Is there a light at end of the Vincent Browne Tunnel

callummcg

I must say 90% of the time I am optimisic about the future of the country.However after a watching the Vincent Browne show on telly I must say It justs depresses me .Here we are as a country which we all know is in a dire financial state and all his shows are about is how we got into this mess .The show seems more interested on who to blame.what bondholders not to pay ,what interest rate we should be paying the IMF,
cutting public pay sector ,unemployment ,NAMA,and why did we bother bailing the banks out.
There never seems to be a focus on what on what direction the country needs to take to get out of this mess
There is never any anayalsis of growth /opportunities in of our industries
We are exporting far more than we are importing which is surely good news
There should be discussions on what products and services are driving exports on and how small indigious companies can benefit from exporting
and how the goverment can help these companies to commence exporting
This is one area which will reduce the dole ques

We should be agressively trying to promote our beautiful country all over the world We have excess hotel rooms we own are airline so why isnt Bord Faite /Aer Lingus/Hotels coming together and try to get all those people with Irish roots to come and visit the land of there fathers .Is it not part of the Jewish way for all there children to visit Isreal at some stage of their development.

The Housing stock also ,Why dont we offer some of our housing stock to all these people that are of Irish decentacy all over the world.Sell them as holiday homes or even retirement homes in fact hand if a couple where to
retire in Ireland and bring a minimum of 300000 euros into the the country
They get a free apartment or House ,remember 300000 will raise 3000000
which at 6/7 percent raises 42k per year for the banks as well as improving the banks liquidity

Guys I am going on a bit I know but surely after 4 years of this recession
Its time for our newspapers media etc to start reporting our green shots
and positive news instead of all this doomsday crap.We should be giving the next generation hope not the money for a plane ticket out of the country

EIREHotspur

Vinne Browne revels in being the Ultimate Anti Establishment Figure.

It can get very repeditive and there are some nights I am in the mood to watch and some I'm not.

I think the point is that if we don't recognise the mistakes and the type of people who led us into this mess (how many of them are currently in jail?) then all of us will sweep it under the carpet, have memory loss and allow the same types repeat it again in the future.

You have some good ideas there.

Visit Clare or Kerry during the winter and see all the "holiday Home" towns and villages are nearly ghost towns.
Tourism needs to be high up the agenda and Hotels need to step up their games.

Drive around the country and see old castles with no information about them.....tourists love these kinds of sights but they are poorly represented.

It feels like we are starting all over again as a country in some ways.

Cavehill Red

More disinformation hopium.
The country IS bolloxed. To try to pretend otherwise is just more of the delusional groupthink that got us into this mess.
Don't worry, OP. This government, just like the last, will be happy to provide you with all the blather about green shoots you like everytime some call centre or fast food restaurant hires a couple of people.
In the meantime, people know the reality and are voting with their feet, leaving for abroad in their thousands.
What we NEED to do, more than anything, is to disown the banking debt that is not ours. While that hangs over our heads, the country will be in recession for decades to come.

Cavehill Red

Cavehill Red wrote: »

More disinformation hopium.
The country IS bolloxed. To try to pretend otherwise is just more of the delusional groupthink that got us into this mess.
Don't worry, OP. This government, just like the last, will be happy to provide you with all the blather about green shoots you like everytime some call centre or fast food restaurant hires a couple of people.
In the meantime, people know the reality and are voting with their feet, leaving for abroad in their thousands.
What we NEED to do, more than anything, is to disown the banking debt that is not ours. While that hangs over our heads, the country will be in recession for decades to come.

We created the problem ourselves in our own government, which was voted for by the people. So its not right to just disown the debt that was essential to keep the country going. The rates are the problem and need to be negotiated down.

For me there is nothing worse then someone who is neg neg neg all the time, with no actual vision or ideas to improve the situation. Thats not the type of person Ireland needs at the moment. It needs forward thinking people generating inspiration in the nation to try and get it back on track. Peddling doom and gloom which seems to be what VB is doing is no good for anyone. Heaping on more depression won't kick start anything.

EIREHotspur

Deleted User wrote: »

For me there is nothing worse then someone who is neg neg neg all the time, with no actual vision or ideas to improve the situation. Thats not the type of person Ireland needs at the moment. It needs forward thinking people generating inspiration in the nation to try and get it back on track. Peddling doom and gloom which seems to be what VB is doing is no good for anyone. Heaping on more depression won't kick start anything.

Well said....life goes on.

