Will Ireland be better after the recession?

Senna · 05-12-2008 3:28am #1

So the recession is hiking up the unemployment figures and the country is turning greyer and greyer by the day, but will we be in better shape after the recession?

Lets face it, we were/are being ripped off at every turn, houses were being bought so they could be sold 6 months later for a profit, a bottle of wine that costs less than €10 in an off-license was costing €40 or more in a restaurant, you had to pay €100 an hour for any tradesman, and for the cost of a petrol station sandwich you could have bought the ingredients for 10 sandwiches.

Will this recession kill the rip-off and greed culture?

NADA · 05-12-2008 3:30am

Definately. Thing is most people don't realise how serious this recession is! We're heading back to the stone age. I know thats hard to believe but it's happening!

Fighting Irish · 05-12-2008 3:32am

Country is ****ed either way, i can't think of one thing in this country that is getting better

For a while we all had more money, but the country was still balls

Senna · 05-12-2008 3:34am

Fighting Irish wrote: »

For a while we all had more money

yeah but whose money, not our own anyway.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock · 05-12-2008 3:35am

"After" the recession...? Surely, you mean "during" the recession?

"After" the recession, in 2016, Fianna Fail, having been returned for the fifth consevutive election, will claim congratulations for steering Ireland through testing times and will renege on thir promise of reducing the tax rate to 35%. And we'll give up talking to our neighbours again.

deleriumtremens · 05-12-2008 3:35am

I would imagine so. I think the recession will bring peope back to reality and force them to live by the means they were naturally meant to live buy ie. no more bmw's outside council houses and builders earning a lot less than doctors.

I'd say in about a year, the celtic tiger will have seemed like a such a distant memory...a crazy, greedy, unnatural, seemingly-too-good-to-be-true spending frenzy but nobody was complaining while it was happening! But thats just human nature I supose!

anonymous_joe · 05-12-2008 3:38am

I think we're suffering here more than we deserve. Our economy was propelled along merrily by the construction sector, that was always going to slow down.

We were just insanely unlucky that it coincided with the American banks deciding to act like cretins.

rossie1977 · 05-12-2008 3:40am

Fighting Irish wrote: »

Country is ****ed either way, i can't think of one thing in this country that is getting better

the roads, come 2010-2012 we will have full motorways all the way to galway, limerick, cork not 2 mile stretches ala athlone/mullingar bypasses that turn into windy bendy country roads with grass growing down the middle

deleriumtremens · 05-12-2008 3:44am

NADA wrote: »

Definately. Thing is most people don't realise how serious this recession is! We're heading back to the stone age. I know thats hard to believe but it's happening!

Exactly. People intuitively think that woeful economic conditions are something you only see in the history books. I wonder if anybody can tell me ( an 18 year old) whether or not the nightly news reports from the 70's and 80's were practically always about the state of the economy. Since about july the main news items have almost always been about financial matters whereas 3 or 4 years ago the only economic news we would get was that fat b'astard alan cantwell saying, and thinking back now it infuriates me how spoiled and ungrateful people my age were( not me, i swear!), that "we've never had it better". Oww it annoys me because it was inevitable.

Your right nada, there are catastophic times ahead. Our economy, aswell as many others, is going to go back to the bad old times, and they were bad my dad will tell me. But the current generation is just accustommed to that kinda stuff not happening in their lifetimes.

One Cold Hand · 05-12-2008 3:49am

rossie1977 wrote: »

the roads, come 2010-2012 we will have full motorways all the way to galway, limerick, cork not 2 mile stretches ala athlone/mullingar bypasses that turn into windy bendy country roads with grass growing down the middle

Haha! You honestly think that will happen on time and under budget?!?
They could build the goddammed Spike on time, how are they supposed to build a motorway network?

rossie1977 · 05-12-2008 3:57am

One Cold Hand wrote: »

Haha! You honestly think that will happen on time and under budget?!?
They could build the goddammed Spike on time, how are they supposed to build a motorway network?

yeah i do, probably because the people charged with building the network are not irish :P most of the projects so far completed are well under budget and about a year early e.g. athlone to dublin motorway

theesicko · 05-12-2008 4:20am

NADA wrote: »

Definately. Thing is most people don't realise how serious this recession is! We're heading back to the stone age. I know thats hard to believe but it's happening!

