Frontline 16/11/09

Hmmm. I can tell already I'm going to hate everyone who gets near a microphone in this episode.

First guest is an absolute douche, I missed the very start but I presume he's some sort of banker/developer?

First guy interviewed reckons the taxpayer should be helping him pay for his TWO houses to the tune of a "couple of hundred euros a month".


Damn these idiots get way too much air time.

Het-Field

Rojomcdojo wrote: »

Hmmm. I can tell already I'm going to hate everyone who gets near a microphone in this episode.

First guest is an absolute douche, I missed the very start but I presume he's some sort of banker/developer?

First guy interviewed reckons the taxpayer should be helping him pay for his TWO houses to the tune of a "couple of hundred euros a month".


Damn these idiots get way too much air time.

Eamonn Dealney. Editor of Magill magazine. I saw the last edition in November 2008.

What a load of ****. "Stop the blame game"

KetchupKid

Rojomcdojo wrote: »

Hmmm. I can tell already I'm going to hate everyone who gets near a microphone in this episode.

First guest is an absolute douche, I missed the very start but I presume he's some sort of banker/developer?

First guy interviewed reckons the taxpayer should be helping him pay for his TWO houses to the tune of a "couple of hundred euros a month".


Damn these idiots get way too much air time.

I agree!!

I also don't agree with the lady who said "There shouldn't be a blame game", that's just what the people that caused all the problems always say!!

Dannyboy83

Well, I could give Garret Fitzgerald a kiss.:D

Honestly, thats the first bit of HOPE that I've heard in the last 2 years!

He put a figure on it, 8-10 years.

I found myself agreeing with everything he said to be honest.
I came away thinking I'm prepared for another 10% tax or wage reduction.

Why Brian Cowen couldn't say something similar 2 years, 1 year, 6 months, 1 week ago...........I don't know.
But it certainly gave my a little morale boost anyway.


p.s. Its a shame he didn't ask him about NAMA, I would have loved to know his opinion on it.

starbelgrade

Rojomcdojo wrote: »

Damn these idiots get way too much air time.

It's no wonder that TV3 are slaying RTE in the Monday night ratings. I have to admit that even I prefer Bill Cullen & his goons apprentices to Pat Kenny doing lightweight, almost Jeremy Kyle style "current affairs". It's more backbench than frontline.

starbelgrade

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

Well, I could give Garret Fitzgerald a kiss.:D


p.s. Its a shame he didn't ask him about NAMA, I would have loved to know his opinion on it.

He's a well known supporter of NAMA, or at least a believer that if the legislation required for it to pass through, does not do so, Ireland could be up the swanny altogether...

http://www.tribune.ie/news/article/2009/aug/30/nama-rejection-could-bring-in-the-imf-warns-fitzge/

population

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

Well, I could give Garret Fitzgerald a kiss.:D

Honestly, thats the first bit of HOPE that I've heard in the last 2 years!

He put a figure on it, 8-10 years.

I found myself agreeing with everything he said to be honest.
I came away thinking I'm prepared for another 10% tax or wage reduction.

Why Brian Cowen couldn't say something similar 2 years, 1 year, 6 months, 1 week ago...........I don't know.
But it certainly gave my a little morale boost anyway.


p.s. Its a shame he didn't ask him about NAMA, I would have loved to know his opinion on it.

He supports NAMA unflinchingly because it financially benefits his family. He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy.......

population

population wrote: »

He supports NAMA unflinchingly because it financially benefits his family. He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy.......

yeah its also his surname that puts the fitzgerald in Sherry-Fitz estate agents
Lets not forget he was bailing people out in the 80s too

Dannyboy83

Whatever he does or doesn't support, it was really good to hear some Hope for a change, instead of the anger, doom and gloom. I'm not looking for a messiah, but we're going to collectively crack up if we keep going like this. I mean, it was only Sunday night I found myself ironing my Mad Max ass-less chaps.
This is Ireland, it wouldn't surprise me if he had bailed people out, we haven't had a statesman for decades, its par for the course.

minotour

Rojomcdojo wrote: »

First guy interviewed reckons the taxpayer should be helping him pay for his TWO houses to the tune of a "couple of hundred euros a month".


.

As far as I understood it, this young lad, 24 BTW, has over 700K in mortgage debt. Now in fairness to him, he certainly was a driven guy, he had some kind of business on the go too, employed 5 people at peek. But it was a classic example of a lack of regulation.

