BreakingNews - Ireland's debts 'bigger than expected', says EU report

_Kaiser_

Full story here

In its biannual economic forecast, the EU said that Ireland’s debt is expected to hit 112% of gross domestic product this year before rising to 117.9% in 2012. That is up from earlier forecasts of 107% and 114.3% respectively.

So is this it? Game over? No more hiding from it and time to accept a default?

Phill Ewinn

Default from what? We owe maybe 200bn and we have loans of maybe 80bn. Also even if we do default there's still the counterfeit 50bn in the central bank to cough up. Chances of a default are over. The time to worry about this was at the last election.

pog it

It's very simple. We need to do exactly what Morgan Kelly said and tough it out for a couple of years for the sake of our long term future. Nobody is going to die of starvation because of it. Lethal injection or not. This is what they have brought us to. We need to stand the hell up and do what's good for us.

Why won't people ask the Government to do what Kelly advocates? Are they happier to sell state assets down the line just so that they will have a somewhat more comfortable next 12 months?

If so, they should be ashamed of themselves.

dvpower

Kaiser2000 wrote: »

Full story here



So is this it? Game over? No more hiding from it and time to accept a default?

Pretty marginal change tbh.

pog it

Stopped into a local, small town library. FOUR staff members downstairs doing hardly anything except plan a night out, talk about their Spanish language lessons, and call a friend up and giddily say 'Oh I'm engrossed in work here hahahahaha'.

Is this what we're selling out for? Paying for 4 staff members when it is clear that 2 could be more than handling the work to do here. Paying gross rates for tv licence and through our taxes to keep ryan tubridy in a job paying half a million a year? Is this really worth hobbling along to keep together and the rest of us struggle to get by after taxes, if we even have a job?

This is starting to break my heart and head. It's not worth it. WE would be better off with Morgan Kelly's strategy. It'll smarten the country up. Again nobody will die of starvation, we will get by.

Can us Irish shake ourselves awake?

fred252

pog it wrote: »

Stopped into a local, small town library. FOUR staff members downstairs doing hardly anything except plan a night out, talk about their Spanish language lessons, and call a friend up and giddily say 'Oh I'm engrossed in work here hahahahaha'.

Is this what we're selling out for? Paying for 4 staff members when it is clear that 2 could be more than handling the work to do here. Paying gross rates for tv licence and through our taxes to keep ryan tubridy in a job paying half a million a year? Is this really worth hobbling along to keep together and the rest of us struggle to get by after taxes, if we even have a job?

This is starting to break my heart and head. It's not worth it. WE would be better off with Morgan Kelly's strategy. It'll smarten the country up. Again nobody will die of starvation, we will get by.

Can us Irish shake ourselves awake?

the degree of cuts MK suggests we make in 1 year would kill the economy altogether. there would be a mass exodus from the country to an extent not seen since the famine.

pog it

fred252 wrote: »

the degree of cuts MK suggests we make in 1 year would kill the economy altogether. there would be a mass exodus from the country to an extent not seen since the famine.

"would kill the economy altogether"?

That is either extreme fear mongering or extreme naivety Fred. We have already had a mass exodus out of this country and that is precisely why we need to get this country back to recovery sooner rather than later, so that it is ready and pieced together again so that those people can come back. If some more, you or me even, have/had to leave temporarily out of necessity, then what of it? We have been left in this mess and that's what it has come to.

We can decide the future though if we wish.

professore

fred252 wrote: »

the degree of cuts MK suggests we make in 1 year would kill the economy altogether. there would be a mass exodus from the country to an extent not seen since the famine.

Nonsense. That's like not using a defibrillator on someone who's heart has stopped because they might not be able for the shock.

I don't know what world you live in Fred but the one I live in this country is flatlining.

careca11

its been all over for sometime now ,
FF and its rich friends wrecked the country , FG are helping to steer up to oblivion.........................because they are simply just the same as FF

haven't the balls,brains or idea's to tackle the problem and the worst thing about that is 70% of people in country voted them in :O

RichardAnd

What Morgan Kelly suggested wouldn't be an easy fix to the problem we have, and he was very clear about that. I can't imagine what the effect of cutting the books to size in one move would be but I can't imagine it would be pretty.

Then again, the alternative is to keep borrowing to cover the gap which has to be closed eventually anyway so the question is simple. Does spreading the cuts over four years really make them easier to make?

