ECB and Ireland deal finally REACHED

djpbarry

space_man wrote: »

what taxation is this? certainly taxation of MNCs is very low, but personal taxation is not.

I didn't say it was very low, I said it is not high.

space_man wrote: »

and if you consider all the other myriad of charges we are subjected to ...

I am.

space_man wrote: »

do you think austerity has helped these downward or upward pressures?

I don't really understand the question. Austerity is not designed to "help" the retail sector or reduce unemployment. It is designed to reduce the budget deficit, ultimately reducing state expenditure through reduced borrowing costs.

maninasia

NAP123 wrote: »

As a taxpayer, mortgage holder, self employed, irishman, lucky enough to be able to pay my bills, I have no problem paying an extra few bob to make sure those not as fortunate are able to live in their country.

I have a major problem with paying international bondholders and no I don,t care if they belong to Irish pension funds.

I would have thought of my self as a capitalist, but not anymore.

Like all ideals, it has been hijacked by greedy bastards.

You can't separate this out from the issue of us borrowing to cover the annual deficit every year, the part that accounts for the majority of the national debt.

I agree it's a travesty, but there are a few things at work here, and you can't have your cake and eat it. For many of the people that complain about 'paying the bondholders', they would also complain when the credit line went into high interest and the government started to implement REAL austerity measures.

The very long term due for payment does offer a good reduction on the debt by inflation. The one thing I haven't seen discussed is the belief that interest rates will not rise much above 3%. I wonder how guaranteed that is.

maninasia

antoobrien wrote: »

Austerity doesn't work? Tell that to Canada, whose austerity practices in the early 90s has them now as one of the richest, well financed and well regulated countries in the world.

What people want is a quick fix - which is not possible, so they blame it on austerity - which will actually work.

Austerity is working in the hospitals in the west - they are treating more people and drastically cutting waiting lists - with less money & staff.

Austerity is just a buzz word. It doesn't mean anything on it's own.

What is in the austerity plan, the details are important.

antoobrien

maninasia wrote: »

Austerity is just a buzz word. It doesn't mean anything on it's own.

What is in the austerity plan, the details are important.

Austerity: A state of reduced spending and increased frugality in the financial sector. Austerity measures generally refer to the measures taken by governments to reduce expenditures in an attempt to shrink their growing budget deficits.

What austerity plan are you referring to ours? That's rather simple, we have a public service that's perceived (rightly or wrongly) to be under-worked, overpaid and inefficient. Regardless of the perception on payment and work, costs have to be reduced in the public sector.

We have a cost base that is too high across the public purse - from procurement to construction & maintenance - you name it there are massive inefficiencies.

The problem the government face is that it takes a lot of time to unwind all these things and people want it sorted now - which is about as realistic as trying to hold back the tide by standing the the middle of the bay with a canvas bag.

maninasia

I will explain.

It is the MANNER, the AMOUNT, and the TIMING of austerity that is key.

Just like nobody would say 'cost cutting' is good without explaining.
Just like nobody would say 'a salary increase is useful' without looking at the context.

You can tell I don't like gross simplifications and assumptions.

I agree that Ireland needs austerity, and sooner than later. Supposedly Ireland has had a lot of austerity, that is hard to see from the outside. Mainly it seems to involve cutting capital spending and stopping the hiring of new young workers in the public service.


As for the idea that front loading austerity too much would cause problems, yes I can see that. But I think the other viewpoint doesn't get enough shrift, which is that playing the long game and loading ever increasing amounts of debt:GDP may not work out too well either. It could well be construed as passing the buck and hoping for the best. Which is not much of a strategy either unless you are old. Of course this usually what happens in Ireland (or most places for that matter).

space_man

maninasia wrote: »

I will explain.

It is the MANNER, the AMOUNT, and the TIMING of austerity that is key.

Just like nobody would say 'cost cutting' is good without explaining.
Just like nobody would say 'a salary increase is useful' without looking at the context.

You can tell I don't like gross simplifications and assumptions.

I agree that Ireland needs austerity, and sooner than later. Supposedly Ireland has had a lot of austerity, that is hard to see from the outside. Mainly it seems to involve cutting capital spending and stopping the hiring of new young workers in the public service.


