The Future for the Irish?

PARKHEAD67

restaurants wrote: »

Of course we have a future.
Lets learn from what has been done over the past months.
We will come out if it stronger.
There will be a lot of necessary reform and no harm....

Fianna Fail?Am I right?Stronger???????:(

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PARKHEAD67 wrote: »

Fianna Fail?Am I right?Stronger???????:(

Reform is needed. After it, we should - all going well - be stronger. I wouldn't say recognising that has anything to do with FF.

pierrot

Reform is needed, regulation is needed. So are jobs, and innovation.
It will take time and work. We have a young population growing at a very fast rate. This is a good thing.

SkepticOne

The future I think is gradual decline of the economy and public finances until eventual default.

dan_d

zootroid wrote: »

But we don't learn!!!! This isn't the first time financial institutions had to be bailed out by the state. In the 80's there was PMPA, and ICI, the subsidiary of AIB. There was also that bank that Ken Bates was involved in. I can't remember the specifics, but I remember reading about a property bubble involving farmland in the 70's.

So our problems were mostly of our own doing, and quite simply should not have happened. When this mess is sorted out (which will take years) there will simply be a new generation who won't quite remember this recession, and a similar situation will happen. But that will be years down the line, 10 or maybe even 20. In the meantime we will all have to pay dearly for the mistakes that were made, which simply should not have happened.

Absolutely right. When I say we need to learn from this and prevent it happening again....I'm not holding out much hope that we will. We could start with removing the current bunch of muppets - both ruling and opposition - from the Dail and replacing them with....anybody else.

Interesting article ei.sdraob. And very true, I would imagine. Such a huge part of our economy was built on construction. Which any twit would tell you was unsustainable.....so naturally that's going to take the biggest hit. (unfortunately, that's where I'm trying to get out of!)

conorhal

I actually get angry when I hear people talk of a 'lost generation'.
To put things in perspective, I was checking out the 1911 census that has just gone on line. It makes for quite sobering reading. My great grandmother on my mother side lived in a house with eleven other families off Pearse St. at the time of the census ....facking eleven FAMILIES!!!! On my fathers side things were slightly better down in rural Cork, they were 7 to a small cottage and a good half of them could read and write. Sadly, there are names on that census that I had never heard, because by the next census, half of those children would be dead. Now that's a 'lost generation'.
Comparatively, we are swimming in gravy. If you grew up over the last decade the chances are that you wanted for little, received a good education, earned decent money at a trade or acquired a valuable third level education, for free. Yes, many face the prospect of unemployment and emigration, but England or Germany is a cheap Ryanair flight home at the weekend and you can give the folks a bell and keep up with friends and family via your facebook page. This sky is falling nonsense is all a little bit Chicken Lickin' to those of us that weathered the 80's. Things are grim at the moment, but people need to step back and gain a little perspective, they're not that grim.

Eliot Rosewater

So wait - the huge budget deficit, the growing culture of entitlement that is smothering the state, the power hungry trade unions, the "dumbing down" of education - none of these things matter because 11 people used to live in 1 house?

conorhal

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

So wait - the huge budget deficit, the growing culture of entitlement that is smothering the state, the power hungry trade unions, the "dumbing down" of education - none of these things matter because 11 people used to live in 1 house?

No.
But mere three generations ago people really understood what grim actually meant. I never said that none of those things matter, merely that all those things you mention are trivialities as compared to the problems your grandparents generation faced, I'm just saying that a little perspective needs to be employed when examining the current economic crisis.
A budget deficit can, with care and determination, be managed. A dose of reality should deflate that culture of entitlement, and when competition becomes fierce, and employers more picky, then educational standards will rise to meet the demand. I knew people walking off IT courses into high paid jobs that wouldn’t get past a first interview these days.

maninasia

This is all true. However one might wish that it didn't involve putting such a debt on the next generations shoulders.

ednwireland

you know what gets me is, people get depressed readig economic commentators or newspaper articles. unfortunately most of these people are selling their services so tearing down what theyve built up is nice easy copy.
to tell you the truth i dont beleive a single word i read by anyone anymore, a sad state of affairs i know but i dont think anyone has a handle on the way things are going to pan out

another thought, was this boom engineered and by whom (asked by a poster earlier)
yes seeds sown in 2002 when a certain b ahern (or whoever pulls his strings) saw an economic slowdown coming, brought in rakes of tax breaks to build a peoperty based boom, reduction in cgt also helped free up dead land which people wouldnt sell cos the gov would get 50% of it

hinault

Simple answer, there is always a future.

However.

I think the sooner we realise that the past 10 years has been a mirage, the better.

