Being played for fools

km79

First of I have been fairly optimistic about out situation and thought that things were beginning to improve with increasing transparency from the govt .then today happened central bank chief says darlings today it wud be great for the country if the govt gave us an auld clue as to what us coming in the Budget. 9 o clock tonight ( Friday night of a bank holiday weekend ) an update appears from the EU and IMF outlining Budget measures that will include an increased emphasis on taxation. I despair ....

km79

First of I have been fairly optimistic about out situation and thought that things were beginning to improve with increasing transparency from the govt .then today happened central bank chief says earlier today it wud be great for the country if the govt gave us an auld clue as to what us coming in the Budget. 9 o clock tonight ( Friday night of a bank holiday weekend ) an update appears from the EU and IMF outlining Budget measures that will include an increased emphasis on taxation. I despair ....

dev100

km79 wrote: »

First of I have been fairly optimistic about out situation and thought that things were beginning to improve with increasing transparency from the govt .then today happened central bank chief says earlier today it wud be great for the country if the govt gave us an auld clue as to what us coming in the Budget. 9 o clock tonight ( Friday night of a bank holiday weekend ) an update appears from the EU and IMF outlining Budget measures that will include an increased emphasis on taxation. I despair ....

Black Friday number 2 I reckon... Question I'd like to know is what else is up there sleeves... Goes to show Europe is dictating Irish policys. We are no longer a sovereign nation. The real recession hasn't even begun yet. You have twats like noonan telling us to spend spend. We are fools.

sollar

Just look at the heading. EU/IMF up at the top... poor ole Ireland at the bottom.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0729/budget.pdf

MrThrifty

Not sure if your issue is with the central bank trying to score a point against the gov or the incoming new taxes. Former is just the usual childish carry-on by the big boys while latter was inevitable. Biggest issue as I see it these days is the media playing down all the positives and focussing instead on any negatives. Bad news sells and the Irish seem to get off on it.

km79

MrThrifty wrote: »

Not sure if your issue is with the central bank trying to score a point against the gov or the incoming new taxes. Former is just the usual childish carry-on by the big boys while latter was inevitable. Biggest issue as I see it these days is the media playing down all the positives and focussing instead on any negatives. Bad news sells and the Irish seem to get off on it.

My issue is with such an important document being published on the Friday evening of a bank holiday weekend ...

ardmacha

This is last working day of the month, the IMF might routinely produce plans at this time. They are not interested in your holiday plans, nor should they be.

The plan did not envisage an increased emphasis on taxation, it was two thirds spending reduction and one third taxation.

km79

ardmacha wrote: »

This is last working day of the month, the IMF might routinely produce plans at this time. They are not interested in your holiday plans, nor should they be.

The plan did not envisage an increased emphasis on taxation, it was two thirds spending reduction and one third taxation.

I don't have any holiday plans can't afford to ! I sincerely doubt the IMF sent this document at 8 or 9 o clock on a Friday night. My issue was with it being published that late on our govts website obviously in the hope that no proper discussion will take place on it until Tuesday

ardmacha

The document was released around noon Irish time today, its been posted on the Irish Economy site all day.

km79

ardmacha wrote: »

The document was released around noon Irish time today, its been posted on the Irish Economy site all day.

What time was it posted on the Dept of Finance website ? Genuine question cos I had been listening to radio all day and heard nothing on hourly news bulletins. Heard nothing on Matt Cooper .Was browsing web tonight and seen it as headline news on rte so was a bit shocked Checked here and found no threads on it. If it has been there since noon surely the news would have reported it ?

Nijmegen

It's a fairly normal PR tactic to put out the trash at a moment like this - A well known tactic the White House press office uses (read the memoirs of some press secretaries) is to push a load of bad news (with some sweeteners) at a moment of low bandwidth for the press so they have to give inches to what they might otherwise give a page.

Standard PR tactics.

View

km79 wrote: »

an update appears from the EU and IMF outlining Budget measures that will include an increased emphasis on taxation. I despair ....

Well, that was how it was presented on RTE.

If you actually read the relevant document though, it it entirely written by the government to the EU and IMF and describes the measures the government intends to take to turn the economy around. Based on a quick read though, it largely appears to be an update on the preexisting government programme for doing so.

The good news is the government is due to finish putting money into the banks by the end of July (although I'd imagine they might miss that by a few days or so). So, we'll only have the current account budget deficit to worry about from now on.

Sand

TBH, only a fool still believe the next few years wont include increasingly bad news in terms of higher taxes and lower govt spending. Just lay back and think of Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Bank.

nesf

Um, what country have people been living in that they're surprised by this? Higher taxes and spending cuts will be the next half-decade. We voted for it in overwhelming numbers. No magical tooth fairy is going to come down and rid us of our enormous deficit in our Budget. We have a large Public Sector and a large Social Welfare bill, we either massively cut both of these or we raise taxes to meet the gap. Those are our only two choices. People seem to want to keep the present level of services so we're stuck with increasing taxes and cutting where we're able to.

Really, none of this should surprise anyone.

ei.sdraob

nesf wrote: »

Um, what country have people been living in that they're surprised by this?

In all honesty we have threads here claiming we turned (another) corner and certain users singing victory chants and likes of Scofflaw telling us not to worry since debt never has to be repaid...

nesf

ei.sdraob wrote: »

In all honesty we have threads here claiming we turned (another) corner and certain users singing victory chants and likes of Scofflaw telling us not to worry since debt never has to be repaid...

