Bollitics - Ireland, the Euro and the future of the EU

[peterms]

Maybe, but I've moved on quite a bit since then and my horizons have been broadened! Yes the country is in trouble. I may be looking at it from slightly tinted glasses seeing as though I won't really be affected by many of the cuts as I am neither in the public sector, do not own property yet and have a steady enough job that shouldn't be affected by the restrictions imposed by the government.

I think you'd have to be a bit more removed from wider society not to be affected. Maybe if you have a smallholding and are self-sufficient for food and energy that might be a start. Pretty well everyone is going to be affected by not just the direct effects, but the impact on the wider economy for many years to come.

[VillaEire]

I work in the public sector and I am a homeowner

[peterms]

I hear there is growing interest in Ireland in the proposal that the country should wash its hands of private bank debt while making it clear it will not default on sovereign debt. Let the owners of the banks address their own problems, rather than volunteer an unwilling population to do it for them.

Any views from Irish VT'ers on that one?

[CVByrne]

You say that Ireland's economy is different to Germany but why is it?

I think it would be more interesting for you to explain why the Irish and the German economies are similar.

Hmmm let me think

Both in the EU

Both part of the "west"

Both have multi-nationals as part of its infrastructure

Both do a great deal of trade with others around the world

Both are impacted by world events

Both have a reliance on High-Tech industries

etc etc etc

Irish Main industries steel, lead, zinc, silver, aluminium, barite, and gypsum mining processing; food, brewing, textiles, clothing; chemicals, pharmacology; machinery, rail transportation equipment, passenger and commercial vehicles, ship construction and refurbishment; glass and crystal; computer software, tourism

German Main industries iron, steel, coal, cement, chemicals, machinery, vehicles, machine tools, electronics, food and beverages, shipbuilding, textiles

Now Ads, I am very interested to see your thinking why they are not alike. (and P.S. good to see you are a mod and tell us what we can and cannot post)

Differing culture. Irish & British people have a strong drive to own their own home while German and French are happy to rent far more. This results in Irish and British being more indebted while Germans and French would be better savers. Recessions have more impact on sentiment and spending for us than it does them as they can weather these events better.

That the difference.

[CVByrne]

I hear there is growing interest in Ireland in the proposal that the country should wash its hands of private bank debt while making it clear it will not default on sovereign debt. Let the owners of the banks address their own problems, rather than volunteer an unwilling population to do it for them.

Any views from Irish VT'ers on that one?

We're making settlements with subordinated bond holders. Many hedge funds bought up subordinated debt on the cheap after the bank guarantee thinking they will get all of it back. So they bought at 30c on the euro and expected to get 100 back.

We're basically telling them they will get their 30c back or nothing. Choose.

[CVByrne]

I work in the public sector and I am a homeowner

Sorry to hear that. I suppose I'd classify as polar opposite to you being an AIB employee renting and with savings. The level of mis management of this country by so few. It's staggering. I think the imf will be what the country needs. The fact there is no accountability is pretty hard to take.

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

**** it, hit the pub.

[Meath_Villan]

As I said the public sector had to be looked at and it has altho the croke park agreement is still inplace

Im not against the public sector they are people as well most on the bottom rung of the pay scale .

The whole default on bank debt is been thrown around as leverage to the ecb and imf to make sure we get an interest rate below 5%

I follow that dave mcwilliams fellow on face smack and he was saying we should do a debt/equity swop with the banks/bondholders.

Anyway the reduction in the min wage will just mean more people will join the welfare and the budget in a week or two will equate to less beer money ..

Merry Christmas

[Corcaigh]

There goes 12.5% of my weekly income, i guess i don't have to eat, turn on the heating or leave the house on the day before payday.

Even more ridiculous is that new entrants into the public service will be paid less for the same job as those already in there, what a joke.

Thanks FF you words removed, London here i come.

[CVByrne]

It's hardly the end of the world. That's why there are is no big civil unrest, we're all new to money anyway. Everyone who is working now grew up in the 80's or earlier when we were all piss poor. We all grew up in far worse times than this.

We'll recover, we have the three things needed, EU membership, the euro and 12.5% corporation tax.

[Meath_Villan]

Looks like Portugal Is going down the tubes FAST....bring on spain

[peterms]

Our Irish readers may appreciate the references in this one.

[CVByrne]

Our Irish readers may appreciate the references in this one.

The point is only people from abroad will care about rubbish like that. I think you'll find we are rather acceptance with our fate. We know we caused it ourselves. That is why there are nothing more than token demonstrations.

As said above, "**** it, hit the pub."

[peterms]

I think you'll find we are rather acceptance with our fate. We know we caused it ourselves. That is why there are nothing more than token demonstrations.

Weren't there over 100,000 people protesting on the streets of Dublin some 20 months ago?

And surely more demonstrations are being planned right now, eg Parnell Square in a week's time?

