Are the Bankers & Government the only ones to blame?

kingsenny

Someone made an interesting point in saying that population as a whole was as much to blame for the current state of the country as the bankers and government are.

He cited vast overspending but households (double mortagages), where some had only one earner in a non-professional job.

He cites paying €4 cups of coffees, €10 sandwiches as ludicrous.

I'm not sure exactly how I feel about these sentiments.

How does everyone else feel?

uch

Yep

Anyone

kingsenny wrote: »

How does everyone else feel?

Not too bad for a Monday, thanks for asking.

RikkFlair

10 euro sandwich? Is there cocaine in it?!

davet82

So sandwiches caused the financial crash

Latchy

kingsenny wrote: »

He cites paying €4 cups of coffees, €10 sandwiches as ludicrous.

Warning signs right there, if something is so overpriced then it most likely is and more fool for people paying those prices .

I'm not sure exactly how I feel about these sentiments.

How does everyone else feel

This means nothing to me ...

Chucken

kingsenny wrote: »

How does everyone else feel?

I'm feeling a bit peckish, now that you ask.

Cee-Jay-Cee

More importantly...What filling was in the €10 sandwich???

I would like it noted that I have never bought a cup of coffee ever nor have I ever paid €10 for a sandwich so I cannot be blamed for any of this.

OneArt

RikkFlair wrote: »

10 euro sandwich? Is there cocaine in it?!

Just raisins.

coffee_cake

CJC999 wrote: »

More importantly...What filling was in the €10 sandwich???

Gold flakes

2 of them

Richard Hillman

Property speculators, developers, the media for creating mass panic to get onto the property market, the keeping up with the Jones', the Jones' themselves etc etc

af_thefragile

Short answer yes.

Long answer is also yes but its the way the whole modern Banking system works rather than just a few "greedy bankers". The "greedy bankers" are only a byproduct of a system that depends on the exploitation of the public to build in wealth and power. People like to think its a conspiracy theory because frankly its much simpler to believe everything is ok and go about living your life as you do. Blame the bankers and the government for the problem and life carries on. And thus nothing changes. Banks and governments continue to function in the same way and the people will remain angry and dissatisfied with everything in the same way. But the bottom line is life goes on and that's the plan after all. As long as people get enough to get by, no matter how much noise they make, life will go on and everything can remain the same.

Many economists for the past decades have been warning us regarding the instability of the modern banking system and how it will go through boom and bust cycles while through all of this the ultimate losers will be the governments and the general public while the only winners will be the banks. But as long as people can get by and there are enough people facing the same problem, there's distribution of responsibility and life will go on.

kingsenny wrote: »

Someone made an interesting point in saying that population as a whole was as much to blame for the current state of the country as the bankers and government are.

He cited vast overspending but households (double mortagages), where some had only one earner in a non-professional job.

He cites paying €4 cups of coffees, €10 sandwiches as ludicrous.

I'm not sure exactly how I feel about these sentiments.

How does everyone else feel?

To give a more specific answer, people will spend what they can afford to spend and vendors will charge as much as the people are willing to spend.
Spending is always healthy for the market. It keeps wealth in circulation allowing businesses and infrastructure to grow and in turn there are more and better services for the people. If people stop spending the market will stagnate, businesses will go bust, people will lose jobs, more people will be forced to resort to social welfare that will put more strain on the government expenditures which will force the government to increase taxes and ultimately it'll be the people who lose out!

If people want to buy a €10 sandwich, let them buy. If people want to buy two houses, let them have it. As long as people can afford such things businesses are supported and can grow, people will have jobs, wealth can be distributed and everyone wins.

When a wealthy person buys a €200K Ferrari, you need to thank him for it. Because his purchase supports the person running the dealership. The dealership supports the people working in the dealership. Without his purchase, the dealership will run out of business and the people working there will lose their job. His €200K also support all the thousands of people working in the Ferrari factory building the car. It supports the companies who ship the cars from the factory to the dealership and it supports the truck driver who drivers the trucks for the company. So this one wealthy person's indulgence is supporting the lives of thousands of people. This is why people like capitalism.

Spending is always a good thing as long as the right price is payed for the product. The problem occurs when the right price is not payed for the product. When you buy a €10 t-shirt, you have ripped off the store where you bought the shirt, you've ripped off the employees at the store who get paid minimum wage to work long hours in the store. You've ripped off the poor Indonesian family who get paid next to nothing and work as slave labour making the shirts. You've ripped off the shipping company which exploits its employees that distributes the shirts from the factory to the stores. Basically because you've decided to save money, you're in turn supporting a whole industry of exploitation of labour. This is why people dislike capitalism!

davet82

kingsenny wrote: »

Someone made an interesting point in saying that population as a whole was as much to blame for the current state of the country as the bankers and government are

someone?

the oldest trick in the book for posting bollix your not to sure about :pac:

Boombastic

I remember those sandwiches from a certain chain...I wonder are they still in business?