As Kelly himself said, it's about picking the "least worst option "

COYW

pog it wrote: »

It's very simple. We need to do exactly what Morgan Kelly said and tough it out for a couple of years for the sake of our long term future. Nobody is going to die of starvation because of it. Lethal injection or not.

Morgan Kelly's report and plan includes public sector pay cuts and welfare cuts. No political party has any notion of doing that. The current government will continue to tap into the earnings and savings of the private middle class workers. As others have said on this forum, the middle classes have no political (protest orientated) voice in this country, so we are a very easy target.

The country will spiral towards full default. All you can do is make sure you have all your savings in a bank in the UK or central Europe for the next few years and ride out the storm. If you have no mortgage or debts, move abroad. I will be doing so once my current lease is up.

Scofflaw

professore wrote: »

Nonsense. That's like not using a defibrillator on someone who's heart has stopped because they might not be able for the shock.

I don't know what world you live in Fred but the one I live in this country is flatlining.

Flatlining:

The Eurobarometer poll also tells us that Irish people are the third most likely to holiday abroad (only exceeded by Denmark and tiny Luxembourg) with 55% of them planning a holiday abroad in 2011. Just 18% will holiday at home while 27% have no holiday plans.

I don't call that flatlining.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Raskolnikov

So the national debt is continuing to rise faster than our ability to grow.

Where's hmmm to reassure us that this debt is sustainable?

CiaranC

Scofflaw wrote: »

I don't call that flatlining.

Course you dont comical Ali.

Kaiser2000 wrote:

So is this it? Game over? No more hiding from it and time to accept a default?

Its not over till the French and Germans are good and ready for it to be.

Scofflaw

RichardAnd wrote: »

What Morgan Kelly suggested wouldn't be an easy fix to the problem we have, and he was very clear about that. I can't imagine what the effect of cutting the books to size in one move would be but I can't imagine it would be pretty.

Then again, the alternative is to keep borrowing to cover the gap which has to be closed eventually anyway so the question is simple. Does spreading the cuts over four years really make them easier to make?

As Kelly himself said, it's about picking the "least worst option "

The argument for cutting over several years is that economic growth - export-led or whatever - takes some of the pain out of the cuts, and that businesses and households have time to adjust.

The difficulty with large cuts is that they produce unemployment and business closures, and that a large enough shock to the economy can cause such a wave of these that the whole economy is thrown into reverse. In very basic terms, if I know, as a business, that taxes will go up and government contracts will dry up over the next few years (whether that affects me or my customers), I can start adjusting, cutting costs, looking for replacement business etc - if the tax rises and the fall in government spending take place between now and the end of the year, I'm not going to have time to adjust. Possibly I could get through it if I had enough cheap credit, although I'd plunge into debt - thus transferring the government deficit into a private non-financial sector deficit which would itself be a drag on the system for years - and there's this little problem with the idea of being able to borrow to survive such a shock right now.

Cutting the deficit in one go is ludicrously silly. The current set of austerity measures were of concern when they were announced, because it was felt that they might be beyond the capacity of the economy as it was. Doing the whole thing in one go removes that uncertainty.

cordially,
Scofflaw

fred252

professore wrote: »

Nonsense. That's like not using a defibrillator on someone who's heart has stopped because they might not be able for the shock.

I don't know what world you live in Fred but the one I live in this country is flatlining.

just to clarify: i do advocate the cuts MK suggests. however not the timeframe he suggests.

pog it

This is a must-read for anyone who has developed or wants to develop independent thought processes. Stick with it! The Government are going to scare monger the hell out of us. We have already heard that 1% interest rate reduction won't make a significant difference, and yet Creighton et al. are still, continuously, peddling this same headline, trying to look like they are doing something constructive. It's a deceit. Are we really going to make the same mistakes over and over or are we going to take ownership of our country and start making our own demands?

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/perception-inception-and-trojan-horse-money-meme-part-four-four

kelko1916

Scofflaw wrote: »

Flatlining:

The Eurobarometer poll also tells us that Irish people are the third most likely to holiday abroad (only exceeded by Denmark and tiny Luxembourg) with 55% of them planning a holiday abroad in 2011. Just 18% will holiday at home while 27% have no holiday plans



I don't call that flatlining.

cordially,
Scofflaw

1,8 million people are still working it seems if we belive the figures, they will have holidays and for many it probably is still CHEAPER to holiday abroad than stay in what is still a very very expensive country no matter what spin is put on it .

