Recession is a myth

spank_inferno

Pssst..... Dont tell anyone, but the economy is the same size as it was in 2005.

The nation wasnt on its knees then... It isnt now.

But I suppose optimism doesnt sell papers.

downonthefarm

i lived through the last recession,
i dont have much this time either
just a little bit more than my parents
hopefully when this one passes,the powers that be will be wiser with their few bob

Sh1tbag OToole

Before people were buying houses and jetskis

now they are getting excited over a little piece of Foxconn-made consumer electronics that will probably need to be replaced in 2 years.

Its just that the one-upmanship has been scaled down to lower value items. I know very few people who dont have a recent smartphone worth a few 100 quid. During the tiger I had a Nokia 9500 worth about the same as a Galaxy S4 or other dead common smartphone is now. People thought I was loaded and / or stone mad for having one. Now I'm happy out with an 'el cheapo' phone.

Sh1tbag OToole

NuckingFacker wrote: »

My feckin Lawn. I'm sick of cutting it.

I bet you it doesnt grow exponentially though as the fractional reserve based economy has to in order to stay functioning. Else if you went on a holiday for a few months someone would have to cut your grass before it consumed all the available space in the universe

thebaz

the_monkey wrote: »

Why are the media lying to us ??


I know no one affected by this "recession", maybe its cos most of my mates work in the IT industry...

the media are not lying to anyone , perhaps you should open your spectrum of friends beyond the IT sector - but ther is a horrible horrid recession going on , but as you say not affecting the likes in secure employment in Google land.

BuilderPlumber

spank_inferno wrote: »

Pssst..... Dont tell anyone, but the economy is the same size as it was in 2005.

The nation wasnt on its knees then... It isnt now.

But I suppose optimism doesnt sell papers.

The same problems and good points in this country were there in 2005 as now. Most people in 2005 had no job security, prices were high, there was a massive divide between the rich connected and the rest of the people. Social problems like drugs, drunkenness, unemployment, and depression were all very high then. The cost of doing business and bureaucracy was unattractive for companies and both MNCs and Irish companies left en masse. So, 2005 was not really any different to the last few years.

Only the papars, politicians and TV were all telling us we never had it as good. Well, true for them (and still is for THEM) but the ordinary people (I mean those who did not borrow and lend recklessly and take obscene risks in property) struggled on as they always did and do. Now, the media and politicians are so negative and it seems all conditioning to get people to expect less, work more for less, expect higher taxes, etc. Note the very different approaches to recent recessions:

1973-1993: A more or less constant run of recessions both in Ireland and worldwide. A time when we saw Arab oil embargoes, wars, a revolution in Iran and a radical move towards freemarketism. The 1980s was the time it felt worst in Ireland and in particular 1987 when the IMF nearly came in. Acknowledged as a major problem by the media, what was different was all this negativity and debate about issues and pointscoring politicians was not there! Ireland accepted itself then as a poor country and I guess the 1980s were a step or 4 up from the 1940s and early 1950s.
2000-2002: Not mentioned at all much and just passed off at the time as the Celtic Tiger died. The media did not milk it and the politicians did not need to go to town on it. They had a plan, the building boom was going to rise the IT-based Celtic Tiger from the dead like the phoenix.
2008-: Nonstop negativity and every single programme on Irish TV becomes like Joe Duffy's liveline. A whole industry of negative journalism sprang up. Painful. Whatever problems exist here owe as much to negative journalism as to anything else.

BillyMitchel

You have to be taking the piss.

Judge the whole Irish economy because a friend has an iPhone! :pac:

StewartGriffin

OP has a point. The amount of 131 and 132 cars on the road (not including the hire cars) is baffling. Especially since people on 60,000 plus per year can barely afford cornflake boxes for their children's breakfast.

zenno

the_monkey wrote: »

I am home for a few days in this great little nation.

What recession ?

All invented BS by the media

All my mates have good jobs, I go into town - everyone has an iPhone 5,
Rip off cafes charging €6 for a sandwich are packed.

Shopping bags packed , everyone seems to have Sky sports/movies/46 " 1080P TV Blu Ray ... etc etc...


Why are the media lying to us ??


I know no one affected by this "recession", maybe its cos most of my mates work in the IT industry...



And yet WTF I saw Clerys are shut down yesterday ??????


HMV too - I thought they were rescued tho ?

Reminds me of some government politicians.

