What have we come to

quokula

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

It's irrelevant. Macroeconomics has become entirely disconnected from average quality of life for a variety of reasons, and this is exactly what FG's problem is - obsessing over numbers and graphs on paper and not actually listening to people when huge, huge numbers of voters tell them that their lives have become worse, not better, as a result of economic "recovery" which has seen everything becoming more and more expensive without an increase in take-home pay which even begins to cover it.

As I've said ad nauseum in this thread already, when an entire generation was able to afford a higher standard of living on a part time income during the worst years of austerity than they are now on full time career incomes during a period of macroeconomic recovery, the obvious conclusion is that macroeconomics don't tell us sh!t about conditions on the ground which are actually having a direct impact on peoples' spending power and quality of life.

So, the macroeconomic figures and graphs all point to Ireland being in a good place. It. Does. Not. Matter. Ordinary people's lives are harder now than they were ten years ago because of rampant in key areas of the cost of living.

Here's another analogy: If your house is burning down around you and you're suffering third degree burns while your thermometer tells you that your house is a comfortable 21 degrees C, do you conclude that the evidence of your burns and the fact that your house is now a pile of ash is false, and the thermostat was correct?

No, you conclude that the thermometer was faulty in some way and therefore not capable of telling you what was really happening inside your house at the time that it showed a good temperature while you got badly burned by the inferno.

This is a situation like that. If the macroeconomic figures are telling us that things are good, while average lived experience is getting worse and worse over time, then the macroeconomic figures and formulae are worthless in determining anything about how citizens should feel or indeed how citizens should vote.

Abstract numbers and graphs which take into account gigantic factors which have very little direct impact on day to day life say everything's rosy. Individual human beings say that they cannot afford the cost of rent, groceries, heating and electricity bills, insurance and other basic costs of living without being financially crushed. The latter is all that matters when it comes to determining whether government policy has or has not been a success.

Peoples' quality of life has diminished as the cost of living has outstripped income, and ordinary voters literally couldn't give a bollocks about anything else when it comes to voting on economic issues. They don't care if the macroeconomic figures are solid, they don't care if the stock market is up, they don't care about GDP, they don't care about indices and graphs. They care that what they take home on payday after a hard week's work doesn't go as far as it used to before FG took office in 2011. And that is literally the only metric upon which average voters are going to judge a government's performance on economic policy.

The thing is that stats are based on reality, not some isolated anecdotes and misery junky stories shared on social media by perpetual moaners.

To give some more real figures - SIMI stats show new car sales in Jan 2020 were up by over 50% from 2012. That's 50% more families who have enough disposable income to buy themselves a car that couldn't do that 8 years ago.

The same stats showed that light commercial sales doubled, probably an even more telling sign of a buoyant economy for tradespeople, with a market less impacted by uncertainty around diesels, electric vehicles etc than private sales.

To take another stat, in 2011 Dublin Airport carried 18 million passengers while in 2019 it carried 32 million. That's some combination of a hell of a lot more people who can afford holidays, mixed with a lot more people being attracted to visit here from abroad too.

I couldn't find absolute figures for retail sales but they've been in positive growth every year so clearly they've been doing a lot better in 2019 than 2011 too. Yet another sign that people typically have more disposable income to enjoy life with.

Housing is going to get more expensive when so many more people have so much more to spend. Building is picking up pace however and we've already seen prices level off over the last year.

Anyone who's trying to depict the country as some kind of hell hole where nobody can afford to live a decent life really needs to get some perspective on what it's like in pretty much every other country. There's a reason why Ireland is so often near the top of international quality of life measures, such as the UN's Human Development Index which puts us third on the planet behind Norway and Switzerland.

sameoldname

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

It's irrelevant. Macroeconomics has become entirely disconnected from average quality of life for a variety of reasons, and this is exactly what FG's problem is - obsessing over numbers and graphs on paper and not actually listening to people when huge, huge numbers of voters tell them that their lives have become worse, not better, as a result of economic "recovery" which has seen everything becoming more and more expensive without an increase in take-home pay which even begins to cover it.

As I've said ad nauseum in this thread already, when an entire generation was able to afford a higher standard of living on a part time income during the worst years of austerity than they are now on full time career incomes during a period of macroeconomic recovery, the obvious conclusion is that macroeconomics don't tell us sh!t about conditions on the ground which are actually having a direct impact on peoples' spending power and quality of life.

So, the macroeconomic figures and graphs all point to Ireland being in a good place. It. Does. Not. Matter. Ordinary people's lives are harder now than they were ten years ago because of rampant in key areas of the cost of living.

Here's another analogy: If your house is burning down around you and you're suffering third degree burns while your thermometer tells you that your house is a comfortable 21 degrees C, do you conclude that the evidence of your burns and the fact that your house is now a pile of ash is false, and the thermostat was correct?

No, you conclude that the thermometer was faulty in some way and therefore not capable of telling you what was really happening inside your house at the time that it showed a good temperature while you got badly burned by the inferno.

This is a situation like that. If the macroeconomic figures are telling us that things are good, while average lived experience is getting worse and worse over time, then the macroeconomic figures and formulae are worthless in determining anything about how citizens should feel or indeed how citizens should vote.

