2010 Morgan Kelly Article- Ireland is finished

Hotblack Desiato

Deleted User wrote: »

I suppose you're right. I'm comparing Dublin to a city with higher wages and higher building standards and better transport. Yet Dublin is far more expensive.

Good public transport keeps the cost of housing down, which is probably why we don't have any and won't get any. That and the fact we're governed by a succession of ignorant rural anti-Dublin gombeens.

Pure tashte wrote: »

You'd be hoping no one would use the Ballymun flats as an argument against building high rise!

The circumstances are completely different. Any high rise flats built now would be to accommodate young professionals working in the city centre, which would free up more houses in the suburbs for young families.

Dublin City Council are building flats in Dublin 2 right now. Problem is they're for people whose family business is the dole.

Winterlong

Arcade_Tryer wrote: »

Probably why Coveney is in charge of policy and you're posting on boards.

:D:D

Hotblack Desiato

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Good public transport keeps the cost of housing down, which is probably why we don't have any and won't get any. That and the fact we're governed by a succession of ignorant rural anti-Dublin landlord gombeens.

Fyp, with so many TD's earning an extra income via the extortionate rents being charged, it's no wonder public transport is so poor and so little urban housing (for rent) is being constructed.

Mongfinder General

Wheeliebin30 wrote: »

Yeah but here they would throw in 20% council and it would lead to problems no doubt.

There are apartments beside me with mixed social and private ownership. It's hell. And it's getting worse and more pervasive from what I can see. Both demographics resent each other. It doesn't work and just results in the private owners moving on.

Wheeliebin30

Mongfinder General wrote: »

There are apartments beside me with mixed social and private ownership. It's hell. And it's getting worse and more pervasive from what I can see. Both demographics resent each other. It doesn't work and just results in the private owners moving on.

Interesting. But can't say surprising.

Rumpy Pumpy

There's something wrong with a society where educated folks who have skills needed for a modern economy are forced to commute from places like Mullingar and Enfield into Dublin each day, while a rump of society who feel the State owe them a gaff and the means to bring up a heap of children can still find a place to live right between the canals.

I'm all for social democracy. It ain't great when the people paying for it are getting fúcked over though.

Rumpy Pumpy

Rumpy Pumpy wrote: »

There's something wrong with a society where educated folks who have skills needed for a modern economy are forced to commute from places like Mullingar and Enfield into Dublin each day, while a rump of society who feel the State owe them a gaff and the means to bring up a heap of children can still find a place to live right between the canals.

I'm all for social democracy. It ain't great when the people paying for it are getting fúcked over though.

Exporting the dross out of Dublin wouldn't be very popular either, especially as some TD's depend on their vote to remain in power.

pangbang

Rumpy Pumpy wrote: »

There's something wrong with a society where educated folks who have skills needed for a modern economy are forced to commute from places like Mullingar and Enfield into Dublin each day, while a rump of society who feel the State owe them a gaff and the means to bring up a heap of children can still find a place to live right between the canals.

I'm all for social democracy. It ain't great when the people paying for it are getting fúcked over though.

There is something decidedly smelly about all this, youre right. And its across the entire developed world. I know people in Toronto complaining about the exorbitant price of living (housing, child costs, the whole shebang), texas, berlin, sydney........you name it.

This problem is not unique to our country, it is, quite worryingly, similar everywhere.

But I think people have to start looking in different directions for answers. Its far too easy to blame poor and ill-educated people for trying to get a "gaff" off the government. Where else are they going to get 3 and 4 and 5 hundred thousand quid? What do you expect them to do?

You push them out of Dublin and you get to move closer to your job. Then what? You have a large section of the country that is absolutely destitute, and probably no-go. Nah, this line of thinking has to end. Have to think bigger.

My crazy "big picture" is that we are, globally, on the cusp of a massive change. And I wouldn't be too surprised if we're heading backwards big time.....less and less people able to afford a home, cant raise children, "need" to import immigrants, less and less people owning more and more of everything. The good old days of fiefdom on the return, landed gentry, people working all day every day to pay their landlords never to progress in life...hmm! We didn't need the English to screw us, we just needed more time to do it to ourselves

Ulysses Gaze

pangbang wrote: »

There is something decidedly smelly about all this, youre right. And its across the entire developed world. I know people in Toronto complaining about the exorbitant price of living (housing, child costs, the whole shebang), texas, berlin, sydney........you name it.

