Did anybody profit from the 2008 crisis in Ireland?

armabelle

I have learned a lot from some other threads about this topic thanks to the contributions of other posters who know more about what went down and it is a topic that interests me a great deal. I watched the movie "The Big Short" yesterday and although it is a (hollywood) movie, it seems to be based on "facts" saying that certain individuals did indeed make a lot of money from the crisis in the USA. Here in Ireland was it different? Did any person or institution benefit form the crisis?

Eugene Norman

Sure. And just after.

The organisation NAMA set up to manage distressed assets has been selling property at massive discounts to wealthy investors.

armabelle

Eugene Norman wrote: »

Sure. And just after.

The organisation NAMA set up to manage distressed assets has been selling property at massive discounts to wealthy investors.

Ok so post crisis NAMA would have benefited. The lady in the bath tub at the beginning of the movie says that the banks themselves were profiting from the crisis before it even happened. Is this true in Ireland as well? Here is a part of the script:

Basically Lewis Ranieri’s Mortgage
bonds were amazingly profitable for
the big banks. They made billions
and billions off of their 2% fee on
each of these bonds they sold. But
then they started running out of
mortgages to put in them. After
all, there’s only so many homes and
so many people with good enough
jobs to buy them. So the banks
starting doing something different.
Instead of creating mortgage bonds
that were guaranteed by the US
government, they started creating
their own private mortgage bonds.
No government, no pesky standards
like good credit or minimum income.
And then the big banks were able to
fill the bonds with riskier and
riskier mortgages and keep the
profit machine churning.

ButtersSuki

armabelle wrote: »

Ok so post crisis NAMA would have benefited. The lady in the bath tub at the beginning of the movie says that the banks themselves were profiting from the crisis before it even happened. Is this true in Ireland as well? Here is a part of the script:

Basically Lewis Ranieri’s Mortgage
bonds were amazingly profitable for
the big banks. They made billions
and billions off of their 2% fee on
each of these bonds they sold. But
then they started running out of
mortgages to put in them. After
all, there’s only so many homes and
so many people with good enough
jobs to buy them. So the banks
starting doing something different.
Instead of creating mortgage bonds
that were guaranteed by the US
government, they started creating
their own private mortgage bonds.
No government, no pesky standards
like good credit or minimum income.
And then the big banks were able to
fill the bonds with riskier and
riskier mortgages and keep the
profit machine churning.

Without going too deep into it, yes.

A simple explanation to the layman would involve asking yourself why for example can you not get 100% (or even more bizarrely 100%+) mortgages in Ireland anymore. The banks were falling over themselves to give these out at one stage.

No credit history? No job? No qualifications? No prospects? How much is the house you want? €400,000. Ok -Here's €500,000 for a 35 year (or longer) mortgage.....

armabelle

ButtersSuki wrote: »

Without going too deep into it, yes.

A simple explanation to the layman would involve asking yourself why for example can you not get 100% (or even more bizarrely 100%+) mortgages in Ireland anymore. The banks were falling over themselves to give these out at one stage.

No credit history? No job? No qualifications? No prospects? How much is the house you want? €400,000. Ok -Here's €500,000 for a 35 year (or longer) mortgage.....

Ok so they were delaying the bubble bursting by giving loans to those who did not qualify knowing that many would not be able to pay them? And of course people weren't turning down the loans because who says no to money right?

ButtersSuki

armabelle wrote: »

Ok so they were delaying the bubble bursting by giving loans to those who did not qualify knowing that many would not be able to pay them? And of course people weren't turning down the loans because who says no to money right?

Well wer really in the realms of gross oversimplification here but did the banks know they were in trouble? Yes. Did they continue to lend during that time? Yes. Was part of that a deliberate ploy to gain more market share and become bigger - too big to fail? That's open to interpretation of course

Do some reading on this.

