If Greece can do it, Ireland certainly can..

For Reals

RecordStraight wrote: »

But you understand that not honouring the bonds we had guaranteed could have cost us more, and led to deeper cuts in spending etc.?

no. Borrowing would have dried up for as long as lenders felt it needed. But the idea of all that interest would have brought them back to the table. Any cuts due to our financial misadventures as a state are one thing, making sure Gay Byrne doesn't lose his arse again to keep lenders happy is another.

RecordStraight

For Reals wrote: »

no. Borrowing would have dried up for as long as lenders felt it needed. But the idea of all that interest would have brought them back to the table. Any cuts due to our financial misadventures as a state are one thing, making sure Gay Byrne doesn't lose his arse again to keep lenders happy is another.

So all the EXTRA interest we would have had to pay to borrow could have meant we ended up paying more IN THE LONG RUN.

Do you understand what I am saying?

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

AlekSmart

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Oddly enough the Ronan Lyons figures quoted earlier are doubly interesting in terms of defining this "Broken Republic" so loudly proclaimed across Facebook,U-Tube,Twitter and the Irish Times.....

Ireland’s top 0.5% of earners, the 11,714 people who earned more than €275,000 in a year, paid almost 18% of all income tax, over €2bn in total. Their average tax rate was 27.5%.
Almost 770,000 people earned less than €17,000. Understandably, given tax credits, these workers paid a tiny amount of tax, €20m in total. Their average tax rate was about 0.5%.

Currently,The Dept of Social Protection's Free Travel Scheme has c.755,000 Pass Holders...whose documents cover c.1.25 Million persons... (Happy Persons too...:))

Before anybody chokes on their indignation...Persons of Pensionable Age make up less than 50% of this total...c.326,000 in 2013

Not bad for a "Bananna Republic",a "Dictatorship" and a"Police State" eh.....

VinLieger

stuar wrote: »

Now that Greece has the EU quaking in their boots, whether they default or not, I think in the next election Ireland will follow suit, except we have a little more to offer ourselves.

For starters tell the IMF, ECB and the bond holders/gamblers should be told to feck off.

Get out of the EU, get rid of the euro and back to the punt, become sovereign again.

Export as much as we wish, to who we wish, do away with farmers subsidies to not grow good crops on good fertile land, most our land is wasted on doing nothing.



Do away with livestock export quotas, this quota, that quota, this cap, that cap, just basically produce and sell, sell, sell.


Let fishermen fish in our territorial waters, and bring in the haul they catch, instead of worrying about EU fines and dumping thousands of tons of edible dead fish overboard each year.


Tell Royal Dutch Shell we've changed our minds on the corrib gas field and we'll pay them back their investment so far, in time, and let our gas be our gas. We just have to hire experts, let them do their work and then pay them and say bye, bye, then some of the Irish expats that emigrated and worked in the industry may return home.

Do likewise with the potential 1.7 billion barrels of oil off the west Cork coast, create our own nationalised energy company, we have the energy, who want's to buy some,crude prices may have fallen temporary but they'll soon rise again when the US/Russia/Saudi Arabia crap is over.



Just an idea......

This is such a mish mash of issues without any actual coherent message or thought process..... wait it cant be...... Derek Byrne is it yerself?

sbsquarepants

For Reals wrote: »

If you want to run an economy based on market value, worth, general capitalism, fine. But don't go all communist when the arse falls out of private business and burden the public.
And I would not have bailed out anybody. You gamble, you lose, tough ****. Just because the money lenders don't like the idea doesn't mean we suddenly play by different rules.

Enda was the reason the abolishing of the Seanad failed as will marriage equality if he becomes the poster boy. He's a smarmy dickhead and folks don't cotton to that.

Couldn't agree more.
Unguaranteed - unsecured bonds are neither guaranteed nor secure, they even write it on them just in case anyone buying them thinks differently. Nobody (bar the owners of the bonds) would have batted an eyelid if they were not paid.
Private company debts are private company matters - businesses fail all the time and investors loose out - boo hoo and all that, again nobody (bar the investors) would have given a toss.
You can't be all free market when it suits you and please comrade may I have a hand out when it doesn't.

Oh, and also - yes, Enda is an odious little tosser.

RecordStraight

sbsquarepants wrote: »

Couldn't agree more.
Unguaranteed - unsecured bonds are neither guaranteed nor secure, they even write it on them just in case anyone buying them thinks differently. Nobody (bar the owners of the bonds) would have batted an eyelid if they were not paid.
Private company debts are private company matters - businesses fail all the time and investors loose out - boo hoo and all that, again nobody (bar the investors) would have given a toss.
You can't be all free market when it suits you and please comrade may I have a hand out when it doesn't.