As for the idea that front loading austerity too much would cause problems, yes I can see that. But I think the other viewpoint doesn't get enough shrift, which is that playing the long game and loading ever increasing amounts of debt:GDP may not work out too well either. It could well be construed as passing the buck and hoping for the best. Which is not much of a strategy either unless you are old. Of course this usually what happens in Ireland (or most places for that matter).

i'm not against budget dicipline or fiscal consolidation. an economy, household or a company cant continually spend, spend, spend without consequences. let's be honest here it was lack of control over public expenditure that sowed many of the seeds of our economic destruction. you know the McCreevy idea "if i have it i'll spend it"
the problem when trying to cure the patient is that too much medicine can often kill him. The IMF have recognised this and actually asked that there be a "softening" of austerity.
also austerity needs to be targeted at the surplus, fat-laden, under-productive sectors of the economy. so far i dont see much evidence of this.
Choke Pk 2 will be interesting, if only for all the wrong reasons.

Godge

space_man wrote: »

the problem with austerity is a bit like communism.
it sounds like a nice idea, but it dont work.

austerity cripples growth, which in turn suppress revenues so it's self-defeating. the fact that we have no control over our interest rates will only compound the problem. the adverse effects of austerity will be felt for years after it's ditched.

We have had over four years of austerity.

Tax revenues are growing - income tax up by 10% in January.
The economy is growing, albeit slowly.
Unemployment is also falling slowly.
The budget deficit has been significantly reduced.

So explain to me, using figures from the real world how austerity doesn't work.

What I would concede is that done properly it reduces living standards across the board to realistic levels in tune with the economy. People like to think it isn't working because they don't like their living standards going down.

ChRoMe

Godge wrote: »

We have had over four years of austerity.

Tax revenues are growing - income tax up by 10% in January.
The economy is growing, albeit slowly.
Unemployment is also falling slowly.
The budget deficit has been significantly reduced.

So explain to me, using figures from the real world how austerity doesn't work.

What I would concede is that done properly it reduces living standards across the board to realistic levels in tune with the economy. People like to think it isn't working because they don't like their living standards going down.

How about citing sources for your "figures from the real world" for a start?

Godge

ChRoMe wrote: »

How about citing sources for your "figures from the real world" for a start?

Here we go again. At least the last time I did this was with the January economic bulletin. The Department of Finance have now published the February one.

http://www.finance.gov.ie/documents/publications/meb2013/Februarymeb.pdf


I made four statements. Two of them are backed by the above very recent information.

(1) "The economy is growing albeit slowly": On an annual basis GDP growth has been positive in 6 of the 7 quarters during 2011 and the first nine months of 2012. In total 2011 saw growth of 1.4% and 2012 is expected to be 0.9%. Forecasts for 2013 range from 1.1% to 1.5%. So yes there is economic growth.

(2) "Unemployment is falling slowly" From the report: "There were 324,500 people unemployed in the Q3 2012 (-1.1%) and the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in Q3 was 14.8%, a decrease from 14.9% in Q2"

What about my other statements:

(3) "Tax revenues are growing - income tax up by 10% in January".

http://www.finance.gov.ie/documents/exchequerstatements/2013/jannote.pdf

"Income tax [FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]performed strongly and was €127 million (10%) up on January 2012 "
[/FONT][/FONT]

(4) "The budget deficit has been significantly reduced."


From the first report, it is clearly shown that the General Government deficit has been reduced from 30.9% in 2010 to 8.2% in 2012.

From the second report, we actually ran a budget surplus in January 2013, albeit mainly for technical reasons

"January 2013 recorded an Exchequer surplus of €704 million compared with a deficit of €394 million in January 2012. "


So to sum up, all of the figures back up the view that austerity is working as the economy slowly turns itself around, just like a large liner or aircraft carrier changing direction. Over the next few years as the course becomes clearer, the pace of recovery will pick up.

jased10s

Godge wrote: »

We have had over four years of austerity.

Tax revenues are growing - income tax up by 10% in January.
The economy is growing, albeit slowly.
Unemployment is also falling slowly.
The budget deficit has been significantly reduced.

So explain to me, using figures from the real world how austerity doesn't work.

What I would concede is that done properly it reduces living standards across the board to realistic levels in tune with the economy. People like to think it isn't working because they don't like their living standards going down.

When a working person cannot afford their health, and a non working person get's it for free, then something is wrong.