The Big Short (the book) is a good place to start. There's many, many others...pm me if you want to know some more. For more local perspective try some of Matt Cooper's books (who really runs ireland for one) OR Shane Ross' The Bankers. Knowledge is power

Dohnjoe

ButtersSuki wrote: »

Well wer really in the realms of gross oversimplification here but did the banks know they were in trouble? Yes. Did they continue to lend during that time? Yes. Was part of that a deliberate ploy to gain more market share and become bigger - too big to fail? That's open to interpretation of course

Indeed, also, did they know how much trouble they were in? that's a big question

It's a mirror image of what happened in the US, and we just have to look at how few were betting against the system to realize that even those at the top were caught up in grossly misjudging the whole situation, back to 'bubble thinking' and classic mania

What's interesting about the Big Short is that the "good guys" were mostly ruthless hedge fund managers who made a fortune off the economy sinking, they didn't have any moral qualms or dilemma's about collecting the cash despite how they were depicted on the screen

djpbarry

Eugene Norman wrote: »

The organisation NAMA set up to manage distressed assets has been selling property at massive discounts to wealthy investors.

These would be the same properties that NAMA acquired at "massive discounts"?

BoJack Horseman

djpbarry wrote: »

These would be the same properties that NAMA acquired at "massive discounts"?

Someone making a profit does not mean that NAMA have to make a loss.

Eugene Norman

djpbarry wrote: »

These would be the same properties that NAMA acquired at "massive discounts"?

So why not put them on the open market at massive discounts?

newacc2015

Eugene Norman wrote: »

Sure. And just after.

The organisation NAMA set up to manage distressed assets has been selling property at massive discounts to wealthy investors.

A lot of these properties were purchased by Irish citizens. Look at Cairn Homes, all the Irish REITs, Irish pension funds etc. These are mainly owned by regular Irish citizens as these companies are PLCs. No one seems to see the connection between Irish life or any other irish pension fund buying a destessed property and their pension in the future, which is where the profit from the property will end up

NAMA was set up to temporarily hold these properties and sell them. I don't think anyone was expecting our property prices to rebound so quickly. Most of those "discounted prices" were fair value at the time. Yields on Dublin city offices were 8/9% 2/3 years ago. Now 6% is considered good as market expections have changed

micosoft

armabelle wrote: »

I have learned a lot from some other threads about this topic thanks to the contributions of other posters who know more about what went down and it is a topic that interests me a great deal. I watched the movie "The Big Short" yesterday and although it is a (hollywood) movie, it seems to be based on "facts" saying that certain individuals did indeed make a lot of money from the crisis in the USA. Here in Ireland was it different? Did any person or institution benefit form the crisis?

The "beneficiaries" are primarily Irish Citizens earning less than 40/50k who forced the state to borrow money to pay for day to day expenditure and enormously subsidise their income. The debt obviously being laid on the next generation and a magical "rich people" who should pay for everything obviously (or alternatively get the f88k out of dodge).

The big short does not really map to the Irish situation as clearly the gangsters in the Irish Case were Fianna Fail who based their electoral victory on the electorate by raising taxes on once-off taxes like Stamp Duty which essentially meant citizens borrowed money through mortgages to pay tax to pay for current expenditure. This did not happen to this extent in any other country.

In short a deeply corrupt electorate decided to sabotage their own country for short term personal gain. They have just repeated the exercise this election by strip mining mental health and other social service to pay for water services. The fact many other functioning states avoided this is a reflection on our kleptomaniac electorate who think they don't have to pay for the state services they receive.

armabelle

ButtersSuki wrote: »

No credit history? No job? No qualifications? No prospects? How much is the house you want? €400,000. Ok -Here's €500,000 for a 35 year (or longer) mortgage.....