This problem is not unique to our country, it is, quite worryingly, similar everywhere.

But I think people have to start looking in different directions for answers. Its far too easy to blame poor and ill-educated people for trying to get a "gaff" off the government. Where else are they going to get 3 and 4 and 5 hundred thousand quid? What do you expect them to do?

You push them out of Dublin and you get to move closer to your job. Then what? You have a large section of the country that is absolutely destitute, and probably no-go. Nah, this line of thinking has to end. Have to think bigger.

My crazy "big picture" is that we are, globally, on the cusp of a massive change. And I wouldn't be too surprised if we're heading backwards big time.....less and less people able to afford a home, cant raise children, "need" to import immigrants, less and less people owning more and more of everything. The good old days of fiefdom on the return, landed gentry, people working all day every day to pay their landlords never to progress in life...hmm! We didn't need the English to screw us, we just needed more time to do it to ourselves

I've said this to people I know that it is all heading for a Neo-Feudal economy.

Work your guts out to rent, or if you are (un)lucky own, a poorly soundproofed two bedroom shoebox where you can hear your neighbours upstairs taking a piss, hear them sneeze or turn on the kettle.

Who wants to buy into that "dream"?

pangbang

ChikiChiki wrote: »

In all them cities you mentioned there is much more of a rental supply close to the cities. In Ireland there is no rental supply or housing supply.

well my point wasn't so much the amount of housing, more the cost. Mad prices.

Chicken/egg....too many people/too few accommodations. There are two ways to address this problem, but only one is sustainable.

catbear

For what it's worth I don't believe many got through the decade of national boom and bust and now the new Dublin based boom unscathed.

Everyone knows someone who's lost their life's savings or worse, their own life during the period. My dad died at a good age of mid 80s back in 08 but the next five graves after him were all men my age, two I knew for certain were suicides and one was severely stressed before dropping dead in work.

I'd argued with people about taking on massive debt around 05/06/07, I was told that I was talking down the economy etc...

I knew one colleague who was boring the shíte out of everyone about some pair of shoes she was said she couldn't afford but had to have! She came in the next day having bought them and by the way when she was in the bank about an overdraft they offered her a 115% mortgage and she signed up for it. When house prices were going up in price she wouldn't shut up about how wonderful her shoebox apartment was, especially for her shoe collection, but once property prices started falling she just won't shut up about how bloody awful and unfair it was that she was locked into debt etc....

There's something Darwinian going on in that. How come some of us saw nothing but alarm bells while many others just ran towards the cliff like lemmings?

I remember my parents making their last mortgage repayment but they'd both worked fulltime jobs raising a big family, our best holiday was in a rented attic for a week in Tramore in the 70s.

I guess my point is that when I was arguing with people back at the height of the bubble about taking on debt once they'd made up their minds there was no changing it. I see my nieces and nephews have learned from the madness and are following fantastic opportunities elsewhere in the EU, they're not buying into the Dublin bubble and there's many of their friends in the same mindset.

In the future Dublin may actually have to try to really entice people to return, especially after the next bust.

The sad fact is that for every generation that has learned the hard way, is followed by another that is yet to learn!
They are destined to make the same mistakes.

Hotblack Desiato

Ulysses Gaze wrote: »

I've said this to people I know that it is all heading for a Neo-Feudal economy.

Work your guts out to rent, or if you are (un)lucky own, a poorly soundproofed two bedroom shoebox where you can hear your neighbours upstairs taking a piss, hear them sneeze or turn on the kettle.

Who wants to buy into that "dream"?

The entitlement classes will never accept that, so social housing will have to be built to a higher standard. Meanwhile the working stiffs will have to put up with whatever they can get.

This is never going to change unless we start asking very hard questions of candidates on the doorstep at election time. But given teh yoot's love-in with SF, anti everything alliance and the rest, it's just not going to happen - until the magic money tree of the middle aged middle class working hard to pay for the leisure of others dries up.

