Is everybody broke?

I feel since the lockdown the economy seems very fickle, like it's being artificially propped-up. In San Francisco, large full retail/office blocks that sold for over $67 million before covid can barely achieve $7 million today.

There's full employment here and people are earning decent wages apparently, yet . . no one I know is flush with cash. I'm self employed and continually chasing me tail. Everything is so bloody expensive.

New one but happened twice so far this week: Standard recruiter "reaching out" message about some open position they are trying to fill. Both instances this week have outright offered a "pay rise".

A) I have never spoken to these people, they have no idea of what salary I am currently earning.

B) These are external recruiters not connected to a business but are seemingly confident they can extend whatever offer they need to constitute a rise.

Have heard of similar desperation across other industries too. I would say there's an awful lot of "heat" in the market yet. Scarcity of skilled workers just like housing will prevent a recession as such, but a lot of peripheral industries will definitely take a "haircut".

It wasn't, but it is becoming increasingly so. The trouble with Ireland is that whenever there's a boom, it all winds up in the property market.

Then when there's a downturn, folk start saying "well they shouldn't have loaned me the money" or somesuch.

FWIW, the owner of one of the very popular cafe restaurants in salthill told me a month ago that he thought people were starting to feel the pinch.

Wages are very high here compared to elsewhere in the world, but so is the cost of living, and personal tax rates.

The younger set love Shein, in spite of them being terrible for the environment.

If sizes don't work out, they haven't spent a heap, and the reject goes in the bin or charity shop.

2.5k a month is insane but all too common.

I have many issues with social housing and the way it's currently delivered and allocated but we really need to look east at Vienna and be implementing something very similar.

Massive investment required but the state essentially becomes a huge permanent rental agent and it provides a regular stream of income.

im not actually convinced they ll be another 08 type situation any time soon, i could of course be completely wrong but i think we ll just keep motoring on, with slight ups and downs, but what we probably will continue to see is rapidly rising social and political unrest, as more and more continue to feel all of these strains in order to meet essential and critical needs such as housing etc, its very clear now, the metrics we use to measure our economical well being, have very little meaning to the average person, theyve largely decoupled now, whereby these metrics only truly communicate the well being of wealthy minorities, and everyone else feels like theyre living in an alternate reality…..

…messy messy….

No. one in ten households have on average €3053 of disposable income per week. There are plenty out there doing absolutely fine.

It's still something you have earned not an extreme privilege.

The normal mortgage payer is not a big player in the property market.

They can lose as well as win as we found out in the last crash.

At the end of the day they just have a home to live in when the mortgage is paid.

The average disposable (i.e. post tax) household income in the 5th decile is €50500 per year. While half have less, half have more. While many are struggling with costs, many many people are quite ok too.

There's so many variables in this debate but the people I think who are really struggling are those who have to rent but their income is slightly above the threshold for Hap and other supports

plenty guzzling class a's such as cocaine to……

The question posed at the start of the thread was "is everybody broke?". Clearly that's not the case, only a minority are.

The majority are not earning €50k per year, but the average disposable household annual income in the 5th decile exceeds €50k (just)- this controls for outlier large salaries. This means that half of households have at least €50k of post tax income for household expenses.

At risk of poverty and consistent poverty are 11% and 4% respectively. Lots of people are fairly comfortable, we are a long way from everyone being broke.

In Dublin anyway it's hard to get a table in many restaurants these days on short notice. Everywhere seems rammed at the weekends. Some people are struggling and some are thriving is how it looks to me.