Agreed, but Fianna Fail guaranteed those bonds on behalf of all of us, hoping and praying that the banks would survive until the next election. At that point, Fianna Fail had made them our problem, not the banks'.

The decision by FG/LAB to honour the guarantee that FF bestowed on them was based on a decision - as I have tried to explain - as to which would cost more or less in the long run:
a) Burn the bondholders, and become either shut out of the capital markets or an extremely high-risk borrower paying very high interest
or
b) Just pay back the lenders and be allowed borrow for day-to-day spending at low rates.

I was in favour of defaulting, but then I wouldn't have been living in Ireland for the short-term chaos it would have caused - no money to pay teachers, closing hospitals, riots, national strikes etc. etc. - when the government had to balance the budget overnight.

imitation

Primary industry isn't the be all and end all op. The only one you listed that is (was) profitable was oil, which is dubious really, if was easy we'd be looking at oil rigs off our shores already. Either way its not something sustainable anyway.

Likewise fishing and farming can only support so many, and those industries are hard work and long hours, a bit of hard sell to an economy thats mostly a 9-5 service economy. I couldnt possibly see how its anything other than madness to give the eu the two fingers now after all the works been put in to convert to a primary agricultural economy (with out any of the eu trade benefits). If you want to see how it would work out I would just look back 60 years.

RecordStraight

imitation wrote: »

If you want to see how it would work out I would just look back 60 years.

Everything was great then. Maidens dancing at the crossroads, no foreigners, everyone speaking the old Gaelic, everyone happy, no divorce, everyone respectful of the church and willing to do what they were told. It was just great. We were all rich too, IIRC, and we weren't blighted by emigration and AIDS and stuff.

For Reals

Shock horror!!! No, not really, is it?
Thanks Fine Gael. ....
Sure the poor might be the same, maybe worse off but at least you won't be paying for your neighbour's leaky tap and the EU will pat us all on the head. Job done.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/budget-2015-measures-unlikely-to-change-poverty-rates-1.2090050

RecordStraight

For Reals wrote: »

Shock horror!!! No, not really, is it?
Thanks Fine Gael. ....
Sure the poor might be the same, maybe worse off but at least you won't be paying for your neighbour's leaky tap and the EU will pat us all on the head. Job done.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/budget-2015-measures-unlikely-to-change-poverty-rates-1.2090050

Relative poverty rates are total BS. The guy on the other thread getting €900 per week on the dole is probably considered poor. Absolute measures are the only ones that make sense, but you will never, ever see them used by the charity industry.

For Reals

RecordStraight wrote: »

Relative poverty rates are total BS. The guy on the other thread getting €900 per week on the dole is probably considered poor. Absolute measures are the only ones that make sense, but you will never, ever see them used by the charity industry.

Post me some 'facts' on this or should I rely on anonymous internet bluster?
I'd also like proof of €900 on the dole too or are you free to post that nugget based on 'you read it elsewhere'?

RecordStraight

For Reals wrote: »

Post me some 'facts' on this or should I rely on anonymous internet bluster?

Some facts on what? Do you understand the difference between relative and absolute poverty?

If so, then you have all the facts you need. Well done.

For Reals

RecordStraight wrote: »

Everything was great then. Maidens dancing at the crossroads, no foreigners, everyone speaking the old Gaelic, everyone happy, no divorce, everyone respectful of the church and willing to do what they were told. It was just great. We were all rich too, IIRC, and we weren't blighted by emigration and AIDS and stuff.

Actually he has a point, your blather aside. We have little to no home grown product industry for a nation known for agriculture. We still rely heavily on building/property, more so. FG can only shuffle about the books so much.

For Reals

RecordStraight wrote: »

Some facts on what? Do you understand the difference between relative and absolute poverty?

If so, then you have all the facts you need. Well done.

Show me. You've stated it, but have no back up. Show me research and/or statistics saying the poor are grand and this report is over stating compared to......what?

RecordStraight

For Reals wrote: »

Actually he has a point, your blather aside. We have little to no home grown product industry for a nation known for agriculture. We still rely heavily on building/property, more so. FG can only shuffle about the books so much.

Pro tip: describing someone else's post as 'blather' and 'bluster' does not make your own post make any more sense.

HTH

RecordStraight

For Reals wrote: »

Show me. You've stated it, but have no back up.

Do you understand what relative and absolute poverty are?

How do you propose I back up a concept? Google it if you can.

For Reals

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

My point is people are quick to lay the blame and bill of the crash on the doorstep of those of us who simply went to work everyday and paid their alloted taxes.

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

There's you attitude problem there. It's not about the champions of industry trying to earn a crust while bold government spendos take your hard earned money for the lazy poor.
It seems we may actually agree for different reasons.
My saying the system is broke shouldn't equate to the knee jerk assumption it's a call to tax the rich and free money for everyone else.
The system doesn't work as is. We had the boom, again. We had the crash, again. We have the quangos again, we've jobs for the boys, again. But if you're cool with that, see you in the next boom.

