Recovery in 7 years???

population

Just been throwing an eye on Warren Buffet giving an interview on CNBC.

He reckons the USA will recover in 5 years, but that they are going to be some of the toughest years in living memory.

Bearing in mind Ireland tends to lag by a year or two (a bit subjective I know) it could be 7 years before we lot on Craggy Island see an upturn.

Anyone agree/disagree???

5-7 years sounds like a depressingly long time to me

P. Breathnach

I don't know why Buffet estimates five years, but I think he is in the ballpark: the degree of disorder in banking & finance almost everywhere is so vast that it will take years to sort out some fixes.

I think that Ireland will not be at the head of the possee (as you also suggest). How far behind we are will depend on what we can do to address those other problems we have which are of our own making --in particular, our exchequer problems.

Nodin

Roll D20+5, I'd imagine. The US had to throw more at AIG the other week, and the Brits had to take over more of Lloyds, so we haven't even seen things level out yet.

20goto10

It's not possible. We won't have an economy left if it goes on that long. All that matters is how long will it take for public lethargy to kick in. When will the media stop talking about it. Cause thats the point where people get back to just living their lives. Doesn't matter what the economic graph looks like at that point. I'd put this at 2010.

P. Breathnach

20goto10 wrote: »

It's not possible. We won't have an economy left if it goes on that long...

Of course we'll have an economy. There may be high unemployment, high taxes, and business and personal bankruptcies. The general standard of living will be lower. But there will be economic activity, and things will eventually get better.

We need to adjust our expectations.

silverharp

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Of course we'll have an economy. There may be high unemployment, high taxes, and business and personal bankruptcies. The general standard of living will be lower. But there will be economic activity, and things will eventually get better.

We need to adjust our expectations.

even 20% unemployment means 80% employment if my maths havnt failed me. I'll still argue that the higher taxes should be avoided as it will create as many problems as it solves, even Keynes didnt agree with that
Private pension schemes will probably be wiped out to a greater or lesser extent so be nice to your kids

population

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Of course we'll have an economy. There may be high unemployment, high taxes, and business and personal bankruptcies. The general standard of living will be lower. But there will be economic activity, and things will eventually get better.

We need to adjust our expectations.

In fairness though my expectations are to be able to pay my bills. That aint happening right now and higher taxes are not going to improve that situation

P. Breathnach

population wrote: »

In fairness though my expectations are to be able to pay my bills. That aint happening right now and higher taxes are not going to improve that situation

I have acknowledged that many individuals will be in trouble. I hope that you accept that I do not rejoice in that.

In the medium term, people will need to re-organise their affairs so that their bills will be smaller.

Tax increases are inevitable. We are in for some hard times. Life isn't fair, and I am generally supportive of measures intended to make it less unfair. But let us be realistic about how the world works: the hard times that are coming will be harder for some than for others. I hope that things will be ameliorated by a sense of mutual support and compassion.

AlekSmart

Buffet is one of these home-spun characters who kept his wealth working for him at all times.
His words do carry a deal of weight,but he might not be as "Sexy" as,mar shampla, Bill Gates.

I would accept his timeframe and his asertion of just how bad it`s going to get.

The extent to which Con-Men,Fraudsters and assorted other Get Rich Quick merchants managed to infiltrate entire Govermental Financial Systems is only slowly being realized.

We in the Emerald Isle still see Fairies and Leprechauns hiding at the bottom of our garden just waiting to hop out and save us all......

jmayo

AlekSmart wrote: »

Buffet is one of these home-spun characters who kept his wealth working for him at all times.
His words do carry a deal of weight,but he might not be as "Sexy" as,mar shampla, Bill Gates.

I would accept his timeframe and his asertion of just how bad it`s going to get.

The extent to which Con-Men,Fraudsters and assorted other Get Rich Quick merchants managed to infiltrate entire Govermental Financial Systems is only slowly being realized.

We in the Emerald Isle still see Fairies and Leprechauns hiding at the bottom of our garden just waiting to hop out and save us all......

