Am I the only one ?

tempura

Sick to death of hearing about people talking about the Celtic ****ing Tiger.

Am I the only one who barely even noticed it. Didn't go mad buying load of stupid ****e like overpriced properties and fancy cars etc.

Yeah, noticed a little extra money coming in, but had the foresight that to see that it might not last, so didn't go mad.

What the hell came over people ?

Im actually only getting to grips now with the amount of materialism the people became obsessed with during the so called boom.

Do you ever stop to think, " well I've only myself to blame "

Was it a live now pay later kind of attitude at the time ?

The mind boggles.

Praetorian Saighdiuir

Typed on an iPad............sorry what?

weemcd

No you are not the only one, I'm sick of the talk of Celtic Tiger because I never saw it. I'm 24, and was 18/19 when the global credit crunch began to unravel. Chance would be a fine thing...

smcgiff

weemcd wrote: »

No you are not the only one, I'm sick of the talk of Celtic Tiger because I never saw it. I'm 24, and was 18/19 when the global credit crunch began to unravel. Chance would be a fine thing...

You had to be there - Good times.

james142

Ye

Ilik Urgee

Thinly veiled " I got my new visa card in the post yesterday" thread.

burstbuckle

Yeah I totally missed the Celtic tiger.
I was working in the uk for s*hite money but I'm home now with no mortgage,didn't borrow so dept free,got a great job.have €2k a month disposable income,life's good,
I had to sit back when I'd no money listening to everyone talking about thier 2 holidays a year & new car every 2 years,until last year I didn't have a holiday in 12 years cause I was broke,
I'm enjoying this recession

anncoates

A lot of it is either the bleating of people who think they're the first people to ever live in a recession or people expecting a round of applause for mind-numbing homilies on how they lived on 18 euro a week and never had a credit card at the height of the boom.

Just tune it out.

And giggle a little.

Eoin247

How on earth could you 'barely even notice it'' ? I was in primary school for most of it and I even saw the effects and talk of the money.

tempura

weemcd wrote: »

No you are not the only one, I'm sick of the talk of Celtic Tiger because I never saw it. I'm 24, and was 18/19 when the global credit crunch began to unravel. Chance would be a fine thing...

Seriously, your better off. people were awful ****ing stupid with a few extra quid in their back pocket, never mind pretentious.

Your better off now, it will hopefully hit again when you have experience that buying a house with five bathrooms and maybe a helicopter for the weekend trips is not the best of ideas.

Rayne Wooney

How could you barely notice it??

There were fecking cranes everywhere

Absolutely not. I mean I don't want to sound like I have some kind of sneering attitude to folks that were less fortunate than me in latter years, but by Jebus did I see the whole house of cards coming down in spectacular style years before it happened. Made some hay while the sun was shining and all that and got no bones about admitting I'm substantially better off today than at any point in my life, boom, pre-boom, or whatever.

Like I say, not to sneer but WTF ever put the idea into people's heads that it was somehow a good idea to shackle themselves to 30 or 40 year mortgages, paying twelve years salary for a badly constructed glorified shed somewhere on a flood plain in County Longford or whatever. And this isn't just hindsight either, I said it to anyone who wanted to listen at the time, which was nobody, so to be blunt I couldn't give a flying one for all these hard luck stories from people who squandered what they had.

Dwork

Ironic Celtic tiger thread talking about being sick of talking about the celtic tiger which will mainly involve talking about the celtic tiger..

tempura

Rayne Wooney wrote: »

How could you barely notice it??

There were fecking cranes everywhere

Because Im off an age when I not susceptible to the suggestion that I might be able to live like a rock star will last forever.

People should really have done a little homework on Economics before shelling out all the cash.

Highly educated country.........my arse it is !

Praetorian Saighdiuir

tempura wrote: »

Highly educated country.........my arse it it !

yup

Rayne Wooney

tempura wrote: »

Because Im off an age when I not susceptible to the suggestion that I might be able to live like a rock star will last forever.

