Who do you blame for the financial mess we're in?

stepbar

kelle wrote: »

The banks.

If they hadn't started lending out money recklessly the country wouldn't be in this mess. The fact they relaxed the criteria for the amount of money people were allowed to borrow is what drove up house prices, and has left so many young people struggling.

The domestic banks relaxed the rules because a) other foreign banks were getting in on the act (to get market share) by offering customers crazy rates sometimes as low as 0.65% above ECB b) people were brow beating the banks into relaxing rules and c) the financial regulator allowed them to do so by inaction.

You cannot take one in isolation of the other. The banks gave customers what they wanted. And ultimately, people signed LEGAL agreements. People can talk all they like about banks etc, but at the of the day, people made the choices and signed on the dotted line. Nobody cried wolf. Nobody stepped in to say "this is wrong". Bertie Ahern said some should go commit suicide. The Government couldn't even take the heat out of the economy by increasing interest rates either (and believe me I'm no apologist for the Govenment). However, the regulator had the power to do something and didn't. And funny enough, I hear no one mention the involvement auctioneers and valuers had in all this. The biggest pests of them all.

The banks were encouraged to lend money, that is their business after all. More money lent = more profit in an ideal world. I mean that is the ultimate goal of any business not just a bank, to make profit. Now that things have gone pair shaped, the rats are now jumping the ship.

To say the banks are the sole architects of this problem is a bit nieve to say the least.

Kev_ps3

Should be an 'all of the above' option..

Pal

I blame Mary Coughlan for being the biggest gobhsite politician this country has ever seen. Ever..

People of Donegal South West. Do your bit and chuck her out. Please.

Rodin

Everyone in the country is to blame

Nolanger

Financial regulator (the last one). Total gobsh1te who was afraid to do his job.

stepbar

Rodin wrote: »

Everyone in the country is to blame

So my granny of 95 who never borrowed a penny in her life is to blame? Indeed..... :rolleyes:

kelle

stepbar wrote: »

And funny enough, I hear no one mention the involvement auctioneers and valuers had in all this. The biggest pests of them all.

OK, auctioneers encouraged buyers to bid higher and higher in order to secure the property they wanted. But, the buyer would never have been able to increase the asking price to an unrealistic level if the bank only allowed them to borrow 2.5 times their salary as they had in the mid-90s - therefore the property prices would not have spiralled.

stepbar wrote: »

The banks were encouraged to lend money, that is their business after all. More money lent = more profit in an ideal world. I mean that is the ultimate goal of any business not just a bank, to make profit.

To say the banks are the sole architects of this problem is a bit nieve to say the least.

They are also supposed to ensure they can get this money back!

stepbar

Selective quoting eh?

You're deluded if you honestly think the banks were the sole architects of the problems we have in this country. Are you aware of Section 23 and 50 housing? How about the famous Carpark incentives? The incentives given to top rate tax payers to set aside money for retirement? Government policies designed to enrich the already rich.

kelle

Well, I say the bankers!

Makes no difference anyway, we're all in the sh*t!

stepbar

kelle wrote: »

Well, I say the bankers!

Makes no difference anyway, we're all in the sh*t!

Maybe you should educate yourself so. Clearly you haven't a clue.

kelle

I've educated myself enough thank you very much!

Sorry you don't like my opinion, but you'll have to make do!

Are you a banker, by any chance?

stepbar

kelle wrote: »

I've educated myself enough thank you very much!

Sorry you don't like my opinion, but you'll have to make do!

Are you a banker, by any chance?

Clearly not in your ability to debate facts mentioned in my posts.

And yes I am a banker... But let's not that get in the way of debate :rolleyes:

wilson10

With regard to the 51 people who voted for the opposition parties, I assume these are some of the people who vote for Wagner on Xfactor every weekend.

Dudess

"The Irish people", "We are all to blame", "The electorate" (with their invisible accompanying "except me") - would ye ever fuk off! :mad:

Oh and a fantastic gem: "The house-buyers".

