Askaboutmoney

shangri la

I started a thread on ask about money. It was simply asking for more advice on an economics lecturer telling me that mortgage insurance would be running out for a lot of people next year. (Basically the insurance is for people who lost their jobs and would have 75% of their mortgage payments covered for 3 years).

Brendan Burgess then immediately banned me for asking that because any discussion on property prices is temporarily banned on a financial advice wesbite.

He told me: "Go to some other site if you are not prepared to read the Posting Guidelines."


That is a joke of a site.

Sarn

That ban on property prices has been in place for a long time. Caused a lot of controversy on the site when it was introduced. As it has been in place for years they can't remove it without losing face. You might also consider The Property Pin.

Apart from that issue I find the site very useful.

vicwatson

I agree with you OP, he acts likes the Gestapo sometimes, if BB gave you a warning first then fine but when you just get banned outright.....didn't he ever hear about yellow cards !

That's a great thing about board IMO - you get infractions if you act the dick, but you dont get red card then ask questions later treatment.

Nothing on that site anyway that you can't find out from other decent boardsies here (in the right forum of course !)

jmayo

I can't believe he is still banning discussion on house prices. :rolleyes:

Maybe someone should ask about invesdting in bank shares instead.

Some Boards forums are run by what I would label "wantabe Brendan Burgesses".

This forum would not be one of the above BTW.

wyndham

We should all fill our boots with bank shares. AAM is more suited to those looking for tea and sympathy after their gilt edged investment apartment in Dubai or India or Islandbridge has gone t1ts up.

An Ri rua

wyndham wrote: »

We should all fill our boots with bank shares. AAM is more suited to those looking for tea and sympathy after their gilt edged investment apartment in Dubai or India or Islandbridge has gone t1ts up.

AAM should change its name to ASK My Arse because BB doesn't believe in even relatively free speech. Its whatever deluded reality HE believes in. I've had numerous near bannings by him. Ask my arse, Brendan, ask my arse....

miju

LOL can I just take a bow here and claim credit for starting the monster thread on Ask About Money which lead to that ban (was oh so funny how it came about LOL)

Think in the first wave of bannings there was about 8 or 9 of us perma site banned from AAM which led to the development of the property pin and the various site tools for tracking rents / house prices.


Guess that kinda backfired on oul Brendan a bit badly Worthless site anyways IMO

Diddler1977

What are BB's reasonings for banning the discussion of property prices?

Slydice

Diddler1977 wrote: »

What are BB's reasonings for banning the discussion of property prices?

the man might be heavily invested in property dependent banks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2q7bBVAo74

Victor

I'm not enthusiastic about discussing the internal affairs of other websites or persons who can't defend themselves here.

jmayo

Slydice wrote: »

the man might be heavily invested in property dependent banks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2q7bBVAo74

And to think the Pat Kenny Show wheeled him out recently as an expert and he was put on that government commission looking into how to handle the residential mortgage problems.
Oh ffs it makes one dispair about this bloody country. :mad:

Victor wrote: »

I'm not enthusiastic about discussing the internal affairs of other websites or persons who can't defend themselves here.

Ah go on, go on...you will, you will

Some would probably like to discuss it over on AAM, but they would be banned for doing so.
Oh AFAIK isn't the gentleman a poster here in some form ?

BTW as the video above highlights he can't defend himself because he got it absolutely wrong.

vicwatson

I'm sure BB is more than welcome and quite capable of defending himself here but i see a point you have

regress

Is a little schadenfreude allowed. I think the ban and the heavy handed moderation has backfired spectacularly on Mr Burgess. It was made on behalf of vested interests who wanted to silence in 2006 those who were " talking down the property market" and damaging public trust and confidence in the running of the economy. However the finger in the dyke did not work and a site that was important and influential was totally discredited. It also created a significant group of those active online who suffered during the Reign of Terror. It was interesting to see how his property slot on Pat Kenny was cancelled as a result of listener complaints.

Damie

Victor wrote: »

I'm not enthusiastic about discussing the internal affairs of other websites or persons who can't defend themselves here.