Which banks in Ireland were doing this? Do you know why they were doing it?

armabelle

ButtersSuki wrote: »

The Big Short (the book) is a good place to start. There's many, many others...pm me if you want to know some more. For more local perspective try some of Matt Cooper's books (who really runs ireland for one) OR Shane Ross' The Bankers. Knowledge is power

I must say that I didn't understand the Big Short completely but I thought the movie was alright. Have you seen it? At the end Steve Carell decides to sell his "swaps" and gives his partner the go-ahead but then he says something I don't understand. He says sadly: "There is going to be a bailout. They always knew there was going to be one and they just didn't care"

Who is he referring to? Does he refer to the banks that went under? If so, why didn't these banks care that the taxpayer was going to pay for their mistakes and why did they go under if they "knew"?

armabelle

ButtersSuki wrote: »

Well wer really in the realms of gross oversimplification here but did the banks know they were in trouble? Yes. Did they continue to lend during that time? Yes. Was part of that a deliberate ploy to gain more market share and become bigger - too big to fail? That's open to interpretation of course

Do some reading on this.

The Big Short (the book) is a good place to start. There's many, many others...pm me if you want to know some more. For more local perspective try some of Matt Cooper's books (who really runs ireland for one) OR Shane Ross' The Bankers. Knowledge is power

thanks I will think about reading those books. Are they enjoyable by non-finance specialists?

armabelle

micosoft wrote: »

In short a deeply corrupt electorate decided to sabotage their own country for short term personal gain. They have just repeated the exercise this election by strip mining mental health and other social service to pay for water services. The fact many other functioning states avoided this is a reflection on our kleptomaniac electorate who think they don't have to pay for the state services they receive.

I guess this would make a lot of Irish people sour and wonder why they fought so hard in the 1916 revolution right? I mean, if they cannot even have an honest, decent government that they elected, what was the point of trying so hard and your ancestors dying? If what you said is true, being a European nation means nothing. Having lived in countries where corruption is a normal and pretty much undisputed thing in government, I thought Ireland would be different. It is sad that wherever there is power there is theft from average people. I dont think charging for water is really a huge deal compared to the loss suffered from the financial crisis so I am more interested in that event because it amazes me how something like that can happen.

Fr Tod Umptious

armabelle wrote: »

I guess this would make a lot of Irish people sour and wonder why they fought so hard in the 1916 revolution right? I mean, if they cannot even have an honest, decent government that they elected, what was the point of trying so hard and your ancestors dying? If what you said is true, being a European nation means nothing. Having lived in countries where corruption is a normal and pretty much undisputed thing in government, I thought Ireland would be different. It is sad that wherever there is power there is theft from average people. I dont think charging for water is really a huge deal compared to the loss suffered from the financial crisis so I am more interested in that event because it amazes me how something like that can happen.

But its theft by average people here, not theft from them.

The average person voted for FF governments because they wanted low taxes, easy credit, and all the services without actually having to pay for them.

And as the last election has show they have not changed

walshyn93

micosoft wrote: »

In short a deeply corrupt electorate decided to sabotage their own country for short term personal gain. They have just repeated the exercise this election by strip mining mental health and other social service to pay for water services. The fact many other functioning states avoided this is a reflection on our kleptomaniac electorate who think they don't have to pay for the state services they receive.

Apparently in order to have a functional democracy the average IQ of a country needs to be above 90. It appears we're only barely making the cut.

armabelle

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

But its theft by average people here, not theft from them.

The average person voted for FF governments because they wanted low taxes, easy credit, and all the services without actually having to pay for them.

And as the last election has show they have not changed

So then the "average" people profited form the crisis?

armabelle

walshyn93 wrote: »

Apparently in order to have a functional democracy the average IQ of a country needs to be above 90. It appears we're only barely making the cut.

oh cmon, don't be such a pessimist. Irish people are smart enough. The problem is that even smart people don't know what COD's and sub-prime loans are and aren't these the things that brought down the economy here in Ireland as well?

micosoft

armabelle wrote: »

I guess this would make a lot of Irish people sour and wonder why they fought so hard in the 1916 revolution right? I mean, if they cannot even have an honest, decent government that they elected, what was the point of trying so hard and your ancestors dying? If what you said is true, being a European nation means nothing. Having lived in countries where corruption is a normal and pretty much undisputed thing in government, I thought Ireland would be different. It is sad that wherever there is power there is theft from average people. I dont think charging for water is really a huge deal compared to the loss suffered from the financial crisis so I am more interested in that event because it amazes me how something like that can happen.