I don't think you can compare Buffet and Gates, well apart from being very wealthy.
Buffet has investments all over the place starting off with Berkshire Hathaway (which I believe is not doing so well at moment) and before, whereas Gates made is money through the growth of his own company Microsoft.
BTW not very many would use the term Gates and "Sexy" in the same sentence. Do you work for the "Evil Empire of MS" by any chance ? :eek:

True there are a lot of people living in fairy land here.
It will take years to get Ireland back to anything resembling a proper economy.
By then it will be a very chanegd landscape, we might have just one big indigeneous high street bank and hell we might even have a regulator that does their job :rolleyes:

segaBOY

jmayo wrote: »

I don't think you can compare Buffet and Gates, well apart from being very wealthy.
Buffet has investments all over the place starting off with Berkshire Hathaway (which I believe is not doing so well at moment) and before, whereas Gates made is money through the growth of his own company Microsoft.
BTW not very many would use the term Gates and "Sexy" in the same sentence. Do you work for the "Evil Empire of MS" by any chance ? :eek:

True there are a lot of people living in fairy land here.
It will take years to get Ireland back to anything resembling a proper economy.
By then it will be a very chanegd landscape, we might have just one big indigeneous high street bank and hell we might even have a regulator that does their job :rolleyes:

Don't mean to be the pessimist but could be up to 40 years before our Gov sorts out it's ublic debt-really depends how it's handled over the next few years of global downturn

Mr.Micro

Buffet is usually very astute in his assessments. I honestly do not know where our recovery is going to come from, since our previus wealth appeared to have been generated from our construction boom and all the retail/jobs associated with that and not a lot else. Back to tourism and cead mile failte then with the Aran sweaters?

Dannyboy83

Mr.Micro wrote: »

Buffet is usually very astute in his assessments. I honestly do not know where our recovery is going to come from, since our previus wealth appeared to have been generated from our construction boom and all the retail/jobs associated with that and not a lot else. Back to tourism and cead mile failte then with the Aran sweaters?

Don't give up the game just yet.
Its not the end of the world, far from it.
We just need somebody to overview the damage control/damage limitation.
We will definitely shed people over the next 5-7 years, but they will probably largely be the unemployed.

But we made ourselves, nobody gave us sympathy jobs and this country has been through civil war, plague and famine.
We won't be the generation to throw in the towel because of a bit of poverty.
We still have a highly educated workforce.

We'll just be like the Soviet Union for a few years, reconnect with nature, forget about resteraunts and convertibles etc.

Once we make ourselves competitive again, companies will come back.
Who knows - maybe we'll even make a few of our own!

Dannyboy83

It'll be hard for the people who got us in this mess, because they've lived the life of Reilly.

Personally, I've never had an extravagent life, so I don't really have that much to give up.

LostinBlanch

No start to any recovery for us for at least 3 years (if the current govt runs it's full term). Then add in the figure that Buffet quotes.

Alessandra

It will take us a lot longer than 7 years to turn this situation around.. Perhaps we have even further to sink.. The next decade will be a long and painful one.

segaBOY

Alessandra wrote: »

It will take us a lot longer than 7 years to turn this situation around.. Perhaps we have even further to sink.. The next decade will be a long and painful one.

Ah yea, painful for the general non public sector population if ICTU gets their way that is. A long....painful....drawn out...process with plenty of strikes to boot.

jmayo

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

Don't give up the game just yet.
Its not the end of the world, far from it.
We just need somebody to overview the damage control/damage limitation.
We will definitely shed people over the next 5-7 years, but they will probably largely be the unemployed.

But we made ourselves, nobody gave us sympathy jobs and this country has been through civil war, plague and famine.
We won't be the generation to throw in the towel because of a bit of poverty.
We still have a highly educated workforce.

We'll just be like the Soviet Union for a few years, reconnect with nature, forget about resteraunts and convertibles etc.

Once we make ourselves competitive again, companies will come back.
Who knows - maybe we'll even make a few of our own!