So? None of those claim that we won't have austerity for the next 5 years.

RichardAnd

I think the OP is talking about this:

http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0729/budget.html


It's a short article that describes new measures from the IMF. Most of it is pretty bland but there are two pieces that caught my eye.

It confirms an increase in the carbon tax, which was included in the State's four-year plan.

Not surprising but the context is interesting. Surely carbon tax isn't a source of revenue, it's meant to stop us destroying our planet :rolleyes:.

Nice to see them being honest about it for once but fuel costs are already strangling too many people. Tax cuts on petrol and we'd all be better off.

There will be a cut in the number of workers in the public service and public service pension reductions.

Now this one is quite interesting. Remember, these suggestions (if that's what they are) are coming from the IMF and not some Dept of Finance spokesman. What do they mean by cut exactly? Might it simply be more voluntary redundancy, early retirements or is it a hint of something far more direct. Time will tell gentlemen.

Dannyboy83

This is no surprise.

There will be 4 years of tax increases.
Tax revenues are planned to increase by 33% by 2015

nesf

Threads merged.

ei.sdraob

nesf wrote: »

So? None of those claim that we won't have austerity for the next 5 years.

Why have austerity when we can just borrow and not have to repay the debt :rolleyes: maybe ask Scofflaw for sure since he is the one sprouting the no need to repay meme

nesf

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Why have austerity when we can just borrow and not have to repay the debt :rolleyes: maybe ask Scofflaw for sure since he is the one sprouting the no need to repay meme

Eh, now you're just being disingenuous. Scofflaw was only talking about the tradition for countries not to pay off the capital sum and only service the interest.

ei.sdraob

nesf wrote: »

Eh, now you're just being disingenuous. Scofflaw was only talking about the tradition for countries not to pay off the capital sum and only service the interest.

Countries with own currency and own central bank and printing presses, like UK
not countries tied to the euro and its low inflation target (and mind you having high inflation in Ireland above rest of eurozone would only make things worse not better)

Or countries like US with large military and large internal market who can go an tell creditors to stick it if they come knocking on the door
Ireland of now is not Ireland of 80s, what worked then will not work now since we are in a different pot



Our capital sum will increase from 50 billion to 200 billion in few short years with various other obligations such as NAMA and pensions hidden elsewhere,
and then there is the EU/IMF debt, try telling them that their money will not be repaid

nesf

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Our capital sum will increase from 50 billion to 200 billion in few short years with various other obligations such as NAMA and pensions hidden elsewhere,
and then there is the EU/IMF debt, try telling them that their money will not be repaid

Yes, and their money will be repaid by us taking out a loan to cover the capital meaning we're effectively just rolling over the debt.

Debtocracy

nesf wrote: »

Yes, and their money will be repaid by us taking out a loan to cover the capital meaning we're effectively just rolling over the debt.

And everything works out fine as long as people lend us money because they think that other lenders in the future will lend us money to pay off the original loan. I wonder what the record is for the longest Ponzi scheme?

nesf

Debtocracy wrote: »

And everything works out fine as long as people lend us money because they think that other lenders in the future will lend us money to pay off the original loan. I wonder what the record is for the longest Ponzi scheme?

Depends on GDP to Debt ratio basically. So long as you don't exceed your GDP by too much (think 120-130%) you'll get away with the Ponzi scheme indefinitely because you'll be able to keep economic growth ahead of your borrowings meaning your ability to repay continues to exceed your commitments.

Borrow too much, too fast and you'll force the markets into calling your bluff and you end up downgraded and paying a very high interest rate on your debt which results in you needing to pay down debt/balance the budget and so on.

Crazy Horse 6

dev100 wrote: »

Black Friday number 2 I reckon... Question I'd like to know is what else is up there sleeves... Goes to show Europe is dictating Irish policys. We are no longer a sovereign nation. The real recession hasn't even begun yet. You have twats like noonan telling us to spend spend. We are fools.

+1 Nothing has changed over the last few months if anything it's gotten much much worse.

maninasia

nesf wrote: »

Depends on GDP to Debt ratio basically. So long as you don't exceed your GDP by too much (think 120-130%) you'll get away with the Ponzi scheme indefinitely because you'll be able to keep economic growth ahead of your borrowings meaning your ability to repay continues to exceed your commitments.

Borrow too much, too fast and you'll force the markets into calling your bluff and you end up downgraded and paying a very high interest rate on your debt which results in you needing to pay down debt/balance the budget and so on.

The problem with this scheme is when economic conditions change in the WIDER WORLD and credit becomes hard/very expensive to access. Think GCC or European Debt Crisis or US Default or Japanese Default. Eventually you run out of people who are willing to loan money to you. Broke.

nesf

maninasia wrote: »

The problem with this scheme is when economic conditions change in the WIDER WORLD and credit becomes hard/very expensive to access. Think GCC or European Debt Crisis or US Default or Japanese Default. Eventually you run out of people who are willing to loan money to you. Broke.

Sure, but there's nothing an individual country can do about that beyond trying to keep as balanced a budget as possible which is what's normally wanted anyway.

Permabear

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ei.sdraob

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

The thing is Ireland is tied to ECB with its low inflation target, so little hope of eurozone wide inflation wiping away the debt anytime soon, its growing much faster anyways than the euro inflation rate