Ireland in recession

drunkmonkey · 27-09-2008 1:38am

gixerfixer wrote: »

Get rid of FF...pronto.

as much as i'd like to see the whole party incarcerated for banditry there's no party out there to replace them with.....

I hope the economy is not the driving force is the new lean green Ireland were about to create. We and the world need a new outlook, a better place for people, where wars are fought in video games, nurses are trianed in hospitals, doctors will run the health service, teachers sit a yearly exam, ryanair is state owned, a pint of plain is €1 and we swap spuds for oil....

What we need now is a hero, a man (or woman) to step out from the crowd and plot a people & pocket friendly course for this wonderfull Island of ours.....but how can we ever find them with the current political theatre?

We need a new political party, it's the only way! I suggest David Mc Williams, Eddie Hobbs, Larry Mullen, Liz O'Donnell, Trevor Sargent, Ben Dunne and Michael O'Leary start a new party....

nesf · 27-09-2008 2:49am

drunkmonkey wrote: »

doctors will run the health service

Eh, doctors are in no way trained in how to run a hospital, not to mention a bureaucratic monolith like the health service, doctors running the thing would be bad in a whole number of ways...

damnyanks · 27-09-2008 10:22am

It's concerning that we are the first EU Country to fall into recession. It's also concerning because who controls our interest rates?

Action to resolve the problem will be slow. I really do think we're beginning to see a very long and painful few years. Hope I'm wrong.

eamonnm79 · 27-09-2008 12:34pm

I hope you are wrong too but I dont think you are.

I think the fall out for Ireland hasnt even started yet.

As Nesf pointed out in the Business post article, our private debt is staggering. 94k euro per person. America is 132k dollars per person. roughly the same.

In America they are feeling big pain because the forclosures have started en mass. It hasnt started here in big numbers yet, but it will. It has to with all the job losses. That will put the banks in huge problems. They are way over leveredged for the current climate. All this talk of America being different is completely wrong. Our house prices have gone up way more than America in the last ten years.

BTW I am a fan of Mc Williams. For starters He tries to tell it how it is rather than constantly putting a positive slant.
Most analyists justify putting an over positve slant as confidence is such an important factor in the economy.

gurramok · 27-09-2008 12:50pm

nesf wrote: »

It's like that each day a guy stops you on the street and tells you it'll rain tomorrow and after being wrong for a week, suddenly he is right. Does this make his prediction the day before any better than any one that he'd uttered previously?

Not comparable.

Anyone with an ounce of sense could see that if you have a huge housing bubble with about 25% of your economy based on construction related activity at the peak, you are going to have a recession when that bubble bursts.

Économiste Monétaire · 27-09-2008 12:57pm

eamonnm79 wrote:

All this talk of America being different is completely wrong. Our house prices have gone up way more than America in the last ten years.

Asset bubble in Ireland bursting, and the subsequent drop in tax revenue and domestic demand, is =/= Lemons model problem in relation to MBS, and overall problem with the securitisation of mortgages.

27-09-2008 12:58pm

Point is, shouting 'Recession! Recession! Recession!' doesn't mean you predicted it.

It means you saw it coming.

Think of this, you are standing on a motorway and you see a truck coming. You want a lift but you also want to buy a drink. Now it is clear that a truck is coming, but that is very different to predicting when the truck will come. Having that skill allows you to cross the road and buy a drink and you know how long you can spend buying your drink without missing the truck.

In terms of this analogy, standing at the side of road shouting (A truck is coming! A truck is coming!) doesn't really help anyone nor does is differentiate from other people (as they can also see the truck). It was the glorious and illustrious ESRI who predicted the recession (truck) in this case as they gave quantifiable info rather then 'gut feeling' / stating the obvious.

nesf · 27-09-2008 1:14pm

gurramok wrote: »

Not comparable.

Anyone with an ounce of sense could see that if you have a huge housing bubble with about 25% of your economy based on construction related activity at the peak, you are going to have a recession when that bubble bursts.

You miss my point, I'm talking about the timing element of prediction which is extremely important. Making predictions without timing is fairly useless.