Tighten the reigns , yes.

Fair distribution a must.

3ndahalfof6

jased10s wrote: »

When a working person cannot afford their health, and a non working person get's it for free, then something is wrong.

Tighten the reigns , yes.

Fair distribution a must.

A non working might get it in time, most often in these days not, so there is a pay off, if it helps someone who is working and who is not well come to terms with their illness, ok , but put the person who is unwell beside someone else who is unwell, they do not give a fook,

just make me better, that is all.

Curly Judge

Godge wrote: »

We have had over four years of austerity.

Tax revenues are growing - income tax up by 10% in January.
The economy is growing, albeit slowly.
Unemployment is also falling slowly.
The budget deficit has been significantly reduced.

So explain to me, using figures from the real world how austerity doesn't work.

What I would concede is that done properly it reduces living standards across the board to realistic levels in tune with the economy. People like to think it isn't working because they don't like their living standards going down.

For austerity to work it has to be fair.
To be fair it has to be targeted at the people who are costing the economy the most for the least return.
As I see it the people who are the least value for money are the so called administrators in the Health Service. Over manning is not confined to the health service but it is where it is most evident.
The unions are very clever at pushing out the nurses, Garda and fire services to the front of the battle field and daring the government to attack them because they know they will attract public sympathy while keeping the real culprits well hidden in their bunkers.
The union I know most about - the INO - are either corrupt or incompetent because they have allowed their members to fall behind to such an extent that a nurse with a four year degree course behind her starts on a scale equal to or below that of a clerk with a leaving cert or a cleaner with a junior cert.
Now they want these front line services to forego anti-social hour payments while the five day week, nine to five pen pushers sail calmly onwards, caring not a jot.
I have a sneaky feeling that Wee Brenny Howlin is in on the act too!

djpbarry

Curly Judge wrote: »

As I see it the people who are the least value for money are the so called administrators in the Health Service.

All of them?

Godge

jased10s wrote: »

When a working person cannot afford their health, and a non working person get's it for free, then something is wrong.

Tighten the reigns , yes.

Fair distribution a must.

Absolutely nothing to do with my post or with where the discussion was going. What point exactly are you trying to make?

Godge

Curly Judge wrote: »

For austerity to work it has to be fair.
To be fair it has to be targeted at the people who are costing the economy the most for the least return.
As I see it the people who are the least value for money are the so called administrators in the Health Service. Over manning is not confined to the health service but it is where it is most evident.
The unions are very clever at pushing out the nurses, Garda and fire services to the front of the battle field and daring the government to attack them because they know they will attract public sympathy while keeping the real culprits well hidden in their bunkers.
The union I know most about - the INO - are either corrupt or incompetent because they have allowed their members to fall behind to such an extent that a nurse with a four year degree course behind her starts on a scale equal to or below that of a clerk with a leaving cert or a cleaner with a junior cert.
Now they want these front line services to forego anti-social hour payments while the five day week, nine to five pen pushers sail calmly onwards, caring not a jot.
I have a sneaky feeling that Wee Brenny Howlin is in on the act too!

I quoted statistics to back up my posts, maybe you could do the same?

Scofflaw

OK, the thread is about the promissory notes deal. A while back, we sailed off course towards whether austerity was working, and we've now reached the squally and frankly boringly well-charted and frequently travelled seas of public-sector bashing.

As such, a couple of penalty points, and the promise of more if it goes on. The reservists called up from the rear trenches to defend the public sector should stand down and go home.

moderately,
Scofflaw

Duggys Housemate

space_man wrote: »

still waiting ....:rolleyes:

Did it have to be me. OK.

In response to K9 mentioning austerity being successful ( quote: Whatever about the others I can't see how anybody could call our austerity a failure, we've got about €50 Billion over the last few budgets to help us cut the deficit.) you opined.

yes i'm sure the 430k unemployed people might not agree.

and I think everybody read that as I did. He mentioned austerity, you mentioned the 430K unemployed. There was no nuance.

As for comprehension, when I pointed out that most of the 430K came from the collapse of the boom ( the drop in construction) and said unless we had borrowed to continue construction you failed to understand the difference between a economic policy I mentioned and a economic policy I supported. Nobody else misunderstood that either.