Hows the weather up there ? sunny all day every day ?

I suppose that is what it is like while living in a bubble. Bubbles always burst, and so do ego's.

languagenerd

What age are you, OP, out of curiosity? And what sector do you and your friends work in?

Just because your circle of friends hasn't been too badly affected doesn't mean everyone else is doing fine. Youth unemployment (under 25s) is at 30% and that's not including those who are students. So many of my friends (who have degrees) aren't working and can't get work because they have little to no experience and every job they apply for, they're up against 100s of others. Full-time jobs for graduates only exist in certain sectors and where they do, you're up against people with more experience. There's a huge rise in unpaid internships now, which can only be taken up by those who already have money (otherwise, how do you live during it?) - and if you can't afford to do that, you're at a disadvantage when it comes to looking for paid work. This is only going to get worse as time goes on, as every year, another 58,000 kids finish school to be thrown out into an already full labour market.

And that's the under-25s. Many people over 25 are struggling just as much, because they bought a house or or had kids just before the recession and now can't make ends meet. Thousands have lost their jobs and can't get another.

Just cause you're doing alright doesn't mean we all are.

beauf

Maybe 131 and 132 plates are standing out to you now that you're focused on it.. But theres nothing like the new cars around as there has been in past years.

http://www.thejournal.ie/car-sales-ireland-celtic-tiger-757129-Jan2013/

BuilderPlumber wrote: »

The same problems and good points in this country were there in 2005 as now. ...

There's a massive difference between now and then. I dunno what rose tinted glasses you are looking through.

BuilderPlumber

thebaz wrote: »

the media are not lying to anyone , perhaps you should open your spectrum of friends beyond the IT sector - but ther is a horrible horrid recession going on , but as you say not affecting the likes in secure employment in Google land.

The media do not lie but they can exaggerate and can report in a biased way or in a way to tell a certain story. Personally, I think that Ireland has always been a country of the connected v the unconnected. There are people at the top who do well and have no fear but most have not got that security in their lives. Sure, some people earn a lot some years and find themselves then unemployed due to some issue like a company moving or a sector drying up.

With regard to IT, I think that this is one of the worst hit sectors. And the first. 1994-1999 was the glory days of this sector and it has never recovered really since. Remember that millennium bug? That kept it alive 2 years longer than its natural life! 1997 was the year it could have ended but instead it was 2000 when this sector came crashing down.

I did my LC in 2000 and had wanted to do IT but did architecture instead. IT was NOT the thing to be in by 2000 and not since. BUT even here there was an elite who have managed to corner niche IT markets and make a killing in the bleak 2000-2013 years of the IT industry. Social media and IT marketing advisors for instance. Google tends to dominate everything and if you are lucky to get high up there, no worries. BUT IT as a graduate career? Definitely not. Architecture the same as I know! They are all trying to talk up this IT thing now, and the property market too. All deadducks. Property does not make a country rich and Ireland is not an IT country (what has IT got to do with Longford, Roscommon, Leitrim, Donegal, West Cork, Kerry, Clare, Mayo, Offaly, and other rural areas) and is a farming country, and this is always neglected. A country that tries to be something it is not never works. Ireland is about as much an IT country as it is an oil producer!

The recession or whatever you want to call it has been going on longer with unemployment, cost of living rising and so on all the time. The worst hit sectors I think are in this order: building/property/architecture, retail, [ordinary jobs in] banking, IT, [ordinary] public sector jobs, small farms, small businesses. The latter 2 would be higher up but for REPS, Single Payment and grants respectively. The best sectors to be in at present are: politics, heads of state boards, heads of/high up people in colleges/HSE/banks/etc, high up public sector, bigshot TV, paper and radio personalities, and connected big business people.

EyeSight

BuilderPlumber wrote: »

The media do not lie but they can exaggerate and can report in a biased way or in a way to tell a certain story. Personally, I think that Ireland has always been a country of the connected v the unconnected. There are people at the top who do well and have no fear but most have not got that security in their lives. Sure, some people earn a lot some years and find themselves then unemployed due to some issue like a company moving or a sector drying up.

With regard to IT, I think that this is one of the worst hit sectors. And the first. 1994-1999 was the glory days of this sector and it has never recovered really since. Remember that millennium bug? That kept it alive 2 years longer than its natural life! 1997 was the year it could have ended but instead it was 2000 when this sector came crashing down.