People should really have done a little homework on Economics before shelling out all the cash.

Highly educated country.........my arse it it !

It doesn't take a genius to realise buying stuff with money you don't have is a no no

sfwcork

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0v--fTVAWE8

StinkySocs

Out for dinner tonight with the folks, went to this place where during the boom you had to queue for an hour to get a table and no kids after 8pm.

Tonight we could sit anywhere...which just happened to beside a family with 2 kids.
My mother hasn't shut up about the boom times and the bad times since the bad times started...my head is done in, could someone just even it out a little!!!!!:mad:

pragmatic1

Didn't get to experience any of it but somehow I'm fcukin paying for it now.

McCrack

weemcd wrote: »

No you are not the only one, I'm sick of the talk of Celtic Tiger because I never saw it. I'm 24, and was 18/19 when the global credit crunch began to unravel. Chance would be a fine thing...

It was a great few years, every night was a Saturday night if you wanted it. Some of my best sessions were had.

tempura

Ilik Urgee wrote: »

Thinly veiled " I got my new visa card in the post yesterday" thread.

Your not far off the mark there, but I do cut my cloth so to speak.

Seriously though, why did people not put some of their earnings away, just in case, what was going on in peoples minds ?

How did people not notice that they were paying over the odds for cardboard houses and a lifestyle that they could not maintain for the rest of their lives ?

Its still prevalent at this time. I work in finance ( lending to be precise ) and people are still trying to fund absolute unnecessary ****e.


Do people ever stop to think, " In the long run, I can't actually afford this " ?

The answer is, no, they don't.


Im all out of sympathy for people who still think they can have what they want, when they want.


Get a grip people, seriously.

Pumpkinseeds

I was living in the UK during the tiger years. I came back for a holiday to see the folks and couldn't believe the crazy sh*te that was going on. Massively over priced everything. Women working on checkouts discussing that coming weekends latest shopping trip to New York. Most of the green spaces in the town had flats and McMansions of varying degrees of tackiness.

Most of the retail jobs seemed to be filled by eastern europeans. Bord failte ads had gone multi-cultural as opposed to the white and Irish ones of my day,not a bad thing and not criticising eastern europeans. People that I'd gone to school with where driving ridiculously expensive cars, had kids with pretentiously Irish and I think, self-invented Irish names. Everywhere I looked I saw god-awful fake tan and insanely white teeth.

I didn't have a piece of it and as it transpired many ordinary Irish people who'd been here while I was away didn't either. What shocked me was that it was obvious that everyone was living on huge amounts of credit. It was an enormous house of cards that was inevitably going to collapse and yet people genuinely didn't seem to realise the party was going to end.

It seems to me, having been an outsider looking in, that a lot of people went mad with greed and stupidity.

BillyMitchel

Nah I lived like a bum then too.

Think I took one small loan out and blew it all on a long trip during my university days. Even as a early twentys kid with zero knowledge of economics I knew it was all built on nothing. We were never a materlistic family and anything anyone done or got they worked bloody hard for it.

Mama never raised no fool!

The Backwards Man

It passed me by too OP










I was drunk for most of it

smcgiff

Eramen wrote: »

Yeah, a load of old farts wrecked the country and screwed our young over. Thanks for that btw.

I think the old farts you refer to should be strung up. There's less of them than you think. A handful of politicians and a handful of bankers. That's all it took. It didn't need to end the way it did.

tempura

smcgiff wrote: »

I think the old farts you refer to should be strung up. There's less of them than you think. A handful of politicians and a handful of bankers. That's all it took. It didn't need to end the way it did.

A bit of truth there, fair play etc ! but when are the people going to start taking responsibility for their spending ?

No one made them overspend, apart from their egos !

FixdePitchmark

smcgiff wrote: »

I think the old farts you refer to should be strung up. There's less of them than you think. A handful of politicians and a handful of bankers. That's all it took. It didn't need to end the way it did.