As an example, I predict a recovery from this downturn. Anyone with an ounce of sense knows that there will be one and can see that. Should I get credit when this inevitable recovery happens? In other fields I also predict a White Christmas at some point, Fianna Fail going into opposition and then getting back into Government and rain on my birthday in mid July.

asdasd · 27-09-2008 1:25pm

You miss my point, I'm talking about the timing element of prediction which is extremely important. Making predictions without timing is fairly useless.

it is impossible to time in a lunatic boom. If property is overvalued for 5 years then for 5 years the naysayers sound like lunatics, and the promoters of the boom sound rational. This is the nature of the boom, of all irrational bubbles. During the tulip mania the people who argued that they were overvalued in the first, second, third, fourth year ( etc. I dont know how long it lasted) would sound like crazies, like end-of-worlders while the snake-oil salesmen would sound rational - after all they were right for years.

McWilliams did not just "predict" that one day we would have a recession, he predicted the cause ( property) and brought attention ( at least to a wider audience) to the incredible private debt owned in this country and it's exponential growth - growth which was still exponential recently( i.e. 15.8 % in April this year).

This is hardly the mere claim that there will be a recession someday in the future.

Basically the "stopped clock" brigade are saying that McWilliams was wrong in 2001, in 2002 etc. He wasn't. Property was overvalued then, as now, and prices will - at best - fall to the real levels of the turn of the millenium. At best.

nesf · 27-09-2008 1:34pm

asdasd wrote: »

it is impossible to time in a lunatic boom. If property is overvalued for 5 years then for 5 years the naysayers sound like lunatics, and the promoters of the boom sound rational. This is the nature of the boom, of all irrational bubbles.

The problem wasn't that naysayers were saying that property was overvalued, it was that they were predicting the bursting of the bubble on nothing more evidence than property being overvalued which in a bubble isn't very accurate or useful. Predictions without timing aren't very impressive.

asdasd wrote: »

McWilliams did not just "predict" that one day we would have a recession, he predicted the cause ( property) and brought attention ( at least to a wider audience) to the incredible private debt owned in this country and it's exponential growth - growth which was still exponential recently( i.e. 15.8 % in April this year).

This is hardly the mere claim that there will be a recession someday in the future.

Basically the "stopped clock" brigade are saying that McWilliams was wrong in 2001, in 2002 etc. He wasn't. Property was overvalued then, as now, and prices will - at best - fall to the real levels of the turn of the millenium. At best.

Why is the bubble bursting though, and ask yourself, is it the bubble bursting that has put us into this recession or is it the same external factor that burst the bubble that is also plunging us into recession? The bursting bubble could be as much a side effect as the recession itself. Causality is important here, correlation can be misleading.

Think of it this way, if interest rates rise and credit availability decreases markedly, an asset bubble will tend to burst or at least to putter out. The thing is, why are the interest rates rising and why has credit availability decreased? Are these the cause of the recession/downturn or is the bursting bubble? Does it make any sense to predict the bubble to burst rather than to predict what will cause it to burst and what this, rather than the bubble, will do to the rest of the economy.

gurramok · 27-09-2008 1:38pm

nesf wrote: »

You miss my point, I'm talking about the timing element of prediction which is extremely important. Making predictions without timing is fairly useless.

As an example, I predict a recovery from this downturn. Anyone with an ounce of sense knows that there will be one and can see that. Should I get credit when this inevitable recovery happens? In other fields I also predict a White Christmas at some point, Fianna Fail going into opposition and then getting back into Government and rain on my birthday in mid July.

Well, of course it was going to happen, some of us knew it would happen within a certain timeframe while others fundamentally disagreed that it will happen at all.
That's what i'm stating. The ESRI was quoted in a post, they came out with their prediction was it around March while some posters here predicted this up to 2 years ago within a timeframe of 2-3yrs before the ESRI even mentioned the R word.
Now the ESRI don't have a great record of predicting, they keep revising every so often their growth figures.

Yes, big difference between predicting this recession and a white christmas. The recession was predicted by some posters within accuracy while a white christmas cannot be predicted at all, its random.

That's about timing within reason and looking at the data available. Those of us who stated that the R word is coming before the ESRI did were ridiculed with deaf ears, remember?

asdasd · 27-09-2008 1:41pm

is it the bubble bursting that has put us into this recession or is it the same external factor that burst the bubble that is also plunging us into recession?