NIMAN

People have been convinced they need to buy crap they don't need.

It's something in this generation that didn't exist before.

But to see people sleeping out to spend nearly half a million Euro on a property in Ireland less than 10 years after a crash is simply unbelievable. these folk deserve no sympathy when the next crash comes.

catbear

Deleted User wrote: »

The sad fact is that for every generation that has learned the hard way, is followed by another that is yet to learn!
They are destined to make the same mistakes.

if you can't be a good example then you'll have to be a horrible warning!

I would say though that having lived in Aus recently, Perth to exact for three years, I do feel that the actual speed of our boom and bust may actually be a positive in comparison.

They've gone without a recession since 1992 and there's whole generations who're going to be in for one hell of a shock when it busts.

catbear

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

The entitlement classes will never accept that, so social housing will have to be built to a higher standard. Meanwhile the working stiffs will have to put up with whatever they can get.

This is never going to change unless we start asking very hard questions of candidates on the doorstep at election time. But given teh yoot's love-in with SF, anti everything alliance and the rest, it's just not going to happen - until the magic money tree of the middle aged middle class working hard to pay for the leisure of others dries up.

Don't forget that the ultimate benefits brigade were the banks who were bailed out in 08 and let continue doing what bankrupted them until the country went broke itself.

There is an argument that people were only wanting the same entitlement as the banks they bailed out.

NIMAN

If you were on the dole when the crash came, did you really help bail out the banks?

Benefits did not suffer much, and if you aren't a taxpayer, then how did they contribute to the bailout?

Hotblack Desiato

Don't talk to me about the costs of the bailout - place the blame fair and square where it lies. FF decided to guarantee the banks with State money (i.e. our money), nobody was making them. They could and should have let Anglo fail, it was only a developers bank after all, while protecting depositors in retail banks. Instead they hanged us all with the debts of shysters, and this party is now becoming the most popular in polls? Democracy is wasted upon the people :rolleyes:

Hotblack Desiato

NIMAN wrote: »

If you were on the dole when the crash came, did you really help bail out the banks?

Benefits did not suffer much, and if you aren't a taxpayer, then how did they contribute to the bailout?

Bertie forced massive increases in cash benefits during the boom, but these were politically impossible to reverse for the most part. There were some cuts in dole, but OAPs were insulated despite the fact they got massive gains far above the cost of living in previous years.

Where I live, all the OAPs have new cars. All the families with children have old cars.

I'm sick of the notion of 'vulnerable' and 'solidarity'. You can stick the pair of them up you arse as far as I'm concerned. The system screws me and people like me, so I'll be voting strictly in my self interest from now on. Socialists, you brought the inevitable comedown upon yourselves. I don't agree with all of what's going to happen, but you've screwed me over enough to not care about you or your needs anymore.

NIMAN

Politicians will always do what's in their interest, not what's in the countries interest.

Hence not taking money off rich pensioners or most on benefits. They only seen bad publicity and lost votes, not the improvements they would have brought.

Hotblack Desiato

Somehow taking medical cards off pensioners with an income of 80k was 'hitting the vulnerable'

Meanwhile working families have to think whether their child is ill enough to justify a 50 euro visit to the doctor. Paid for in cash out of their after-tax income, so over 100 euro gross

catbear

NIMAN wrote: »

If you were on the dole cut when the crash came, did you really help bail out the banks?

Benefits did not suffer much, and if you aren't a taxpayer, then how did they contribute to the bailout?

Wasn't under 25s dole cut regardless of having paid stamps?

Ultimately that taxpayer argument is irrelevant. We all pay taxes indirectly like VAT or user charges so what goes out recirculates. Plus that's not mentioning the unmonitized value of voluntary work that all citizens, young and old, working and not working, create in this society.

The politicians who bailed out the banks and also overruled their own engineers objections to building on floodplains and where there was no demand are ultimately culpable, not the unemployed.

The fact that we were at technically zero unemployment before 2002 means that no one was planning a cushy number for themselves on the dole before the government decided not to regulate a massive private debt binge.

