for cost reasons, the fact their English is not great, long distance distributed work and different time zones bring down productivity compared to having a worker as part of an integrated team in Ireland but the up to 2/3rds cost savings more than offsets the inconvenience and drop in productivity.

I think you are talking about something different here. I was saying that we were hiring people to work in Ireland that were not Irish and were coming from Eastern Europe etc, not that we were moving jobs to Europe. They are paid the exact same and cost the exact same as other Irish workers. It became so hard to recruit that it does become an issue for investment when the pool of indigenous workers are not available.

Fratton Fred

MysticalRain wrote: »

I worked in software development, so I'm speaking from first-hand experience. Most of the companies I worked for had more employees and contractors working in places like India and the Ukraine than they did in Ireland. The only real future I could see was in the business side, not the tech side.


I keep hearing that sob story from employers all the time, yet there are so many IT graduates out of work at the moment. Of course employers seem to only want people with tons of experience, but that limits their recruiting pool and makes it difficult for people to break into the industry. IT as a career isn't as popular as it used to be, so perhaps now we are seeing net effects of employers being so particular with recruitment.

maninasia wrote: »

But what was more important, development cost/hour or the absolute quality of the employee. I would wager it was development cost/hour...the true reason for outsourcing. That is fine with me as I work in business too but you should be honest in your statements.

I was involved in an irish company's first offshoring exercise and the reason for it was very simple, there just was not the level of skills in Ireland that the company needed.

We were trying to put middleware in across the company and at first we were using a UK agency to find people in the UK to do it, but the cost was too much so we put it out to India. Most of the people in Ireland with these skills had already cleared off and i don't blame them. basic contracting rates were €400 per day in Ireland, £600 per day in the UK (when the exchange rate was €1.40/£1) and even more in Germany.

In the end we paid €150 a day to get someone to do it in Bangalore.

MysticalRain

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I was involved in an irish company's first offshoring exercise and the reason for it was very simple, there just was not the level of skills in Ireland that the company needed.

We were trying to put middleware in across the company and at first we were using a UK agency to find people in the UK to do it, but the cost was too much so we put it out to India. Most of the people in Ireland with these skills had already cleared off and i don't blame them. basic contracting rates were €400 per day in Ireland, £600 per day in the UK (when the exchange rate was €1.40/£1) and even more in Germany.

In the end we paid €150 a day to get someone to do it in Bangalore.

Well going by your post, it would seem that cost was the main overriding factor regardless and companies would still be outsourcing even if the skills were available here. Of course what have here is a vicious cycle. The threat of shipping jobs offshore discourages people from entering the industry, which in turn reduces the amount of skilled people available available to employers. That leads to even more outsourcing.

-=Shamrock=-

irish_bob wrote: »

the only thing ive learned from this thread is that a lot of irish people dont like to hear the truth

We know weve screwed up, but saying we deserve what we got is a bit harsh. Also just pointing out that the EU is not the sole reason we finally developed as an industrial nation.

97i9y3941

industrial?,we outsourced most of it!,unlike england where they are proud of themselfs and kept most of the production in the country...

elpresdentde

Purple Gorilla wrote: »

Elan is Irish

set up by an American
the advanced biopharm manufacturing plants are in the us
elan has been split in to two groups the biopharm which will make huge money in the future. and e.d.t (old manufacturing technologies)which will be sold off when the time is right. any patents which were made in the past were sold off to pay for the mistakes in 2000.
i think their overall debt stands at 200 million

MiniDriver

I think it is a bit harsh to say that Ireland "deserves" to be in its current situation - at the end of the day it's been a global bubble, whose ultimate source was the Federal Reserve in the US holding interest rates too low, and therefore sparking a property-and-consumer boom that massively inflated demand.

The huge reserves that producer nations like China and Japan amassed from exports to the US had to go somewhere, and that's why other Western economies such as Ireland were flooded with cheap credit which was inevitably malinvested in property speculation.

Of course certain individual Irish people were particularly stupid, but this was a macroeconomic problem that was inevitably going to destabilise the global economy.