For Reals

RecordStraight wrote: »

Do you understand what relative and absolute poverty are?

How do you propose I back up a concept? Google it if you can.

So you've no point. understood.

RecordStraight

For Reals wrote: »

So you've no point. understood.

Or to put it another way, your reading comprehension appears to be insufficient to understand my point.

I can't help you.

For Reals

RecordStraight wrote: »

Relative poverty rates are total BS. The guy on the other thread getting €900 per week on the dole is probably considered poor. Absolute measures are the only ones that make sense, but you will never, ever see them used by the charity industry.

Lets dissect your post:

RecordStraight wrote: »

Relative poverty rates are total BS.

So we must dismiss these figures based on 'relative' being BS.
So people not being able to get by should be dismissed. Quantify this. What is your idea of 'Relative poverty?' Being labeled poor requires a certain criteria, which, granted, can be debated to an extent. Show me facts and figures which show 'Relative poverty' is a relative lifestyle of luxury.

RecordStraight wrote: »

The guy on the other thread getting €900 per week on the dole is probably considered poor.

This is the cornerstone on which you base the assumption that is your post. Back this up, show me this is a real situation?

RecordStraight wrote: »

Absolute measures are the only ones that make sense, but you will never, ever see them used by the charity industry.

Define 'Absolute poverty' and show me numbers to state that it is less or even maybe non-existent in our society.

Simply stating one 'makes more sense' as a measure over another means nothing. Maybe of those considered to be in 'relative poverty' go so deep as to be considered in 'Absolute poverty', show me your stats on this?

A report comes out on poverty in our society and how the next budget will do little to address it and you bang on about terminology with no data of your own. Simple as.

marienbad

For Reals wrote: »

Lets dissect your post:


So we must dismiss these figures based on 'relative' being BS.
So people not being able to get by should be dismissed. Quantify this. What is your idea of 'Relative poverty?' Being labeled poor requires a certain criteria, which, granted, can be debated to an extent. Show me facts and figures which show 'Relative poverty' is a relative lifestyle of luxury.


This is the cornerstone on which you base the assumption that is your post. Back this up, show me this is a real situation?


Define 'Absolute poverty' and show me numbers to state that it is less or even maybe non-existent in our society.

Simply stating one 'makes more sense' as a measure over another means nothing. Maybe of those considered to be in 'relative poverty' go so deep as to be considered in 'Absolute poverty', show me your stats on this?

A report comes out on poverty in our society and how the next budget will do little to address it and you bang on about terminology with no data of your own. Simple as.

As far as I understand it poverty is measured as a % of the average wage .

The other method involves adding up the total cost of living to a certain standard , irrespective of what others earn .

Godge

For Reals wrote: »

Lets dissect your post:


So we must dismiss these figures based on 'relative' being BS.
So people not being able to get by should be dismissed. Quantify this. What is your idea of 'Relative poverty?' Being labeled poor requires a certain criteria, which, granted, can be debated to an extent. Show me facts and figures which show 'Relative poverty' is a relative lifestyle of luxury.


This is the cornerstone on which you base the assumption that is your post. Back this up, show me this is a real situation?


Define 'Absolute poverty' and show me numbers to state that it is less or even maybe non-existent in our society.

Simply stating one 'makes more sense' as a measure over another means nothing. Maybe of those considered to be in 'relative poverty' go so deep as to be considered in 'Absolute poverty', show me your stats on this?

A report comes out on poverty in our society and how the next budget will do little to address it and you bang on about terminology with no data of your own. Simple as.

He is right that relative poverty is a silly concept.

For example, if Warren Buffett and Bill Gates moved to Ireland tomorrow and became tax resident here, the rest of the population (all of us except possibly J.P. McManus) would become poor under the relative poverty definition.

The isles of Greece! the isles of Greece
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all, except their sun, is set.

RecordStraight

Epic username FTW.

IrishTrajan

stuar wrote: »

Now that Greece has the EU quaking in their boots, whether they default or not, I think in the next election Ireland will follow suit, except we have a little more to offer ourselves.

For starters tell the IMF, ECB and the bond holders/gamblers should be told to feck off.

Get out of the EU, get rid of the euro and back to the punt, become sovereign again.

Export as much as we wish, to who we wish, do away with farmers subsidies to not grow good crops on good fertile land, most our land is wasted on doing nothing.



Do away with livestock export quotas, this quota, that quota, this cap, that cap, just basically produce and sell, sell, sell.


Let fishermen fish in our territorial waters, and bring in the haul they catch, instead of worrying about EU fines and dumping thousands of tons of edible dead fish overboard each year.