I was reminded of Macwilliams' couple out in commuter ville, hawking bouncy castles and text services to all and sundry. Sure i bet yer man thought he was bulletproof, i certainly did when i was 24 but the banks wouldnt even let me at my wages.

KetchupKid

I saw this in the stock market boom that crashed in 2001, just prior to the crash a lot of people made a lot of money and they all thought they were geniuses, the property boom here was no different. Prior to the collapse any one with b*lls was capable of making money, but that's all over now. I feel sorry for the 24 year old, but he was playing a dangerous game and lost. If he was smart enough to have pulled out in time, his story would be very different. There are a lot of people that weren't playing games and making big money during the boom who are really hurting now due to no fault of there own, these are the people we should help, not the high fliers who crashed and burned due to their greed. They shouldn't be bailing out the banks, builders, developers or the Auto dealerships they all had a good run, but the ordinary working class people who played by the rukes and are hurting now are the only ones worthy of help.

anonymous_joe

Het-Field wrote: »

Eamonn Dealney. Editor of Magill magazine. I saw the last edition in November 2008.

What a load of ****. "Stop the blame game"

Used to be in the Department of Foreign Affairs too I think. Wrote a fairly good book about it.

KetchupKid wrote: »

I agree!!

I also don't agree with the lady who said "There shouldn't be a blame game", that's just what the people that caused all the problems always say!!

Fixing things is far more important than attributing blame. Blaming people is the refuge of those who are incapable of coming to terms with the fact that an economic crisis has occured, and we're in the midst of it. Doing a Hitler and lumping the bankers in concentration camps as seems popular amongst a certain section of the populace would achieve nothing. Of far greater importance to you, me and everyone who lives in Ireland is fixing the problem.

Moreover, the policy of dwelling on what happened and who to blame is depressing, and serves no purpose other than to demoralise people. That's the last thing our economy needs. We need people to be optimistic, and in that regard, we need to see solutions rather than an exercise in scapegoating.

Liam Byrne

anonymous_joe wrote: »

Fixing things is far more important than attributing blame. Blaming people is the refuge of those who are incapable of coming to terms with the fact that an economic crisis has occured, and we're in the midst of it.

Almost correct, but the phrasing omits the fact that an economic crisis was caused, not passively "has occurred".

anonymous_joe wrote: »

Doing a Hitler and lumping the bankers in concentration camps as seems popular amongst a certain section of the populace would achieve nothing. Of far greater importance to you, me and everyone who lives in Ireland is fixing the problem.

Taking EVERY asset off those responsible, and firing them - no payoffs, pensions or golden handshakes - would make everything else far more palatable and would prove that Ireland was a decent society.

anonymous_joe wrote: »

Moreover, the policy of dwelling on what happened and who to blame is depressing, and serves no purpose other than to demoralise people. That's the last thing our economy needs. We need people to be optimistic, and in that regard, we need to see solutions rather than an exercise in scapegoating.

Optimism and putting the effort in requires the knowledge that it will not be allowed to happen again. Following a tornado, would you build a house in the exact same place to the exact same spec ?

Unless those who caused this - FF, the bankers and the developers, as well as the minority who lived and borrowed WAY beyond their means, often using non-existent collateral to get additional loands - are taken to task and made live like the rest of us, scraping through month by month, then there is no incentive for ANYONE to help build things back up again only to be torn down by the next cosy cartel fiasco.

anonymous_joe

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Almost correct, but the phrasing omits the fact that an economic crisis was caused, not passively "has occurred".

Strictly speaking, it was caused by Bill Clinton and George Dubya in their attempts to provide homes for all Americans, thus encouraging banks to delve into the profitable but risky sub-prime market. This was the root cause of the financial crisis exacerbated in this nation by similar-ish if far less drastic and fundamental problems in our own banking systems. Exacerbation and causation are very different beasts.

Taking EVERY asset off those responsible, and firing them - no payoffs, pensions or golden handshakes - would make everything else far more palatable and would prove that Ireland was a decent society.

So you'd take hundreds of people and make them homeless? They only did what the government and the general population wanted them to.

Optimism and putting the effort in requires the knowledge that it will not be allowed to happen again. Following a tornado, would you build a house in the exact same place to the exact same spec ?

I'd build a house. I wouldn't hunt down the original architect, engineer and builders and sacrifice them to appease my blood-lust.