Just because a lot of you voted Fianna Fail, don't blame everyone else...

Things are bad here but it's never been a one-party state just yet. The electorate didn't all vote Fianna Fail - it's really not that difficult to grasp.

beanyb

wilson10 wrote: »

With regard to the 51 people who voted for the opposition parties, I assume these are some of the people who vote for Wagner on Xfactor every weekend.

Well, I voted for the opposition parties along with every single other option in the poll. And I did this because they weren't exactly shouting stop during the madness of the Celtic Tiger years. To see this, all you have to do is look at their manifestos in 2007.

I accept that they are less culpable than pretty much all of the other options in the poll. But they still bear some responsibility. And I say this as a Labour supporter that will be voting Labour in the next election.

kelle

stepbar wrote: »

And yes I am a banker... But let's not that get in the way of debate :rolleyes:

Enough said

stepbar

kelle wrote: »

I've educated myself enough thank you very much!

Sorry you don't like my opinion, but you'll have to make do!

Are you a banker, by any chance?

kelle wrote: »

Enough said

Ah, rite.... Let's debate the facts and not the clowen ideology that you clearly subscribe to. The fact that I have to pull you up on this speaks for itself.

squod

Currently only 34.97% of people here believe the present government is to blame with many blaming the banks. It was the current line up of the Greens and FF who bailed Anglo in a recession. That's the actual cause of this mess we're in.

No fool in his right mind would have given a blanket guarantee to the banks. Since Labour is the only party (AFAIK) who didn't endorse that guarantee I'll be voting for them. The rest should hang their heads in shame ( and fuck off somewhere else ).

stepbar

squod wrote: »

Currently only 34.97% of people here believe the present government is to blame with many blaming the banks. It was the current line up of the Greens and FF who bailed Anglo in a recession. That's the actual cause of this mess we're in.

No fool in his right mind would have given a blanket guarantee to the banks. Since Labour is the only party (AFAIK) who didn't endorse that guarantee I'll be voting for them. The rest should hang their heads in shame ( and fuck off somewhere else ).

Not being funny but the entire percentages add up to more than 100%....

Princess Peach

Blame Canada!

FreudianSlippers

AFAIK the poll allows you to choose more than 1.

dotsman

wilson10 wrote: »

With regard to the 51 people who voted for the opposition parties, I assume these are some of the people who vote for Wagner on Xfactor every weekend.

Well, as one of them, I can state for a fact I haven't a clue who that person is but can guess he is this year's Jedward. You will find there are some people in this country who have the intellect and general cop-on not to watch X-factor, and also not follow the sheep when it comes to general opinion.

I do believe that the opposition parties have a lot to answer for. Everybody keeps rehashing "better the devil you know" etc everytime this comes up, but the fact is we do know them. They were in the papers and on tv every day during the wasted years and now during the crisis. I know very well that, as horrific as things are now, it would be even worse with a government led by any of these parties.

During the last election, I abstained from voting, not down to apathy or lack of knowledge, but because I could not find one reason to vote for any politician in my constituency. Every flier and every person who called to my door or hung around the local shopping center was promising more tax cuts, increased public expenditure etc - all off the back of the property tax receipts.

There job is to monitor the government on behalf of the people, to highlight any and all flaws in government plans on behalf of the people, to oppose any actions that the government might take that would be against the interests of the people, to provide improved alternatives on government plans to the people. They did none of these. All they did was accept their pay rises, increased holidays, demand that more money is spent and the economy even further raped. For all the huge catastrophic mistakes that were being made under their noses, the only thing they ever screamed about was bull**** non-events like Mary Harney's latest hair-do or some other thing that is not important (hence I can't remember anything they really did over the past 10-15 years).