Tell Royal Dutch Shell we've changed our minds on the corrib gas field and we'll pay them back their investment so far, in time, and let our gas be our gas. We just have to hire experts, let them do their work and then pay them and say bye, bye, then some of the Irish expats that emigrated and worked in the industry may return home.

Do likewise with the potential 1.7 billion barrels of oil off the west Cork coast, create our own nationalised energy company, we have the energy, who want's to buy some,crude prices may have fallen temporary but they'll soon rise again when the US/Russia/Saudi Arabia crap is over.



Just an idea......

Greece also has a 25.9% unemployment rate, and no friends in Europe. Best we don't go from economic stability, to sudden death roll. We're trying to stay stable and chip away at our debt, we're not suicidal.

If we left the E.U., FDI in Ireland would vanish overnight. We'd be left as paupers. Our Corporation Tax doesn't mean anything if they're going to be taxed on exports, especially when they could move to a country with cheaper labour and access to those markets.

That would lead to competition and decreased value per unit, I believe. As supply goes up, price goes down. I think the best bet would be to invest in trying to increase exports to China and India, as more of their farmland is becoming unusable, and they'll need to feed their people somehow.

We should enforce our territorial integrity. Any E.U. fishers caught in our EEZ will have their ships confiscated and only be released on bail to their home countries (€1000?). We can sell the trawlers we catch to China or Japan or something, and use that money to help cover the cost of operating OPVs (our navy), or sending teams out to explore the sea territory we have claimed for oil.

I disagree somewhat. We need someone with the expertise to take the oil and gas out, otherwise it has no actual value. I could claim to have €1bn in gold, but it isnt worth anything if I can't get to it. What I would do is follow Norway's lead. State-owned oil and gas company, 51% State owned/49% privatized, and invest in as many surveys as possible.

It's all good and well saying "possible" riches and "possible" billion barrels. Quite another thing to actually have those assets. I think it would be in our best interests to invest €100-€200 million in an oil company to carry out as many surveys as possible wherever there might be oil. Once we have ascertained exactly how much oil is there, we can allow for private companies to drill for oil/gas in return for higher taxes (like Norway. The reason they can charge higher taxes, is because they have proven reserves. Nobody wants to take a risk in Ireland, because there's a risk that there isn't any oil or gas). I would also try to make State company profitable, and (after paying dividends to private investors) invest in infrastructure (and our military). The greater our navy, the greater our capability to police those waters, and the greater our bargaining with the U.N. on expanding our territory. I think a couple Light Carriers (helicopter carriers) and a few more OPVs would be quite sufficient.

Also, don't expect oil to rise to $100 a barrel again. The reason it rose so high initially, was because demand was high and supply couldn't meet it due to global instability in oil producing regions (Libya, Iraq). Now that Libya/Iraq is more calm (well, not necessarily calm, but they are producing oil for export), and China's economy as slowed down (they were the driving force behind Iran's ability to balance its budget), we are seeing what happens when supply outstrips demand. Russia and Iran need north of $100bbl to balance their budgets, so they are quite likely to feel the hurt for a while.

Also, with the Saudis refusing to reduce production quantity, we're going to see oil and gas staying low for a while yet. I would actually say this could be a good time for Ireland to stockpile oil and gas should Russia cut supplies to Germany. If we buy them for $25-$30bbl now from the Saudis, we could stockpile quite a chunk of oil and gas. If Russia cuts oil exports to Germany, we can sell that oil on for a profit (Germany has the reserves to last around 6 months, but after that they'll need imports).

Dickerty

I love the ramblings of people talking about how Greece have done it right. It will take them 10 years to get out of this mess, on top of the 7 years or so since it began. It's graduates will all up and leave, they will be left with an aging working population in a stagnant economy, with a currency as stable as the Acropolis...

This is Madness!!

RecordStraight

stuar wrote: »

Now that Greece has the EU quaking in their boots, whether they default or not, I think in the next election Ireland will follow suit, except we have a little more to offer ourselves.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH

*cough*

I'm sorry, excuse me. What I meant to say was AHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA

kabakuyu

Dickerty wrote: »

I love the ramblings of people talking about how Greece have done it right. It will take them 10 years to get out of this mess, on top of the 7 years or so since it began. It's graduates will all up and leave, they will be left with an aging working population in a stagnant economy, with a currency as stable as the Acropolis...

This is Madness!!

The same as Ireland, if the Greeks leave the Euro, how far are we behind?

IrishTrajan

kabakuyu wrote: »

The same as Ireland, if the Greeks leave the Euro, how far are we behind?

Not very. We've meet all terms of our deals with Europe, we're making repayments, and our unemployment rate is going down slowly. We're not in the clear, but we're pretty stable.