For God's sake let's leave the yuppie culture of the past behind us too.
Every second little dipstick who thought they were a Property Developer Type.
People forget mentioning them when they talk about Developers......it wasn't only the Big Lads at it.

YouBuyLocal

Deleted User wrote: »

We created the problem ourselves in our own government, which was voted for by the people. So its not right to just disown the debt that was essential to keep the country going. The rates are the problem and need to be negotiated down.

For me there is nothing worse then someone who is neg neg neg all the time, with no actual vision or ideas to improve the situation. Thats not the type of person Ireland needs at the moment. It needs forward thinking people generating inspiration in the nation to try and get it back on track. Peddling doom and gloom which seems to be what VB is doing is no good for anyone. Heaping on more depression won't kick start anything.

"Peddling doom & gloom" IS forward thinking - or part of it!

We can't move forward without a solid ground in reality. We need to recognise the reality of the situation to build the businesses of the future. Some people want to just jump up and push on with the same old boom-time businesses we've had for ten years, based coffee shops and property. But many businesses that were viable 4 years ago just aren't any more while people are saving, but conversely some businesses weren't viable 4 years ago and now are due to changes in consumer behaviour and circumstances.

Tinkering around the edges of the tax system (including rates) will just cause a cascade of other problems within it (i.e. local services by CCs). We need radical thinking. We need to take our chances and forget what the failed professional classes are saying. We are in a debt spiral and there is a very good chance that, no matter whether people mention it or not, we may be forced into a disorderly default. With the anti-transfer-union/anti-Euro-bond parties in Finland, Netherlands, France, Germany, etc, (i.e. creditor countries) gaining massive swings in the polls on the promise of not pouring money into the debtors countries, this eventuality is looking all the more likely every week/month. To fail to plan and prepare for that eventuality is pure suicide, like an Ostrich sticking its head in the sand.

This is not as terrible a situation as people make it out though. With a major default we still have massive instant & cheap communitications infrastructure, and business will thus bounce back quickly at a lower cost-base due to devaluation and come out refreshed & stronger through the turbulence than before.

True, we could have hyper-inflation, but as with Argentina, alternative credit systems will be abound due to our communications infrastructure.

Nobody can foresee the future. But nobody could foresee the future 5 years ago either. The problem is not that the future is uncertain, but that sometimes we think the future is certain. It is that sense of certainty and fear of the true ambiguity in reality that makes people so scared of default, no matter whether the alternative is as ludicrously unsustainable as a debt spiral on the periphery of a multi-cultural transfer union.

PS I don't want to bring people down, I have a business and am a forward thinking person, and I wish the best of luck to every individual here. But real entrepreneurs do not ignore serious events coming down the tracks. They analyse them and prepare. As Field Marshal Helmuth Graf von Molke once said, "Planning is everything. Plans are nothing."

Cavehill Red

Deleted User wrote: »

We created the problem ourselves in our own government, which was voted for by the people. So its not right to just disown the debt that was essential to keep the country going. The rates are the problem and need to be negotiated down.

Don't include me in your 'we'. It's the banks' debt, not mine nor my government's. It was not incurred by the people or the state. And THAT is what's putting this country under as a neverending stream of economists worldwide are saying.

Deleted User wrote: »

For me there is nothing worse then someone who is neg neg neg all the time, with no actual vision or ideas to improve the situation. Thats not the type of person Ireland needs at the moment. It needs forward thinking people generating inspiration in the nation to try and get it back on track. Peddling doom and gloom which seems to be what VB is doing is no good for anyone. Heaping on more depression won't kick start anything.

Give over with the 'vision thing' rhetoric. There's only one thing to do. Default, either on the bank debt now or sovereign debt later after a ton of pain and a lot worse times ahead.
Or you could ignore reality and keep chewing on the green shoots. Reality won't mind if you choose to ignore it. And the European banks will love you for it, because you'll work your little socks off to pay them off for their lost bets.

Cavehill Red

Cavehill Red wrote: »

Don't include me in your 'we'. It's the banks' debt, not mine nor my government's. It was not incurred by the people or the state. And THAT is what's putting this country under as a neverending stream of economists worldwide are saying.
Give over with the 'vision thing' rhetoric. There's only one thing to do. Default, either on the bank debt now or sovereign debt later after a ton of pain and a lot worse times ahead.
Or you could ignore reality and keep chewing on the green shoots. Reality won't mind if you choose to ignore it. And the European banks will love you for it, because you'll work your little socks off to pay them off for their lost bets.

