Ireland in recession

asdasd

so says the guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/sep/25/recession.ireland

two quarters of negative growth ( of course) and fairly large too - a 0.3% drop followed by a 0.5% drop. Assuming no more acceleration thats 2% for the year. To put it into perpective the much maligned Eighties had one official recessionary year.

gurramok

Some of us posters predicted this less than a year ago but were ridiculed

This recession is mostly domestic related(good ole construction, retailing, financial, tourism and now the looming public sector cutbacks)) with international factors pulling us down further.
http://www.rte.ie/business/2008/0925/economy.html

Time to invest in export related industry rather than to try to prop up the construction sector.

betonit

cost of doing business is killing this country. One or two multi-nationals pull out we're headed for worse times than the 80s. In the 80s people were broke, now people wil be broke with massive personal debt

mike65

Some on this forum( or politics) were busy suggesting nothing of the sort could happen - a year ago I would have been one of them but the penny dropped from me in the late spring. Oh well, anyone fancy predicting the upturn?

Mike

asdasd

of course if the David McWilliams had kept his gob shut none of this woulda happened. Fact.

gurramok

Yeh, those doom and gloomers!

Futureshock, Richard Curran, Morgan Kelly, Alan Ahearne and especially George Lee. Its all their fault
Back to reality, the ESRI themselves are saying this recession could last well into 2009, i concur and say it could be even 2010 before its over. (http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/mhqlsnkfcwmh/rss2/ )

mike65

Cheers (goes to find the malt and a revolver)

Mike

leninbenjamin

asdasd wrote: »

of course if the David McWilliams had kept his gob shut none of this woulda happened. Fact.

plus one squillion.

seriously thought it was people like David McWilliams who caused the govt. to dwiddle over the stamp duty thing, which is what kick started the decline in this country in the first place.

gurramok

leninbenjamin wrote: »

plus one squillion.

seriously thought it was people like David McWilliams who caused the govt. to dwiddle over the stamp duty thing, which is what kick started the decline in this country in the first place.

Your blaming the mod?

Amazing how an economy so based on 'fundamentals' can go to serious difficulty on the basis on what a single person says

Time Magazine

asdasd wrote: »

of course if the David McWilliams had kept his gob shut none of this woulda happened. Fact.

That's not true at all!

Look, guys, all I was doing was analysing the situation based on my sound Antoin Murphy-taught creds. I've been predicting this for, like, ten years. I can't be blamed.

Time Magazine

leninbenjamin wrote: »

plus one squillion.

seriously thought it was people like David McWilliams who caused the govt. to dwiddle over the stamp duty thing, which is what kick started the decline in this country in the first place.

If the government's policy agenda is altered by journalists, then that is the government's fault and responsibility.

And this recession was caused by a very simple problem: an over-reliance on selling houses to each other. They were over-valued. People bought thinking they could sell in a year at a profit. In fairness to David McWilliams, he has been saying for over a decade that that's simply not sustainable.

futura123

im guessing that is goin to be a protracted and long recession, i think 2009 recovery is bein overly optimistic. much worse than 80s due to massive personal debt etc. alot of my friends in galway have been let go or anticipating losin jobs soon, quite scary really!!!!

Gekko

news reports today saying that there is a brain drain, meaning this country will be increasingly deprived of the people with the vision and skills to help get the country's economy moving in the right direction again.

Not a good sign.

Not sure if we'll see one of the big multinationals pull out but I guess the threat is always looming on the horizon.

I think that we're in for a much longer and much worse downturn than anyone is anticipating.

asdasd

Possibly. That said I think it looks like it will be very severe - given the fall in construction, consumption, and exports (even) - and that will mean real declining living standards for everyone in the private sector for the next few years which is the only way ( sadly) to regain competitiveness. I bet however, that the benchmarking process will not reflect this decline in private sector pay.

Mark200

I think if the whole credit crunch business was never reported on the news then we'd all be fine.

By mentioning it over and over again it creates a fear in everyone, and even those who are not in financial trouble or near it are going easier on the spending which is what is ruining businesses.

asdasd

think if the whole credit crunch business was never reported on the news then we'd all be fine.