The OP was told to go to a different site - so I wouldn't feel too bad about it tbf

iguana

I'm curious about the definition of the word temporary. How long has the ban been in place? Since 2006? That's over 5 years. How long has AAM even been around? If it was founded in 2001, for example, that means a 'temporary' ban has lasted for half of it's existence. He should at least just admit that house price discussions are banned and stop misusing the language on top of everything else.

Treehouse72

Diddler1977 wrote: »

What are BB's reasonings for banning the discussion of property prices?

The rationale was that the debate was going around in circles, contained more heat than light and - most importantly - was not "balanced". Brendan said that if someone could provide a "balanced" summary about the future of the property market, he'd let the thread stand. When he decided that no such summary would be forthcoming, he shut the thread. That was in 2006, the height of the bubble.

The underlying truth is easy to discern: Brendan did not spot that it was a property bubble and thought that the negative comments on property were nothing more than a lunatic fringe ranting. The decision in his mind was clearly the equivelent of, say, a serious politics site banning 9/11 conspiracy theories, or, an astronomy site banning discussion of astrology. He thought talk of a property crash was that nuts and that far outside of the bounds of reality that to even indulge a discussion it was ridiculous.

He was wrong.

miju

the real reason he banned it was it was the very first site and very first thread in Ireland pre bubble popping when a certain poster was able to disprove all the property cheerleaders in one go by posting two links.

First link was to a property on daft, the second was to Googles cache of that property and it showed and proved publicly for the first time price drops were starting.

Within hours of that post discussion and lots of posters were banned from AAM.

snubbleste

@ Brendan Burgess.
If any of ye see or hear him on the public airwaves in relation to the economy, ensure you complain/highlight bias to the broadcaster concerned.

August 2007 I would invest in AIB or Bank of Ireland rather than putting money on deposit with them.

phormium

I saw your query on askaboumoney, didnt notice it was closed, but I thought the query unusual. Don't know why there would be a particular increase in the amount of people finishing repayment protection on their mortgages as these claims are being made everyday and not all in the one bunch. They also normally only last for 12 months and pay whatever amount of the repayment you insured originally, could be 100%, 50%, 20%, any sort of amount. I have not come across a policy that pays out for 3 yrs at 75%.

someuser905

brendan burgess is a fúcking idiot

Victor

someuser905 wrote: »

brendan burgess is a fúcking idiot

No need to be abusive.

shangri la

I was told that by an economics lecturer rather than someone with access to a banks loan book so I was wondering if it was theory or fact. There does not seem to be much info publicy available on this but on the other hand it would be counter productive for the bank to release that info.

mrmitty

Victor wrote: »

No need to be abusive.

There is a lot of anger towards Mr Burgess and for good reason.
He was and is complicit in the defrauding of a large percentage of the Irish population through the great national property ponzi scheme by willingly and knowingly withholding and suppressing the truth.
Personally I would dispute the accuracy of the use of the adjective "idiot".
There are more accurate words to describe Mr Burgess but fortunately for him, there are idiotic slander laws on the books to protect his name.
Unfortunately For the public, there are none to protect them from his deceptions.

Mr. Loverman

Couple of things:

Brendan Burgess held a substantial number of bank shares (I read this in one of the newspapers just before the bubble burst).
He also claims he could not see we were in a property bubble, which I find absolutely unbelievable considering a) it was beyond obvious and b) he claims to be a personal finance expert.

So he was either abusing his authority (i.e. disallow discussion which could affect share prices) or totally incompetent. Or both.

And of course RTE have him on TV and the radio all the time. And the government gave him a job deciding what should happen to all the private debt in the country.

What a joke, but sadly, unsurprising.

Cavehill Red

miju wrote: »

the real reason he banned it was it was the very first site and very first thread in Ireland pre bubble popping when a certain poster was able to disprove all the property cheerleaders in one go by posting two links.

First link was to a property on daft, the second was to Googles cache of that property and it showed and proved publicly for the first time price drops were starting.

Within hours of that post discussion and lots of posters were banned from AAM.

Yup, we owe him that - his intransigence led to the creation of the great Property Pin. I was one of those banned from Ask About Money (But Don't Mention The Collapsing Property Bubble) . Com. Fantastic. I learnt more from following others to the Pin than I ever would have on his site, which is positively moribund these days.