Builders ?
Estate Agents ?
solicitors ?

smcgiff

I don't know what's more annoying - those that flew around in helicopters a few years ago or the plethora of people now saying they didn't go mad and saw it all coming.

You know, people make millions on correctly predicting the downturn in economies. So, I presume ye are the new millionaires.

Dwork

I'd a sh1te boom, worked really hard, couldn't afford to borrow and seemed to be getting nowhere. Suddenly, by default, I'm the last man standing in my business. The old farmers motto of "only the smart ar5es and go-getters go bust" might just be true.

FixdePitchmark

smcgiff wrote: »

I don't know what's more annoying - those that flew around in helicopters a few years ago or the plethora of people now saying they didn't go mad and saw it all coming.

You know, people make millions on correctly predicting the downturn in economies. So, I presume ye are the new millionaires.

There were people going around saying it at the time.

It was the ears was the problems.

smcgiff

FixdePitchmark wrote: »

Builders ?
Estate Agents ?
solicitors ?

Builders couldn't have made the mistakes they made without the moronic bankers.

Estate agents were just being estate agents.

Solicitors?

tempura

smcgiff wrote: »

I don't know what's more annoying - those that flew around in helicopters a few years ago or the plethora of people now saying they didn't go mad and saw it all coming.

You know, people make millions on correctly predicting the downturn in economies. So, I presume ye are the new millionaires.

Know what you mean, not exactly a millionaire myself, but making things work in relation to income and expenditure, have always kind of kept that kind of thinking to the forefront of my mind.

Its seems though, that some people who never let that kind of thinking cross their mind are now the ones in dire straits, and looking elsewhere for the tab to be picked up !

It doesn't sit well with me to be honest, I think its time people started taking a bit of responsibility for their spending.

FixdePitchmark

smcgiff wrote: »

Builders couldn't have made the mistakes they made without the moronic bankers.

Estate agents were just being estate agents.

Solicitors?

Houses for cash (off books)
Price fixing
Cash for work
Planning scams

All documented - more than a few in the housing scam.

WhatNowForUs?

FixdePitchmark wrote: »

Builders ?
Estate Agents ?
solicitors ?

Economists
Pension Providers
Polititions

smcgiff

FixdePitchmark wrote: »

Houses for cash (off books)
Price fixing
Cash for work
Planning scams

All documented - more than a few in the housing scam.

Cash for work - Has been going on since time began - wasn't a particular CT thing.

Planning Scam - Back to politicians again.

Houses for Cash - Still going on.

WhatNowForUs?

Deleted User wrote: »

Absolutely not. I mean I don't want to sound like I have some kind of sneering attitude to folks that were less fortunate than me in latter years, but by Jebus did I see the whole house of cards coming down in spectacular style years before it happened. Made some hay while the sun was shining and all that and got no bones about admitting I'm substantially better off today than at any point in my life, boom, pre-boom, or whatever.

Like I say, not to sneer but WTF ever put the idea into people's heads that it was somehow a good idea to shackle themselves to 30 or 40 year mortgages, paying twelve years salary for a badly constructed glorified shed somewhere on a flood plain in County Longford or whatever. And this isn't just hindsight either, I said it to anyone who wanted to listen at the time, which was nobody, so to be blunt I couldn't give a flying one for all these hard luck stories from people who squandered what they had.

So you didn't say it to anyone

smcgiff

WhatNowForUs? wrote: »

Economists
Pension Providers

You'll need to develop your argument - pension providers caused the Celtic Tiger to overheat?

FixdePitchmark

WhatNowForUs? wrote: »

Economists
Pension Providers
Polititions

There is a whole raft of professions who can't come out of it with their hands clean.

The stuff that went on in the housing scam would make you sick at the time.

You can then go into other areas, where prices were fixed for professional fees.