The fact of the matter is that we lived in a wage/credit/asset bubble during that 10 year period.
And the age group 18-33 who experienced some/all of this 10 year mirage need to adjust their expectations regarding this country/economy.

I am a teenager of the early 1980's.
We had 16% unemployment.
There was little or no business activity in this country then.
Out of 120 fellas who did their leaving certificate in my school, 65% emigrated within 12 months of finishing secondary school.

Back then there were few places in third level institutions (no DCU, no UL, for example).
Fees were the order of the day to get in to thrid level education (if you were fortunate to get a thrid level place).

But the country survived and hopefully this generation will survive this current crisis.

fontanalis

hinault wrote: »

Simple answer, there is always a future.

However.

I think the sooner we realise that the past 10 years has been a mirage, the better.

The fact of the matter is that we lived in a wage/credit/asset bubble during that 10 year period.
And the age group 18-33 who experienced some/all of this 10 year mirage need to adjust their expectations regarding this country/economy.

I am a teenager of the early 1980's.
We had 16% unemployment.
There was little or no business activity in this country then.
Out of 120 fellas who did their leaving certificate in my school, 65% emigrated within 12 months of finishing secondary school.

Back then there were few places in third level institutions (no DCU, no UL, for example).
Fees were the order of the day to get in to thrid level education (if you were fortunate to get a thrid level place).

But the country survived and hopefully this generation will survive this current crisis.

But there was'nt the same level of debt in the 80's, at least in the 80' people just had nothing. I wouldn't say the country survived either, it just lumbered along with the same cronyism and nepotism that reached breaking point recently.

The_Honeybadger

pierrot wrote: »

Yes, it should not have happened, but it did. It could have been so much better, but they screwed it up.
Re: OP, if you`re in the same boat as me, we could be the luckiest generation in recent Irish history.
Lucky because we didn`t go nuts and buy a house for half a million quid.
Lucky because we saw it all happen and won`t do the same in ten years time.
Lucky because got a degree after four years of comfortable college life and now don`t have a penny of debt.

Not so sure about this, if banks resumed lending to FTB's in the morning there would be plenty of takers. Many people are not buying houses because the banks won't lend them the money, and for no other reason. There are alot of young people who still think our current problems are a blip, and things will "return to normal" shortly, and are frustrated that they cannot get on the property ladder at the moment. We need a major culture change to a more conservative and prudent society if we are to prevent the current crisis from repeating itself, some proper long term economic planning from government would help immensely.

BTW I am in the same situation as yourself, lucky in that I didn't buy in the boom. Returned from travelling at the tail end of the boom and walked straight into a great job, if I had had the deposit at that time I would have bought, luckily my globetrotting adventure saved me from a lifetime as a debt slave to the banks .

anglo_celt

Pittens wrote: »

anglo_celts version of history is somewhat suspect.

the future for people graduating is actually ok. Most of the job losses are in construction. Graduate employment is 94-94%. Housing is cheaper. Disposable income will be higer.

It is your immediate elders who are screwed.

I perhaps have lived longer than any of you. And I do know my Irish history. I lived most of it.

pierrot

Look, the 20`s were ****, the 30's were ****, the 40's were ****, the 50s were ****, the 60s were ****, the 70s were ****, the 80s were ****, the 90s were good, the 00s were good, and the 10's will probably be ****.

Lots of things happen countries where the citizens have to pay for decisions hicher up. The Iraq War has cost Britain billions so far. Who pays for that?

While I don`t agree with a lot of the decisions being implemented, it`s not the end of the world. We`ll have to work a little harder for the wage. And be a bit more sensible. How many people had the dinner out twice a week in the 80s. Or the 60s. Or the E20 bottle of wine every night? Or the three bathrooms and the new kitchen?

It probably won't happen again for a long time, and it could have been done better. We blew it, and it will take time to recover.

anglo_celt

pierrot wrote: »

Look, the 20`s were ****, the 30's were ****, the 40's were ****, the 50s were ****, the 60s were ****, the 70s were ****, the 80s were ****, the 90s were good, the 00s were good, and the 10's will probably be ****.

Lots of things happen countries where the citizens have to pay for decisions hicher up. The Iraq War has cost Britain billions so far. Who pays for that?

While I don`t agree with a lot of the decisions being implemented, it`s not the end of the world. We`ll have to work a little harder for the wage. And be a bit more sensible. How many people had the dinner out twice a week in the 80s. Or the 60s. Or the E20 bottle of wine every night? Or the three bathrooms and the new kitchen?

It probably won't happen again for a long time, and it could have been done better. We blew it, and it will take time to recover.

Oh Jeeze you were around in the 1920s. Remember the Wall Street Crash? And I did have dinner out twice and sometimes more in 1970s and 1980s.