Did the Fianna Fail led government screw up? I would hope there's not a single person on this island who doesn't believe so. But don't let that fool anyone into thinking that the opposition parties screwed up any less (and even possibly more so in that they were encouraging/advocating even more extreme screw-ups).

I am a friend

fluorescence wrote: »

Do you take everything people tell you at face value? If you were going to lend a complete stranger money, would you assume they were telling the entire truth about their situation or would you take your time to fully research their background?

And how much time should anyone spend investigating? As we know to our detriment, in this country, the entire country put too much trust and faith in our 'professionals' ie. solciitors ala Michael Lynn and accountants who sign off incorrect accounts and now underestimate peoples asset position for the sake of a few €€€€.

squod

stepbar wrote: »

Not being funny but the entire percentages add up to more than 100%....

Give the financial regulator a call. Ireland needs people like you!

stepbar

squod wrote: »

Give the financial regulator a call. Ireland needs people like you!

Civil servants don't answer phones.

ascanbe

stepbar wrote: »

The domestic banks relaxed the rules because a) other foreign banks were getting in on the act (to get market share) by offering customers crazy rates sometimes as low as 0.65% above ECB b) people were brow beating the banks into relaxing rules and c) the financial regulator allowed them to do so by inaction.

You cannot take one in isolation of the other. The banks gave customers what they wanted. And ultimately, people signed LEGAL agreements. People can talk all they like about banks etc, but at the of the day, people made the choices and signed on the dotted line. Nobody cried wolf. Nobody stepped in to say "this is wrong". Bertie Ahern said some should go commit suicide. The Government couldn't even take the heat out of the economy by increasing interest rates either (and believe me I'm no apologist for the Govenment). However, the regulator had the power to do something and didn't. And funny enough, I hear no one mention the involvement auctioneers and valuers had in all this. The biggest pests of them all.

The banks were encouraged to lend money, that is their business after all. More money lent = more profit in an ideal world. I mean that is the ultimate goal of any business not just a bank, to make profit. Now that things have gone pair shaped, the rats are now jumping the ship.

To say the banks are the sole architects of this problem is a bit nieve to say the least.

The banks business is, as you say, to make money; they failed utterly in this business, though, by lending money hand-over-fist into this 'ideal world' they imagined themselves operating in.
The failed to practice due-diligence/acted with breath-taking incompetence and now the tax-payer is left with the crippling bill.
The German/French banks who lent irresponsibly to our banks, are just as guilty in this; yet the Irish tax-payer is also expected to foot the bill for their incompetence.
I agree with much of the rest of what you have written; the banks are not the sole architects of this mess.
But those in charge of the banks were amongst the main players and, at the very least, deserve the scorn they are recieving; some deserve to be the target of legitimate investigations into possible fraud.

stepbar

ascanbe wrote: »

The banks business is, as you say, to make money; they failed utterly in this business, though, by lending money hand-over-fist into this 'ideal world' they imagined themselves operating in.
The failed to practice due-diligence/acted with breath-taking incompetence and now the tax-payer is left with the crippling bill.
The German/French banks who lent irresponsibly to our banks, are just as guilty in this; yet the Irish tax-payer is also expected to foot the bill for their incompetence.
I agree with much of the rest of what you have written; the banks are not the sole architects of this mess.
But those in charge of the banks were amongst the main players and, at the very least, deserve the scorn they are recieving; some deserve to be the target of legitimate investigations into possible fraud.

Do not disagree with you at all but you must understand the competitive pressures same banks were under. Shareholders were complicit in all this. They were happy when the likes of BOI / AIB were riding towards the 20 euro mark per share.

christina_x

You!!! :mad:

Now.. Puuuhlease, no more finance/we're poor/the world is ending/"its all your fault"/leave the country NOW threads.
No more...:o

stepbar

And to add to that I was advising people to sell out of bank shares in early 2007 because I could see no value in same.

kowloon

I blame the parents.

charlemont

steddyeddy

Guys I would watch vincent browne tonight if you can hes reporting the full scale of the problem

stepbar

steddyeddy wrote: »

Guys I would watch vincent browne tonight if you can hes reporting the full scale of the problem

I'm in the pub so go on....