I'm sure one or two intelligent people bet against the economy and made some money but you seem to be of the impression that there was money before 2008 that suddenly got redirected in 2008 into somebody's pocket. The reality is that the money available before 2008 was not there - it was all borrowed. When the music stopped in 2008 the ability to borrow stopped. Anyone who made money in 2008 did so only in a tangental way - receivers, sherriffs, investors who bet against the market.

Furthermore I'm not sure you got my point. The Irish People could get an honest decent Government if they voted for one. They frequently choose not to. With democracy comes accountability. There is a strange idea that because you democratically vote for someone that decision is automatically correct and cannot be challenged. That needs to changed and the electorate held morally accountable for their choices.

I would suggest is that there is such a thing as "too much democracy" where politicians are so beholden to the electorate they cannot do the right thing as opposed to the populist thing. The founders of the US understood this - calling it "the tyranny of the people". They put specific steps in such as have a collage of electors (you won't see Trump/Clinton on any polling paper in the US) to put a brake on populist candidates. We may yet see that have an effect for the Republicans.

As an aside Ireland is one of the least corrupt nations in the world from a political and Government agency perspective. The issue is around bad policy decisions based on short term electoral demands. The levels of "corruption" such as Michael Lowry have no meaningful effect on our country than the poor policy decisions being made.

micosoft

armabelle wrote: »

oh cmon, don't be such a pessimist. Irish people are smart enough. The problem is that even smart people don't know what COD's and sub-prime loans are and aren't these the things that brought down the economy here in Ireland as well?

Probably pessimistic. I'm more a believe that structure creates poor behaviors.

But COD's and sub prime loans sunk the US. Our crash was more related to low interest rates leading to an overheating property market. The Government had many other levers to control this but instead decided to depend on extraordinary (and borrowed) property taxes to fund populist current expenditure. When the crash occurred credit stopped leading to a collapse in Government revenue.

K-9

armabelle wrote: »

Which banks in Ireland were doing this? Do you know why they were doing it?

We didn't have a sub prime sector like the US or UK, a few companies did come in at the end, self certifying mortgages but you'd pay high interest levels.

We did have 40 year mortgages, counting lodgers as income for mortgage qualification purposes, 100% mortgages, cash backs, people using Credit Union loans as deposits and other stuff.

The Central Bank warned about this stuff from about 98 onwards, banks just said "everything is fine lads" and the CB did nothing about it.

K-9

micosoft wrote: »

Probably pessimistic. I'm more a believe that structure creates poor behaviors.

But COD's and sub prime loans sunk the US. Our crash was more related to low interest rates leading to an overheating property market. The Government had many other levers to control this but instead decided to depend on extraordinary (and borrowed) property taxes to fund populist current expenditure. When the crash occurred credit stopped leading to a collapse in Government revenue.

Witness the clamour by all parties to cut or scrap stamp duty when the property boom levelled in 06, we got the last gasp of the bubble for about 6 months after that.

armabelle

micosoft wrote: »

I'm sure one or two intelligent people bet against the economy and made some money but you seem to be of the impression that there was money before 2008 that suddenly got redirected in 2008 into somebody's pocket.

At the end of the Big Short movie, there is a few facts about the crisis of 2008 and how it affected the economy in the USA:

When the dust settled from the collapse, 5 trillion dollars in pension money, real estate value, 401k, savings and bonds disappeared.

In that context where did the money disappear to? Obviously in Ireland is different but perhaps by looking at this in the USA example I can understand it better.

armabelle

K-9 wrote: »

The Central Bank warned about this stuff from about 98 onwards, banks just said "everything is fine lads" and the CB did nothing about it.