Isnt the evidence on this clear? The Irish housing market stalled when the ECB increased interest rates - with the inevitable lag. That clearly made most BTL properties uneconomic ( although last years increase in rents - the first in the millenium - were probably a reaction by landlords to increases in mortgage repayments, that can only last if demand exceeds supply which it doesnt).

The global credit crunch - I doubt it. I was offered 6-8 times salary late last year ( this was unsolicited I was in the bank for other reasons). Havent tried this year but I have no evidence that the entire mortgage market is seized up. In any case there would be a lag, if the global credit crunch is going to affect the housing market in Ireland it will reflected in the y-to-y drop from this year on.

gurramok · 27-09-2008 1:49pm

The bubble burst in mid 2006. The credit crunch came in August 2007, a whole year ahead. That's why this is a domestically lead recession which was based on too much construction related activity for overpriced land, commercial and housing.

International factors cannot be fully blamed for the recession as they came much later and even have not fully hit us yet.

nesf · 27-09-2008 1:59pm

gurramok wrote: »

Well, of course it was going to happen, some of us knew it would happen within a certain timeframe while others fundamentally disagreed that it will happen at all.
That's what i'm stating. The ESRI was quoted in a post, they came out with their prediction was it around March while some posters here predicted this up to 2 years ago within a timeframe of 2-3yrs before the ESRI even mentioned the R word.
Now the ESRI don't have a great record of predicting, they keep revising every so often their growth figures.

Yes, big difference between predicting this recession and a white christmas. The recession was predicted by some posters within accuracy while a white christmas cannot be predicted at all, its random.

That's about timing within reason and looking at the data available. Those of us who stated that the R word is coming before the ESRI did were ridiculed with deaf ears, remember?

You're still missing my point, though possibly that's because I'm not making it clear rather than any fault on your part.

In logic there's a formal fallacy called affirming the consequent. It basically means that if given a statement "If X then Y" and Y happens that you assume that X is right. It's a serious problem in the realm of prediction because if you are not wary of it you can affirm any prediction simply because the result happens. For instance, if a year ago I predicted that a recession would happen within a year because of Ireland not winning the Eurovision we'd all agree that it was silly and no one would give it any extra weight just because a recession happened this year. The thing is that predicting an event, and giving a cause, doesn't mean that you are right if that event does indeed happen. It's only in retrospect where we can examine the actual causes of the event can we (with error) separate the good predictions from the bad ones and learn which forms of prediction to use in the future.

This undermines many of the predictions that happened to coincide with the present recession simply because the explanation of why we would go into a recession simply aren't valid. As a basic separation of good and bad predictions, any prediction that failed to simultaneously predict a global downturn can be tossed aside since as not having been confirmed simply because their explanation is missing a crucial and major element of the cause of this recession (and honestly, such predictions show an unawareness of the openness of this economy and its high level of foreign companies which expose us to the global economy to a huge extent and anyone not factoring this in doesn't have a good grasp of our economy to begin with).

The second problem is that given a group of recession predictions, a fair amount of them (if given generous timing requirements like 2-3 years) will be right purely by chance and not by any skill of prediction on the part of the predictor. This again undermines successful predictions since we have to assume that many of them have been right purely by luck and not because of some intrinsic power of prediction.

There are more points but I'm just trying to highlight a problem with the logic of "we predicted it would happen, and it did, so we are vindicated."

nesf · 27-09-2008 2:07pm

asdasd wrote: »

Isnt the evidence on this clear? The Irish housing market stalled when the ECB increased interest rates - with the inevitable lag. That clearly made most BTL properties uneconomic ( although last years increase in rents - the first in the millenium - were probably a reaction by landlords to increases in mortgage repayments, that can only last if demand exceeds supply which it doesnt).

The global credit crunch - I doubt it. I was offered 6-8 times salary late last year ( this was unsolicited I was in the bank for other reasons). Havent tried this year but I have no evidence that the entire mortgage market is seized up. In any case there would be a lag, if the global credit crunch is going to affect the housing market in Ireland it will reflected in the y-to-y drop from this year on.

gurramok wrote: »

The bubble burst in mid 2006. The credit crunch came in August 2007, a whole year ahead. That's why this is a domestically lead recession which was based on too much construction related activity for overpriced land, commercial and housing.

International factors cannot be fully blamed for the recession as they came much later and even have not fully hit us yet.