Not sure who you mean by "we" when you say we caused it ourselves. If it's the banks, I agree. If you mean the Irish people, I disagree.

[Awol]

Not sure who you mean by "we" when you say we caused it ourselves. If it's the banks, I agree. If you mean the Irish people, I disagree.

I think the Irish people have a degree of (limited) responsibility in the sense that those mad mortgages and personal loans didn't take themselves out. However is your average person interested enough in politics and international finance to really question the sustainability and wisdom of uber low interest rates? When politicians, banks and media are all saying great it all is thern why should they? Very few in the UK did so I don't why we'd expect the Irish to be any different.

The banks have arsed everything up by creating the conditions for a massively unsustainable private debt bubble, egged on and aided by politicians. Interesting to note that when some time ago the Irish did actually request that the ECB raised interest rates they were told 'no' because it didn't suit Germany...

Still, it seems the Irish aren't going to reject the budget and so the markets will move onto Portugal as they continue to hound the bad debt through the system. This is the last country that can realistically be bailed out by the EU and when they get to Spain then the wheels totally come off.

All we are seeing is the EU moving IOU's from one pocket to another and pretending things are okay. The issue is the solvency of the banks, and through nationalising their debts, the solvency of entire countries. It's a farce and quite soon the EU won't be able to keep up the pretence anymore.

[Lombardo]

I think you'll find we are rather acceptance with our fate. We know we caused it ourselves. That is why there are nothing more than token demonstrations.

Weren't there over 100,000 people protesting on the streets of Dublin some 20 months ago?

And surely more demonstrations are being planned right now, eg Parnell Square in a week's time?

Not sure who you mean by "we" when you say we caused it ourselves. If it's the banks, I agree. If you mean the Irish people, I disagree.

The Irish people did have a role to play in the whole mess. At the end of the day we voted the current government into power when we saw that things were looking a bit dodgy(previous Taoiseach being involved in tribunal's etc). We didn't say no when we saw the overspending that was going on in several different area's such as the banks and housing development. Irish people got greedy and thought that the boom would never end. The main reason so many people are in dire straits at the moment is because they went gung ho into an environment where the building trade was booming. People bought multiple houses, presuming that they would serve as pension funds for them when they grew old. We didnt question anything when it came to expenditure and surely you can see that is one of the main causes of the current crisis we are now in.

[CVByrne]

Yeah there are protests but considering the state of our country the protests are only token, very civil and 90% made up of public sector workers who to be fair have become very content and very silent in the post half year as the true scale of the mess becomes apparent.

It was the foreign press who were over when the imf and eu were meeting the government last week that quizzed our journalists as to why there were only very small protests at government buildings (basically just the nut jobs and scum like sinn fein).

But they are right, there is no riots, there is not strikes, there is little civil unrest. Only in ireland could this government last this long.

So I'm right, we are in acceptance of our fate because we are not going back to the 80's, we've had a party now we're during the hangover.

Also I suppose given our very high social welfare payments (single person on the dole gets €870 or £740 a month before other benefits like rent relief, mortgage relief etc.) would make unemployment more bearable than many other countries too.

Also the Public sector have no compulsory redundancies and have on the majority have taken pay cuts that are less than the level of deflation.

All these contribute to the low level of unrest. People are angry but not angry enough to do much.

[peterms]

The Irish people did have a role to play in the whole mess. At the end of the day we voted the current government into power when we saw that things were looking a bit dodgy(previous Taoiseach being involved in tribunal's etc). We didn't say no when we saw the overspending that was going on in several different area's such as the banks and housing development. Irish people got greedy and thought that the boom would never end. The main reason so many people are in dire straits at the moment is because they went gung ho into an environment where the building trade was booming. People bought multiple houses, presuming that they would serve as pension funds for them when they grew old. We didnt question anything when it came to expenditure and surely you can see that is one of the main causes of the current crisis we are now in.

Yes, I agree there's a degree of blame that people must accept. However, it's on the level of being too ready to accept what they were being told, not looking a gift horse in the mouth, and in hindsight many people will feel they have been gullible, greedy, or both. They were deceived, but they were willing to be deceived, perhaps.

I think that's an entirely different level of responsibility than the banks, a wholly different order of magnitude. I don't think the Irish people are completely blameless, but in comparison to the banks, their degree of responsibility is so small that the very idea of them accepting hardship to bale out the banks is ludicrous.

[Demitri_C]

i really feel for them because its so expensive over there how are people going to survive?

i have friends and they are already talking about moving to england because of lack of work, let it begin the whole uk crumbles

[peterms]

People are angry but not angry enough to do much.

I see there's some doubt among members of the government about whether this will last:

rish ministers are so concerned over protests that austerity plans to cut chauffeur driven cars and police outriders have been shelved to protect the government amid heightened post-EU bail-out security...

...Cabinet ministers have warned Brian Cowen, the Irish Prime Minister, that unless he resigns quickly the government faces “terrible aggression and anger amongst the people”.