But why would they do this / say this?

armabelle

micosoft wrote: »

Probably pessimistic. I'm more a believe that structure creates poor behaviors.

But COD's and sub prime loans sunk the US. Our crash was more related to low interest rates leading to an overheating property market. The Government had many other levers to control this but instead decided to depend on extraordinary (and borrowed) property taxes to fund populist current expenditure. When the crash occurred credit stopped leading to a collapse in Government revenue.

Ok so COD's and sub prime loans sunk the US economy but the economy here, even though it happened at the same time as in the US, sunk for completely different reasons? how can such a coincidence occur?

Donerkebab

armabelle wrote: »

Ok so COD's and sub prime loans sunk the US economy but the economy here, even though it happened at the same time as in the US, sunk for completely different reasons? how can such a coincidence occur?

The whole world economy is linked.
The CDO's went to **** in 2007, and a year later in 2008, Lehman Bros went bust drying up the liquidity and showing up how ****ed the Irish Banks were.

mahoganygas

armabelle wrote:

Ok so they were delaying the bubble bursting by giving loans to those who did not qualify knowing that many would not be able to pay them? And of course people weren't turning down the loans because who says no to money right?

The problem wasn't that these risky mortgages were given in the first place. Banks will always carry a certain number of risky assets on their books. The key is to control how risky your mortgage book is. If a large number of your mortgage customers are suddenly at risk, then a bank will slow down on lending. The problem was that these mortgages were gathered up, packaged together and sold on to investors (including other banks) on the open market. The new owner of this mortgage book doesn't know anything about the individual home owners or their risk profile. They relied on ratings agencies to score these mortgage books. These rating agencies failed to predict how a moderate shock to the US employment figure would have on these mortgage books. When home owners started to default, the investors quickly realised that some of their AAA mortgage bonds were probably riskier than they were led to believe. So they decided to offload them. Their confidence waa shaken. Once a few of the big players started to sell, contagion set in. All of a sudden everyone tried to sell mortgage bonds as the market was spooked. Nobody knew what value to place on these assets. This contagion spread to the equity markets (stocks) and the economy was caught in a downward spiral.

Dohnjoe wrote:

What's interesting about the Big Short is that the "good guys" were mostly ruthless hedge fund managers who made a fortune off the economy sinking, they didn't have any moral qualms or dilemma's about collecting the cash despite how they were depicted on the screen

I haven't seen the film but it's interesting that you describe them as ruthless with no moral qualms. Keep in mind that hedge fund investment is a zero sum game. A hedge fund's purpose is to protect from downside risk. I fail to see why a hedge fund manager is vilified for doing exactly what they are supposed to do. They have no other purpose than to prevent losses when a market goes down.

People strangely think of it as making money off the back of somebody's loss. These derivative contracts are entered by 2 parties. When the market was going the other direction then these same hedge funds were losing money while everyone else profited. Again, it's a zero sum game.

armabelle wrote:

At the end Steve Carell decides to sell his "swaps" and gives his partner the go-ahead but then he says something I don't understand. He says sadly: "There is going to be a bailout. They always knew there was going to be one and they just didn't care"

He is making reference to competition in the market. There were very few investment houses who were able to invest in derivatives. A bank needed a huge balance sheet to be able to trade in mortgage backed securities or swaps. When there are so few players in the market then they quickly become too big to fail. When Lehman went bankrupt nobody realised how detrimental it was to the other players in the market as they were all owed their money. As a result AIG went into severe financial difficulty. In an attempt to stop the spread the US Treasury stepped in to bailout AIG.

Ironically one of the reactions to the 2008 financial crisis was to increase regulation and force all of the investment banks to trade through a centralised clearing house. That way regulators would have a better understanding of how exposed each player was in the market. The flip side is that investing in derivatives is now becoming too expensive due to red tape so a lot of smaller banks around the world can no longer trade in derivatives. This has inadvertently created more situations were banks are too big to fail. Bailouts are now a certainty if it happens again.