So you can't comprehend me, or you.

hatrickpatrick

Meh, I just find it absolutely sick that the banking creditors are going to get their money back.
For ordinary citizens, if you make a bad investment it's your own tough sh!t when you lose your money. Not so for the financial sector it seems. :mad:

kippy

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Meh, I just find it absolutely sick that the banking creditors are going to get their money back.
For ordinary citizens, if you make a bad investment it's your own tough sh!t when you lose your money. Not so for the financial sector it seems. :mad:

I think that quote kinda sums up why there is mass delusion about who these "investors" actually are.
And indeed it would make discussions of this type more straightforward were we to know exact makeup of these investors.
Many of these investors could ULTIMATELY be the citizens and this and indeed other countries.
Burning "them" has implications also.

antoobrien

kippy wrote: »

I think that quote kinda sums up why there is mass delusion about who these "investors" actually are.
And indeed it would make discussions of this type more straightforward were we to know exact makeup of these investors.
Many of these investors could ULTIMATELY be the citizens and this and indeed other countries.
Burning "them" has implications also.

Indeed - the members of the Wexford credit union who were burned by their €3m investment in Anglo junior bonds are a prime example of this.

The Irish league of credit unions had exposure of about €28m to Anglo.

maninasia

I agree, it would have implications, but this way ALSO has ended up with massive implications. At least letting them lose their investments would have been the normal way business operates, people take a risk and lose, then they take the pain first.

antoobrien

maninasia wrote: »

I agree, it would have implications, but this way ALSO has ended up with massive implications. At least letting them lose their investments would have been the normal way business operates, people take a risk and lose, then they take the pain first.

Yeah but the credit union members were not taking risks by lodging money with their local credit union, neither was my pension fund (we have options to manage the investments and mine were fairly conservative - I don't know if it had any Anglo shares, but good odds it had at least one if AIB BOI or IL&P).

Both those investments still lost considerable value - and it wasn't from taking "risks".

kippy

antoobrien wrote: »

Indeed - the members of the Wexford credit union who were burned by their €3m investment in Anglo junior bonds are a prime example of this.

The Irish league of credit unions had exposure of about €28m to Anglo.

And I am sure there are thousands more investors like them (who may not even know where their money is "invested" or that it is invested at all) - not just in Ireland, but across the board.

kippy

maninasia wrote: »

I agree, it would have implications, but this way ALSO has ended up with massive implications. At least letting them lose their investments would have been the normal way business operates, people take a risk and lose, then they take the pain first.

While I don't disagree entirely, the simple fact is that even "burning" the bondholders on it's own wouldn't have negated the need for a major sovereign readjustment.
Burning the "bondholders" in the initial instance (5 years ago) would have mean an instant lockout from the money markets and a soverign readjustment that would have had to take place over a far shorter time frame.

space_man

as a nation we have been very foolish. We had as Finance Minister a nice guy, but someone who had no background or indept knowledge of finance/banking. he was naive and was hoodwinked by the bankers. i'm not a FF supporter (far from it) but i do think the poor man had no idea what he was doing, and actually believed what the bankers told him.

now we must pay the price for his willingness to see the best in people. an endearing quality but one not suited to the cut 'n thrust of ruthless banking.

....... pass my kleenex please ....... BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAh!

meglome

space_man wrote: »

as a nation we have been very foolish. We had as Finance Minister a nice guy, but someone who had no background or indept knowledge of finance/banking. he was naive and was hoodwinked by the bankers. i'm not a FF supporter (far from it) but i do think the poor man had no idea what he was doing, and actually believed what the bankers told him.

now we must pay the price for his willingness to see the best in people. an endearing quality but one not suited to the cut 'n thrust of ruthless banking.

....... pass my kleenex please ....... BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAh!

Ah give me a ****ing break. I have no idea what Lenihan was like as a person but there were enough people available to advise him if he asked. I'm more inclined to think the inner circle of Anglo people and FF buddies lied to him about the extent of their problems. Either way his actions in bailing out Anglo the way he did was reckless, and in hindsight was reckless in the extreme.

Godge

space_man wrote: »

as a nation we have been very foolish. We had as Finance Minister a nice guy, but someone who had no background or indept knowledge of finance/banking. he was naive and was hoodwinked by the bankers. i'm not a FF supporter (far from it) but i do think the poor man had no idea what he was doing, and actually believed what the bankers told him.

now we must pay the price for his willingness to see the best in people. an endearing quality but one not suited to the cut 'n thrust of ruthless banking.