123balltv

all the politicians really
this mess they mostly made might cost us 200 billion

2 million taxpayers in this tiny Country might have to pay back 200 billion:mad:

stepbar

123balltv wrote: »

all the politicians really
this mess they mostly made might cost us 200 billion

2 million taxpayers in this tiny Country might have to pay back 200 billion:mad:

Based on a population of 5 million that's about 400k per man woman and child. There's not a hope we can pay that back, the honourable thing we could do is default and take the pain now. Not much hope if we don't
.

dotsman

stepbar wrote: »

Based on a population of 5 million that's about 400k per man woman and child. There's not a hope we can pay that back, the honourable thing we could do is default and take the pain now. Not much hope if we don't
.

I know it's late, but I hope maths isn't your strong point!

It's 100K per taxpayer, 40K per man, woman and child.

epgc3fyqirnbsx

Well I don't know if anyone was watching Primetime or VB tonight but we're in an awful lot more trouble than I thought.
Looks like a default and a withdrawl from the euro, maybe what should be done anyway but not with this shower.

We got a 6.8% interest, working out at something like €7k each a year interest.
Bad bad bad bad

laugh

We have to tell European to piss off now anything else and Ireland will be in the doldrums for 50 years.

stepbar

dotsman wrote: »

I know it's late, but I hope maths isn't your strong point!

It's 100K per taxpayer, 40K per man, woman and child.

Yep you're right. I guess I got my naughts wrong. Still a significant figure.

Morlar

Annika Echoing Rag wrote: »

We got a 6.8% interest, working out at something like €7k each a year interest.
Bad bad bad bad

I saw that and what I heard was that the 6.4 - 7% ultimately worked out at €15bn pa interest. That's before you begin to repay the principle. This is too shocking for words. I genuinely hope those experts have made some fundamental errors in compiling these figures.

stepbar

Our banks are nationalised based on RTE's story. A sad day for the country.

FreudianSlippers

123balltv wrote: »

all the politicians really
this mess they mostly made might cost us 200 billion

2 million taxpayers in this tiny Country might have to pay back 200 billion:mad:

Those numbers have been including "double counting" and are exaggerated.

€5bn for National Asset Management Agency acquisitions from banks

€43.25bn deficit funding for the next four years. Ireland's gap between income and outgoings this year is €19bn and official forecasts for next three years are: €16bn in 2011, €12bn in 2012, €9.75bn in 2013 and €5.5bn in 2014

€3.1b for promissory notes every year. A possible €31bn upfront loading on this.

€38bn for repayment of national debt -bonds etc.

€90-100bn to pay back the ECB for loans to the six state guaranteed banks

Total: €207bn - more than twice that hinted at by European sources.

There is some serious exaggeration in those numbers. The promissory notes are an example, the ECB has already repossessed those so that's minus €31bn, €38bn for national bonds debts etc. is old debt that we can keep and is already considered debt (essentially it's being counted twice), €90-100bn for ECB for loans to the six state guaranteed banks (also already done and dusted as far as debt goes, we won't be adding this to the bailout figure - double counted again).

€58bn are bonds that will need to be re-financed in the next 4 years, so what we're looking at is on the conservative side a loan of €100bn.

Let's call it €125bn to be generous to ourselves.

Now somewhere around €30bn in assets that may mature from NAMA could be written off in the future if they mature as expected. I think we'll be lucky to get €15bn in 4 years unless our economy seriously improves in the next 4 years (which this loan could do).

Let's say then that we owe €125 (not including the NAMA maturity, which is wrong even conservatively) -

That's €62,500 per taxpayer and/or €25,000 per capita.