Hard to believe because its not true.. It really pisses me off when people say this without any knowledge of the situation we're in. Tell me what you know and why you think we're going back to the stone age? I'm a business student and I know that a lot of people are over estimating the costs of this recession.

05-12-2008 7:40am

theesicko wrote: »

Hard to believe because its not true.. It really pisses me off when people say this without any knowledge of the situation we're in. Tell me what you know and why you think we're going back to the stone age? I'm a business student and I know that a lot of people are over estimating the costs of this recession.

This "recession" is a direct result of over consumption of credit by consumers.

People borrowing vast amounts, way in excess of what they can comfortably payback, institutions giving mortgages to those that have no chance of paying back the loans.

Banks trading debts between themselves, in ever increasing amounts - then the money ran out!

The whole pack of cards is collapsing around out ears as we speak, people have less money to spend, shops can't sell, goods pile up outside factories, mass lay-off/redundency, more people with less money etc.

The cost of almost everything will fall, along with the salaries of most workers.

Reduced interest rates will help people to repay some of the debt, but few will take on more debt in case they lose their job. The next for or five years will be painful for many, especially those who have only ever known the good times and paid for it with next years christmas bonus!

Highsider · 05-12-2008 9:17am

This recession is one of the best things to happen to this country. A lot of the fools living well beyond their means are being brought back down to earth with a bang. Had to laugh my ass off the other evening when i ran into my friends sister who had a 1500 a month rent payment as well as a car repayment (07 mini cooper:rolleyes:) of 650 euro per month. I know for a fact the silly twat was only on 500-550 a week wages anyways before she lost her job a few weeks back. She was complaining and looking for sympathy that she couldnt live like she wanted (NY shopping trips every xmas,going out on the town 3 nights a week) :pac:, i told her to her face that she needed to kop on to herself pronto. She took that as an insult. Says it all really.

SimpleSam06 · 05-12-2008 9:24am

Domo230 wrote: »

However socially im sure well seemany changes especially with the young of the country.

What worries me is the possiblity of a backlash against immigrants of various sorts. When you have numbers on the dole climbing daily, people looking at the huge population of Eastern Europeans in the country working in every shop, hotel and pub among others, and sending every penny they can home, it could turn nasty.

Kashkai · 05-12-2008 9:45am

Its still not as bad the the 80's (yet!). When I left school in 1986, despite having a good leaving cert, I only managed to get a job in a supermarket stacking shelves, sweeping floors etc for the princely sum of £65 a week and compared to most of my schoolfriends, I was doing well.

The crop of celtic tiger cubs who were born and "grew up" (sarcasm there folks) in the past 20 years are the ones who are gobsmacked by the downturn in the economy as they've never known anything different to a lifestyle of spend, spend, spend and when the cash runs out, get a loan and a credit card to spend some more. I know a couple of lads in their mid 20's who thought nothing of spending €50 on a haircut in Peter Marks, blowing €150 on a night out and €1,000 on a weekend in New York when I knew that they were only earning about €30,000 a year. While living with mammy and daddy probably helped them maintain that lifestyle, there will come a time when they will have to leave their parent's nest and live on their own means and what a kick in the hole awaits them.

Personally, I see my mortgage repayments dropping like a stone (tracker mortgage for me so I'll get the rate cuts for sure), customer service in garages for example improving in spades, prices in shops finally coming down (although I still shop online as its cheaper) and Aldi/Lidl kicking the arrogance out of Dunnes and Tescos. I don't think its all doom and gloom and to be honest, if this "downturn" helps bring back some of the things that made this country a nice place to live in (i.e. more "hello, how are you" than "my house is worth millions", or "I'm off on my 5th foreign holiday"), then maybe this cloud does have a silver lining.

FlutterinBantam · 05-12-2008 10:25am

As least it might reduce the number of skangers driving around in big 4WDs and those fcukin pinheads with their pimped up Honda Civics:mad:

Will Ireland be better after the recession?

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