....... pass my kleenex please ....... BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAh!

With all due respect this is complete drivel and nonsense somehow designed to exclude FF from blame.

If it was as you say it just increases the blame on Cowen for putting a "poor man (who) had no idea what he was doing" in charge in Finance.

K-9

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

Did it have to be me. OK.

In response to K9 mentioning austerity being successful ( quote: Whatever about the others I can't see how anybody could call our austerity a failure, we've got about €50 Billion over the last few budgets to help us cut the deficit.) you opined.

yes i'm sure the 430k unemployed people might not agree.

and I think everybody read that as I did. He mentioned austerity, you mentioned the 430K unemployed. There was no nuance.

As for comprehension, when I pointed out that most of the 430K came from the collapse of the boom ( the drop in construction) and said unless we had borrowed to continue construction you failed to understand the difference between a economic policy I mentioned and a economic policy I supported. Nobody else misunderstood that either.

So you can't comprehend me, or you.

I wouldn't say it was successful, more necessary. I wish we didn't have to do it but we need to do it.

space_man

K-9 wrote: »

I wouldn't say it was successful, more necessary. I wish we didn't have to do it but we need to do it.

i think everyone is in agreement with the point that our budget deficit is unsustainable and needs correction.
what i dont agree with is that agressive slashing & burning will help. i believe it will make things worse. the IMF actually happen to agree with me on this btw.

like i said before and i see it's amusing to see certain people are now frantically pressing the u turn button, austerity did NOT cause all €430k people to be unemployed (nor did it cause every small business to fold, or every immigrant to have to leave), but it did exacerabate an already bad situation ie an economic implosion.

why people fail to see/recognise this is beyond me.

kippy

space_man wrote: »

i think everyone is in agreement with the point that our budget deficit is unsustainable and needs correction.
what i dont agree with is that agressive slashing & burning will help. i believe it will make things worse. the IMF actually happen to agree with me on this btw.

like i said before and i see it's amusing to see certain people are now frantically pressing the u turn button, austerity did NOT cause all €430k people to be unemployed (nor did it cause every small business to fold, or every immigrant to have to leave), but it did exacerabate an already bad situation ie an economic implosion.

why people fail to see/recognise this is beyond me.

Strangely enough there hasn't been any aggressive slashing and burning (in this country anyway)

What exactly would you have proposed as an alternative to reducing spending and increasing income? (bearing in mind the constraints that the country has been under)

The IMF have been one third of the reason for the economic policies in this country in the past 2 years.

BKtje

I don't think anyone denies that taking money out of the economy is going to cause some businesses and people to struggle but what is the real alternative? Ireland couldn't afford to keep borrowing the amounts that were being borrowed pre austerity.

Personally, austerity is a success if it manages to close the deficit while making as small an impact as possible which for me it seems to be doing. I'm not denying that there are people struggling but that was always going to be the case unfortunately with the huge contraction in the money supply.

djpbarry

space_man wrote: »

like i said before and i see it's amusing to see certain people are now frantically pressing the u turn button, austerity did NOT cause all €430k people to be unemployed...

You’re overstating the number unemployed by about 100,000.

space_man wrote: »

...it did exacerabate an already bad situation ie an economic implosion.

So explain why GDP and GNP have been, on average, slowly rising since Q4 2009 (one year before the EU/IMF intervention)?

space_man wrote: »

why people fail to see/recognise this is beyond me.

Because you’ve not established any causal link?

Godge

space_man wrote: »

i think everyone is in agreement with the point that our budget deficit is unsustainable and needs correction.
what i dont agree with is that agressive slashing & burning will help. i believe it will make things worse. the IMF actually happen to agree with me on this btw.

like i said before and i see it's amusing to see certain people are now frantically pressing the u turn button, austerity did NOT cause all €430k people to be unemployed (nor did it cause every small business to fold, or every immigrant to have to leave), but it did exacerabate an already bad situation ie an economic implosion.

why people fail to see/recognise this is beyond me.

So you believe it will make things worse and that it did exacerbate an already bad situation, yet the facts as shown below seem to disagree with you.

Can you find any statistics to back up what you are saying?