Mark, firstly you are hardly demanding that a free press limits it's enquiries are you? If anything there is a very unhealthy relationship between the property sections of newspapers and supposed journalism on those sections, really just continued unpaid for advertising. Also nobody besides out ginger friend and a few others, claimed we would be in recession ( in fact at the start of the year the consensus prediction was for growth of 2.5% ish, and the much vaunted "soft-landing" which was impossible).

Even with your stalinist control of the media, without any reporting of credit crunches ( which would take an amazing control - given how important the financial crises in America is, and how related to property it is) people would notice that prices were falling, and construction was declining, and people losing jobs. And they would curtail spending, which - frankly - might have been more advisable during the boom.

damnyanks

Mark200 wrote: »

I think if the whole credit crunch business was never reported on the news then we'd all be fine.

By mentioning it over and over again it creates a fear in everyone, and even those who are not in financial trouble or near it are going easier on the spending which is what is ruining businesses.

It doesnt really matter what the press say or do. The credit crunch does and will impact everyone. These investment banks are what pump the blood (Money) in our economies. They make it possible for large companies to access large sums of cash to continue to grow. Once thats gone it hits everyone.

Mark200

Mark200 wrote: »

I think if the whole credit crunch business was never reported on the news then we'd all be fine.

By mentioning it over and over again it creates a fear in everyone, and even those who are not in financial trouble or near it are going easier on the spending which is what is ruining businesses.

Amazing, people actually do believe that you can talk down an economy :eek:

gurramok

And Bertie did say at the time that these 'doom-mongers' should top themselves.

Anyway, there was a piece in the media a few weeks back about lots of doctors and nurses starting new lives in Aussieland and NZ.
Their basic complaints were not lack of pay but long hours(internal industry issue) and the country had become too expensive for them to have a decent standard of living.

Mark200

asdasd wrote: »

Mark, firstly you are hardly demanding that a free press limits it's enquiries are you? If anything there is a very unhealthy relationship between the property sections of newspapers and supposed journalism on those sections, really just continued unpaid for advertising. Also nobody besides out ginger friend and a few others, claimed we would be in recession ( in fact at the start of the year the consensus prediction was for growth of 2.5% ish, and the much vaunted "soft-landing" which was impossible).

Even with your stalinist control of the media, without any reporting of credit crunches ( which would take an amazing control - given how important the financial crises in America is, and how related to property it is) people would notice that prices were falling, and construction was declining, and people losing jobs. And they would curtail spending, which - frankly - might have been more advisable during the boom.

I'm not demanding or suggesting anything. I believe in free press and all, and I wouldn't want anything else. I'm just plainly saying that if the media hadn't of kept it in the news every single day, when it wasn't that bad then I don't think it'd be as bad as it is now. I'm not saying we wouldn't be in economic trouble, I'm just saying we mightn't be faced with a recession if three quarters of the population are still buying and spending as normal. Shops would not have to reduce prices if people are still buying.

Économiste Monétaire

Mark200 wrote:

I'm just saying we mightn't be faced with a recession if three quarters of the population are still buying and spending as normal. Shops would not have to reduce prices if people are still buying.

I don't know where you get the idea that because a news-outlet displays the woes of a financial crises then ergo people have less money to spend. Domestic demand is down due to lack of available credit, an increase in commodity prices (inflation), and, of course, unemployment has increased.

Mark200

UCD_Econ wrote: »

I don't know where you get the idea that because a news-outlet displays the woes of a financial crises then ergo people have less money to spend. Domestic demand is down due to lack of available credit, an increase in commodity prices (inflation), and, of course, unemployment has increased.

Well my point is that because it's in the news all the time, that even people with money to spend are no longer spending it.

eamonnm79

People have to stop trying to dig their heads in the sand. The housing crisis in America is largely down to an "unprecidented housing bubble" that happened over the last 9 years.

I took this next quote from an article in the Irish indo Sept 17 by David McWilliams "Check out the chart. It reveals that residential mortgages in Ireland have risen by 522pc in nine years. In the US, the figure is only a 102pc increase,"

We have been living on cheap credit for the last 9 years.
Charles Haughy's "we are living beyond our means" speech would be a lot more apt if it were given by Brian Cowan Today.