We don't have to start paying that until we re-enter the bond markets (likely - depending on the conditions of the loan) and even then, the repayments will be over time.
Say the time is 10 years: that's €6,250 per year per taxpayer. That is genuinely achievable via slight tax increase and cuts in public sector.... and more importantly, responsible spending adjustments (less waste, more accountability).

FreudianSlippers

laugh wrote: »

We have to tell European to piss off now anything else and Ireland will be in the doldrums for 50 years.

This is just wrong and misguided.

FreudianSlippers

Annika Echoing Rag wrote: »

Well I don't know if anyone was watching Primetime or VB tonight but we're in an awful lot more trouble than I thought.
Looks like a default and a withdrawl from the euro, maybe what should be done anyway but not with this shower.

We got a 6.8% interest, working out at something like €7k each a year interest.
Bad bad bad bad

We didn't enter the markets, IMF and EU will give us low-interest loans. My guess is less than the 5% they offered Greece.

Sure, we don't even know what TYPE of IMF loan we are taking... some are 0% interest: http://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/facts/howlend.htm


Also, Sweden are offering €1.1bn @ 3% along with the €9bn offered at around or less than 3% by the UK too.

wilson10

dotsman wrote: »

Well, as one of them, I can state for a fact I haven't a clue who that person is but can guess he is this year's Jedward. You will find there are some people in this country who have the intellect and general cop-on not to watch X-factor, and also not follow the sheep when it comes to general opinion.

I do believe that the opposition parties have a lot to answer for. Everybody keeps rehashing "better the devil you know" etc everytime this comes up, but the fact is we do know them. They were in the papers and on tv every day during the wasted years and now during the crisis. I know very well that, as horrific as things are now, it would be even worse with a government led by any of these parties.

During the last election, I abstained from voting, not down to apathy or lack of knowledge, but because I could not find one reason to vote for any politician in my constituency. Every flier and every person who called to my door or hung around the local shopping center was promising more tax cuts, increased public expenditure etc - all off the back of the property tax receipts.

There job is to monitor the government on behalf of the people, to highlight any and all flaws in government plans on behalf of the people, to oppose any actions that the government might take that would be against the interests of the people, to provide improved alternatives on government plans to the people. They did none of these. All they did was accept their pay rises, increased holidays, demand that more money is spent and the economy even further raped. For all the huge catastrophic mistakes that were being made under their noses, the only thing they ever screamed about was bull**** non-events like Mary Harney's latest hair-do or some other thing that is not important (hence I can't remember anything they really did over the past 10-15 years).

Did the Fianna Fail led government screw up? I would hope there's not a single person on this island who doesn't believe so. But don't let that fool anyone into thinking that the opposition parties screwed up any less (and even possibly more so in that they were encouraging/advocating even more extreme screw-ups).

Do I take it that you won't be voting this time either then.

If we all followed your example then the last option would be the correct choice "The electorate".

th3 s1aught3r

Yes and will ANYONE see the inside of a jail cell for any of it...... ?

branners69

It is obvious and anyone who doesnt see whom to blame; pretty much sums up why the country could not even last 100 years independently before we self-destructed!

steddyeddy

OisinT wrote: »

This is just wrong and misguided.

well it isnt and it isnt we have to have people who can negotiate and tell the eu they have to take some of the hit for their part in the wreckless lending

FreudianSlippers

steddyeddy wrote: »

well it isnt and it isnt we have to have people who can negotiate and tell the eu they have to take some of the hit for their part in the wreckless lending

I'm going to remember this post and make you eat your words when I'm right. I love being right all the time

steddyeddy

OisinT wrote: »

I'm going to remember this post and make you eat your words when I'm right. I love being right all the time

Hold on how on earth do you think youl be proven right, well never know do you think any of our government have the balls to say to the imf or eu you have to take some of the hit?

In the absense of any potential practice run can you explain how this wont be better than taking any terms we are given? repeating im wrong multiple times and you love being right is leading me to beleive you never made the college debating team!