Godge wrote: »

Here we go again. At least the last time I did this was with the January economic bulletin. The Department of Finance have now published the February one.

http://www.finance.gov.ie/documents/publications/meb2013/Februarymeb.pdf


I made four statements. Two of them are backed by the above very recent information.

(1) "The economy is growing albeit slowly": On an annual basis GDP growth has been positive in 6 of the 7 quarters during 2011 and the first nine months of 2012. In total 2011 saw growth of 1.4% and 2012 is expected to be 0.9%. Forecasts for 2013 range from 1.1% to 1.5%. So yes there is economic growth.

(2) "Unemployment is falling slowly" From the report: "There were 324,500 people unemployed in the Q3 2012 (-1.1%) and the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in Q3 was 14.8%, a decrease from 14.9% in Q2"

What about my other statements:

(3) "Tax revenues are growing - income tax up by 10% in January".

http://www.finance.gov.ie/documents/exchequerstatements/2013/jannote.pdf

"Income tax [FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]performed strongly and was €127 million (10%) up on January 2012 "[/FONT]
[/FONT]

(4) "The budget deficit has been significantly reduced."


From the first report, it is clearly shown that the General Government deficit has been reduced from 30.9% in 2010 to 8.2% in 2012.

From the second report, we actually ran a budget surplus in January 2013, albeit mainly for technical reasons

"January 2013 recorded an Exchequer surplus of €704 million compared with a deficit of €394 million in January 2012. "


So to sum up, all of the figures back up the view that austerity is working as the economy slowly turns itself around, just like a large liner or aircraft carrier changing direction. Over the next few years as the course becomes clearer, the pace of recovery will pick up.

antoobrien

Godge wrote: »

So you believe it will make things worse and that it did exacerbate an already bad situation, yet the facts as shown below seem to disagree with you.

Can you find any statistics to back up what you are saying?

Godge wrote: »

(2) "Unemployment is falling slowly" From the report: "There were 324,500 people unemployed in the Q3 2012 (-1.1%) and the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in Q3 was 14.8%, a decrease from 14.9% in Q2"

The national household survey also indicates that the numbers in employment have stabilised in 2012.

Persons aged 15 years and over at work (Thousand):
Quarter | 000
2011 Q1 | 1,801.0
2011 Q2 | 1,813.4
2011 Q3 | 1,787.9
2011 Q4 | 1,793.9
2012 Q1 | 1,771.6
2012 Q2 | 1,773.5
2012 Q3 | 1,773.3

space_man

kippy wrote: »

Strangely enough there hasn't been any aggressive slashing and burning (in this country anyway)

What exactly would you have proposed as an alternative to reducing spending and increasing income? (bearing in mind the constraints that the country has been under)

The IMF have been one third of the reason for the economic policies in this country in the past 2 years.

there are no easy options, but there are policies that could ameliorate the situation, especially for those 430,000 people signing on.

as we effectively forfeited what little soveignty we had, of course these options will have to involve the other 2 parts of the troika, in particularly the ECB.
for instance more stimulus, & more expansionary monetary policies, and ultimately greater fiscal integration or else countries will have little option but to leave the Euro zone.

kippy

space_man wrote: »

there are no easy options, but there are policies that could ameliorate the situation, especially for those 430,000 people signing on.

as we effectively forfeited what little soveignty we had, of course these options will have to involve the other 2 parts of the troika, in particularly the ECB.
for instance more stimulus, & more expansionary monetary policies, and ultimately greater fiscal integration or else countries will have little option but to leave the Euro zone.

Stimulus from where?
Where does a country with a fiscal deficit of close to 20 billion a year (at the time), a banking "situation" that requires approximately 60 Billion to stabilise get the money to "stimulate" and to stimulate WHAT, more importantly.
Surely you see the need for some level of austerity in those figures?

space_man

Godge wrote: »

So you believe it will make things worse and that it did exacerbate an already bad situation, yet the facts as shown below seem to disagree with you.

Can you find any statistics to back up what you are saying?

a fall of 0.1% in Q2! Wow! let's crack open the Bollinger. on second thoughts let's not ......
1 month's slight improvement does not a summer make.
most if not all of that tiny seasonally adjusted "improvement" is down to emigration amongst younger people.
long-term claimants in December were 187,144, up 6,346 or 3.5 per cent on an annual basis.

as for economic growth on 0.9%? again wow!
expected dont count. nor do projections for 2013 as we all know Govt projections are about as much use as an ashtray on a honda 50.

of course tax revenues have increased. anybody left in this country lucky enough to have a wage slip will attest to that. hardly something to get excited about i would say.

