We have turned the corner - definitely!

Atilathehun

Christmas retail sales, published recently showed a few percent increase over last year. Of course, the true patrons of this forum, explained that away, by claiming the frost last year, dampened demand.
Then last week we we had the tax take figures for January, showing better numbers than last year. There was a corporate tax income figure in ther which explained some of the increase, but nevertheless, the underlying trend was up on last year.

Now, the bell weather indicator of consumer spending, is ticking up. Car sales for January up 6.5% on last year.
No doubt about it, this country is leading by example, in showing how to deal with not only a fiscal crisis, but with both a fiscal and a banking crisis combined.

Toyota most popular brand as car sales increase 6.5pc in January

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/motoring/toyota-most-popular-brand-as-car-sales-increase-65pc-in-january-3012123.html

CAR sales increased 6.5pc in January compared with the same period last year, new figures show.
Toyota was the top selling brand with 2,612 new cars licensed, followed by Ford (2,006), Volkswagen (1,640) and Nissan (930).
The Central Statistics Office said 14,507 new cars were registered in the month, up from 13,624 a year earlier.
While the figures from January were strong, industry body SIMI warned last week that it was cautious about the year as a whole.
January is an important indicator for the sector as half of all new cars are purchased in the first three months of the year.
Just under 24pc of January's new cars ran on petrol while the rest were diesel.
The number of new goods vehicles licensed in January was up 11.7pc from a year earlier to 1,082.
- Independent.ie reporters

femur61

I don't see it where I live in the south east, lots opf shops closed. January sales started mid december. Sales may be up but are profits!

Brussels Sprout

So just because you cherry picked three positive figures from the range of negative indicators out there you now say that the country has definitely turned a corner. I'm guessing that you're not a statistician.

SeaFields

We've turned so many corners at this stage we are going round in circles...down a plughole.

RichardAnd

I am also of the opinion that things are beginning to improve, I stress the word "beginning". The problem I see however, is that the the global financial is very unstable so who is to say that another disaster will not tip everything back into the mud once again. A good outcome of this recession/depression would be a move away from the current system in favour of something more sound but that doesn't seem to be too likely, the powers that be being content to insist that the broken light bulb will work once again . . .

Anyway, time will tell but seeing as I am currently afforded the boon of choosing what to believe, I wish to take the glass-half-full opinion of the future. We'll see.


EDIT: OP, do not use the words "we've turned a corner", it's tainted.

gerryo777

RichardAnd wrote: »

I am also of the opinion that things are beginning to improve, I stress the word "beginning". The problem I see however, is that the the global financial is very unstable so who is to say that another disaster will not tip everything back into the mud once again. A good outcome of this recession/depression would be a move away from the current system in favour of something more sound but that doesn't seem to be too likely, the powers that be being content to insist that the broken light bulb will work once again . . .

Anyway, time will tell but seeing as I am currently afforded the boon of choosing what to believe, I wish to take the glass-half-full opinion of the future. We'll see.


EDIT: OP, do not use the words "we've turned a corner", it's tainted.

That and "moving forward"....;)

MickySticks

Turned the corner? There are still over 450,000 people on the live register! The unemployment rate dictates sales and profit so until job creation is tackled nothing will change.

leeroybrown

Regardless of whatever economic indicators are there I don't think anyone can say that we have "turned the corner". We are still running a massive exchequer deficit to fund the state and are building up a crippling national debt in the process. We have to extract many billions more per annum from the economy just to balance the books let alone pay interest or repayments on our debts. We're trying to avoid turning a very different corner in the downwards direction rather than the upwards one you're referring to.

Dannyboy83

I bought a Toyota last year on the scrappage scheme - bear in mind there was a rather big backlog in Toyota orders last year due to the Earthquakes in Japan. 3rd and 4th Quarter sales were way down, or so I was told.

I do appreciate the positive gesture tho - trying to be more positive myself, we need a positive politics thread.

randofmact

Certain sectors are beginning to turn a corner, but unless there are a serious amount of jobs created soon then it will continue to get worse, money will keep getting cut from people, both workers and unemployed, and this will lead to more job losses in sectors dealing with their local markets!