Anyway - the biggest scam of all was the cash deals going on , in all apsects of life. Why was it cash - leave that up to you.

darlett

tempura wrote: »

Your not far off the mark there, but I do cut my cloth so to speak.

Seriously though, why did people not put some of their earnings away, just in case, what was going on in peoples minds ?

How did people not notice that they were paying over the odds for cardboard houses and a lifestyle that they could not maintain for the rest of their lives ?

Its still prevalent at this time. I work in finance ( lending to be precise ) and people are still trying to fund absolute unnecessary ****e.


Do people ever stop to think, " In the long run, I can't actually afford this " ?

I ve got to say hang on a moment. I wasnt caught, whoopee for me Im in the process of buying now. But there's a lot of people who put a lot of thought into buying a house and just got caught by unlucky timing. Not all over-priced houses were brought by greedy people. Working in the finance and lending Id hope you can recognise that people trying to improve their lives cant always be written off as greedy. The houses prices were been driven up for 10-15 years by easy lending. Did people wonder if they could afford things? Take a moment. Of course they did. The people did the maths and said yes, we can afford this foothold on this ladder if we work our current jobs really hard for 30 years. It ll be worth it, its a family home, and if we dont buy it next year it ll be even more expensive our choices will be further reduced. They didn't think in two years time I'll lose my job and she' have to take a wage cut.

Cardboard houses? What? So not everyone is a structural architect and that makes them at fault for shortcuts taken?

Hindsight is amazing but can you say you saw THIS coming? Did you know houses were twice the price they should be? Bully for you then.

FixdePitchmark

smcgiff wrote: »

Cash for work - Has been going on since time began - wasn't a particular CT thing.
You think it goes on as much in other countries ?
But, the volumes , even when companies were very profitable was the problem.


Planning Scam - Back to politicians again.
Builders were up to their necks in this.

Houses for Cash - Still going on.

Is this right ? Also builders were selling off plans and not declaring. Also were not paying fees to council etc.

I don't think we should forget the builders/developers in all this. They owe the most in all this.


Anyway - I just don't agree it was a few bankers and polticians. Other played a part and earned outragous undeclared money. trying to hide it now too.

FixdePitchmark

darlett wrote: »

I ve got to say hang on a moment. I wasnt caught, whoopee for me Im in the process of buying now. But there's a lot of people who put a lot of thought into buying a house and just got caught by unlucky timing. Not all over-priced houses were brought by greedy people. Working in the finance and lending Id hope you can recognise that people trying to improve their lives cant always be written off as greedy. The houses prices were been driven up for 10-15 years by easy lending. Did people wonder if they could afford things? Take a moment. Of course they did. The people did the maths and said yes, we can afford this foothold on this ladder if we work our current jobs really hard for 30 years. It ll be worth it, its a family home, and if we dont buy it next year it ll be even more expensive our choices will be further reduced. They didn't think in two years time I'll lose my job and she' have to take a wage cut.

Cardboard houses? What? So not everyone is a structural architect and that makes them at fault for shortcuts taken?

Hindsight is amazing but can you say you saw THIS coming? Did you know houses were twice the price they should be? Bully for you then.

But was that a realisitic idea ?
Would they have children ?
Why 30 years ? Seems longer than my Mum and Dad's
Would they both work for 30 years ?
Really Hard ?

That is what I was thinking. I think a child would think the bold bit was a bit daft.

WhatNowForUs?

smcgiff wrote: »

You'll need to develop your argument - pension providers caused the Celtic Tiger to overheat?

Pushed the investment of property at home and abroad as a pension investment. As was said, there are not many professions that come out of this smelling like roses, most were sucked in in some way or other.
Maybe we can ask which one were the least seduced. 'Religious Profession'!!!

FixdePitchmark

WhatNowForUs? wrote: »

Pushed the investment of property at home and abroad as a pension investment. As was said, there are not many professions that come out of this smelling like roses, most were sucked in in some way or other.
Maybe we can ask which one were the least seduced. 'Religious Profession'!!!