Try again.

djpbarry

space_man wrote: »

Try again.

Can't help but notice you skipped over my question above. Let me paste it here for you:

So explain why GDP and GNP have been, on average, slowly rising since Q4 2009 (one year before the EU/IMF intervention)?

KyussBishop

kippy wrote: »

Stimulus from where?
Where does a country with a fiscal deficit of close to 20 billion a year (at the time), a banking "situation" that requires approximately 60 Billion to stabilise get the money to "stimulate" and to stimulate WHAT, more importantly.
Surely you see the need for some level of austerity in those figures?

As I'm at pains to point out repeatedly lately: Europe is entirely capable of providing this funding, through a centralized investment program, which can be backed both by bonds and by monetary financing, within inflation target limits (so this is funding not sourced from any particular country, and which does not need to be added to our national debt).

The obstacles to this are political and not economic, and if the political obstacles remain in place, then we will eventually be forced to look at reducing our role within the EU, and in particular, getting back control over monetary policy by reintroducing a local currency (potentially retaining the Euro as an exchange currency).


Economically (even if it is currently forced on us politically), we do not need to add to our national debt in order to be funded, which immediately makes closing the deficit a destructive action which, as others have pointed out, contracts the available money in the private economy and causes economic/social destruction.

Austerity will ensure we do not get out of this rut for up to another decade; 'success' is not measured in closing the deficit, it is measured in terms of how it ends unemployment and wider human suffering, and in ending the current economic destruction.


Think about it: Why would a government (which in this case includes the EU as a whole), with control over its own currency, need to go to the markets to fund itself, when its only limit to spending by money creation, is the inflation target?

A government like that can't "run out of money", it can only run-up against the inflation target, and have to tighten spending to avert inflation; it's all about resource management in the economy, to minimize inflation, not about the availability of money.


With proper use of monetary policy, financing within inflation targets, a 'deficit' doesn't have to add any money onto the national debt; that's why deficits aren't a universally bad thing, and since they add a much-needed injection of money into the private economy, they are essential when not funded by high-interest debt (which again, they don't need to be).

djpbarry

KyussBishop wrote: »

Think about it: Why would a government (which in this case includes the EU as a whole), with control over its own currency, need to go to the markets to fund itself, when its only limit to spending by money creation, is the inflation target?

Because, as we've learned in the UK, printing money solves nothing.

space_man

djpbarry wrote: »

Can't help but notice you skipped over my question above. Let me paste it here for you:

So explain why GDP and GNP have been, on average, slowly rising since Q4 2009 (one year before the EU/IMF intervention)?

GNP contracted in 2011 & 2012!

GDP is not an accurate indication of what is happening in the economy. if you wish me to explain why please ask.

i really dont know how you are arriving at these "conclusions".

djpbarry

space_man wrote: »

GNP contracted in 2011 & 2012!

You'll note that I said "on average", in that there is an upward trend. But anyway, GNP was relatively stagnant in 2011, but increased in 2012 (latest CSO figures are for Q3 2012).

space_man wrote: »

GDP is not an accurate indication of what is happening in the economy.

I see. So when you said that austerity is exacerbating Ireland's "economic implosion", what economic indicators are you basing this conclusion on?

space_man

djpbarry wrote: »

Because, as we've learned in the UK, printing money solves nothing.

Because as we've learned in the USA, printing money solves many things.

poeticseraphim

space_man wrote: »

Because as we've learned in the USA, printing money solves many things.

The British economy is much more vulnerable to the EU block than the US. We need to stop comparing ourselves to the UK or the US as if it is useful. There is much more dragging the UK down and much more than printing money in the US bringing them up.

Although yes Alan Greenspan and the Fed have done a good job and printing money has worked in the US.

But why has it worked/helped?? And what else has been going on?

Why did it not work in the UK?

KyussBishop

poeticseraphim wrote: »

The British economy is much more vulnerable to the EU block than the US. We need to stop comparing ourselves to the UK or the US as if it is useful. There is much more dragging the UK down and much more than printing money in the US bringing them up.