The fact that it took me 6 weeks to get approval for a credit card in 1998 but I was being offered 10K approved loans in the post in 04 says the only ones truly liable were those who regulated in 98 but looked the other way six years later.

I know a guy who told me in 2011 that it was only his children that kept him alive yet there's fingers pointing at him for all that went wrong just because he and his family relied on social services after he lost his livelihood.

Cutting his dole wasn't going to make the 10K approved loans come back through peoples letterboxes.

Hotblack Desiato

catbear wrote: »

We all pay taxes indirectly like VAT or user charges so what goes out recirculates.

We've heard this all before. And it doesn't wash. The fact is that half of this country is basically living off the other half. We (the people who actually work for a living) a're mad as hell and we're not going to take it any more (use your favourite search engine for the reference.)

We used to be 'decent' and 'liberal' people but the extent to which we are being screwed, looking at the children of generational dolers having better prospects than our own, has turned us. An Irish Thatcher, or worse, will come, and the graspers will only have themselves to blame.

catbear

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

We used to be 'decent' and 'liberal' people but the extent to which we are being screwed, looking at the children of generational dolers having better prospects than our own, has turned us.

We had technical zero unemployment so this generational dolers is a false argument and attacking those left high and dry by the bank loving politicians wont get people back their precious property bubble.

There is genuine resentment out there but its being misdirected towards those who have the least ability to change the inequalities in Ireland while letting off those who are the real culprits. Seanie Fitz should be in jail now!!!!!

It appears far easier to cut the welfare for some family in negative equity in bally go backwards where there's no jobs post building boom than actually turn on the political establishment that's kept seanie fitz out of the clink.

Rumpy Pumpy

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

We've heard this all before. And it doesn't wash. The fact is that half of this country is basically living off the other half. We (the people who actually work for a living) a're mad as hell and we're not going to take it any more (use your favourite search engine for the reference.)

We used to be 'decent' and 'liberal' people but the extent to which we are being screwed, looking at the children of generational dolers having better prospects than our own, has turned us. An Irish Thatcher, or worse, will come, and the graspers will only have themselves to blame.

The sad thing is that FG used to represent us.

Hotblack Desiato

catbear wrote: »

We had technical zero unemployment so this generational dolers is a false argument

Oh come on. We had north of 100,000 work shy during the boom, don't make excuses for them sucking off the public purse.

It appears far easier to cut the welfare for some family in negative equity in bally go backwards where there's no jobs post building boom than actually turn on the political establishment that's kept seanie fitz out of the clink.

It's not an either-or, his trial is under way as I understand it and further comment from myself is unwarranted, but it would not require a genius to fill in the gaps...

noodler

This needs to be said constantly.

But if we let every bank go (which was never feasible in the case of BoI and AIB) we still would have had almost identical austerity.

The chasm between expenditure and revenue in 2009 onwards was the result of us spending temporary money on permanent items.

Hotblack Desiato

noodler wrote: »

But if we let every bank go (which was never feasible in the case of BoI and AIB) we still would have had almost identical austerity.

Which is why I said the developers' bank should have been let go - instead FF decided unilaterally (before EU or ECB got involved) that us taxpayers would pay out on the gambling debts of shysters.

The party that did this looks likely to be the most popular in the next election.

Ulysses Gaze

All politicians care about are power, money and getting re-elected so that they can, to paraphrase Dermot Morgan, stick their arses in the air whilst their noses are gorging at the trough.

Doesn't matter if they are (Smoked Salmon) Socialist, Pseudo-Republican, vaguely Centre Right or whatever.

They don't give a f!ck about you, they don't give a f!ck about you. At all.

CatFromHue

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Which is why I said the developers' bank should have been let go - instead FF decided unilaterally (before EU or ECB got involved) that us taxpayers would pay out on the gambling debts of shysters.

The party that did this looks likely to be the most popular in the next election.

Just to play Devil's Advocate but did they know just how badly exposed the developer banks were at the time? All banks were exposed to some degree but i'm not sure how much they knew exactly they knew Anglo and Irish Nationwide were at the time, possibly because Anglo and IN had no idea themselves.