We need banks before we can reform the banking system. Unpalatable, also, inevitable.

Unless those who caused this - FF, the bankers and the developers, as well as the minority who lived and borrowed WAY beyond their means, often using non-existent collateral to get additional loands - are taken to task and made live like the rest of us, scraping through month by month, then there is no incentive for ANYONE to help build things back up again only to be torn down by the next cosy cartel fiasco.

Plenty of people aren't that badly off. Plenty of people who've done nothing to deserve it have lost their jobs. Come the next election, that'll include plenty of FF TDs.

Crying 'cartel' 'cartel' isn't really true. Banks are just that - banks. They're profit-making organisations, not charities. No-one legislated against them profit-maximising, and their share-holders would have had the heads of anyone who didn't profit-maximise.

As culpable for this crisis as any banker is a random person who took out a mortgage to buy a house, thus fuelling the property boom due to our increasing population, etc. Common sense would dictate that blaming such people is insane. That's true. Blame is a word very easy to throw around, but actually attributing it accurately might not get the results you want. I wouldn't blame normal people taking out mortgages, but they're the cause of all of this at the end of the day. (By this I mean Ireland's specific problems, highlighted/catalysed by the global economic problems.)

Liam Byrne

anonymous_joe wrote: »

Strictly speaking, it was caused by Bill Clinton and George Dubya in their attempts to provide homes for all Americans, thus encouraging banks to delve into the profitable but risky sub-prime market. This was the root cause of the financial crisis exacerbated in this nation by similar-ish if far less drastic and fundamental problems in our own banking systems. Exacerbation and causation are very different beasts.

The gamblers who masqueraded as bankers caused the massive collapse, and the government told people who warned them that they "were pessimistic*", etc.

*paraphrasing so that sensitive Ahern-lovers don't go mental

anonymous_joe wrote: »

So you'd take hundreds of people and make them homeless? They only did what the government and the general population wanted them to.

Leave them a tiny 2+boxroom if you want. Hopefully they'll do likewise for those who took out loans based on their advice and tactics.

anonymous_joe wrote: »

I'd build a house. I wouldn't hunt down the original architect, engineer and builders and sacrifice them to appease my blood-lust.

Incorrect application of the analogy. Would you or wouldn't you hire the same builders and take advice from the guys who had turned a breeze into the tornado ?

anonymous_joe wrote: »

We need banks before we can reform the banking system. Unpalatable, also, inevitable.

We don't need the **** ones. And we shouldn't have to pay for them (or if we do, we should be paying via our loans & mortgages. If Seanie F**king Fitz and his corrupt cronies can get preferential treatment because of being shareholders, then we should get preferential treatment now that we are shareholders.

anonymous_joe wrote: »

Plenty of people who've done nothing to deserve it have lost their jobs. Come the next election, that'll include plenty of FF TDs.

Looking forward to that day, that's for sure!

anonymous_joe wrote: »

SCrying 'cartel' 'cartel' isn't really true. Banks are just that - banks. They're profit-making organisations, not charities. No-one legislated against them profit-maximising, and their share-holders would have had the heads of anyone who didn't profit-maximise.

No-one regulated, either, and the scum who was supposed to got a MASSIVE payoff with even more of our money.

anonymous_joe wrote: »

As culpable for this crisis as any banker is a random person who took out a mortgage to buy a house........I wouldn't blame normal people taking out mortgages, but they're the cause of all of this at the end of the day.

Absolutely and utterly incorrect. If they took out a loan within their means, they are NOT culpable.

And before you claim that that should imply that they are not now in trouble, think again : they would have worked out their repayments based on their situation at the time, which - at the very least - did not include a ****load of additional taxes and levies being taken from them to bail out the real culprits.

To me, those are the 3 issues:
1) Some people lived within their means and are NOT culpable
2) Some people lived beyond their means and ARE culpable, along with the Holy Trinity of the Galway Tent; they should live by their sword as all gamblers do
3) We (or rather, FF with our money) are only bailing out the Holy Trinity of Galway Tent

So #1 are entitled to be livid, and #2 would NOT be entitled to be livid except for the fact that #3 is being done.

Add to that the fact that FF are incapable or unwilling to add ANY social fairness aspect (not even, apparently, legal wage limits) and you have a recipe for blame that falls squarely on the same idiot who invested our cash in Anglo without reading the report on its sorry state.