Its a pity that all the corners we seem to turn are part of a vicious circle!

ardmacha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdRH5wzCQQw

BeeDI

ardmacha wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdRH5wzCQQw

Sir Winston, if he were around to day, would never say, "is feidir linn".
Hw would say ...

First Speech as Prime Minister May 13, 1940 to House of Commons.
To form an Administration of this scale and complexity is a serious undertaking in itself, but it must be remembered that we are in the preliminary stage of one of the greatest battles in history, that we are in action at many other points in Norway and in Holland, that we have to be prepared in the Mediterranean, that the air battle is continuous and that many preparations, such as have been indicated by my hon. Friend below the Gangway, have to be made here at home. In this crisis I hope I may be pardoned if I do not address the House at any length today. I hope that any of my friends and colleagues, or former colleagues, who are affected by the political reconstruction, will make allowance, all allowance, for any lack of ceremony with which it has been necessary to act. I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this government: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.“
We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim?
I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. Let that be realised; no survival for the British Empire, no survival for all that the British Empire has stood for, no survival for the urge and impulse of the ages, that mankind will move forward towards its goal. But I take up my task with buoyancy and hope. I feel sure that our cause will not be suffered to fail among men. At this time I feel entitled to claim the aid of all, and I say, “come then, let us go forward together with our united strength.”

ronan45

Woohoooooooo


"Dusts off visa card and grins smuggly"

Chuck Stone

You're not an estate agent are you?

KIERAN1

It was Christmas even the poorest of society will buy stuff in the shops for their loved ones. So not really a surprise sales figures would look rosy in Jan.

Car sales ya the government keeps telling us there's no money in the country people are broke. Yet people can go to the garages every year and buy a new vehicle at ridiculous prices.

KIERAN1

MickySticks wrote: »

Turned the corner? There are still over 450,000 people on the live register! The unemployment rate dictates sales and profit so until job creation is tackled nothing will change.

Without does extra Jobs Government can't tax you. So no new jobs no economic growth will happen basic economics.

leeroybrown

KIERAN1 wrote: »

Car sales ya the government keeps telling us there's no money in the country people are broke. Yet people can go to the garages every year and buy a new vehicle at ridiculous prices.

There's plenty of people that aren't much worse off than four years ago ...yet. Those people that have money are just de-leveraging, saving and not buying many luxuries they don't need. People who aren't badly off are still replacing their cars, just not quite as often.

KIERAN1

leeroybrown wrote: »

There's plenty of people that aren't much worse off than four years ago ...yet. Those people that have money are just de-leveraging, saving and not buying many luxuries they don't need. People who aren't badly off are still replacing their cars, just not quite as often.

People can spent their money anyway they wish, but its fairly obvious Ireland is not a run down country and we probably could tax more of the well-off to get out of this mess much faster.

The biggest luxury is a house and everyone wishes to have this luxury. But Banks make it so that its not an easy luxury to attain. To enable us to get out of this mess and prosper, banks should be less about profit and more about helping society. As it stands at the moment Banks are only a scourge on society.

Houses, ain't special their made of cement and water at the end. But People are falling into traps of paying vast sums to achieve the dream of owning a house. But realistically, should a three bedroom housed cost quarter of a million? Should Banks be allowed to charge the crazy interest they do on a quarter of a million loan?

Afterall, Irish people everyday go to work to collect wages, to save and then pay their mortgage or to pay rent each month. That money would be better served being spent in the domestic economy then filing the pockets of the Bankers.

AlekSmart

KIERAN1 wrote: »

Ireland is not a run down country and we probably could tax more of the well-off to get out of this mess much faster.

The biggest luxury is a house and everyone wishes to have this luxury. But Banks make it so that its not an easy luxury to attain.

Houses,ain't special their made of cement and water at the end. But People are falling into traps of paying vast sums to achieve the dream of owning a house. But realistically, should a three bedroom housed cost quarter of a million? Should Banks be allowed to charge the crazy interest they do on a quarter of a million loan?

Afterall, Irish people everyday go to work to collect wages, to save and then pay their mortgage or to pay rent each month. That money would be better served being spent in the domestic economy then filing the pockets of the Bankers.