I honestly think these bailouts in America will not work. Congress is correct in questioning Hank and Ben. Less than 2 months ago Congress approved a 800 billion bail out (barely reported) which Hank and Ben used to, among other things, Bail out fanny and freddie, AIG and JP Morgan (barely reported) among others.
Now they want another 700 billion. How long till they are back again?
Another important question is why congress didnt kick up the same fuss 2 months ago?
Something has happened!
Congress started getting inundated with requests from concerned citizens telling them not to pass the bill.

The way Obama almost immediately encouraged congress to pass the bill is a serious black mark against him. Why didnt he question bailing out wall street to the cost of the american people. Mccain also implored congress to pass the bill. They have both changed their positions to "lets find a bailout that works for the american taxpayer"

These bail outs are throwing good money after bad. The bubble has to be let burst. Will there be a lot of pain? Yes. But the pain is inevitable. The bail outs are delaying the pain and making the eventual fallout worse and worse.

If we(Irish, Americans, everyone) miss this chance to level with ourselves then we will have lost an enormous oppertunity.

drunkmonkey

Mark200 wrote: »

if the media hadn't of kept it in the news every single day, when it wasn't that bad then I don't think it'd be as bad as it is now

I think the media were very slow in coming out with the facts, the propety pages of the indo are testament to that...they still are...did you see todays, loads of houses, great investments;)

I don't think it's that bad right now in Ireland, I have a fear it will get a lot worse for people who bought into the property bubble...

I grew up in the 80's and by some twisted turn of faith I missed out on making millions on the irish property market, I had the option to buy a place in 2002 and thought the price was redicuolus and I just couldn't justify the cost (even though it was well within what I could afford to borrow on paper), it made no sense to spend the next 30 years trying to pay a mortage for a 3 bedroom apartment, I don't believe you should have to work your whole life just to have a palce to put your head at night.....this is where the Irish Politicans have let alot of people down and forced the rest into life long slavery, for this reason alone I detest them.

Hopfully the recession will bring property back down to reality, I feel sorry for the people who got hood winked by the banks, developers and politicans but anyone with half a brain could see it was unsutainable...
David Mc Williams was predicting it for the last 10 years, so how long has the bubble being growing?

I personally hope the bottom completly falls out of the residentail propery market as It will give people like me a chance to put a roof over our heads without felling like a slave to than banks..

This recession will be a good thing in 10 years time and hopefully it'll be my turn to cash in and make a few easy bob...

What's life going to be like in this recession?

asdasd

What's life going to be like in this recession?

Bad for the people who losed their jobs, obviously. For everyone else, not so bad. Civil servants will be ok. I think that IT will be ok, since it has been is a recession, and wages have remained static for years, so no competitiveness has been lost.

it all depends on the world market. We would have been ok if we had our bust when the rest of the world was ok, we could recover relatively quickly by regaining competiveness ( i.e. real wage falls) quick enough and having decent export led growth. Like the 90's. Now we cant really export out of trouble.

djpbarry

drunkmonkey wrote: »

...I had the option to buy a place in 2002 and thought the price was redicuolus and I just couldn't justify the cost (even though it was well within what I could afford to borrow on paper), it made no sense to spend the next 30 years trying to pay a mortage for a 3 bedroom apartment, I don't believe you should have to work your whole life just to have a palce to put your head at night.....this is where the Irish Politicans have let alot of people down and forced the rest into life long slavery, for this reason alone I detest them.

Nobody was "forced" into anything. You weren't forced into buying that 3-bed apartment, were you?

topper75

As Mr. Big said in I'm Gonna Git You Sucka:

"There is only one economy - my economy"

Too true. I was out of work (and savings) circa 98-99, the supposed boom years. No use to me, not being in construction etc.

It's recession now and things have never been steadier for me.

OK, if things get to the point where govt raise income tax rates, then it affects me. But until then, I'm alright Jack.

Économiste Monétaire

eamonnm79 wrote:

We have been living on cheap credit for the last 9 years.
Charles Haughy's "we are living beyond our means" speech would be a lot more apt if it were given by Brian Cowan Today.

What were the origins of that speech? What happened for a decade that resulted in that speech?

asdasd

He made that speech, whilse wearing £200 shirts, in the early Eighties. Living beyond our means then meant the country was over-borrowed - the State, not the people. We were paying half, or more, of our taxation into interest repayments alone.