Very few. Sure the Religious Profession did their own seduction.

They made millions on land.

smcgiff

FixdePitchmark wrote: »

I don't think we should forget the builders/developers in all this. They owe the most in all this.

I think my anger at builders/developers is tempered by most of them taking a bigger hit than almost anybody. They made fortunes, but ploughed most of it back into inflated property that then collapsed in value. Quite a lot of them are bankrupt, in insane asylums. Some are dead.

The same cannot, as yet, be said of politicians and the leading bankers.

old hippy

I seem to recall Bertie knocking journalists for predicting the end was nigh, that the bubble couldn't last and so forth.

Interesting times. There was an incredible confidence about, which isn't a bad thing and a vibe. The negative stuff was people thinking that money gives you the right to behave badly. Oh and the casual racism against immigrants - why should they come here and try and take our wealth. At least that was knocked on the head. Now it's - why should they be here scamming/scrounging etc :rolleyes::rolleyes:

I'd left by the turn of the century but it was always fascinating to come home. Most of my pals were and are level headed but there were a few who had become all about the money. That's what it does to you, I guess.

smcgiff

WhatNowForUs? wrote: »

Pushed the investment of property at home and abroad as a pension investment.

Very few thought it was a bad idea - safe as houses comes to mind. I think we need to separate those that made bad investment decisions and those that were corrupt.

FixdePitchmark

smcgiff wrote: »

I think my anger at builders/bankers is tempered by most of them taking a bigger hit than almost anybody. They made fortunes, but ploughed most of it back into inflated property that then collapsed in value. Quite a lot of them are bankrupt, in insane asylums. Some are dead.

The same cannot, as yet, be said of politicians and the leading bankers.

Fair enough - maybe a few are broken men - but most have harder necks , live as they lived avoiding their responsibility to the last , hiding earnings and looking for more scams.

No even insulation in some walls - ****ers.

There is a flaw in Irish society and we will do all this again unless we get rid of the scam idea - sure look at Lowry still in there. Voted by the people. Example from the top.

smcgiff

FixdePitchmark wrote: »

- sure look at Lowry still in there. Voted by the people. Example from the top.

Very true - it doesn't say a lot about us as a people. The recent polls showing support for FF as high as it is. It's like a battered spouse returning to their abuser. Very depressing.

Humans eh!

tempura wrote: »

Its still prevalent at this time. I work in finance ( lending to be precise ) and people are still trying to fund absolute unnecessary ..............

:rolleyes:

Of course the financial sector (lenders to be precise) didn't f**k up at all and needed no bailout.

Your entire industry are only standing because they were bailed out by the very people you are slagging off.
Condescending prick.

tempura

Bottom line, if anyone had taken a bit of time to forecast the economic future ( only 3 to five years down the line ), they would have had an inkling that things were going to waver a little.

If you were in a financial position to purchase a property or some other high expenditure item at the time, you should have educated yourself for the what if's, and as far as I can see to date, people still do not seem to be capable of informing themselves about making a contingency to their plans. I see it every day of the week, people find it a hell of a lot easier to blame some one else for their decisions.


I am blue in the face from politely telling people that applying for x amount may not be in their best interests, but they don't want to listen.

I honestly think that people believe that there is some magic fund that will take up the slack if they go into arrears.

Not so, make you decisions and educate yourself, its not rocket science, just simple maths.

darlett

darlett wrote: »

our current jobs really hard for 30 years.

FixdePitchmark wrote: »

But was that a realisitic idea ?
Would they have children ?
Why 30 years ? Seems longer than my Mum and Dad's
Would they both work for 30 years ?
Really Hard ?

That is what I was thinking. I think a child would think the bold bit was a bit daft.

I'm sure a child might find it daft but arent they gone to bed now? Whats not realistic about working for 30 years?

If you're picking up on my use of the phrase of working for 30 years as being "really hard" well then you've clearly won.