Lenihan put €4bn into that cesspit, and in 2 weeks time he wants to get that €4bn from us.

He should go f**k himself (would suggest something else but Ahern beat me to it).

Zynks

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

p.s. Its a shame he didn't ask him about NAMA, I would have loved to know his opinion on it.

This might help: http://www.businessandleadership.com/news/article/15398/leadership/fine-gael-dismisses-garret-fitzgeralds-stance-on-nama

KetchupKid

anonymous_joe wrote: »

Fixing things is far more important than attributing blame. Blaming people is the refuge of those who are incapable of coming to terms with the fact that an economic crisis has occured, and we're in the midst of it. Doing a Hitler and lumping the bankers in concentration camps as seems popular amongst a certain section of the populace would achieve nothing. Of far greater importance to you, me and everyone who lives in Ireland is fixing the problem.

Moreover, the policy of dwelling on what happened and who to blame is depressing, and serves no purpose other than to demoralise people. That's the last thing our economy needs. We need people to be optimistic, and in that regard, we need to see solutions rather than an exercise in scapegoating.

I don't agree! The first thing you need to do when there's a problem is determine the root cause and first prevent that from happening again and then address the created problem. The root cause of the problem still hasn't been addressed. It's like an alcoholic not wanting to admit he has a problem. What do you want to do, gloss over all of the greedy mistakes and just make us all pay up? The current government wants to reward those that caused the problems and punish us all. We do need to see a solution, but not one that rewards those that caused the problem!!

Lizzykins

I agree with you completely Liam!

MysticalRain

I've only seen half the program, but that's more than enough to piss me off. I just love the sense of entitlement and the expectation that people who screwed up royally now expect someone else to pay for their mistakes. Like the guy who sold cars expecting taxpayer money to reinflate an artificial bubble in the car market. That guy with the 700k mortgages was a hard worker in fairness, but he bet on a horse called "the property bubble" and he lost. But that should be his problem, not the rest of society's for cleaning up the mess he made.

And yes, the game blame should be played. The people who made these mistakes need to be held accountable. Otherwise they will be free to make the same mistakes again and again with no lessons learned.

irish_bob

everything we now witness in our economy can be traced back to one thing , the property buble bursting , the banking crisis has only compouned our problems and while certain individuals involved in banking behaved appalingly, that is not the sole cause of our problems

the reality is this countrys economy was a one trick pony , one in four were working in jobs related to property in some shape or form , from this property boom stemed a credit bubble , we also saw a wage boom in the public sector which was borne our of benchmarking , again only made possible by property transaction taxes , huge increases in social wellfare were also financed by building houses , manufacturing and tradiitonal areas of economic activity like farming has been in the doldrums in this country for years so when the property bubble ( and all bubbles eventually do ) burst , thier was nothing left to underpin this massive increase in spending , for those four or five years when house prices went through the roof , our economy was not normal , it was completley reliant on one area and every sector of the economy including the public sector was going to be effected should anything go wrong , therefore we now have to get back to a time before this construction boom phenomenon and adjust spendnig accordingly , wages simply have to fall because as many have said before , it was not conventional income tax receipts which funded both public sector wages and social wellfare this past number of years and it wont be income tax receipts which funds them at thier current level in the future

anonymous_joe

Liam Byrne wrote: »

The gamblers who masqueraded as bankers caused the massive collapse, and the government told people who warned them that they "were pessimistic*", etc.

Gamblers? Well, duh. That's what investing is.

*paraphrasing so that sensitive Ahern-lovers don't go mental

Doubt there are many of them around these days.

Leave them a tiny 2+boxroom if you want. Hopefully they'll do likewise for those who took out loans based on their advice and tactics.

Simply not tenable. For one thing, the people qualified to run banks are mainly the ones who fcuked them up in the first place. Which is a bit of a problem.

Incorrect application of the analogy. Would you or wouldn't you hire the same builders and take advice from the guys who had turned a breeze into the tornado ?

I know it was. But can't you see my point? It's not an option to go out and get new bankers, so we need to use the same ones and put stricter shackles on them.

We don't need the **** ones. And we shouldn't have to pay for them (or if we do, we should be paying via our loans & mortgages. If Seanie F**king Fitz and his corrupt cronies can get preferential treatment because of being shareholders, then we should get preferential treatment now that we are shareholders.