'We all partied, sandwiches all round' :pac:

Gott

Depends. My parents are fond of saying they never benefitted from the Celtic Tiger and while their standard of living did increase over the decade or so it wasn't a huge increase.

But on the whole yes, it seemed like every dog and divil had a second home in Poland or was renting property out somewhere.
They were encouraged by the banks to take out mortgages, I suppose, but no one forced them to.

SEPT 23 1989

You cant borrow if they wont lend

i blame them 100%

papajimsmooth

short answer yes with an if, long answer no with a but.

Menas

Society was and is to blame. But anyone who got in over their heads should start by blaming themselves and work backwards.
We are too quick not to take responsibility for our own decisions.

kylith

People who knew that they would have trouble meeting repayments should not have taken out loans.

SEPT 23 1989 wrote:

You cant borrow if they wont lend

i blame them 100%

They were hardly coming round and forcing sub-prime borrowers to take out 100% mortgages at gunpoint though.

Prettyblack

I say it goes way beyond the "bankers and politicians". Bankers themselves are Capitalists, that it what they are paid to do, and they will jump on an opportunity to make money. The banks wouldn't be able to lend unless they had people coming to them looking to borrow. So naturally they saw and opportunity and jumped all over it. Who wouldn't?? If you sold bananas and suddenly everyone wanted bananas, you'd make sure you had enough bananas for everyone, and even find new ways of selling them! :-)

Bananas aside, I think the developers messed things up more. I hated seeing all those "instant" suburbs pop up, especially around Baldoyle / Portmarnock, horrible looking crappy badly made "townhouses" selling at ridiculous prices. And then the bottom went out of the market, half of these places were left as unfinished eyesores on the landscape, people actually had to MOVE OUT of under-code apartments, and the banks were left chasing billions of euros.

But then again, you could apply the same logic to the developers as I have the banks - they saw an opportunity, to make money etc. So it just goes on in circles. Its the world we live in.

Problem is, its the angry jealousy of the working / unemployed classes that make the "bankers and politicians" out to be scapegoats for their own issues. And that's what ends up marching the street on a Saturday afternoon.

Rented Mule

I find it laughable that people want to overlook their personal responsibilities in taking out these many of these loans. I'm not only taking about the original mortgages, but the number of people who took the equity money out of their homes to buy the second car, take the three sun holidays per year etc.

Mick ah

Short answer: no.

Long answer: no.

People just like to feel blameless, like there was nothing they could do about a situation. But it says it all about how blameless the Irish people are when in 2002 FG proposed a (relatively) "sensible" economic plan for the country and they got battered in the general election. FF got in with promises of more spending and less tax.

It doesn't take a genius to tell you that economies work in boom bust cycles, that having 20% of the workforce engaged in the construction sector is a bad idea and that taking out a mortgage that you can't repay if anything negative happened to your income is also a bad idea.

But sure, it was all the greedy bankers fault and the elected representatives. Sure they were practically forcing you to take the money.

We're ****ed now, and it's nobody's fault but our own.

frank reynolds

i would agree wholeheartedly that YES, they caused the financial mess.

it was fuelled by a typical, traditional slice of irish begrudgery, greed, and stupidity.

a nation of fools.

srsly78

Those that moan loudest about "de bankers" are usually the ones carrying more than their fair share of the guilt.

Duckjob

Yes. Supposedly ordinary and sane people were like this in the boom years:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUeYJKoE3yc

kingsenny

af_thefragile wrote: »

Short answer yes.

To give a more specific answer, people will spend what they can afford to spend and vendors will charge as much as the people are willing to spend.
Spending is always healthy for the market. It keeps wealth in circulation allowing businesses and infrastructure to grow and in turn there are more and better services for the people. If people stop spending the market will stagnate, businesses will go bust, people will lose jobs, more people will be forced to resort to social welfare that will put more strain on the government expenditures which will force the government to increase taxes and ultimately it'll be the people who lose out!

If people want to buy a €10 sandwich, let them buy. If people want to buy two houses, let them have it. As long as people can afford such things businesses are supported and can grow, people will have jobs, wealth can be distributed and everyone wins.