Is it the international factors that tipped this over from being a severe slowdown to a recession though? Are we looking at a combination of factors, rather than just the bubble bursting, when we're looking at what's causing this recession? Is the bubble bursting a necessary, and not a sufficient, cause for the recession etc? Is the bubble bursting being worsened by international conditions?

My point is that are we making a mistake when we look at this recession solely in the context of the bubble bursting, or should we be looking at a broader economic picture here.

gurramok · 27-09-2008 2:35pm

I'd agree of the following : Is the bubble bursting being worsened by international conditions?

Thing is, the international conditions in the form of the crunch has not even hit the banking sector severely yet. They will still lend a borrower several times their income in some cases(from anecdotal and Accomodation forum for example). And then the banks will have to contend with the writing off of bad debts domestically from property as well as a crunch, it ain't looking good.

The economy is being hammered from 3 sides:

The exchange rates(full affect)
The credit crunch (partial affect so far)
The domestic housing bubble bursting.(full affect)

The international conditions of the falling sterling/dollar since last year has indeed affected exports to a degree, that is true.

If the crunch did not happen until now, it will still be a recession as we wean ourselves of construction related activity which needs to be slashed in half to be comparable with normal European economies.(bar Spain as they are in same bubble boat)

Prof John Fitzgerald of the ESRI once said to RTE in April 2007:
"We have allowed building construction to grow too rapidly and take up too big a share of the economy," the Economic and Social Research Institute's professor John FitzGerald (son of Garret and elder brother of Mark, chairman of estate agents Sherry FitzGerald) told the presenter, business journalist Richard Curran. "We are out on a limb at this stage; getting down off it is going to be delicate without hurting ourselves."

So, this recession is been made worse by whats happening in Wall st, that's the unfortunate part. The ESRI agree that it will take at least another year for the economy to get over this recession with readjustment from construction related activity to export related activities(depends on govt policy if it this bears fruit), that i agree with.

daveirl · 27-09-2008 4:03pm

This post has been deleted.

Mark200 · 27-09-2008 8:35pm

daveirl wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Yeah

It's depressing

One of my friends, his dad was in the construction industry and was let go. He hasn't been able to get a job since.

My best friend, she lives with her mam.....her mam is a single parent like, and she's afraid of losing her job because her boss let 7 people go the other week.

My uncle has been doing very well over the years, who works in a car dealership....but now the cars aren't selling in the last 6 months and the owners of the business say if things don't pick they'll have to close down completely.

nesf · 27-09-2008 11:29pm

gurramok wrote: »

So, this recession is been made worse by whats happening in Wall st, that's the unfortunate part. The ESRI agree that it will take at least another year for the economy to get over this recession with readjustment from construction related activity to export related activities(depends on govt policy if it this bears fruit), that i agree with.

I'd honestly be very surprised if the economy got over this recession in a year. We dependent on the global economy to get us out of this really, and I really doubt that we'll get any boost up until the US etc start picking up again, whatever the Government try to do. We're an extremely open economy, our course in many ways is plotted by people who we've no control or influence over.

Run_to_da_hills · 28-09-2008 10:27am

I can see the Exchequer in greater trouble during this recession compaired to that of the 80ies. The old reliables that were a great cash cow in the past are being killed off.

Livestyles have now changed, many people have turned away from the drinking culture (Recent lawa have not helped, IE Smoking Ban, heavy handed public order offenses and early night club closing). Also excessive high mortgages and rents have fforced people to stay in. about 25% of the pubs in Ennis have closed for good in the last five years.

damnyanks · 28-09-2008 11:08am

nesf wrote: »

I'd honestly be very surprised if the economy got over this recession in a year. We dependent on the global economy to get us out of this really, and I really doubt that we'll get any boost up until the US etc start picking up again, whatever the Government try to do. We're an extremely open economy, our course in many ways is plotted by people who we've no control or influence over.

The main problem coming from the financial sector is that their problems are far from over. Since the US have agreed their new funding deal some normality will return to their area of the world.