If the OP is from Sweden, he has very little to be self-satisfied about, seeing that the Swedish banks have grossly misinvested in the Baltic states, which are now in economic meltdown. I believe the ECB have already indirectly bailed out the Landesbank.

Many other EU states are in serious trouble with their investments in Eastern Europe. It's just that the ECB hasn't been as open about the problems as Ireland has.

ei.sdraob

MiniDriver wrote: »

I think it is a bit harsh to say that Ireland "deserves" to be in its current situation - at the end of the day it's been a global bubble, whose ultimate source was the Federal Reserve in the US holding interest rates too low, and therefore sparking a property-and-consumer boom that massively inflated demand.

The huge reserves that producer nations like China and Japan amassed from exports to the US had to go somewhere, and that's why other Western economies such as Ireland were flooded with cheap credit which was inevitably malinvested in property speculation.

Of course certain individual Irish people were particularly stupid, but this was a macroeconomic problem that was inevitably going to destabilise the global economy.

If the OP is from Sweden, he has very little to be self-satisfied about, seeing that the Swedish banks have grossly misinvested in the Baltic states, which are now in economic meltdown. I believe the ECB have already indirectly bailed out the Landesbank.

Many other EU states are in serious trouble with their investments in Eastern Europe. It's just that the ECB hasn't been as open about the problems as Ireland has.

wrong

the rates were low in effect creating cheap money

now whos fault we blew that money on hookers and coke (housing and housing)?

instead of investing the money into companies and infrastructure

to give you and idea of scale

33billion was taken out for BTL projects, BTL produces absolutely no wealth to the economy, its a cancer designed to make chancers richer

how many windmills could have been build? houses insulated better? companies funded by enterprise boards??

:mad:


we blew it, unless you are FF party member you have no excuse for blaming the bust on outsiders

yes everyone is hurting, but we are hurting the most

MiniDriver

ei.sdraob wrote: »

wrong

the rates were low in effect creating cheap money

now whos fault we blew that money on hookers and coke (housing and housing)?

instead of investing the money into companies and infrastructure

to give you and idea of scale

33billion was taken out for BTL projects, BTL produces absolutely no wealth to the economy, its a cancer designed to make chancers richer

how many windmills could have been build? houses insulated better? companies funded by enterprise boards??

:mad:


we blew it, unless you are FF party member you have no excuse for blaming the bust on outsiders

yes everyone is hurting, but we are hurting the most

The low rates didn't "create" cheap money - it was excess money supply that created the low rates.

And these low rates were Europe-wide, which is why there were similar booms in Spain, the Baltics, the UK etc. It's also why countries that didn't have property booms themselves are also in trouble - Swiss, Austrian, German and Scandinavian banks are in potentially enormous trouble over their lending to Eastern Europe - it just hasn't made the news here yet.

Go onto wikipedia and type in "Von Mises". He will tell you everything you need to know about credit booms - what happened in Ireland was entirely predictable. Unfortunately, what is going to happen next is also entirely predictable.......

ei.sdraob

MiniDriver wrote: »

The low rates didn't "create" cheap money - it was excess money supply that created the low rates.

And these low rates were Europe-wide, which is why there were similar booms in Spain, the Baltics, the UK etc. It's also why countries that didn't have property booms themselves are also in trouble - Swiss, Austrian, German and Scandinavian banks are in potentially enormous trouble over their lending to Eastern Europe - it just hasn't made the news here yet.

Go onto wikipedia and type in "Von Mises". He will tell you everything you need to know about credit booms - what happened in Ireland was entirely predictable. Unfortunately, what is going to happen next is also entirely predictable.......

ive read von misses publications

you are missing the root cause here tho

whether the money was "created" via cheap rates or printed into existence

that doesnt change the fact that we took the money and blew it

abit of restraint and forward thinking would have helped

see this post of mine with graphs of countries that had property booms but also had property taxes to cool things down

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=61541762&postcount=137

the government should have seized on the "cheap" money and controlled any growth via taxes (thats their job)

they didnt do that in fact they did the opposite helping fuel the property flame even higher

and the rest is history


to give an example~:

1. you win the lotto
2. you blow the lotto on drugs and drink

is it the Lotto Organisations fault what you did with the money unwisely?


another example:

the lack of restraining ****ed us up, and now we are like a drug addict blaming the drug dealer for the addiction, the drug addict at one stage was an adult with free will who decided to go into drugs

ireland is no different to the drugaddict

MiniDriver

Of course Ireland blew the money - that's what happens in credit booms. But the point is that other countries also blew the money - just not necessarily on domestic property. The Swedes blew their money on investments in the Baltics for example.