I did my LC in 2000 and had wanted to do IT but did architecture instead. IT was NOT the thing to be in by 2000 and not since. BUT even here there was an elite who have managed to corner niche IT markets and make a killing in the bleak 2000-2013 years of the IT industry. Social media and IT marketing advisors for instance. Google tends to dominate everything and if you are lucky to get high up there, no worries. BUT IT as a graduate career? Definitely not. Architecture the same as I know! They are all trying to talk up this IT thing now, and the property market too. All deadducks. Property does not make a country rich and Ireland is not an IT country (what has IT got to do with Longford, Roscommon, Leitrim, Donegal, West Cork, Kerry, Clare, Mayo, Offaly, and other rural areas) and is a farming country, and this is always neglected. A country that tries to be something it is not never works. Ireland is about as much an IT country as it is an oil producer!

The recession or whatever you want to call it has been going on longer with unemployment, cost of living rising and so on all the time. The worst hit sectors I think are in this order: building/property/architecture, retail, [ordinary jobs in] banking, IT, [ordinary] public sector jobs, small farms, small businesses. The latter 2 would be higher up but for REPS, Single Payment and grants respectively. The best sectors to be in at present are: politics, heads of state boards, heads of/high up people in colleges/HSE/banks/etc, high up public sector, bigshot TV, paper and radio personalities, and connected big business people.

you are so very wrong. As someone in the industry it is so easy to get an IT job with a college degree! the good and great jobs are there but you have to be great to get them. But it's simple to get a decent IT job.
In my class 90% got employed right out of college. the rest didnt want a job

BuilderPlumber

beauf wrote: »

There's a massive difference between now and then. I dunno what rose tinted glasses you are looking through.

No rose tinted glasses but 2005 was not all that we were lead to believe it was. People lived the high life on credit and fake wealth from credit. Unless you were prepared to take risks, you did not count then. Now, we are expected to bail out those who took risks many of us disagreed with!

1994-1999 and maybe the 1960s were the only 2 ok-ish times in Ireland where money was made and used more effectively. 2000-2013 has been one set of disasters after another with doses of first exaggerated positiveness and then depressing negativity. The 2003-2008 building boom was a temporary solution to a fundamentally flawed economic system. I remember the likes of Bertie boasting that Ireland was booming while the rest of the world was in recession! Ireland could not stay long afloat in such an era.

2000-2013 was the era of a disasterous policy of risky banking, unnecessary wars in Iraq, spectacular terrorism acts like 9/11, unhelpful political rhetoric at all levels, inflation, outsourcing, the rise of Asian superpowers, the poor health of Japan, Germany and US economies, foot and mouth disease, trade protectionism in the EU, sanctions against needless enemies that could be good trading partners (Iran, even Austria for a time! Yes, Austria in 2000!), etc, etc. All this does not exactly mark a time when the world's economy was without its problems.

To make a long story short: Ireland's economy was falling off a cliff in 2005 (had started falling in 2000) but had managed to tie a rope to a tree on the way down to halt the fall for a small time and now that tree cracked and it is still falling and looking for another tree to lassoo!

Richard Hillman

Christ the Redeemer wrote: »

Our Economy grew by 0.2% last year(off the top of my head) Crow as the money men might, that's not a recession.

The whole infinite growth ideology pisses me the **** off anyway. Show me one thing in the natural world with infinite growth.

Space and time

beauf

What you're saying is you can get a decent job in IT if you have a degree and the right qualifications/experience. But thats also saying its not so great that anyone can walk into a job. Its not like the building boom, where you'd find someone with zero experience and qualifications walking into jobs and earning good money. Salaries in IT while decent, are not crazy like they were for building at the peak. There's a lot of people in IT on very average salaries.

BuilderPlumber

EyeSight wrote: »

you are so very wrong. As someone in the industry it is so easy to get an IT job with a college degree! the good and great jobs are there but you have to be great to get them. But it's simple to get a decent IT job.
In my class 90% got employed right out of college. the rest didnt want a job

I know IT graduates from 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 have struggled to get anything decent. The dole or call centres seems to be the choice. Your class were lucky.

There are great IT jobs out there but they are often so niche based that they want Americans, etc. to fill them. Call centre jobs and some kind of bookings reservations jobs are often pointed to as good IT jobs. They are good summer jobs!