Treehouse72

mrmitty wrote: »

He was and is complicit in the defrauding of a large percentage of the Irish population through the great national property ponzi scheme by willingly and knowingly withholding and suppressing the truth. .

Incorrect. Totally incorrect. And it is very important that everyone recognises it as incorrect.

So to be clear: You cannot willingly and knowingly suppress a truth that you do not know to be a truth. We need to be very, very clear about what happened so that the accounting of the thing is full and true for posterity: These morons didn't see it coming. Clueless, not malevolent.

If you don't understand this then you don't understand either the nature of our property bubble nor of bubbles in general. Twisting the truth is a disservice to a proper understanding of what happened. When we turn ignorance into malevolence it gives the morons too much credit, it excuses the wider population their mistakes and it runs the risk of turning what was a textbook bubble into some kind of weird, unknowable conspiracy theory. It was none of that. It was a bunch of credulous, ignorant morons (include 95% of the country in that if you like) allowing their credulity and ignorance run riot until it destroyed the country. If we think they did it on purpose it turns the thing into something different altogether.

jmayo

Treehouse72 wrote: »

The rationale was that the debate was going around in circles, contained more heat than light and - most importantly - was not "balanced". Brendan said that if someone could provide a "balanced" summary about the future of the property market, he'd let the thread stand. When he decided that no such summary would be forthcoming, he shut the thread. That was in 2006, the height of the bubble.

The underlying truth is easy to discern: Brendan did not spot that it was a property bubble and thought that the negative comments on property were nothing more than a lunatic fringe ranting. The decision in his mind was clearly the equivelent of, say, a serious politics site banning 9/11 conspiracy theories, or, an astronomy site banning discussion of astrology. He thought talk of a property crash was that nuts and that far outside of the bounds of reality that to even indulge a discussion it was ridiculous.

Well then he must really be an idiot if he thought that astronomical house prices shored up by cheap credit in an economy based on said construction industry would go on unabated.
He was also ignoring valid outside economic appraisal of the situation and ignoring almost all historical examples of what happens when a huge bubble occurrs.

Treehouse72 wrote: »

He was wrong.

Understatement of the year me thinks. :rolleyes:

Not alone was he wrong, he actually was trying to convince everyone that everything was rosey in the garden in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary.
The interview on RTE advising people to invest in Irish bank shares at a time when international confidence in Irish banks had taken a hammering is luaghable at best and at worst may show a cunning mind at work trying to shore up his own personal investments.

Treehouse72 wrote: »

Incorrect. Totally incorrect. And it is very important that everyone recognises it as incorrect.

So to be clear: You cannot willingly and knowingly suppress a truth that you do not know to be a truth. We need to be very, very clear about what happened so that the accounting of the thing is full and true for posterity: These morons didn't see it coming. Clueless, not malevolent.

Some of the so called morons actually did see it coming.
For a start some of the major banks sold their own property.
That is something a lot of people fail to mention when they claim the banks hadn't an idea about the market.
They knew enough to get out in time.
Remember the shouts of horror when Richard Curran's program was screened.

Treehouse72 wrote: »

If you don't understand this then you don't understand either the nature of our property bubble nor of bubbles in general. Twisting the truth is a disservice to a proper understanding of what happened. When we turn ignorance into malevolence it gives the morons too much credit, it excuses the wider population their mistakes and it runs the risk of turning what was a textbook bubble into some kind of weird, unknowable conspiracy theory. It was none of that. It was a bunch of credulous, ignorant morons (include 95% of the country in that if you like) allowing their credulity and ignorance run riot until it destroyed the country. If we think they did it on purpose it turns the thing into something different altogether.

Ah for God's sake don't resort to "we were all to blame" argument. :mad:

There are always ones who will continue to back the bubble and it's myth because it is in their best interest to do so.
Too many people had gotten greedy and had sunk money into the pyramid so that they were trying to make sure the party continued.

BB was supposed to be an economic expert.
Either he totally disregarded economic commonsense (which the likes of Alan Aherne, Morgan Kelly, David McWilliams did not) or he had a vested interest in dispelling it and banning any discussion of it.

He was more like the Dan McLuaghlin camp and we all know he was working for the vested interests.

BTW IMHO you have been going out of your way to defend BB.
Do you have any connection may I ask ?