Wanderer78

mahoganygas wrote: »

Bailouts are now a certainty if it happens again.

....and probably bail ins to when it happens again!

walshyn93

armabelle wrote: »

At the end of the Big Short movie, there is a few facts about the crisis of 2008 and how it affected the economy in the USA:

When the dust settled from the collapse, 5 trillion dollars in pension money, real estate value, 401k, savings and bonds disappeared.

In that context where did the money disappear to? Obviously in Ireland is different but perhaps by looking at this in the USA example I can understand it better.

It didn't disappear, it was never there because it's not "money" it's value.

The stock market value is based on future earnings not current assets so it's essentially like a prediction of how much profit will be created by the companies.

For example, Facebook is worth 350 billion. That doesn't mean there's 350 billion in "money" tied up in Facebook's vaults. It means the market values Facebook's future earnings at 350 billion. Facebook could all of a sudden lose all of its users and advertising tomorrow and future earnings would drop to zero. 350 billion of wealth would be lost in theory, but in reality the wealth was never really there.

Pension funds invest in the market in the hopes of reaping those future profits, but when those profits never materialise their investment turns out to be a waste. Hence, the money they invested seems to "disappear", but in reality they just bought something that turned out to be less valuable than what they paid for it.

K-9

armabelle wrote: »

But why would they do this / say this?

Incompetence, Irish obsession with house ownership etc.

What do you think?

walshyn93

K-9 wrote: »

Incompetence, Irish obsession with house ownership etc.

What do you think?

Bloody obsessed, they are. Imagine not pissing away half your earnings for your ENTIRE life. Madness.

armabelle

K-9 wrote: »

Incompetence, Irish obsession with house ownership etc.

What do you think?

I don't think. It would be a waste of time in this case.

armabelle

walshyn93 wrote: »

Bloody obsessed, they are. Imagine not pissing away half your earnings for your ENTIRE life. Madness.

How do you mean? doesn't anybody have a desire to own a home? It is not an obsession is it if it is a primary need.

walshyn93

armabelle wrote: »

How do you mean? doesn't anybody have a desire to own a home? It is not an obsession is it if it is a primary need.

That's my point.

armabelle

walshyn93 wrote: »

That's my point.

not sure I understand, so why do you say it is an obsession or "Bloody obsessed they are"? I wouldn't call wanting to own a home an obsession.

walshyn93

armabelle wrote: »

not sure I understand, so why do you say it is an obsession or "Bloody obsessed they are"? I wouldn't call wanting to own a home an obsession.

I was being sarcastic.

armabelle

walshyn93 wrote: »

I was being sarcastic.

oh ok, sometimes it is easy to miss those

But I have heard mentioned on boards many times that Irish people are obsessed with property so I thought you really were saying this.

K-9

armabelle wrote: »

I don't think. It would be a waste of time in this case.

Well despite the narrative, a good few people did point to a crash coming in Ireland, why were they ignored? Group think, everybody else thought the crash wouldn't happen. Probably the same for previous crashes elsewhere going back to tulips in The Netherlands.

I do think the Big Short gives a decent go at showing the causes for it, greed, deregulation, stupidity, people thinking they were masters of the universe. Sean Fitzpatrick and others here believed their own hype, I think the Matt Cooper book points out lots of these bankers didn't see this coming, lost fortunes in share options.

Look at the golden circle in Anglo. The obvious thing there was to say "hey, we are a bank that has 90% of our business in property, the market knows the emperor has no clothes, we're fecked", instead they tries to prop up the share price, stupidity.

As for houses, we've the highest house ownership levels in Europe, other countries seem to manage fine without the need to own a home. Maybe they're all wrong and we've got it right.

walshyn93

K-9 wrote: »

As for houses, we've the highest house ownership levels in Europe, other countries seem to manage fine without the need to own a home. Maybe they're all wrong and we've got it right.