The financial regulator is appointed by the government right? Banks have been dealing a certain way for decades, and suddenly start giving out 110% mortgages. Obviously such a thing is going to have a huge affect on the economy so the government should have been on top of that just like they should have been in the states. They should have been on top of the leveraging situation also. The state dropped the ball and let the bankers have a field day. How many economists are employed by the state for their advice?
The decision on paying back the debt is complex, I believe you should honour your debts if you can, instead of passing it on to another tax payer. You obviously think differently, but if we did default its going to hurt us politically for years and seriously affect our financial dealings with other countries.

YouBuyLocal

Deleted User wrote: »

The financial regulator is appointed by the government right? Banks have been dealing a certain way for decades, and suddenly start giving out 110% mortgages. Obviously such a thing is going to have a huge affect on the economy so the government should have been on top of that just like they should have been in the states. They should have been on top of the leveraging situation also. The state dropped the ball and let the bankers have a field day. How many economists are employed by the state for their advice?
The decision on paying back the debt is complex, I believe you should honour your debts if you can, instead of passing it on to another tax payer. You obviously think differently, but if we did default its going to hurt us politically for years and seriously affect our financial dealings with other countries.

You speak as if default (debt-restructuring) is an option. Like we have a choice. Do you know what a debt spiral is? If your growth is less than the yields on your bonds what happens?

You reduce public spending to pay interest and don't pay the principle. 22,000 homes are in arrears in on the interest payments on their mortgages, after going to interest only payments.

You'd like us to keep paying at the expense of tens of thousands of bankruptcies? Do you know what it is like for a family to go bankrupt? My Uncle was near bankruptcy only 5 months ago, when a terrible tragedy changed his financial circumstances and allowed himself and his two daughters to stay in keep their house. You are making light of what it really means to Irish homes to be burdened by this unsustainable debt & tax position. You can't ignore the mortgage crisis like it is only some tiny minority of people. The people that have unsustainable levels of private debt and little or no hope of rebuilding their income levels are not going around telling their friends & neighbours that its them and their children. Its still under the surface and only really being played out in the courts and the newspaper statistics. But eventually this mortgage crisis will hit the economy fully in the face and the "two pillar banks" will sink completely. Right now there is a stigma attached to bankruptcy, but it only takes a tipping point for people to realise that when choosing between a noose that lasts 20 or 30 years (mortgage) and one that lasts 11 or 12 (bankruptcy) then the answer is obvious. Especially since CCs have been buying up droves of NAMA houses and are giving them to families for 40euro a week rent.

Exports are great and we have a lot of potential to grow. But while the workforce is rooted in negative equity and can't move to new jobs or get credit for new businesses, then that is a structural problem that won't just fade away over time and as business picks up.

This island will see a lot more turbulence before 2013, when the ESM kicks in.

And I'd like to say that saying bad things will happen is not negative. There is a weird perception out there that if you bad things will happen by maintaining the current course then you are a doomsayer. But bad things happen every day in our daily lives, in the institutions we work for and across the world. Why are people afraid to mention bad things coming down the road? Its not negative to prepare for an negative eventuality!?! No real entrepreneur (i.e. someone who takes responsibility and initiates something) would ever believe that blind positive thinking was the answer to any problem. So why are people advocating it about the country, as if it was "confidence" that brought about the celtic tiger, blind confidence & zeal in the economic system. It wasn't, it was ingenuity, education (by the way our education system, like all western education systems except maybe Finland, is f*cked now, its a complete disaster and its killing creativity and entrepreneurialism) and wave of global economic growth.

Grow up and deal with the situation you're in, not the one you'd like to be in.

Voltex

I dont think the OP is trying to make out that everything is bettre than it really is..I know myself that the state of the State is pretty battered and current economic activity is anemic at best. But what I take from the OPs post was that as a nation we should really balance our eforst at focusing on the negatives with the positive attributes of the irish state.
There are alot of good things about the economy and in reality, under normal conditions, the fundementles of the irish economy are good.

I think we need to acknowledge where we are and strategise our route back to prosperity. We cant do that by focusing on negatives only..treat the economy as your typical small business would treat revenue streams as product lines and identify where and what to prioritise resources (i.e typical BCG matrix)

YouBuyLocal

YouBuyLocal wrote: »

Grow up and deal with the situation you're in, not the one you'd like to be in.

Thats nice YouBuyLocal, I see you edited your original post to add a few insults in there. Good man.