That should hopefully remove them as a problem within the next 18 months which then leaves the government to its own devices to rescue the economy.

leninbenjamin · 28-09-2008 12:08pm

i notice some people still saying that we've only been partially hit by the international credit crunch... well that's bullplop. Just because the credit crunch only started making news in recent weeks doesn't mean people haven't being seeing it's effects. Companies in Ireland started to suffer from the credit crunch way back in 2007 when the run on Northern Rock occurred, i've seen this first hand. you cannot disentangle it from our current situation; yes we had peaked and had started a down turn but it wouldn't have been half as bad as this if it weren't for the credit crunch. We are a highly open economy, any global downturn tends to hit us worse than anywhere else because we don't have the domestic markets to keep us ticking over.

SkepticOne · 28-09-2008 12:21pm

Just on the house price bubble thing. I think the problem was not that people could not accurately predict when it would burst (nearly impossible thing to do anyway) but that people refused to believe that there would be any burst. Because the bubble had gone on so long people stopped seeing the risk. A common argument made was "if it is a bubble surely it would have burst by now?" The general belief out there at the time was that the rate of increase would slow, that prices would either stop rising or that the rate of growth would moderate.

What we have in Ireland now is a house price bubble bursting combined with an international credit crunch. We would still have a recession due to the Irish house price bubble bursting but it more severe due to external factors. The two of course are related. The Irish bubble has been made possible partly by the availability of cheap credit internationally and this international credit bubble has also burst.

SkepticOne · 28-09-2008 12:27pm

leninbenjamin wrote: »

i notice some people still saying that we've only been partially hit by the international credit crunch... well that's bullplop. Just because the credit crunch only started making news in recent weeks doesn't mean people haven't being seeing it's effects. Companies in Ireland started to suffer from the credit crunch way back in 2007 when the run on Northern Rock occurred, i've seen this first hand. you cannot disentangle it from our current situation; yes we had peaked and had started a down turn but it wouldn't have been half as bad as this if it weren't for the credit crunch. We are a highly open economy, any global downturn tends to hit us worse than anywhere else because we don't have the domestic markets to keep us ticking over.

One thing that would have happened regardless of the international credit crunch is the contraction of building from 90,000 units a year down to the current estimated 30,000 for the simple reason that 90,000 a year is unsustainable. Since so much of the economy was tied up in construction and related industries, this alone is sufficient to cause recession.

It was about August or September 2007 that credit crunch started actually effecting money lent in Ireland but the collapse of construction had already started.

asdasd · 28-09-2008 1:06pm

Also excessive high mortgages and rents have fforced people to stay in

I think that was true. sometime during the boom it got easier to get a seat in Dublin pubs on a Saturday, past 8 O'Clock. Until then it was impossible. About 2003 i think. I reckon that most people with mortgages have abandoned the city centre for the suburbs on weekends anyway, travel being the other factor.

drunkmonkey · 28-09-2008 1:07pm

SkepticOne wrote: »

What we have in Ireland now is a house price bubble bursting

I think it's more of a slow puncture than a burst bubble, The bubble is still 7/8 full. How long before it goes flat? Can anyone predict that?

asdasd · 28-09-2008 1:11pm

It's not that slow, DM. 10% per year, nominally is quite a drop in prices,and this seems set to accelerate. The drop in prices in the UK is greater than - in a year - the drop in the early nineties across three years.

SkepticOne · 28-09-2008 1:51pm

drunkmonkey wrote: »

I think it's more of a slow puncture than a burst bubble, The bubble is still 7/8 full. How long before it goes flat? Can anyone predict that?

I should have said bursting. I would agree that we are still at a very early stage of the process although things happen at a much slower rate in the housing market as opposed to, say, the stock market. A crash in the stock market might take days or weeks but takes years in the housing market.

nesf · 28-09-2008 2:00pm

SkepticOne wrote: »

I think the problem was not that people could not accurately predict when it would burst (nearly impossible thing to do anyway) but that people refused to believe that there would be any burst.

I wouldn't quite agree, I think people thought that they wouldn't be caught when it burst and that it would still be inflating next year when they were going to sell on and climb a bit higher on the ladder. For some I'd say they thought that bubble was going to burst but that it was always not going to be "next year" that it happened, if that makes sense.

SkepticOne · 28-09-2008 2:23pm

nesf wrote: »

I wouldn't quite agree, I think people thought that they wouldn't be caught when it burst and that it would still be inflating next year when they were going to sell on and climb a bit higher on the ladder. For some I'd say they thought that bubble was going to burst but that it was always not going to be "next year" that it happened, if that makes sense.