Mark200

asdasd wrote: »

He made that speech, whilse wearing £200 shirts, in the early Eighties. Living beyond our means then meant the country was over-borrowed - the State, not the people. We were paying half, or more, of our taxation into interest repayments alone.

He was wearing more than one shirt? Why?


But if he can afford it, then why not?

Économiste Monétaire

You're not seeing my point, asdasd. The origins of that was the poor use of early Keynesian Economic thought, not a property asset bubble. Not-the-same-thing.

DublinWriter

asdasd wrote: »

of course if the David McWilliams had kept his gob shut none of this woulda happened. Fact.

A broken clock tells the right time at least once a day.

All economic markets are cyclical. It doesn't take a lot of skill to call boom or bust, the real trick is in forecasting the size of the swing.

If this is a recession then colour me happy. I've been through the 80's, living on a packet of Rancheros a day and watching re-runs of The Brady Bunch on RTE steeled me for hard times.

asdasd

He was wearing more than one shirt? Why?

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

But if he can afford it, then why not?

Can?

He couldn't. But he wore this stuff anyway. There were lots of loans written off.

UCD_Econ - point taken. I misread your last post as an actual request for information.

asdasd

All economic markets are cyclical. It doesn't take a lot of skill to call boom or bust, the real trick is in forecasting the size of the swing.

Which McWilliams has been doing for ages. As well as suggesting some remedies we could employ. Some good, some bad. Until last year, late last year, the standard economic argument was for a soft-landing. That is predicting a recession ( or a slowdown). McWilliams has been doing much more than that and pointing out that the soft-landing would not happen.

As for his preditictions on the size of the fall, AFAIK he thinks property in real values will go back to 2000-2001 figures. I think it will be worse.

Time Magazine

asdasd wrote: »

Until last year, late last year, the standard economic argument was for a soft-landing.

Lol, no it wasn't. Economists have been saying, for years, that soft landings are almost unknown.

And I'd just like to add: when people are talking about soft landings, the bubble has already bust.

asdasd

Yeah? Someone should've told Dan McLughlin et al.

asdasd

Actually researched some of this. Dr McLaughlin in April this year

The Bank of Ireland (BOI) Quarterly Outlook for 2008 was published last week, contradicting in many ways, the spring outlook of the economic think tank, the ESRI a month earlier which predicted a steep decline in economic growth, over one per cent less than BOI's chief economist did last week.

Bank of Ireland Chief Economist, Dr. Dan McLaughlin, believes that there will be three per cent economic growth in in GDP for 2008 in the Quarterly Economic Outlook, a one per cent drop from the figure that the bank predicted in November 2007.

The BOI economist also predicted that the residential housing market will shorten to just 50,000 new builds this year, just 5,000 more than the then controversial figure put forward by the Construction Industry Federation (CIF) late last year.

However, as modest as the Bank of Ireland quarterly figures are, they are in contrast to the earlier published ESRI prediction of just 1.8 per cent growth in GDP for 2008 in their Spring 2008 quarterly economic commentary.

Even the more realistic ESRI was predicting no recession this year.

from

http://www.waterford-today.ie/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2754&Itemid=10333&ed=257

Time Magazine

"Soft landing" typically referred to the housing market rather than the economy. In July 2007 the ESRI's Quarterly Economic Commentary published an article by Prof Morgan Kelly that siad on its first page "Assuming an inflation rate of 2 per cent, this would translate into an annual fall of average selling prices of 6 to 7 per cent."

asdasd

It feels funny to be defending David McWilliams to David McWilliams. But I digress.

McWilliams argument was that there could be no soft landing in the economy precisely because there could be no soft landing in the property market, due the massive percentage of GDP taken by constuction and the massive amount of debt ( expoentially increasing) needed to service all that.

So not just a stopped watch once a day guy.

Time Magazine

asdasd wrote: »

It feels funny to be defending David McWilliams to David McWilliams. But I digress.

My plan is for everyone to be defending my honour to everyone else :pac:

McWilliams argument was that there could be no soft landing in the economy precisely because there could be no soft landing in the property market, due the massive percentage of GDP taken by constuction and the massive amount of debt ( expoentially increasing) needed to service all that.