Yes, I truly apologise for being a positive person in my philosophies. I must return to that old Irish griping mentality where nothing is my fault everyone else made all my mistakes. That will get me out of my mess here.

YOU need to grow up man and face reality. If someone is foolish enough to borrow an enormous amount of money and not have a contingency plan, or realise if suddenly something goes wrong they can't afford to pay it then that is their problem. Would you have sympathy for a guy who went and bought a ferrari when he couldnt afford it and then got behind on the payments ? Best come in and give the poor guy some money and make up for his sillyness. You can add a few pink elephants and magic frogs to that world as well while your at it. Hey in one of my first businesses I spent 4K on a printer that I only should of spent 2K on, and it messed up my cashflow at the beginning. Can I have the extra 2K back please from someone nice?

All I mentioned was having a positive mentality. Not blind positivity.
And for that I need to grow up, and Im not a real entrepreneur. :eek:

You are a waffler my friend, sound like an academic and not a business person, because if you knew anything about business you would know that a positive attitude is exceptionally important to be able to fight the battles and clear the hurdles. Analysing problems and finding solutions in a positive manner is the affective solution. You talk like Im saying there is nothing wrong and everyone be happy. Im not, its a simple philosophy in life to be positive and deal with the hand your have in your hand, and not run around pointing fingers.
That is how a business person handles his problem, or else he finds himself bankrupt pretty quick.

I am not a politician or a banker, and I dont know the full ramifications of a default, or the ins and outs of what defaulting might bring to Ireland. Like I said before its a complex decision. I could be wrong. I don't know how much the payments are and our income in relation to it.
But i do know the world is an unforgiving place, and if someone wants to make an enormous investment that will affect them for the next 30 years, then they should do so with care and not the abandon that people risked their whole life savings and future income on over here.

IpreDictDeatH

The OP is correct. It is about time we got positive. Yes i totally agree that we have to analyse what went wrong, winge about it, and fix it. But the OP's point was that it is now 4 years in, and we still cant shift our focus-even slightly- into the frame of mind that will get us up off our arse.

I find it odd that we live in a free market system, but there is no talk in the media of its dynamics. None. All you hear is, this went wrong, that went right. Running a country is like a business, and the various aspects of trying to stay in the green are exciting. What sectors are going strong,and why, what could we do to promote them more, how we will market our country etc.. are all exciting subjects. But in the media they just discuss the end result.

There is no discussion around the day to day running of a successfull economy (country). The exiting middle has been ignored while the sensationalist end result is printed over and over again. There is no avenue or arena where the public can get excited about the country running itself well, and by affect there is no arena for the public to contribute its ideas and opinions.

YouBuyLocal

Deleted User wrote: »

But i do know the world is an unforgiving place, and if someone wants to make an enormous investment that will affect them for the next 30 years, then they should do so with care and not the abandon that people risked their whole life savings and future income on over here.

True, many Irish people were foolish. We voted in this government who were a shower of spineless witless dupes managed by the civil service, the legal profession and the banking sector, the three stumps of Irish incompetence.

Fair enough, people should pay their debts and consider themselves free agents and culpable for their mistakes.

But to move away from finger pointing, and back to our actual economic circumstances as they stand, I point you to this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/business/17view.html?_r=2

This is not a moral thing about paying your debts. We are very unlikely to have the funds to do so. Either austerity and a strong euro cripples growth or we leave the Euro and a devaluation causes our euro debts to mushroom and we have trouble getting back into the markets. Or maybe we are able to borrow from the markets once this foot on our neck is lifted, who knows!?!

But if we leave moral indignation out of it then there really is no chance that we will pay this debt off without massive inflation - which is what Italy wants and is also what will cause Germany to turn off the tap and is what is behind the interest rate increase is about.

Apologies if I sounded rude or disrespectful. I just find that people that think we should keep paying banking debts are living in another world, because of some misguided attempt to maintain status quo. It ain't gonna happen (unless of course they bring in a euro bond, which I would be fundamentally politically against as it would be controlled by an undemocratic institution).

And I ain't an academic. I have my own business but I probably don't have as much experience as yourself.

No worries!, its easy to get passionate about this topic when you look at the mess in detail. Very frustrating to have had such poor leadership.

I would have hope that there is an improved solution on the horizon somewhere to get the country back on track. Wouldnt it be nice if all those bankers who got huge payoffs didnt get them and that money went to mortgage relief.

