Am I expressing this correctly?

Victor

Something I've said on another thread.

Victor wrote: »

There are two certainties in life - death and taxes.

Yes, everyone would like to live longer and pay less, but the realities are that such things aren't sustainable. For the last 15 years we haven't been paying enough taxes. Instead, we borrowed money internationally to sell each other houses which were then improperly taxed and that money was used to fund social programmes. The problem was that the money was ultimately borrowed money.

I declined to include children with leukaemia who need special needs assistants.

Am I expressing this correctly?

noodler

Victor wrote: »

Something I've said on another thread.I declined to include children with leukaemia who need special needs assistants.

Am I expressing this correctly?

I am unsure about what exactly you are saying, is it a general point about the excesses of the boom?

I think an even bigger problem was that expenditure got out of control during the boom.

happyman81

I think you might be confusing public and private debt. I have to run, so I cannot elaborate. What do others think?

[Jackass]

I'm not sure about the health aspect and children part, but in terms of what went wrong, there certainly wasn't a problem with us not paying enough taxes, there were absolutely massive surpluses in the budget during the boom, the problem with that was that the Government took a narrow short term view whereby they hiked up social welfare and public sector pensions and pay so as to ensure winning the next election, but in no way taking into consideration the sustainability of doing this and what would happen if the country stopped growing at a historically unheard of rate.

As a result, we had no money left when we needed it, and there was massive wastage on public expenditure also, it was just a massive free for all and a give away, the Government of the day took absolutely no consideration for the well-being of the state or how their actions might affect a future Government. They then resigned / retired when the sh*t hit the fan and called it a good 10 years that has set them and their buddies up for life, and good luck to the rest of you, no longer my problem.

In terms of borrowing, the country wasn't borrowing a cent (as with above surplus reasons) and were actually knocking modest chunks off the overall debt of the nation. What you might be referring to is the private sector debt incurred by the banking industry, which to an extent is true. They saw a massive opportunity to make a lot of money by financing massive commercial and construction projects that were seen as low risk given the rapid rises in property value (culminating in 120% mortgages - i.e. we're so certain that this house will double in value, we'll lend you more than it's worth as in a few months you'll have 80% loan to value) and it was absolutely wreckless borrowing and lending practices by the financial industry, far beyond boardering on the criminal, as they simply sought to inflate the loan book, take personal borrowings from bank borrowings, pump them into shares, and by inflating the "performance" of the bank by having X amount lent on major projects, the share price would rise.

Again, no foresight into future and a narrow short term view, again, when the sh*t hit the fan, selling off the shares, not paying back the borrowings, moving around assets, retiring and taking massively inflated pension, and again, good luck, some one else sort it out.

A very simplistic summary of the events, but the general gist of the situation, but judging on previous posts of yours I read, I suspect I'm completely missing the point here and telling you things that you already know...

noodler

All I would add to the above is :

1) Some foresight was taken with regard all the surpluses - hence the NPRF but obviously not enough

2) Although we were flush with cash - none of it was sustainable. This is one of the key reasons for introducing a property tax. It would be a tax which wouldn't fluctuate hugely depending on the economic cycle.