Jeeze Dannyboy (why do I keep thinking "broadsword calling dannyboy" - guess the movie
I never knew you were such an optimist ?

I believe there are a few problems with your outlook.
Perviously, such as in 80s or 50s, we had the pressure release valve of emigration, but these days all our old destinations are in deep cr** also.
Don't bother mentioning Oz because they are in trouble as well.
BTW coming from the West of Ireland, we didn't come out of the famine at all well so wouldn't use that example of how we survived

Also the days are gone when we had the competitive edge with low corpo taxes, cheap labour, entry to EU markets and educated workforce.
Also our highly educated workforce is a bit of myth perpetrated by our government, we don't have huge numbers of science and technology graduates.
I seriously think we should be modelling ourselves on the lieks of Finland.

Dannyboy83

jmayo wrote: »

Jeeze Dannyboy (why do I keep thinking "broadsword calling dannyboy" - guess the movie
I never knew you were such an optimist ?

I believe there are a few problems with your outlook.
Perviously, such as in 80s or 50s, we had the pressure release valve of emigration, but these days all our old destinations are in deep cr** also.
Don't bother mentioning Oz because they are in trouble as well.
BTW coming from the West of Ireland, we didn't come out of the famine at all well so wouldn't use that example of how we survived

Also the days are gone when we had the competitive edge with low corpo taxes, cheap labour, entry to EU markets and educated workforce.
Also our highly educated workforce is a bit of myth perpetrated by our government, we don't have huge numbers of science and technology graduates.
I seriously think we should be modelling ourselves on the lieks of Finland.

In truth I agree, I was just trying to raise the spirits a little between the North and all this.
In reality, Fianna Fail have screwed us

harder than a cheap $2 Vietnamese hooker.

:pac:

In fact, we're a lot more fooked than anyone is willing to admit. (well, the people who have to stay here in negative equity, I'm leaving )

jmayo

jmayo wrote: »

I believe there are a few problems with your outlook.
Perviously, such as in 80s or 50s, we had the pressure release valve of emigration, but these days all our old destinations are in deep cr** also.
Don't bother mentioning Oz because they are in trouble as well.
BTW coming from the West of Ireland, we didn't come out of the famine at all well so wouldn't use that example of how we survived

Also the days are gone when we had the competitive edge with low corpo taxes, cheap labour, entry to EU markets and educated workforce.
Also our highly educated workforce is a bit of myth perpetrated by our government, we don't have huge numbers of science and technology graduates.
I seriously think we should be modelling ourselves on the lieks of Finland.

fuk. i knew it was bad but hadn't thought of all that.

population

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

In truth I agree, I was just trying to raise the spirits a little between the North and all this.
In reality, Fianna Fail have screwed us

harder than a cheap $2 Vietnamese hooker.

:pac:

In fact, we're a lot more fooked than anyone is willing to admit. (well, the people who have to stay here in negative equity, I'm leaving )

To where though? The Moon? Isnt the entire planet mired in the economic brown stuff????

Dannyboy83

population wrote: »

To where though? The Moon? Isnt the entire planet mired in the economic brown stuff????

When I said I was leaving, I mean I'm living in a van, down by the river.
http://blip.tv/file/606719

No, in honesty other countries are bad, but not as bad as here. Except Latvia and Zimbabwe.

seachto7

I'd rather be miserable in the sun than here...

sylvestersuntan

This would also be my fear.
Our wealth creation, economic growth or whatever you choose to call what happened here over the last ten years(ish) was a bit of an illusion in my humble opinion as the basis for it was built mainly on massive personal debt and a housing bubble.
Maybe Im being to pessimistic but I cant for the life of me see where we are going to get enough economic growth from to get us even in the ballpark of 6-7% unemployment in a long number of years.