There is one worrying thing that I hope our government doesnt do and that is fail to put in new more stringent regulations on the banking sector. Obama has failed to do it, because his backers are bankers, and they also form his circle of advisors. If we can regulate those rogues properly at least we know it wont happen again and we can start looking forward

YouBuyLocal

Exactly, which is why I put up these links in another thread:

http://www.fundingcircle.com/
http://uk.zopa.com/ZopaWeb/

Things are going to change in banking & finance as people find better places to put there money. I don't think people can under-estimate the effect that mass, instant & cheap communications along with social commerce is having/going to have on the normal institutions that we have depended upon for so long.

If you look at a tiny example, Betfair is putting a serious dent in the market of conventional bookies, because punters can set their own odds and bet with other punters directly. The system regulates and manages bets and payments rather than a retail bookie. The system also takes a far smaller cut due to efficiency savings. The same may happen to banking, as people wish to cut out the middle-man and lend their savings directly to local businesses or consumers. It may seem unsafe now, and maybe it will be difficult to work out default procedures. But you could say the same for conventional banking, and yet they worked out how to compensate and measure someone's credit-worthiness. The same could be done in an on-line system over time. In fact, Funding Circle has said that they have had zero defaults in two years. Maybe the idea that you are defaulting on a real persons savings diminishes the moral hazard involved more effectively than if you are dealing with an institution. On-line reputations work for e-bay, so why not lending!?

I think there are thousands/tens of thousands of reasons to be excited about the future and future growth. But they almost exclusively come from real businesses, the real capitalist market (as opposed to this semi-socialist banking sector we have) and real consumer/technology trends. The established order, i.e. banking professionals, economists, politicians, legal professionals, have little or no understanding of these trends because they are not involved or relevant in their day to day working lives.

I know this way beyond what the OP is talking about but its all connected. VB will never give people confidence or a light at the end of the tunnel because he is just regurgitating common animosity towards the established professional classes. He vents publicly what individuals around the country are venting privately in their homes, which gets him a willing audience for his nightly shows. Most people want to be led after all. If the majority of people had ideas of how to get us out of the mess maybe he would throw those ideas out there, but they don't, so he gives them the next best thing - a good ol' whinge

I'd also like to finish with saying nobody in the media will ever give people economic hope. They will never discuss how Ireland should get out of the crisis and what products/services people want in or outside of Ireland, or what way our economy should orient itself, in a coherent matter - just like you should never believe a journalists view of some scientific research. They are not business people or scientists. They know just enough to get other people who haven't a clue about either subject to watch their shows, but they rarely have anything credible to say. They don't need to think about real innovation because they have decent jobs in a secure industry of "information"/propaganda distribution. In fact, the worse they portray the scenario, the more afraid people get and the more they tune into their broadcasts, so they have an incentive to keep things turbulent and down-beat.

krd

callummcg wrote: »

We should be agressively trying to promote our beautiful country all over the world We have excess hotel rooms we own are airline so why isnt Bord Faite /Aer Lingus/Hotels coming together and try to get all those people with Irish roots to come and visit the land of there fathers .Is it not part of the Jewish way for all there children to visit Isreal at some stage of their development.

Very romantic. But what's beautiful about our country? All the hob knuckle useless inbreeds who were property flipping a few years back? Rubbing everyone's faces in it?

The countryside has been destroyed by letting ignorant beasts build Dallas style mansions.

We're not a beautiful people. Got outside and look at peoples faces - they're contorted evil, greedy, piggy faces - who wants to see any of that.

The Housing stock also ,Why dont we offer some of our housing stock to all these people that are of Irish decentacy all over the world.Sell them as holiday homes or even retirement homes in fact hand if a couple where to
retire in Ireland and bring a minimum of 300000 euros into the the country
They get a free apartment or House ,remember 300000 will raise 3000000
which at 6/7 percent raises 42k per year for the banks as well as improving the banks liquidity

They're not "free" houses. Each one has to be paid for. We blew billions so muppets in wellington boots could feel like big men and have cash to flash. Anyone who said it was suicidal was shouted down by a chorus of pig grunts and squeals.

The plan really wouldn't achieve anything. The banks are going to suck the country dry. Their number one priority is their balance sheets and bonuses. Any money they get will be sent elsewhere. Ireland is a poisonous investment. Because of the banks - and the banks don't give a monky's what happens to the rest of us.

Guys I am going on a bit I know but surely after 4 years of this recession
Its time for our newspapers media etc to start reporting our green shots
and positive news instead of all this doomsday crap.We should be giving the next generation hope not the money for a plane ticket out of the country

It was all the "positive thinking" and "enthusiasm" crap that got us in so much trouble in the first place. Anyone sounded the alarms was told to shut their mouths by the ignorant hob knuckles.