Yeah, we've definitely got that right. Absolutely beyond question. The rest of Europe is sterile to the extent where they have to import workers. We're actually having children and it's likely because we own houses and have rooms to fill.

K-9

Meanwhile we had one of the biggest property crashes in history.

People paying 500k for 2 bedroom shoe boxes to play mammy and daddy's in to have kids. Hard to debate that logic.

walshyn93

K-9 wrote: »

Meanwhile we had one of the biggest property crashes in history.

People paying 500k for 2 bedroom shoe boxes to play mammy and daddy's in to have kids. Hard to debate that logic.

Germany. A country of people with a positive set of values to pass on to the next generation dying childless and handing over their country to a more fertile but infinitely more regressive culture. Hard to debate that logic.

I'll take the odd bubble over total demographic and social collapse.

tayto lover

armabelle wrote: »

oh ok, sometimes it is easy to miss those

But I have heard mentioned on boards many times that Irish people are obsessed with property so I thought you really were saying this.

Didn't our esteemed leader say that we all went mad that time he spoke in Davos?

djpbarry

walshyn93 wrote: »

Germany. A country of people with a positive set of values to pass on to the next generation dying childless and handing over their country to a more fertile but infinitely more regressive culture. Hard to debate that logic.

I'll take the odd bubble over total demographic and social collapse.

Considering Germany has been experiencing high levels of immigration since, oh I don't know, time immemorial, and they're still an economic powerhouse, I think you might be waiting a while yet for their social collapse.

armabelle

walshyn93 wrote: »

Germany. A country of people with a positive set of values to pass on to the next generation dying childless and handing over their country to a more fertile but infinitely more regressive culture. Hard to debate that logic.

I'll take the odd bubble over total demographic and social collapse.

Are Germans not reproducing?

oscarBravo

armabelle wrote: »

Are Germans not reproducing?

Not nearly enough.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32929962

walshyn93

djpbarry wrote: »

Considering Germany has been experiencing high levels of immigration since, oh I don't know, time immemorial, and they're still an economic powerhouse, I think you might be waiting a while yet for their social collapse.

The premise of your argument is thus:

-Current immigrants are culturally similar to past immigrants. False.

-Current levels of immigration are similar to past levels. False.

-That which is strong now will continue to be strong. False.


Put it this way, if Germany or any major European country just flat out neglected to educate a few million of its children and in fact neglected to even teach them to speak the local language, I think we all agree the consequences would be disastrous. By letting in poorly educated men who speak no German the effects will be the same, plus the added affect of a regressive culture to boot.

Dohnjoe

walshyn93 wrote: »

The premise of your argument is thus:

if Germany or any major European country just flat out neglected to educate a few million of its children and in fact neglected to even teach them to speak the local language

Refugees and immigrants are taught and required to speak German

armabelle

walshyn93 wrote: »

The premise of your argument is thus:

-Current immigrants are culturally similar to past immigrants. False.

-Current levels of immigration are similar to past levels. False.

-That which is strong now will continue to be strong. False.


Put it this way, if Germany or any major European country just flat out neglected to educate a few million of its children and in fact neglected to even teach them to speak the local language, I think we all agree the consequences would be disastrous. By letting in poorly educated men who speak no German the effects will be the same, plus the added affect of a regressive culture to boot.

I think a lot - not all - of immigrants realize the importance of education. I think being an immigrant is probably hard for them. I think some might realize they may have to work and try harder. I think having immigrants might not be bad for Germany or any country. The USA - for example - needs Mexicans and Central Americans for their economy.

djpbarry

walshyn93 wrote: »

By letting in poorly educated men who speak no German the effects will be the same, plus the added affect of a regressive culture to boot.

So you're saying everyone from a certain country is poorly educated and culturally regressive?

There's a word for that...