The graphs you are showing there aren't showing a steeper rate of increase for Ireland than the UK or the USA. The HPI for both those countries was WAY more than 3x and 2x respectively.

I would say that the housing crash in the US is every bit as bad as Ireland. The UK will be in a slightly better position, as it didn't try to significantly increase its housing stock during its boom.

It's funny how so many people here are claiming an Irish exceptionalism for irresponsibility - if you go to foreign sites, you'll find them doing exactly the same thing for themselves!

ei.sdraob

MiniDriver wrote: »

Of course Ireland blew the money - that's what happens in credit booms. But the point is that other countries also blew the money - just not necessarily on domestic property. The Swedes blew their money on investments in the Baltics for example.

The graphs you are showing there aren't showing a steeper rate of increase for Ireland than the UK or the USA. The HPI for both those countries was WAY more than 3x and 2x respectively.

I would say that the housing crash in the US is every bit as bad as Ireland. The UK will be in a slightly better position, as it didn't try to significantly increase its housing stock during its boom.

It's funny how so many people here are claiming an Irish exceptionalism for irresponsibility - if you go to foreign sites, you'll find them doing exactly the same thing for themselves!

did you look at the graphs and the indices? do you have better figures/soruces?


Ireland index

1996 to 2009

32 > 140 peak > 105 now

thats an increase of 4.37x in 10 years up to the peak


US same period of time

118 to 210 increase (under 2x increase)

UK same period

55 to 180 (3.27x increase)


yes other countries blew their money too, we are not in this alone

except we were much much worse (with exception of iceland of course, and we know how that ended up)

when it came to wasting the money


hence blaming others for our own sins is silly to say the least, man up and admit that we ****ed up, once you do that then we can start talking about how to recover, denying what happened would not help in identifying the causes and making sure it doesnt repeat again

MiniDriver

ei.sdraob wrote: »

did you look at the graphs and the indices? do you have better figures/soruces?


Ireland index

1996 to 2009

32 > 140 peak > 105 now

thats an increase of 4.37x in 10 years up to the peak


US same period of time

118 to 210 increase (under 2x increase)

UK same period

55 to 180 (3.27x increase)


yes other countries blew their money too, we are not in this alone

except we were much much worse (with exception of iceland of course, and we know how that ended up)

when it came to wasting the money


hence blaming others for our own sins is silly to say the least, man up and admit that we ****ed up, once you do that then we can start talking about how to recover, denying what happened would not help in identifying the causes and making sure it doesnt repeat again

Well again, why do you keep bringing it down to domestic house prices when I point out that the international malinvestment in a lot of other countries was in other assets?

Even if the US HPI was only 2x (which I am very dubious about, considering that they are now demolishing entire subdivisions) we also have to look at the huge expansion of commercial retail in the US which is now coming to grief (visit www.deadmalls.com) as well as their over-consumption of Chinese-manufactured goods, SUV's, yachts (now being abandoned in their 1000's in marinas across the country) etc. etc.

It may be true that the Irish went particularly mad in the domestic property sector, but that doesn't mean they were especially irresponsible overall. As to learning from the experience, I don't think that's an issue, as this kind of credit bubble will never happen again. We're pretty much at the end of industrial capitalism as far as I can see - the only task for Ireland, as well as every other Western nation, will be to salvage as much as possible for a greatly impoverished future.

lin lin

hiorta wrote: »

Deserved or not, it was entirely preventable and fueled by blind greed.
Like crazed sheep competing to be fleeced.

On the front of every school book should be written large: 'there are NO free lunches'. Get this drummed in so that it can never be repeated.

Examine the role played by the politicians, the professional people, the journalists, the clergy, estate agents/ property sales people.