What do you want? Everything to go back to 2005? Where the banks were falling over themselves to lend millions to ignorant fat fools who could barely count?


Ireland will recover. But it won't be with the help of hotair. It won't with the help of the show offs in their 4x4s. It won't be Paddy the Plasterer or Bertie the bullsh1ter fixing the country either.

Personally, I have a major problem with breaking my arse trying to fix this place only so the fruits of my labour can be given to thick fat fools with buckets and shovels.

Some people are part of the solution.

Some people are very definitely part of the problem.

Vincent Browne did not cause the recession. A certain kind of fat fool did - lay the blame on those who were responsible. Browne is only the messenger. And shooting the messenger or trying to shut their mouth at this stage will do no good.

If you have a problem. Take it up with a builder or a banker - or a speculator. It was their "positivity", bull and thieving got us into so much trouble.

Take it up with one of those cock of the walk builders.

krd

Is there a light at end of the Vincent Browne Tunnel

I want to weep.

It's more of the Irish "perception is reality" bull.

It's not Vincent's tunnel. He didn't dig it.

krd

krd wrote: »

Very romantic. But what's beautiful about our country? All the hob knuckle useless inbreeds who were property flipping a few years back? Rubbing everyone's faces in it?

The countryside has been destroyed by letting ignorant beasts build Dallas style mansions.

We're not a beautiful people. Got outside and look at peoples faces - they're contorted evil, greedy, piggy faces - who wants to see any of that.



They're not "free" houses. Each one has to be paid for. We blew billions so muppets in wellington boots could feel like big men and have cash to flash. Anyone who said it was suicidal was shouted down by a chorus of pig grunts and squeals.

The plan really wouldn't achieve anything. The banks are going to suck the country dry. Their number one priority is their balance sheets and bonuses. Any money they get will be sent elsewhere. Ireland is a poisonous investment. Because of the banks - and the banks don't give a monky's what happens to the rest of us.



It was all the "positive thinking" and "enthusiasm" crap that got us in so much trouble in the first place. Anyone sounded the alarms was told to shut their mouths by the ignorant hob knuckles.

What do you want? Everything to go back to 2005? Where the banks were falling over themselves to lend millions to ignorant fat fools who could barely count?


Ireland will recover. But it won't be with the help of hotair. It won't with the help of the show offs in their 4x4s. It won't be Paddy the Plasterer or Bertie the bullsh1ter fixing the country either.

Personally, I have a major problem with breaking my arse trying to fix this place only so the fruits of my labour can be given to thick fat fools with buckets and shovels.

Some people are part of the solution.

Some people are very definitely part of the problem.

Vincent Browne did not cause the recession. A certain kind of fat fool did - lay the blame on those who were responsible. Browne is only the messenger. And shooting the messenger or trying to shut their mouth at this stage will do no good.

If you have a problem. Take it up with a builder or a banker - or a speculator. It was their "positivity", bull and thieving got us into so much trouble.

Take it up with one of those cock of the walk builders.

Phew!!! I think you win the award for the most bitter post of the year! While I can understand your venom for the farmer turned builder turned developer turned golfer turned defaulter it wasnt positive thinking that made the bankers and politicians of the world sick with greed, and turned the punters of ireland into wild gamblers who couldnt remember simple supply and demand rules.
Being positive and being prudent are not related.

Bitterness aside, if VB wants to tell the people what went wrong, make a movie like Inside Job. Show people how the people charged with investigating the banks were the banks and how they let all their mates off. Then prosecute them properly. That will give people the lynching they want and we can move on...

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/we-wont-recover-if-we-keep-picking-at-wounds-2628255.html

Interesting article that highlights what the OP was saying.

CatFromHue

rte used to have a program called the business on fridays nights.

that was the type of program the op was talking about. it was very light but looked at areas/companies that are new and are making a go of it both in the internal market and the international market.

it was just on for 30 mins and ran for 5/6 episodes.

i also find dragons den good. granted there are a lot of hair brained ideas that will go nowhere but there is also a few that have great potential.

for the last 2 episodes of the show they have been visiting people who were on the show who got an investment and some who didnt. for some the business didnt work out but for others they're still going and doing well. its great to see this.

i agree with the op there is so much doom and gloom about, but when you see these programs it bucks the trend and is a little inspiring.

both the shows i've mentioned have ended though :-(