They were corrupt because no-one was looking. Unless people bother to look at what they do, they'll do what they want.

Looking forward to that day, that's for sure!

Who isn;t?

No-one regulated, either, and the scum who was supposed to got a MASSIVE payoff with even more of our money.

Is it their fault they weren't regulated?

Absolutely and utterly incorrect. If they took out a loan within their means, they are NOT culpable.

Of course not. But they fuelled the boom which then crashed.

And before you claim that that should imply that they are not now in trouble, think again : they would have worked out their repayments based on their situation at the time, which - at the very least - did not include a ****load of additional taxes and levies being taken from them to bail out the real culprits.

To me, those are the 3 issues:
1) Some people lived within their means and are NOT culpable
2) Some people lived beyond their means and ARE culpable, along with the Holy Trinity of the Galway Tent; they should live by their sword as all gamblers do
3) We (or rather, FF with our money) are only bailing out the Holy Trinity of Galway Tent

So #1 are entitled to be livid, and #2 would NOT be entitled to be livid except for the fact that #3 is being done.

Add to that the fact that FF are incapable or unwilling to add ANY social fairness aspect (not even, apparently, legal wage limits) and you have a recipe for blame that falls squarely on the same idiot who invested our cash in Anglo without reading the report on its sorry state.

Lenihan put €4bn into that cesspit, and in 2 weeks time he wants to get that €4bn from us.

He should go f**k himself (would suggest something else but Ahern beat me to it).

Anglo's a cesspit, but letting a bank die does bad bad things.

KetchupKid wrote: »

I don't agree! The first thing you need to do when there's a problem is determine the root cause and first prevent that from happening again and then address the created problem. The root cause of the problem still hasn't been addressed. It's like an alcoholic not wanting to admit he has a problem. What do you want to do, gloss over all of the greedy mistakes and just make us all pay up? The current government wants to reward those that caused the problems and punish us all. We do need to see a solution, but not one that rewards those that caused the problem!!

What is the problem?

Unregulated banks in a profit-maximising environment.

Liam Byrne

anonymous_joe wrote: »

Gamblers? Well, duh. That's what investing is.

Investment is (relatively) sensible gambling.

anonymous_joe wrote: »

Simply not tenable. For one thing, the people qualified to run banks are mainly the ones who fcuked them up in the first place.

Why is it not "tenable" ?

And if we look at their track record - i.e. fcuking up the banks - then they are NOT "qualified to run banks".

anonymous_joe wrote: »

But can't you see my point? It's not an option to go out and get new bankers, so we need to use the same ones and put stricter shackles on them.

Why not ? Why put criminals - worse still, criminals with a known track record of fcuking up - in charge of our money ?

I'd rather put an unqualified honest person in charge at this stage, since there are no honest qualified ones.

anonymous_joe wrote: »

They were corrupt because no-one was looking. Unless people bother to look at what they do, they'll do what they want.

Bull****. That's like saying that you're not currently raping or murdering someone because there's someone looking. I'd presume you simply wouldn't do stuff like that ?

I don't commit crimes because I wouldn't. Whether or not I'm being watched makes zero difference.

anonymous_joe wrote: »

Is it their fault they weren't regulated?

No, but it's still their fault that they're corrupt.

anonymous_joe wrote: »

Of course not. But they fuelled the boom which then crashed.

I'll say it again; anyone who borrowed within their means did not "fuel the boom". I've also said it elsewhere that a bank offered me WAY more than I could afford, and I said No. So I am not culpable.

anonymous_joe wrote: »

Anglo's a cesspit, but letting a bank die does bad bad things.

Like what ? Put the scum that ran it into the ground out of a job ? God love 'em. Put the shareholders who didn't oversee it properly out of a few bob ? Tough ****.

Are you SERIOUSLY suggesting that pouring billions into a bank, buying toxic assets off the bank at inflated prices, and screwing the rest of the economy into the bargain ensuring that no-one has ANY money for the forseeable future, and pissing off decent people who only want to make a living and survive will somehow do "worse worse things" ?

anonymous_joe wrote: »

What is the problem?

Unregulated banks in a profit-maximising environment.

Yes, Fianna Failure need to be absolutely HAMMERED and rebuilt from the ground up for their lack of regulation and common sense.

But suggesting that corruption is the acceptable "norm" unless regulated to death is ALSO incorrect.