There were certainly some with this view but the reason I don't think it was the predominant one is that if it were so we would expect a mad rush for the exits in the housing market and this has not happened. In fact, very few houses are being put on the market on a monthly basis at present. The reason inventory is rising and prices are falling is because buyers are staying away in even greater numbers.

SkepticOne · 28-09-2008 2:28pm

nesf wrote: »

I wouldn't quite agree, I think people thought that they wouldn't be caught when it burst and that it would still be inflating next year when they were going to sell on and climb a bit higher on the ladder. For some I'd say they thought that bubble was going to burst but that it was always not going to be "next year" that it happened, if that makes sense.

That is an interesting point of view and I am open to correction but it looks to me that people were lulled into a false sense of security by the "soft landing" hypothesis that was being put about. I think the behaviour of the market since then is consistent with this view. I think if people felt the market was going to crash then they would be primed to sell when things started turning and an increase in the rate at which properties came to the market immediately after the turning point.

leninbenjamin · 28-09-2008 2:38pm

SkepticOne wrote: »

One thing that would have happened regardless of the international credit crunch is the contraction of building from 90,000 units a year down to the current estimated 30,000 for the simple reason that 90,000 a year is unsustainable. Since so much of the economy was tied up in construction and related industries, this alone is sufficient to cause recession.

It was about August or September 2007 that credit crunch started actually effecting money lent in Ireland but the collapse of construction had already started.

yeah, i definitely agree it would have contracted, but i mean the signs were there since 2006 that it was starting to slow of it's own natural accord. If it weren't for the external factors the contsruction slowdown would have been much more manageable. and that's what it was before the crunch, a slowdown, not a collapse. it was the banks not lending that accelerated it into a total collapse.

anyway, pretty pointless debate at this stage, but i just feel people are at times forgetting how open our economy is and that any potential recovery plan will always have to heavily factor this in. I've been saying for a while now that we need to stop being so dependent on the Western World for investment and export markets and should be looking to develop a lot more linkages with the fast growing Asian economies, which of course would require the expansion of our own entrepreneurial and knowledge base. If we had started to do so earlier as some lesser known commentators suggested we might have been able to lessen the impact of the current recession.

gurramok · 28-09-2008 3:39pm

leninbenjamin wrote: »

I've been saying for a while now that we need to stop being so dependent on the Western World for investment and export markets and should be looking to develop a lot more linkages with the fast growing Asian economies, which of course would require the expansion of our own entrepreneurial and knowledge base. If we had started to do so earlier as some lesser known commentators suggested we might have been able to lessen the impact of the current recession.

Agree. The housing bubble since 2002 has diverted investment away from industry as every man and his dog was investing in a housing pyramid. Other than the likes of Ryanair and CRH who themselves are construction, where are all the Irish MNC's that have been created and flourished??

Finland have Nokia, Sweden have Ericsson, Ireland has what??

Question is though, will the the Irish entrepreneurs actually create a homegrown industrial base in a recession?

Diogenes · 28-09-2008 6:34pm

gurramok wrote: »

Finland have Nokia, Sweden have Ericsson, Ireland has what??

I have it from a friend who worked in Ericsson's Holland division that I shouldn't go out and buy shares in it, anytime soon.

xOxSinéadxOx · 29-09-2008 12:58am

but wasn't the boom based on estentially nothing?

asdasd · 29-09-2008 1:01am

but wasn't the boom based on estentially nothing?

The original boom was real - until 2001 i think.

Time Magazine · 29-09-2008 1:01am

xOxSinéadxOx wrote: »

but wasn't the boom based on estentially nothing?

No.

DublinWriter · 29-09-2008 1:03am

xOxSinéadxOx wrote: »

but wasn't the boom based on estentially nothing?

No. It was based on construction and property speculation.

Time Magazine · 29-09-2008 1:07am

DublinWriter wrote: »

No. It was based on construction and property speculation.

Building houses is an economic activity.

You're also leaving out (intentionally?) a huge demographic shift, far greater female participation, a great increase in productivity, the influx of foreign capital and a surge in exports.

DublinWriter · 29-09-2008 1:32am

David McWilliams wrote: »

You're also leaving out (intentionally?) a huge demographic shift, far greater female participation, a great increase in productivity, the influx of foreign capital and a surge in exports.

Not really, I'm just cutting to the chase.