Mister Dread

someuser905 wrote: »

brendan burgess is a fúcking idiot

I don't see how this is abusive. Is this not the definition of an idiot?

August 2007 I would invest in AIB or Bank of Ireland rather than putting money on deposit with them.

The quality of his analysis on property, finance and economics is shockingly poor. Anybody who touts themselves as a consumer expert and gets things as badly wrong as he did above is an idiot, no question of it.

He has spent the last five years calling Morgan Kelly a crank amongst other things.

mrmitty

Treehouse72 wrote: »

Incorrect. Totally incorrect. And it is very important that everyone recognises it as incorrect.

So to be clear: You cannot willingly and knowingly suppress a truth that you do not know to be a truth. We need to be very, very clear about what happened so that the accounting of the thing is full and true for posterity: These morons didn't see it coming. Clueless, not malevolent.

If you don't understand this then you don't understand either the nature of our property bubble nor of bubbles in general. Twisting the truth is a disservice to a proper understanding of what happened. When we turn ignorance into malevolence it gives the morons too much credit, it excuses the wider population their mistakes and it runs the risk of turning what was a textbook bubble into some kind of weird, unknowable conspiracy theory. It was none of that. It was a bunch of credulous, ignorant morons (include 95% of the country in that if you like) allowing their credulity and ignorance run riot until it destroyed the country. If we think they did it on purpose it turns the thing into something different altogether.

True, he did not see it coming but when presented with the facts he raised the ban hammer instead of doing what was,is and always will be morally correct.

See this post...
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=76049863&postcount=17

Treehouse72

jmayo wrote: »

BTW IMHO you have been going out of your way to defend BB.
Do you have any connection may I ask ?

Very weird question for you to ask me jmayo.

regress

The issue is not so much whether Brendan Burgess put himself forward as a financial expert and got it completely wrong. He clearly did.

It is his intolerance. He used what power he had in his little empire to ruthlessly supress all dissent. Anyone who suggested their might be a bubble was banned and the deletion of posts and threads became commonplace. His stalinistic purges and his refusal to allow any contrary views are a measure of the man and he does bear some responsibility for the state the country is now in.

shangri la

If its any consolation, going from the video posted on the first page it sounds like he filled his boots with Irish banking shares.

miju

If anyones actually interested in the thread it's at http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=31710

As you'll see shortly after post number 8043 ( http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showpost.php?p=311420&postcount=8043 ) in that thread the ban hammer Brendan has enough of posters providing evidence and en masse used the ban hammer with the closing post of

The moderators have decided to close this thread permanently for the following reasons:

1) Nothing new has been said on it for a long time, so there is nothing to be gained by leaving it open
2) There have been frequent breaches of the Posting Guidelines and many users were reporting these posts to the moderators
3) The thread required a huge amount of moderators' time and we have better things to do
4) Many people were posting exclusively in that thread and making no other contribution to Askaboutmoney

But don't despair. You can find extensive, informed, articulate, balanced and entertaining commentary on the impending collapse of the Irish property market here.

It would be a great addition to Askaboutmoney if someone would do a balanced summary of both sides of the argument for an increase or decrease in the price of Irish property. We would refer all genuine questions and concerns to such a post. If you do such a post, please email it to brendan@askaboutmoney.com first. Don't start a new thread yet.

We have reset the post count for users so that any posts made in this thread are not included in their total post count. Consequently a small number of users have had their status changed from Frequent Poster to Registered User.

Brendan

AHHHHH memories

regress

I think the thread is an important historical document. Although it may appear self evident now that there was a property pyramid scheme there was no such consensus in mid 2006. There was in fact a bubble hysteria fuelled by people like Burgess that led people to act irrationally. His fanatical and ultimately useless suppression of dissent was partly self delusion and partly wanting to protect his own interests and those of his financial backers.

P. Breathnach

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=76107114#post76107114

Mr. Loverman

P. Breathnach wrote: »

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=76107114#post76107114

I knew it was only a matter of time before you came along defending Burgess.

You should probably state your relationship to him.

Victor

Mr. Loverman wrote: »

I knew it was only a matter of time before you came along defending Burgess.

It is fair that a variety of view is seen. No need to get personal about it.