There's a slight correlation/causation problem here. I don't think we'd be in recession had it not been for the international financial crisis or, at the very least, it'd be less severe. Our housing crash is a bubble bursting, America's is a realisation of bad debts. (Give or take.) The two together sum to recession. The ESRI, from my reading of it, were banging on about a housing bubble since at least 2005 but didn't think it alone would lead to recession. That's why they only used "the r word" this year.

Seems all above board, non?

asdasd

Fair enough, but I meant when I said that economists were predicting a soft landing that they were predicting a year or two of slow growth, regardless of their attitude to the property situation. Ginger was predicting recession. D Mc L was predicting a 4% growth rate as late as Nov. 2007.

Time Magazine

asdasd wrote: »

Fair enough, but I meant when I said that economists were predicting a soft landing that they were predicting a year or two of slow growth, regardless of their attitude to the property situation.

Prediction, obviously enough, can only use the information available at the time. Bear Stearns et al's effect on the ISEQ (and consequently on investment, consumer confidence etc.) just wasn't "known" in a scientific way. Sure people had hunches: I remember talking to a lecturer around April 2007 and we both agreed a recession was coming, but that's not exactly going to get published by the ESRI.

Ginger was predicting recession.

In my opinion, for the wrong reasons. He was "lucky" the financial crisis happened in this regard. And no mocking the hair.

D Mc L was predicting a 4% growth rate as late as Nov. 2007.

Banks have a vested interest though, a bit like Bertie being seen on telly putting €1,000 on FF winning the election.

leninbenjamin

asdasd wrote: »

It feels funny to be defending David McWilliams to David McWilliams. But I digress.

McWilliams argument was that there could be no soft landing in the economy precisely because there could be no soft landing in the property market, due the massive percentage of GDP taken by constuction and the massive amount of debt ( expoentially increasing) needed to service all that.

So not just a stopped watch once a day guy.

it took the banks to stop lending people due to circumstances outside our own economy for the property crash to be so severe. McWilliam's prediction was that demand for houses would fall... well the demand is still there; there are plenty of people out there with sound businesses or personal finances who would normally qualify for loans/mortgages but the bank can't raise the funds to lend to them. that's the current situation.

perhaps surprisingly, prices have only fallen by about 10% in my area since the peak. i know it's not correct to point to that as a nationwide indicator, but it's still a very interesting statistic.

also in terms of the hard landing; well it looks like it might well be the case but it actually had little to do with our economy itself. in fact the indicators from the industry prior to the credit crunch were that it was beginning to slow down. and a natural and manageable pace. prices had already began to fall before this.

the current situation is nothing like McWilliams predicted would happen. he's a pop economist, with pop predictions and pop solutions. He was correct to a point, i mean any half wit with some basic ESRI stats could tell this country was over reliant on construction, but apart from that he's not given one useful insight. he might as well write for one of the red tops for the all sensational crap he spouts.

as someone else pointed out; a broken clock is correct twice a day.

asdasd

Hmm. I am pretty dubious that the fall in Irish house prices is only affected by the global credit crunch. Clearly there was a downturn prior to the credit crunch - which is any case has really only caused problems for mortgage buyers in the last quarter or so ( if that). I know I was offered 6-8 times salary last year.

McWilliams had specific data on the Irish economy which was scary enough. The private debt to GDP ratio, for instance, and its expoential growth. If the American bailout works I expect Ireland to still see a collapse in house prices.

he's a pop economist,

Of course he is. He is a public intellectual ( in the broader sense of the word) so he needs to popularize his views,therefore it cant be an academic or highly mathematical argument. Sure, the bread-loaf-cat-loving-van-man ****e in annoying, but there is substance there.

leninbenjamin

asdasd wrote: »

Hmm. I am pretty dubious that the fall in Irish house prices is only affected by the global credit crunch.