The construction sector was/is the second biggest employer in the state after the private sector.

All else was just the froth on the cappuccino.

Time Magazine · 29-09-2008 1:46am

DublinWriter wrote: »

All else was just the froth on the cappuccino.

So Dell, Intel and Microsoft were froth that can skimmed off? Pfizer? Citibank?

More than 40% increase in women in the labour force this decade doesn't count for anything, even though almost none of them work in construction?

Right.

DublinWriter · 29-09-2008 1:50am

David McWilliams wrote: »

So Dell, Intel and Microsoft were froth that can skimmed off? Pfizer? Citibank?

Yup. All were here from the early 90's. The 'boom' didn't really kick in until around 1998.

Actually, I lie. Most you named including Microsoft and Pfizer (at least their treasury section) were here since the mid-80's.

Time Magazine · 29-09-2008 2:02am

DublinWriter wrote: »

Yup. All were here from the early 90's. The 'boom' didn't really kick in until around 1998.

Growth doesn't generally "kick in" until after companies are well established. Not least because the companies themselves further their presence. Simply because Microsoft hired a dozen people in the late 1980s doesn't mean their contribution to the boom should be passed off as "froth".

You failed to address my second point, the one that deals with post-1998, by the way.

DublinWriter · 29-09-2008 2:11am

David McWilliams wrote: »

You failed to address my second point, the one that deals with post-1998, by the way.

Yes, more females in the workforce. Mute point, it was happening in Western Europe since 1941, although equal rights legislation lagged behind until the early 1970's.

BTW - unless you're the real DMcW, I'd be very careful of using that name and pic in here as I know him through a nodding acquaintance and he's very protective (i.e. litigious) about his 'marque'.

If not, hi to Emer.

dRNk SAnTA · 29-09-2008 2:13am

David McWilliams wrote: »

So Dell, Intel and Microsoft were froth that can skimmed off? Pfizer? Citibank?

More than 40% increase in women in the labour force this decade doesn't count for anything, even though almost none of them work in construction?

Right.

In recent years the vast majority of new employment created in the state was the construction industry for men, and the public/civil service for women - much less productive areas of the economy then the ones you are talking about.

So I think there's some merit to saying that since 2002 anyway, the quality of our growth has been poor - if that makes sense.

SoCal90046 · 29-09-2008 3:28am

DublinWriter wrote: »

Not really, I'm just cutting to the chase.

The construction sector was/is the second biggest employer in the state after the private sector.

All else was just the froth on the cappuccino.

Froth is part of the cappuccino; otherwise, it's, at best, a caffè latte. Perhaps you're using this analogy to undermine your orginal argument! :eek:

nesf · 29-09-2008 3:44am

DublinWriter wrote: »

Yes, more females in the workforce. Mute point, it was happening in Western Europe since 1941, although equal rights legislation lagged behind until the early 1970's.

Eh, what are you on about? More women working outside the home means more taxable wages being earned which means an increase in GDP and economic growth. There's nothing magical about it, more workers = economic growth for the most part and it's factors like this that explain a lot of where the boom, i.e. the economic growth, came from.

asdasd · 29-09-2008 9:53am

More women working outside the home means more taxable wages being earned which means an increase in GDP and economic growth.

It depends where they work, surely?

more workers = economic growth

Or: more cheap money = more growth = more workers. the causality is reversed.

Duckjob · 29-09-2008 10:30am

David McWilliams wrote: »

Building houses is an economic activity.

Is it a sustainable one though?

If it's occuring at the level of genuine and natural level of demand, then I would say yes. But certainly not at the levels of specu-vestor, credit-fueled frenzy from 02-07.

cabinteelytom · 29-09-2008 10:39am

asdasd wrote: »

Mark,
The s, of course, as you know was a typo. Not a very good response.

Can?

He couldn't. But he wore this stuff anyway.

information.

I disagree. The plural 'shirts' is a completely legitimate form of English, and should be retained, and implies the habitual, repeated (perhaps even continuous) wearing of exceptionally expensive shirts- in modern prices approximately 1000 euros a pop. (And just right too. Even in his prime the 'shirt-off' Charles J. Haughey would have been an alarming sight in the precincts of Dail Eireannn. We'll have nothing to learn from Vladimir Putin.)

Ireland in recession

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