Mr.Micro wrote: »

Buffet is usually very astute in his assessments. I honestly do not know where our recovery is going to come from, since our previus wealth appeared to have been generated from our construction boom and all the retail/jobs associated with that and not a lot else. Back to tourism and cead mile failte then with the Aran sweaters?

johnnyc

silverharp wrote: »

even 20% unemployment means 80% employment if my maths havnt failed me. I'll still argue that the higher taxes should be avoided as it will create as many problems as it solves, even Keynes didnt agree with that
Private pension schemes will probably be wiped out to a greater or lesser extent so be nice to your kids

Your maths are wrong, out of the 80 per cent u will have youngster who cant claim dole and pensioners etc

P. Breathnach

johnnyc wrote: »

Your maths are wrong, out of the 80 per cent u will have youngster who cant claim dole and pensioners etc

Whose maths are wrong? When we speak of 20% unemployment, we speak of 20% of the labour force.

nesf

Everyone's an economist. Christ, people aren't even stating what they'd consider to be "recovery" when they're throwing out how long they think it'll take.

johnnyc

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Whose maths are wrong? When we speak of 20% unemployment, we speak of 20% of the labour force.

I agree with you now. A bit different from the previous statement

antoinolachtnai

There is no need for Ireland to go as deep as other developed countries. The population is very young, well educated and flexible.

We're basically a good operation here. We are a small country, we only need a bit of a gust of wind to get us sailing again.

As an economy (and possibly as a society) we have some serious flatulence and that has to be dealt with. I think we will have to be fairly ruthless.

But if we cut our cost base, this can go really well for us.

Red Hand

nesf wrote: »

Everyone's an economist. Christ, people aren't even stating what they'd consider to be "recovery" when they're throwing out how long they think it'll take.

Hey, like everyone was a pyschologist a few years ago (or more recently, an evolutionary biologist when it comes to male/female interactions;)), everyone is an economist these days when it comes to the government and fallout from the credit crisis.

I personally think, from looking at my toenails, 10-12 years until Ireland recovers.

jmayo

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

There is no need for Ireland to go as deep as other developed countries.

What do you mean ?
Most other developed countries are not in as much sh** as we are.
What other country has seen their tax revenues fallen by huge percentage over the last year, while their public spending grows unabated.
That is not even factoring in the mess that our banking sector is in, the huge growth in unemployment and the fact FDI is leaving our shores due to world wide recession and cheaper operating costs elsewhere.
We have no real indigenous industrial sector that can compete on worldwide markets so we are dependent on FDI.
I suppose compared to Iceland we are not so bad.
Not yet anyway :rolleyes:

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

The population is very young, well educated and flexible.

We're basically a good operation here. We are a small country, we only need a bit of a gust of wind to get us sailing again.

Yes we have a younger population than some countries, but a hell of a lot of them are shouldering huge massive personal debt.
Also from experience they are not as educated as some make out and we do not have enough graduates in things such as technology and science, that we could really build an economy on.
Our operation is not as good as it could be and it is seriously overpriced.
We still have cr** infrastructure.

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

As an economy (and possibly as a society) we have some serious flatulence and that has to be dealt with. I think we will have to be fairly ruthless.

But if we cut our cost base, this can go really well for us.

We need to become much much cheaper and that requires people to lower their salary expectations.

antoinolachtnai

Cut our salary expectation, make the transport and distribution systems more efficient so that goods are available at a more reasonable price, and ordinary people can have a good standard of living, then away we go.

It's not quite true that we have a crap infrastructure. We have a lot of roads in place now. The roads themselves are generally in a good state of repair.

It would be nice to have more sci/tech graduates, but there you are.

Having a young population can really get us out of a lot of trouble.

Overall, we can bear the weight of the debt, but I think it will be very hard for some of these people to carry their individual burdens, and I think they should be given a helping hand if at all possible.