As good a definition of modern Irelands affliction as you'll get,well said Kieran1.

However as successive Irish Governments totally focused on turning this Luxury into a necessity,we fell into a very deep pit indeed.....:)

gerryo777

KIERAN1 wrote: »

People can spent their money anyway they wish, but its fairly obvious Ireland is not a run down country and we probably could tax more of the well-off to get out of this mess much faster.

The biggest luxury is a house and everyone wishes to have this luxury. But Banks make it so that its not an easy luxury to attain. To enable us to get out of this mess and prosper, banks should be less about profit and more about helping society. As it stands at the moment Banks are only a scourge on society.

Houses, ain't special their made of cement and water at the end. But People are falling into traps of paying vast sums to achieve the dream of owning a house. But realistically, should a three bedroom housed cost quarter of a million? Should Banks be allowed to charge the crazy interest they do on a quarter of a million loan?

Afterall, Irish people everyday go to work to collect wages, to save and then pay their mortgage or to pay rent each month. That money would be better served being spent in the domestic economy then filing the pockets of the Bankers.

So having a home is a luxury, are you serious?

gerryo777

AlekSmart wrote: »

As good a definition of modern Irelands affliction as you'll get,well said Kieran1.

However as successive Irish Governments totally focused on turning this Luxury into a necessity,we fell into a very deep pit indeed.....:)

So a home is not a necessity? You boys on the wacky baccy or something?

bbam

randofmact wrote: »

Certain sectors are beginning to turn a corner, but unless there are a serious amount of jobs created soon then it will continue to get worse, money will keep getting cut from people, both workers and unemployed, and this will lead to more job losses in sectors dealing with their local markets!

Its a pity that all the corners we seem to turn are part of a vicious circle!

Ahhh....

But don't FG/Labour have a jobs strategy ?? Stole money from pensions to fund it...

Isn't the plan to get 100,000 back to work over five years... so after 20 years of those muppets in government we'll be down to 50,000 left on the live register....:rolleyes:

RandolphEsq

I think people have been clearing chunks of their debt the past few years and therefore holding off discretionary purchases. At this stage a decent amount of people would be getting to the point where they no longer have much debt so can start to put money aside for discretionary expenses. I'm not saying that this applies to a lot of people but I would imagine it applies to a sizeable amount of people who possibly see light at the end of the tunnel and have loosened their purse strings as a reward for clearing off a lot of their debt.

gerryo777 wrote: »

So a home is not a necessity? You boys on the wacky baccy or something?

I think there it can be said that there is a difference between a house and a home, in that you don't have to own your home (i.e. you can rent), and your home does not have to be a house (i.e. it can be an apartment).

KIERAN1

gerryo777 wrote: »

So having a home is a luxury, are you serious?

Gerry, words have meaning and the word luxury has meaning.

The dictionary meaning: 1. Something inessential but conducive to pleasure and comfort. 2. Something expensive or hard to obtain.

House would follow into the category of being very expensive and hard to obtain for most people.

I reckon 100% of mortgages belong to people who borrowed money from banks. They were unable to support the purchase of the house themselves. So Gerry, a house is a luxury.

Houses been essential for living and protecting us from the weather is a different matter entirely.

CamperMan

most of the people buying these new cars will be public sector workers taking early retirement and getting massive cash lump sums....

Predalien

CamperMan wrote: »

most of the people buying these new cars will be public sector workers taking early retirement and getting massive cash lump sums....

Prob partially true, but I'd hope most of em do go on spending sprees here, better than it resting in a bank account or spent on trips/property abroad.

gerryo777

KIERAN1 wrote: »

Gerry, words have meaning and the word luxury has meaning.

The dictionary meaning: 1. Something inessential but conducive to pleasure and comfort. 2. Something expensive or hard to obtain.

House would follow into the category of being very expensive and hard to obtain for most people.

I reckon 100% of mortgages belong to people who borrowed money from banks. They were unable to support the purchase of the house themselves. So Gerry, a house is a luxury.

Houses been essential for living and protecting us from the weather is a different matter entirely.