View

kelko1916 wrote: »

1,8 million people are still working it seems if we belive the figures, they will have holidays and for many it probably is still CHEAPER to holiday abroad than stay in what is still a very very expensive country no matter what spin is put on it .

Having 73% of population planning to go on holidays - either at home or abroad - hardly fits with the "We're down to our last hair-shirt" routine, does it?

CiaranC

View wrote: »

Having 73% of population planning to go on holidays - either at home or abroad - hardly fits with the "We're down to our last hair-shirt" routine, does it?

That depends, are they planning on coming back from holidays

View

pog it wrote: »

This is a must-read for anyone who has developed or wants to develop independent thought processes. Stick with it!

Based on reading the posts of people who quote Zerohedge, there is very little evidence to suggest there being any independent thought processes amongst them. They come across like an economic version of one of the weirder religious cults.

lmimmfn

Scofflaw wrote: »

Flatlining:

The Eurobarometer poll also tells us that Irish people are the third most likely to holiday abroad (only exceeded by Denmark and tiny Luxembourg) with 55% of them planning a holiday abroad in 2011. Just 18% will holiday at home while 27% have no holiday plans.

I don't call that flatlining.

cordially,
Scofflaw

The bold is very important there, and their definition. We're an island, we have to go abroad to be anywhere else, its not the same in central europe as you can potentially drive all the way to China or Africa without going 'abroad' :P

COYW

View wrote: »

Having 73% of population planning to go on holidays - either at home or abroad - hardly fits with the "We're down to our last hair-shirt" routine, does it?

I have to get a flight to the north west of England on Sunday morning for work. I fly to the UK frequently. The airport on Sunday morning will be packed with football supporters going to games, as it is on any PL weekend. The cash will be splashed and the drink will flow. No sign of the recession when Liverpool or Man Utd are playing at home, I can tell you that.

Scofflaw

lmimmfn wrote: »

The bold is very important there, and their definition. We're an island, we have to go abroad to be anywhere else, its not the same in central europe as you can potentially drive all the way to China or Africa without going 'abroad' :P

Erm, I think you'll find everybody has to "go abroad to be anywhere else" in the sense of 'in a foreign country'. We think of it as involving going across a sea because we're an island.

cordially,
Scofflaw

kelko1916

View wrote: »

Having 73% of population planning to go on holidays - either at home or abroad - hardly fits with the "We're down to our last hair-shirt" routine, does it?

no hairshirts yet for sure , but even in the depression of the 20s and 30s in new york people still took trips to coney island etc , as far as surveys and the irish go they were never meant for each other , i dont belive 99% of what i read , the other 1% i am not sure of

Sand

@Scofflaw

I don't call that flatlining.

Ryanair, plus an escape from high Irish prices...

Why wouldnt Irish people holiday abroad? This isnt the 1950s and foreign holidays are no longer an indication of incredible wealth. Bragging that you holidayed in Ireland is a sign of incredible wealth.

Plus its worth recalling that the borrow and spend dogma is still in full force...apparently the government has to keep spending because its employees spend all their money in Ireland and theres a huge multiplier effect on government spending in Ireland. Yet, given the Irish holiday abroad so much...is the multiplier effect on that government spending all that high?

As for Irish debts being bigger than expected...well, perhaps bigger than expected than some.

Dont worry though folks. Its still all manageable. Stick to the plan folks. There Is No Alternative! TINA! TINA!

Prakari

We are on the verge of witnessing the collapse of a 300 year old Ponzi scheme. It’s pretty impressive how a system of paying off old loans with new loans could survive so long.

Taxi Drivers

Kaiser2000 wrote: »

Full story here

In its biannual economic forecast, the EU said that Ireland’s debt is expected to hit 112% of gross domestic product this year before rising to 117.9% in 2012. That is up from earlier forecasts of 107% and 114.3% respectively.

So is this it? Game over? No more hiding from it and time to accept a default?

Breaking News. Irish projections have been at this level for a while now. Here are the latest figures from the NTMA.

2011: 110.8
2012: 116.4

These are just 1.2 and 1.5 percentage points from the figures "released" today. This is within the margin of error and can be explained by differences in growth projections as well as very minor differences in the debt level.

Scofflaw

Prakari wrote: »

We are on the verge of witnessing the collapse of a 300 year old Ponzi scheme. It’s pretty impressive how a system of paying off old loans with new loans could survive so long.

Prakari, I've said it before - contribute to the debate that's happening, don't just get up on your personal soapbox.

Three day ban to help you take the warning seriously.

moderately,
Scofflaw