Dannyboy83

People, get a grip.
Its a recession and a bad one, but we're not going back to the Stone Age.

p.s. 100,000 people have emigrated

tatty banana

Those people who got us into this mess are criminals and they have become so powerful that they are above the law, So far they have kept us (in the developed world ) qwiet by throwing us a few crumbs but now that the crumb supply has dried up we are becoming aware of their existance. All this wealth comes from the rape of the planet and it has been so greedy and sustained that it is being killed. When that happens then will we realise that we cant eat money. Anyway rest assured, the pigs have that all sewn up too, they have private islands and armies, they will inherit what is left of the planet. If we remain well fed and apathetic and let them get away with it.

oscarBravo

Let's keep the conspiracy theories in the Conspiracy Theories forum, shall we?

yoshytoshy

We really don't have to benchmark ourselves on a system that failed us so badly.
Personally I don't think recovery is the proper term ,it's more a major change needed.

How each country changes ,is how well they'll progress.

Dr Galen

nesf wrote: »

Everyone's an economist. Christ, people aren't even stating what they'd consider to be "recovery" when they're throwing out how long they think it'll take.

and there lies the question........what will recovery look like when it happens? 400 grand for a 1 bedroom apartment in Laois....eh no thanks.

How about stable sustainable growth, across the sectors, no more of this eggs in one basket thing. A vibrant and open economy, based on indigenous companies and DFI. A realistic tax rate, no more pandering to the masses pre-election, with a good spread of tax revenue streams, to at least try and prevent collapses in the future

oscarBravo

Mystik Monkey wrote: »

...no more pandering to the masses pre-election...

That will require a very fundamental (and desperately needed) shakeup of the entire political structure in this country.

IOW: not gonna happen.

Dr Galen

agreed

even as a lefty I was saying for years that all these tax cuts weren't a good idea. Certainly taking the low paid out of the net is a laudable idea but the situation we're in now wereby so many pay no tax at all is going too far, plus cutting income taxes to the bone was a poor and populist idea. We should have had a slightly higher rate of tax and invested it wisely both in the rainy day pension fund and in essential services like infrastructure.

antoinolachtnai

The politics of the sitation could get a lot worse before it gets better. We are headed for a big decline in income, maybe even to Argentinian levels (as are many other countries, it's not just us). That may bring out a nasty streak in our politics.

nesf

Mystik Monkey wrote: »

How about stable sustainable growth, across the sectors, no more of this eggs in one basket thing. A vibrant and open economy, based on indigenous companies and DFI. A realistic tax rate, no more pandering to the masses pre-election, with a good spread of tax revenue streams, to at least try and prevent collapses in the future

That's a wishlist and nothing more. You need to figure out some concrete barometer that isn't dependent on ideology. GDP growth returning (no matter how modest) for 2 quarters in a row. Or unemployment dropping back below 10%.

Economic forecasting is extremely difficult in normal conditions. In global times like these it's extremely hard just to predict 6 months time, never mind next year.

K-9

segaBOY wrote: »

Don't mean to be the pessimist but could be up to 40 years before our Gov sorts out it's ublic debt-really depends how it's handled over the next few years of global downturn

The other problem is the 35/40 year mortgages and huge personal debt people took out. Still has to be serviced in times of declining wages.

sylvestersuntan wrote: »

This would also be my fear.
Our wealth creation, economic growth or whatever you choose to call what happened here over the last ten years(ish) was a bit of an illusion in my humble opinion as the basis for it was built mainly on massive personal debt and a housing bubble.
Maybe Im being to pessimistic but I cant for the life of me see where we are going to get enough economic growth from to get us even in the ballpark of 6-7% unemployment in a long number of years.

Yep, it masked the fact our economy was basically stagnant. We were creating jobs in construction, banking and retail and that was hiding the fact that every other sector was losing jobs.

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

There is no need for Ireland to go as deep as other developed countries. The population is very young, well educated and flexible.

We're basically a good operation here. We are a small country, we only need a bit of a gust of wind to get us sailing again.

As an economy (and possibly as a society) we have some serious flatulence and that has to be dealt with. I think we will have to be fairly ruthless.

But if we cut our cost base, this can go really well for us.