I didn't say there was, i'm saying contrary to McWilliams predictions it looked like we would be in for a soft landing until the credit crunch (which he didn't predict) severely amplified things.

i firmly believe we wouldn't be in a state of recession though if it weren't for the banks. Perhaps i'm being too anecdotal here but any business owner i know of who is struggling is doing so because the banks are not lending funds they promised, or because the banks are clamping down on the more usual credit facilities. Retail is down, but not significantly enough to be putting places out of business. it will be the banks that do that.

gurramok

Yeh, the credit crunch began in Aug 2007, one year after the housing market stalled here so it's indeed a double whammy.
Speaking of private debt, its gigantic at €387bn. (http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2008/06/15/story33690.asp )

SBP wrote:

Ireland is carrying almost 2.5 times the private debt burden of our EU partners in relation to the income we have available to service that debt.

This problem was created in the Celtic Tiger years. The burden makes Irish costs higher than elsewhere because the country is having to pay more to service its debt than its international counterparts.

At the end of April, the staggering sum of €386,263,000,000 was owed by the private sector to the Irish banks. This works out at €94,000 for every man, woman and child in the country.

Scary reading on the financial system

SBP wrote:

Even people who don’t owe huge amounts personally are still carrying the cost, because every bill they pay includes a margin for interest and for capital repayments.

They are also paying interest on the government’s borrowings which are at present not too high. The national debt was €36,928 million (roughly €9,000 per head) at the end of January, and the interest on that came to about €400 per person in 2007.

Moreover, euro for euro, public sector debt is less onerous than private debt, because repayments do not have to be built into its cost.

The annual rate at which the private sector is increasing its borrowing from the banks is slowing. It dropped from around 30 per cent in January 2006 to 15.9 per cent in April 2008.This is making it progressively harder for people to service their debts, because the amount of money available out of which they can make the payments is not growing as quickly as it did.

If private-sector borrowing continues to decline at its present rate, the money supply will actually begin to contract towards the end of next year and loan defaults will become inevitable.

The banks could face big problems. The capital base on which they loaned the €386.3 billion mentioned above is only €44.3 billion.

This means any significant write-offs could cause difficulties. In fact, it’s worse than that because, once a bank starts making losses, it is required to deduct them from its capital base, reducing the amount it can lend by about ten times the loss.

This will reduce the availability of loans, thus accelerating the rate at which the money supply contracts and making it even harder for people to service their debts. This could create a negative cycle which would be damaging to the financial system and to our economy.

cson

Not a fan of McWilliams, as has been mentioned he's a "pop economist" but he made a very logical argument in Wednesdays Indo. As gurramok outline above there, Irish Banks have huge lending portfolios with very little capital base. Obviously it's assets, profits and deposits that create this capital base and McWilliams argument was for the Government to guarantee all savings in Irish Banks (Which is a possibility due to our relatively low level of National Debt). Basically he was saying if we guaranteed all savings this would theoretically lead to a flood of deposits from foreign countries as Ireland would be the only country guaranteeing savings at what is quite an unstable economic climate to say the least worldwide.

Personally I think its a reasonable argument but you'd more than likely have to have the banks disclose their level of exposure to bad debts which is more than likely going to be abnormally high. We as a country have our pants down at a very bad time.

That said I don't believe myself that an Irish Bank will go bust a lá the US, BOI and AIB should be reisilient enough but the smaller banks such as Irish Nationwide might have to become part of the bigger ones as per Llyods in England. The one Irish Bank I'd have huge fears for is Anglo, I have a feeling they'll have a lot of defaulters on the huge loanbook they have.

gixerfixer

If the 80's where bad we aint seen nothing yet. This time the recession will be worse than the 80's because of the amount of personal debt people/families have. I already know two friends of mine who where not working in the construction sector who have upped sticks (US and Australia) in the last month alone and one other friend who will be following them next week.

nesf

gurramok wrote: »

Some of us posters predicted this less than a year ago but were ridiculed

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?

cson

+1 to nesf

The oneupmanship of "I predicted this x years/months/weeks ago" is very irrelevant right now.

Its time to start looking at solutions and strategies so we get out of this with as minimal damage as possible. So any idea's?

gixerfixer

cson wrote: »

+1 to nesf

The oneupmanship of "I predicted this x years/months/weeks ago" is very irrelevant right now.

Its time to start looking at solutions and strategies so we get out of this with as minimal damage as possible. So any idea's?

Get rid of FF...pronto.