I've heard it all now.

irishh_bob

CamperMan wrote: »

most of the people buying these new cars will be public sector workers taking early retirement and getting massive cash lump sums....

what i was thinking when i read this

mike65

When potential shop owners can afford to rent town centre properties and keep them open is when things have improved for the economy as a whole. Some sectors are doing just grand. Right now deleveraging/saving is the thing, even by people who in truth are almost certainly in safe areas of the economy.

ardmacha

To hear the bleating here you'd think that nobody had any money, or only the small fraction of people working in the public sector. 80% of people have 80% of the money they ever had and wages might have dropped to 2006 levels or whenever but there were a lot of cars sold then. The same people are buying cars as always bought them, although they may have waiting an extra year to change their wheels.

As for public sector people getting lump sums, I know two such people. One is using the money to pay off his children's mortgages, the other to pay for a university course for his unemployed daughter. No new cars there.

gerryo777

ardmacha wrote: »

To hear the bleating here you'd think that nobody had any money, or only the small fraction of people working in the public sector. 80% of people have 80% of the money they ever had and wages might have dropped to 2006 levels or whenever but there were a lot of cars sold then. The same people are buying cars as always bought them, although they may have waiting an extra year to change their wheels.

As for public sector people getting lump sums, I know two such people. One is using the money to pay off his children's mortgages, the other to pay for a university course for his unemployed daughter. No new cars there.

To pay off his children's mortgages? We really are doing something wrong in this country.

ardmacha

To pay off his children's mortgages? We really are doing something wrong in this country.

And the same individual would readily admit that, now! But his children were in the household formation stage and everyone bought into the whole house thing and so paid the inflated house prices with a parental guarantee on the mortgage.

We were doing something very very wrong for 6 years or so. Mass psychosis?

gerryo777

ardmacha wrote: »

And the same individual would readily admit that, now! But his children were in the household formation stage and everyone bought into the whole house thing and so paid the inflated house prices with a parental guarantee on the mortgage.

We were doing something very very wrong for 6 years or so.

It must have been some lump sum though.....

leeroybrown

KIERAN1 wrote: »

People can spent their money anyway they wish, but its fairly obvious Ireland is not a run down country and we probably could tax more of the well-off to get out of this mess much faster.

The biggest luxury is a house and everyone wishes to have this luxury. But Banks make it so that its not an easy luxury to attain. To enable us to get out of this mess and prosper, banks should be less about profit and more about helping society. As it stands at the moment Banks are only a scourge on society.

Houses, ain't special their made of cement and water at the end. But People are falling into traps of paying vast sums to achieve the dream of owning a house. But realistically, should a three bedroom housed cost quarter of a million? Should Banks be allowed to charge the crazy interest they do on a quarter of a million loan?

Afterall, Irish people everyday go to work to collect wages, to save and then pay their mortgage or to pay rent each month. That money would be better served being spent in the domestic economy then filing the pockets of the Bankers.

The best generalisations are sweeping generalisations. Only a true libertarian could fully agree with your use of the definition. Having somewhere safe and comfortable to live is not a luxury. I'll agree that many people over-extended themselves to purchase a luxury home and that many others over-extended themselves by buying at the top of the property bubble but I certainly won't agree that an ordinary person who buys a house in order to live in it is buying a luxury.

Even if we completely (and unrealistically) detach the value of land from the price of property there is still a large cost associated with building a safe, comfortable housing unit to a reasonable standard. This cost must be borne by either an investor who will likely borrow to purchase and lease at a profit, or a homeowner who will likely borrow to purchase to reside. If someone plans to live somewhere in the long-term purchasing is likely to yield a long-term saving and provide far more security and rights than our hopelessly poor tenancy practices and laws do.

A friend was recently so brazen and excessive as to take out a mortgage and achieve that dream of owning a house for his family to live in. He now gets to enjoy the luxury of paying a lower monthly mortgage payment to own something than the rather reasonable rent he was paying in exactly the same area.

ardmacha

It must have been some lump sum though.....

The lump sum didn't pay off the mortgage, but it did clear up the arrears.
Negative equity, like it or lump it.