A small economy could be looked at another way. Barring the sustainable growth we had in the 60's and 90's, the other 70 odd years have been a disaster. Maybe we are so small, we aren't viable? An exaggeration, but something to bear in mind.

nesf wrote: »

That's a wishlist and nothing more. You need to figure out some concrete barometer that isn't dependent on ideology. GDP growth returning (no matter how modest) for 2 quarters in a row. Or unemployment dropping back below 10%.

Economic forecasting is extremely difficult in normal conditions. In global times like these it's extremely hard just to predict 6 months time, never mind next year.

Even those figures look a long way of.

Dr Galen

nesf wrote: »

That's a wishlist and nothing more. You need to figure out some concrete barometer that isn't dependent on ideology. GDP growth returning (no matter how modest) for 2 quarters in a row. Or unemployment dropping back below 10%.

Economic forecasting is extremely difficult in normal conditions. In global times like these it's extremely hard just to predict 6 months time, never mind next year.

again I'd agree, specific measurement would be required, but then would people/politicians have the patience to wait for 2 quarters of rising figures? In the day and age we are in, patience ain't that common anymore. I can see it now, with the first increase in tax revenue figures or the first drop or even leveling in unemployment figures the meeja bandwagon jumping all over it.

nesf

Mystik Monkey wrote: »

again I'd agree, specific measurement would be required, but then would people/politicians have the patience to wait for 2 quarters of rising figures? In the day and age we are in, patience ain't that common anymore. I can see it now, with the first increase in tax revenue figures or the first drop or even leveling in unemployment figures the meeja bandwagon jumping all over it.

The problem is that a lot of the time there isn't a whole lot that politicians can do to improve things but they are forced into action because the public at large expect them to do things. A case in point is public expenditure over the past 7 years.

In 2002 we spent €26.8 billion on current expenditure. In 2008 we spent €44.8 billion. In 6 years we increased current public expenditure by 67%! All based on boom time taxes.

Why was expenditure pushed up so much? Honestly, it's down to people crying out for improvements in Health, Education etc. Money was thrown at these departments (because there was so much of it with generous budget surpluses. Now we're paying for such spendthrift behaviour but we as a people are responsible for this, not just the politicians. At every election we elected the people who promised to boost spending the most in these areas not the people who would save for a rainy day (never mind that there was no mainstream party offering this).

And honestly, it could have been a lot worse if FF didn't run as many surpluses as they did. It's small comfort but we could be looking at a 25 or 30 billion deficit if the (on average) 5-6 billion projected surplus had been ploughed into more current expenditure this year.

Godge

nesf wrote: »

The problem is that a lot of the time there isn't a whole lot that politicians can do to improve things but they are forced into action because the public at large expect them to do things. A case in point is public expenditure over the past 7 years.

In 2002 we spent €26.8 billion on current expenditure. In 2008 we spent €44.8 billion. In 6 years we increased current public expenditure by 67%! All based on boom time taxes.

Why was expenditure pushed up so much? Honestly, it's down to people crying out for improvements in Health, Education etc. Money was thrown at these departments (because there was so much of it with generous budget surpluses. Now we're paying for such spendthrift behaviour but we as a people are responsible for this, not just the politicians. At every election we elected the people who promised to boost spending the most in these areas not the people who would save for a rainy day (never mind that there was no mainstream party offering this).

And honestly, it could have been a lot worse if FF didn't run as many surpluses as they did. It's small comfort but we could be looking at a 25 or 30 billion deficit if the (on average) 5-6 billion projected surplus had been ploughed into more current expenditure this year.

Ten years ago we had 500 special needs assistants in schools. Today the the figure is 6,000. I am not blaming them but whole new areas of public expenditure exploded overnight and became entrenched parts of the budget.

You are right that it is impossible to forecast beyond six months. The first task of the world economy is to create a functioning financial system. Until we see that and how it works, we cannot predict how things are going to go. It is possible that the revolution in the financial system will lead to extremely conservative lending practices which will put large constraints on world economic growth. We wait.

nesf

Godge wrote: »

Ten years ago we had 500 special needs assistants in schools. Today the the figure is 6,000. I am not blaming them but whole new areas of public expenditure exploded overnight and became entrenched parts of the budget.