Who among them told you the true position? How many urged caution? They weren't all in ignorance of what was happening. Which among them encouraged you to swim beyond your depth?
Do such as these dserve your future custom?

great post

the really stupid thing is that the recession in many european countries in the 80s-90s was a well known fact for everybody to see and learn from, Ireland had 10 years to try n avoid it but walked straight into it

remains to be seen if the necessary changes will be made now, or if people are just gona sit and moan

and while i agree with what you're saying op, no need to twist the knife..

djpbarry

MiniDriver wrote: »

As to learning from the experience, I don't think that's an issue, as this kind of credit bubble will never happen again.

It happened before, so what makes you think it won't happen again?

MiniDriver

djpbarry wrote: »

It happened before, so what makes you think it won't happen again?

Peak oil.

I think the age of globalised growth enabled by cheap energy is over. I believe we are entering a long (long) period of economic contraction, deindustrialisation and deglobalisation, in which the generation of asset bubbles will be difficult to sustain.

ei.sdraob

MiniDriver wrote: »

Peak oil.

I think the age of globalised growth enabled by cheap energy is over. I believe we are entering a long (long) period of economic contraction, deindustrialisation and deglobalisation, in which the generation of asset bubbles will be difficult to sustain.

cheap energy is only over if your country is so blinkered as to not use nuclear power


which if used with breeder reactors or used with other fuels such as thorium (which is plentiful and is exactly what India is doing now) gives us enough energy to maintain the current energy demands for many thousands of years (by which time we should hopefully finally develop viable fusion )

nuclear power can be used to generate hydrogen or electricity for transportation


all of this can be achieved and is being achieved using todays technology, but alot of countries will continue burning fossil fuel (coal plants emit more radioactive waste than nuclear plants) until all the low hanging fruits are gone

Salvelinus

MiniDriver wrote: »

Well again, why do you keep bringing it down to domestic house prices when I point out that the international malinvestment in a lot of other countries was in other assets?

Even if the US HPI was only 2x (which I am very dubious about, considering that they are now demolishing entire subdivisions) we also have to look at the huge expansion of commercial retail in the US which is now coming to grief (visit www.deadmalls.com) as well as their over-consumption of Chinese-manufactured goods, SUV's, yachts (now being abandoned in their 1000's in marinas across the country) etc. etc.

It may be true that the Irish went particularly mad in the domestic property sector, but that doesn't mean they were especially irresponsible overall. As to learning from the experience, I don't think that's an issue, as this kind of credit bubble will never happen again. We're pretty much at the end of industrial capitalism as far as I can see - the only task for Ireland, as well as every other Western nation, will be to salvage as much as possible for a greatly impoverished future.

Horse dung of the highest order, do you think the people leaving the country are going to head to Cuba?

MiniDriver

ei.sdraob wrote: »

cheap energy is only over if your country is so blinkered as to not use nuclear power


which if used with breeder reactors or used with other fuels such as thorium (which is plentiful and is exactly what India is doing now) gives us enough energy to maintain the current energy demands for many thousands of years (by which time we should hopefully finally develop viable fusion )

I'm not going to respond to this directly, as it will quickly take the whole thread off-topic.

I will however direct you to the latest episode (#74) of the Kunstlercast, where these issues are discussed in detail: http://kunstlercast.com/

Boskowski

DJDC wrote: »

How many 550 LC + point students are living in the country 10 years later. I'd guess at less than 50%.

Not all that much related to the subject at hand. But I was always wondering what a 550+ LC actually proves. Not necessarily that you're one one of the brightest, more so that you're willing to work hard and that you're good at learning off.

Boskowski

-=Shamrock=- wrote: »

We know weve screwed up, but saying we deserve what we got is a bit harsh. Also just pointing out that the EU is not the sole reason we finally developed as an industrial nation.

Define industrial nation. I don't think we are an industrial nation. What industrial goods do we actually produce? I mean you wouldn't count the few Dell pcs we assemble, do you? Everybody can do that and much cheaper and it's not exactly heavy industry. You could move it to some other place tomorrow as seen on television. We have tourism and food. We are good in the service sector but that's about it. The rest of the economy is domestic consumer stuff and housing bubble.