Godge

leeroybrown wrote: »

The best generalisations are sweeping generalisations. Only a true libertarian could fully agree with your use of the definition. Having somewhere safe and comfortable to live is not a luxury. I'll agree that many people over-extended themselves to purchase a luxury home and that many others over-extended themselves by buying at the top of the property bubble but I certainly won't agree that an ordinary person who buys a house in order to live in it is buying a luxury.

Even if we completely (and unrealistically) detach the value of land from the price of property there is still a large cost associated with building a safe, comfortable housing unit to a reasonable standard. This cost must be borne by either an investor who will likely borrow to purchase and lease at a profit, or a homeowner who will likely borrow to purchase to reside. If someone plans to live somewhere in the long-term purchasing is likely to yield a long-term saving and provide far more security and rights than our hopelessly poor tenancy practices and laws do.

A friend was recently so brazen and excessive as to take out a mortgage and achieve that dream of owning a house for his family to live in. He now gets to enjoy the luxury of paying a lower monthly mortgage payment to own something than the rather reasonable rent he was paying in exactly the same area.

The bit in bold there "I wouldn't agree that an ordinary person who buys a house in order to live in it is buying a luxury", that is an Irish (and to a slightly lesser extent a UK) attitude.

In Germany, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, the US, while lots of people have a dream to buy a house to live in it, most people never live that dream and spend their life in rented accommodation. In most of the rest of the world, from China and India to Africa, it is worse, it is an unacheiveable dream for 90%.

That peculiar Irish attitude is how we got ourselves into this mess, it is how there are people living in Longford and Tipperary and working in Dublin. It is amazing how people still don't get it after all we have been through.

leeroybrown

Godge wrote: »

The bit in bold there "I wouldn't agree that an ordinary person who buys a house in order to live in it is buying a luxury", that is an Irish (and to a slightly lesser extent a UK) attitude.

In Germany, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, the US, while lots of people have a dream to buy a house to live in it, most people never live that dream and spend their life in rented accommodation. In most of the rest of the world, from China and India to Africa, it is worse, it is an unacheiveable dream for 90%.

That peculiar Irish attitude is how we got ourselves into this mess, it is how there are people living in Longford and Tipperary and working in Dublin. It is amazing how people still don't get it after all we have been through.

We do have a comparatively high level of home ownership but those central European countries you've listed still have over 50% owner occupiers. The US has a similar rate to the UK up at ~70%. It's certainly more of a luxury in Germany where the ownership rate is only about 40% (brought down by high rental rates in big cities) but that's for a reason we don't have here.

In Germany unlike here you have good quality housing, excellent spatial strategy, good public transport, relatively inexpensive rents and good tenancy laws. It's quite a reasonable prospect to rent a home on a long term basis there. Here doing that is purely at the whim of the landlord you end up with and is a far more expensive prospect relative to purchase price. I know many tenants who aren't allowed to paint a wall, hang a picture, put up a poster or have a pet and who can be asked to leave by their landlord on very short notice.

Dannyboy83

leeroybrown wrote: »

The best generalisations are sweeping generalisations. Only a true libertarian could fully agree with your use of the definition. Having somewhere safe and comfortable to live is not a luxury. I'll agree that many people over-extended themselves to purchase a luxury home and that many others over-extended themselves by buying at the top of the property bubble but I certainly won't agree that an ordinary person who buys a house in order to live in it is buying a luxury.

Even if we completely (and unrealistically) detach the value of land from the price of property there is still a large cost associated with building a safe, comfortable housing unit to a reasonable standard. This cost must be borne by either an investor who will likely borrow to purchase and lease at a profit, or a homeowner who will likely borrow to purchase to reside. If someone plans to live somewhere in the long-term purchasing is likely to yield a long-term saving and provide far more security and rights than our hopelessly poor tenancy practices and laws do.

I very strongly agree.
To some extent it is a luxury, especially in countries with adequate legislation/regulation, but in Ireland - to a large extent it's not, it's more of a necessity.

Europeans from many different nations have complained to me about how archaic and unregulated the system in Ireland is. In theory the advantages of renting are so vast that people here should rarely want to buy; The reality is quite different.