When a wealthy person buys a €200K Ferrari, you need to thank him for it. Because his purchase supports the person running the dealership. The dealership supports the people working in the dealership. Without his purchase, the dealership will run out of business and the people working there will lose their job. His €200K also support all the thousands of people working in the Ferrari factory building the car. It supports the companies who ship the cars from the factory to the dealership and it supports the truck driver who drivers the trucks for the company. So this one wealthy person's indulgence is supporting the lives of thousands of people. This is why people like capitalism.

Spending is always a good thing as long as the right price is payed for the product. The problem occurs when the right price is not payed for the product. When you buy a €10 t-shirt, you have ripped off the store where you bought the shirt, you've ripped off the employees at the store who get paid minimum wage to work long hours in the store. You've ripped off the poor Indonesian family who get paid next to nothing and work as slave labour making the shirts. You've ripped off the shipping company which exploits its employees that distributes the shirts from the factory to the stores. Basically because you've decided to save money, you're in turn supporting a whole industry of exploitation of labour. This is why people dislike capitalism!

But there point is that people couldn't afford it. They were spending beyond their means, hence the double mortgages. I'm not sure if it's fair to say spending is always a good thing.
e.g. I have a mortagage > use money to spend outrageously > lose my job > can't afford to pay back loan

Now multiply that by 1000 people...

Like it was pointed out, no-one was forced to take a loan to fund 3 sun holidays a year. Albeit there was a lovely quote about the banks

"Bank are the type of people that will give you an umbrella when it's sunny but take it back when it rains"

RikkFlair

Remember when Enda gazed reassuringly into our eyes, and said "It's not your fault"

That's good enough for me.

Oh wait, then he said something later about us losing the run of ourselves. Was it the same Enda Kenny? Or was the first one a shape-shifting lizard alien?

af_thefragile

Mick ah wrote: »

It doesn't take a genius to tell you that economies work in boom bust cycles, that having 20% of the workforce engaged in the construction sector is a bad idea and that taking out a mortgage that you can't repay if anything negative happened to your income is also a bad idea.

Its not a bad idea if there is enough market to support the industry. If people can afford to buy a house (which they could back in 2006) then nothing wrong with building houses for people to buy. The construction sector was one of the biggest employment sector in the country supporting thousands of people.

Now who is to blame for giving out risky mortgages like candy pops so that the banks can horde capital and grow bigger??

Again its not the fault of the people. People will buy what they can afford. Most people who bought a house back in the boom years did so because they could afford to buy a house back them. They had stable jobs with stable incomes.

Things went wrong because modern economies are designed to collapse.
During boom banks give out risky loans and investments allowing people to afford to purchase things they wouldn't otherwise be able to purchase. Then when the economy collapses, suddenly people lose their jobs or undergo pay cuts, they can no longer afford to pay their mortgage and lose their "investments". In the end the Banks own all the property, governments are forced to inject money into the banks to keep the system from completely collapsing and people still having enough to go by. Ultimately the Banks gain wealth as the people lose their mortgages or the value of their "investments". After a few years things equalise, people adjust to the market. People with no jobs emigrate, people who have jobs learn to live by on the lower wages and higher taxes. After its all equalised, the banks once again start giving out easy loans allowing people to afford things they wouldn't otherwise be able to afford stimulating markets and thus starting a new boom cycle!

Boombastic

af_thefragile wrote: »

Its not a bad idea if there is enough market to support the industry. If people can afford to buy a house (which they could back in 2006) ...............

Turns out, they couldn't afford it. A mortgage is a long commitment. Just because it may be affordable to make repayments for 1/2 years, doesn't mean it sustainable long term.

donegal_road

kingsenny wrote: »

Someone made an interesting point in saying that population as a whole was as much to blame for the current state of the country as the bankers and government are.

He cited vast overspending but households (double mortagages), where some had only one earner in a non-professional job.

He cites paying €4 cups of coffees, €10 sandwiches as ludicrous.

I'm not sure exactly how I feel about these sentiments.

How does everyone else feel?

whoever this person is you are referring to, failed to mention the media and press. The glossy property section of the Sunday Times... figures were being pulled out of thin air printed in these supplements, no one to question or police them.

BizzyC

af_thefragile wrote: »

Again its not the fault of the people. People will buy what they can afford. Most people who bought a house back in the boom years did so because they could afford to buy a house back them. They had stable jobs with stable incomes.

Yes it is.
The fact is that these people were overreaching their income to buy property.
A lot of people bought under the assumption that the value would continue to grow and they are the ones now left in negative equity.
You're not allowed take risk like that and walk away blame free, the world doesn't work that way.

The banks made deals more attractive because it was a massive business at the time.
They weren't telling people which houses to try buy, they weren't telling people that their personal projection of the economy on the following 10 years was spot on and guaranteed to pay off.