Although yes Alan Greenspan and the Fed have done a good job and printing money has worked in the US.

But why has it worked/helped?? And what else has been going on?

Why did it not work in the UK?

Money creation isn't a one-dimensional thing though, it's efficacy depends on what you do with the money; quantitative easing is a pretty specific policy utilizing money creation, whereas other policies which direct the money into government, and potentially through job creation programs, are something rather different and aren't comparable in that regard.

space_man

poeticseraphim wrote: »

The British economy is much more vulnerable to the EU block than the US. We need to stop comparing ourselves to the UK or the US as if it is useful. There is much more dragging the UK down and much more than printing money in the US bringing them up.

Although yes Alan Greenspan and the Fed have done a good job and printing money has worked in the US.

But why has it worked/helped?? And what else has been going on?

Why did it not work in the UK?

points well made.
i only made reference to the US in response to the reference to the UK printing money solves nothing. clearly in the case of the US it has been successful and who is to say that the situation in the UK might have been worse if they hadn't introduced QE?

Farmer Pudsey

KyussBishop wrote: »

Money creation isn't a one-dimensional thing though, it's efficacy depends on what you do with the money; quantitative easing is a pretty specific policy utilizing money creation, whereas other policies which direct the money into government, and potentially through job creation programs, are something rather different and aren't comparable in that regard.

The reality is that the EU is not going to print money in any huge amounts for quantive easing and definately not for money creation Idea's. So lets get away from that futile argument of wheather it would work or not in the government being an employer of last resort. It is a waste of time.

The reality is where do we make any ajustments over the next 2-3 years to get the Budget deficit down to below 2% and heading for a surplas in second half of the decade. This is what the trioka require and how do we get the private sector to have enough conifidance that if they invest money that they will not end up in an situtation where government costs drive them out of buisness and where they compete with a very generous welfare system when they employ staff.

Listening to the radio today there was an piece about the amount of extra people that are qualifying dor medical cards and the way more and more people are dependant totally on the HSE as more people stop Health Insurance.

This and Social Welfare are the big battle area's over the next 2-3 years. There is a tendancy when pressure comes on the system to make workers pick up the tab while the SW section is protected. We see this as well with Childern Allowance where we have no allowance for Childcare like the UK

We need to protect workers and direct costs away from them. In the last budget a SW family (2 childern) lost about 250/year while a working family lost in the region of 1K this cannot continue.

djpbarry

space_man wrote: »

Because as we've learned in the USA, printing money solves many things.

This is the same USA that has a budget deficit of over $1 trillion?

Godge

space_man wrote: »

a fall of 0.1% in Q2! Wow! let's crack open the Bollinger. on second thoughts let's not ......
1 month's slight improvement does not a summer make.
most if not all of that tiny seasonally adjusted "improvement" is down to emigration amongst younger people.
long-term claimants in December were 187,144, up 6,346 or 3.5 per cent on an annual basis.

as for economic growth on 0.9%? again wow!
expected dont count. nor do projections for 2013 as we all know Govt projections are about as much use as an ashtray on a honda 50.

of course tax revenues have increased. anybody left in this country lucky enough to have a wage slip will attest to that. hardly something to get excited about i would say.

Try again.

Hold on, goalpost moving going on. Look at what you said a few pages ago - see below. To answer that post I have shown that in actual fact the government has managed to impose the maximum amount of austerity it could without causing growth to dip into the negative and maintain an arrangement whereby growth plus inflation equal 3%.

Net result is that budget defict is decreasing rapidly while the economy is growing slowly, unemployment is decreasing and employment is increasing.

Your point has been disproven, accept and move on.

space_man wrote: »

the problem with austerity is a bit like communism.
it sounds like a nice idea, but it dont work.

austerity cripples growth, which in turn suppress revenues so it's self-defeating. the fact that we have no control over our interest rates will only compound the problem. the adverse effects of austerity will be felt for years after it's ditched.

Godge

space_man wrote: »

GNP contracted in 2011 & 2012!

GDP is not an accurate indication of what is happening in the economy. if you wish me to explain why please ask.

i really dont know how you are arriving at these "conclusions".

GDP is the measure that the EU, IMF and ECB judge us on, at the moment all else is irrelevant.