It's not unique tho.
Car ownership in London is a mere percentage of what it is in Ireland.
In theory, you ought to be able to rely on public transport in Ireland - in reality, you cannot.
I don't believe it's an attitude which people hold; I believe it's a reaction to their environment.


(There is also inflation to consider - the house next to my parents is available to rent at a monthly figure which would have seen the original mortgage repaid in about 35 months)

Solair

I don't think we have turned any corners, rather I think what we are seeing is a sense of some kind of stability returning which is allowing slightly more confidence to develop.

People can only remain panicked for so long, eventually you just get used to it, or at least your adrenal glands burn out!

The fundamentals really have not changed very much at all. The Euro's still up in the air and nobody's quite sure what's going to happen with it. The banks are still an absolute disaster and are simply not lending. The fiscal situation's still dire and I do not think that we have felt the brunt of the austerity measures yet.

That being said, I don't honestly think that Ireland is anywhere near as screwed up as Greece or even Spain and Portugal. Economically speaking, we're far closer to the UK and some of the mortgage-screwed up US states as we do not have the underlying structural problems that the southern European countries have. There's a large, innovative, flexible private sector that is genuinely very competitive.

We also had astronomically high growth during the celtic tigre and also during the celtic fat-cat property bubble years. This has given us a much large cushion than other countries and there is a real economy buried in there somewhere under all the construction/banking bubble nonsense. This doesn't really appear to be the case for Greece and and Portugal and I think Spain, while being very innovative in many ways, is saddled with serious inflexibility in the private sector compared to Ireland

We still have a lot of overhang from the Bertie high-spending era though which is going to take quite a while to cut back to reality. Fianna Fail "fixed" a lot of problems by throwing money at them rather than actually dealing with them. This is evident throughout the public sector and by the endless creation of QANGOs for everything that came up as a minor political issue.

I still don't think the Irish property market is realistic. NAMA and the fact the banks aren't imposing fire sales on property developers is creating an artificial price floor in the rental market and also in the property sale market. That will have to come to an end at some stage. Rents are way too high in the urban areas, yet there are vast numbers of apartments and houses sitting moth-balled.

There are also many properties in non-urban areas that are basically worthless and never had any value as they're built in places that nobody wants to live. Those are just a complete write off and I think that's yet to dawn on NAMA and the banks.

Meanwhile, who knows what will happen with the Eurozone. it appears to be being run by complete muppets at the moment. Frankly, the fact that the Eurozone is still unstable and bubbling away for 4 years is absolutely crazy and to me just says that the European institutions, the ECB and the collective EU governments are incompetent or unable to resolve the problem.

Unemployment levels will have to be tackled. There's obviously a skills mismatch in some areas i.e. ex-construction workers and people who worked in construction-related areas like civil engineering, architecture, banking, law etc. will all have to re-train or emigrate. There will not be a recovery in these areas for at least 30 years and there will NEVER be a return to the crazy levels of construction seen during the boom. That was totally abnormal and a return to normality will be a far smaller construction sector than was present over the last decade.
We need to ensure that we are not training more people for these sectors too. It seems nuts that there are still people being offered training courses in anything to do with construction. There's an argument for closing down some of those courses almost entirely as they are a complete waste of public money.

Other causes of unemployment in other sectors are largely down to the state of the global economy and our trade partners. There's very little we can do to stimulate those other than hope that the world economy picks up again!

Retail/restaurants etc need help by cracking the nonsensical arrangements with upward only rent increases and inflexible property situations either by allowing companies to break leases and move or by doing something to get them out of this nonsense. Otherwise, the job losses in that sector will just continue. The banks are not being realistic and don't seem to care about market reality. It's all about virtual accounting values of property on books.

I don't think we've turned a corner, rather we have stopped falling down the stairs for a while.

Well said Solair, I would disagree on a few points though. We have definitely turned a corner of some description. The problem as I see it is that the beneficial effects of what is done now will not be seen statistically for a few years.

There is always a lag. There was a massive lag on the way down and there will be a massive lag on the way up, also.