Christ the Redeemer

Richard Hillman wrote: »

Space and time

No proof of that. We have compelling evidence of a beginning, however.

thebaz

BuilderPlumber wrote: »

The media do not lie but they can exaggerate and can report in a biased way or in a way to tell a certain story. Personally, I think that Ireland has always been a country of the connected v the unconnected.

I spend a lot of time in Dublin , and ther are parts of Dublin really suffering in the recession , and then you walk around parts of barrow street and the docklands (googleland) and its like the area in somehow insulated by the recession , like the prosperous East side of New York or parts of a weatlhy European city - wish all parts of Ireland had the same confidence - or in particular your truly , who lis just surviving day to day.

coolhull

Dave! wrote: »

OP's right, the recession is over

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZvk9Ctnf-o

To me, that looks like a 20euro note, not a fifty.
He must be a tight git...

beauf

BuilderPlumber wrote: »

No rose tinted glasses but 2005 was not all that we were lead to believe it was. People lived the high life on credit and fake wealth from credit. ...

Regardless of the how it was achieved, that's still VERY different to now.

BuilderPlumber wrote: »

Unless you were prepared to take risks, you did not count then. Now, we are expected to bail out those who took risks many of us disagreed with!...

I don't disagree.

BuilderPlumber

thebaz wrote: »

I spend a lot of time in Dublin , and ther are parts of Dublin really suffering in the recession , and then you walk around parts of barrow street and the docklands (googleland) and its like the area in somehow insulated by the recession , like the prosperous East side of New York or parts of a weatlhy European city - wish all parts of Ireland had the same confidence - or in particular your truly , who lis just surviving day to day.

That is true. Dublin shows both the greatest wealth extravagance and poverty in this country. Those areas you mention along with all of the Donnybrook, Ballbridge and D4 areas in general are insulated from this or any other recessions or problems. Yet, only a 5 minute journey away from these areas, tower block estates with poverty, deprivation, social problems and a real life version of Love/Hate exists. People say that India and China have this contrast of rich and privileged and poor and deprived back to back. Dublin has it too. Elsewhere in Ireland, there is rich and poor side by side but Dublin shows the biggest contrasts.

coolhull

StewartGriffin wrote: »

Especially since people on 60,000 plus per year can barely afford cornflake boxes for their children's breakfast.

Cornflake boxes for breakfast? Are things gone as bad as that?

con1421

Why did I have to emigrate if there was no recession?

beauf

BuilderPlumber wrote: »

That is true. Dublin shows both the greatest wealth extravagance and poverty in this country. Those areas you mention along with all of the Donnybrook, Ballbridge and D4 areas in general are insulated from this or any other recessions or problems. Yet, only a 5 minute journey away from these areas, tower block estates with poverty, deprivation, social problems and a real life version of Love/Hate exists. People say that India and China have this contrast of rich and privileged and poor and deprived back to back. Dublin has it too. Elsewhere in Ireland, there is rich and poor side by side but Dublin shows the biggest contrasts.

Thats true of any city isn't it?

In terms of the recession, you see it having a bigger effect in the countryside. When you get out into the country you see local shopping centers completely abandoned. Ghost estates and houses empty all over. Its not that bad in Dublin yet. The deprived areas in Dublin have always been deprived, in the 80's and 90's it was much worse.

--LOS--

I can't facepalm hard enough for the OP

Chucken

the_monkey wrote: »

I am home for a few days in this great little nation.

What recession ?

All invented BS by the media

All my mates have good jobs, I go into town - everyone has an iPhone 5,
Rip off cafes charging €6 for a sandwich are packed.

Shopping bags packed , everyone seems to have Sky sports/movies/46 " 1080P TV Blu Ray ... etc etc...


Why are the media lying to us ??


I know no one affected by this "recession", maybe its cos most of my mates work in the IT industry...



And yet WTF I saw Clerys are shut down yesterday ??????


HMV too - I thought they were rescued tho ?

3 years ago you didnt know if your drivers licence would be ok here.

Stop stirring sh!te.

crusher000

Security tags on meat in Aldi. Now I haven't ever seen meat with security tags before, either they'res an increase in thieving by cats and dogs or maybe due to our non recession people are stealing meat ?

PAULWATSON

anybody can afford the latest toys, try and get a house paid off before you die.

Dave!

coolhull wrote: »

To me, that looks like a 20euro note, not a fifty.
He must be a tight git...

You've obviously never seen a 50 before ya povvo !