Oh, indeed. It's always relatively easy to find worthy places to spend Government money which is most of the problem. People want 6,000 special needs assistants and a 20% base tax rate. You can't do it in the long run.


Regarding forecasting Ireland, basically the global economy needs to right itself first. This won't in itself bring us back out of the red but it's a pre-condition to us managing to do it, us having a very export driven economy.

K-9

nesf wrote: »

Oh, indeed. It's always relatively easy to find worthy places to spend Government money which is most of the problem. People want 6,000 special needs assistants and a 20% base tax rate. You can't do it in the long run.

Sums it up in one quote.

K-9

Godge wrote: »

Ten years ago we had 500 special needs assistants in schools. Today the the figure is 6,000. I am not blaming them but whole new areas of public expenditure exploded overnight and became entrenched parts of the budget.

This is the type of expenditure we should be trying to keep.

I'd prefer to see 5,000 HSE Middle management go. Strangely would kick up more fuss over the HSE cuts! Jobs for the boys and all that!

Godge

K-9 wrote: »

This is the type of expenditure we should be trying to keep.

I'd prefer to see 5,000 HSE Middle management go. Strangely would kick up more fuss over the HSE cuts! Jobs for the boys and all that!

That shows a complete lack of understanding of the serious problems of the Irish public sector. Do you realise that we have more children per capita diagnosed with special needs than anywhere else in the world?

The vast majority is genuine but there is something wrong with the system that has brought us from a point of complete under-provision to a situation where we are over-providing in a number of areas but still under-providing in others. Similarly, we have more nurses per hospital bed than anywhere else in the world, trained for four years in how to change a bed.

Front-line services are where the biggest problems are. Nurses that sit in empty wards, teachers that sit in empty classrooms, Gardai driving ministers around the country.

The HSE is a mess but nurses and the INO, junior doctors and the IMO, consultants and the IHCA are as much if not more to blame than the middle management. The problems with middle management were caused by Mary Harney giving in to IMPACT.

gurramok

Does anyone notice a parallel?

Someone mentioned Finland. Yes, Finland had a massive housing bubble which nearly destroyed their economy in the early 90s. (like Ireland is now)

Now, that country is No.1 in europe as a place to invest and innovate. Maybe just maybe we could do the same and emerge as an even stronger national economy in a few years time.(govt policy dependent of course )

Dr Galen

Godge wrote: »

That shows a complete lack of understanding of the serious problems of the Irish public sector. Do you realise that we have more children per capita diagnosed with special needs than anywhere else in the world?

are you suggesting that kids have been misdiagnosed??

The vast majority is genuine

appears you are?

Similarly, we have more nurses per hospital bed than anywhere else in the world,

quote/source?

I'm not going to go OT here, but statements like this show a lack of understanding regarding the healthcare systems of other countries across th world. Not comparing like with like, and pretty much HSE propaganda

trained for four years in how to change a bed.

seriously dude if you think that this is all nurses do :rolleyes:

Front-line services are where the biggest problems are.

agreed

Nurses that sit in empty wards, teachers that sit in empty classrooms,

jesus tell me where these arer will ya? I'll run down to the local A&E and grab half of 30 odd patients waiting on a trolley for a bed. Then on Monday I'll knock around the estate and get some of the parents to transfer the kids in the overcrowded classes across the road to that school.

Gardai driving ministers around the country.

this i agree with. Seems a bit silly. But then really how much does it really affect things. Like 20 Gardai isn't exactly going to make a huge difference is it?

The HSE is a mess but nurses and the INO, junior doctors and the IMO, consultants and the IHCA are as much if not more to blame than the middle management. The problems with middle management were caused by Mary Harney giving in to IMPACT.

There are many threads across boards.ie discussing the HSE and all its faults. This is not really the thread to discuss it, but without digressing too much, your right in that all sides have a role, but again, don't believe all you read