Abstract numbers and graphs which take into account gigantic factors which have very little direct impact on day to day life say everything's rosy. Individual human beings say that they cannot afford the cost of rent, groceries, heating and electricity bills, insurance and other basic costs of living without being financially crushed. The latter is all that matters when it comes to determining whether government policy has or has not been a success.

Peoples' quality of life has diminished as the cost of living has outstripped income, and ordinary voters literally couldn't give a bollocks about anything else when it comes to voting on economic issues. They don't care if the macroeconomic figures are solid, they don't care if the stock market is up, they don't care about GDP, they don't care about indices and graphs. They care that what they take home on payday after a hard week's work doesn't go as far as it used to before FG took office in 2011. And that is literally the only metric upon which average voters are going to judge a government's performance on economic policy.

I think you might have a problem of perspective. I'll give you an example:

I was in my early twenties when the crash happened and just before had moved to a new city and got a new job. The pay wasn't great and the rent was still celtic tiger-ish, so basically I lived in a suburb sharing a house, an hour from work and my rent took up a large enough portion of my income.
Luckily, the job that I had just started was stable enough through the recession that I wasn't let go. I ended up being promoted in my first year which came with a sizable increase in pay. In fact, I got a pay increase every year I worked there.
On the other side of the equation, my rent was reduced substantially after my first year. The year after that I moved into an apartment which was literally smack dab in the middle of the city. I was still sharing but my rent was even lower. By 2011 I was paying €200 a month in rent to live just off Eyre Square in Galway and my pay had increased by over a third.

From my personal point of view, the recession was a good time for me, out every weekend, loads of money for holidays and things were getting cheaper every year. But I was basically living in an artificially cheap world. I didn't have to worry about my €300,000 house now only being worth half that. I didn't have to worry about losing my job and not being able to pay my mortgage.

I know some people who were even luckier, had managed to save up a deposit and secured a mortgage on property which was valued less than the cost of building the bloody thing, never mind the value of the land it sat on!

So yeah, roll on a few years and everything has flipped around. I don't own a home and I don't know if I ever will. And I guess if I viewed that time as "normal", I'd be pretty pissed. But it wasn't normal, and the reason everything is so messed up now is directly related to how cheap everything became back then. And now, most of the people who were worrying about the value of their home and if they could pay the mortgage are doing better and now I'm the one who's worried that I won't be able to pay my rent.

So maybe that could be one explanation for how people "feel"? Feelings don't change figures though.

Shefwedfan

Feisar wrote: »

There were TD's from the three main parties on a radio show as I was driving down the road this evening. Yer "up the ra" lad was saying how they respect/follow the institutions of our state. The FF/FG lads missed a trick. They should have requested he condemn the killing of Jerry McCabe. We could have listened to the tramp dance around the issue.

I appreciate they were a necessary evil in NI however it is perfidious to pretend to be anything other than the political wing of the IRA.

They where not a necessary evil, they killed people to seemingly free Ireland. Ireland is still the exact same

Plus they still around killing, stealing and beating up people. So what is the goal of them now?

Mary Lou trying to make out they don’t exist, she is having a laugh

whisky_galore

Shefwedfan wrote: »

They where not a necessary evil, they killed people to seemingly free Ireland. Ireland is still the exact same

Plus they still around killing, stealing and beating up people. So what is the goal of them now?

That diesel isn't going to launder itself you know.

We need our brave freedom fighters to do this patriotic duty.

Shefwedfan

whisky_galore wrote: »

That diesel isn't going to launder itself you know.

We need our brave freedom fighters to do this patriotic duty.

Exactly, Some of IRA originally where freedom fighters, then and now it just a shower of scumbags doing illegal stuff to line their pockets, all with Sinn Fein backing

wrangler

sameoldname wrote: »

I think you might have a problem of perspective. I'll give you an example:

I was in my early twenties when the crash happened and just before had moved to a new city and got a new job. The pay wasn't great and the rent was still celtic tiger-ish, so basically I lived in a suburb sharing a house, an hour from work and my rent took up a large enough portion of my income.
Luckily, the job that I had just started was stable enough through the recession that I wasn't let go. I ended up being promoted in my first year which came with a sizable increase in pay. In fact, I got a pay increase every year I worked there.
On the other side of the equation, my rent was reduced substantially after my first year. The year after that I moved into an apartment which was literally smack dab in the middle of the city. I was still sharing but my rent was even lower. By 2011 I was paying €200 a month in rent to live just off Eyre Square in Galway and my pay had increased by over a third.

From my personal point of view, the recession was a good time for me, out every weekend, loads of money for holidays and things were getting cheaper every year. But I was basically living in an artificially cheap world. I didn't have to worry about my €300,000 house now only being worth half that. I didn't have to worry about losing my job and not being able to pay my mortgage.

I know some people who were even luckier, had managed to save up a deposit and secured a mortgage on property which was valued less than the cost of building the bloody thing, never mind the value of the land it sat on!

So yeah, roll on a few years and everything has flipped around. I don't own a home and I don't know if I ever will. And I guess if I viewed that time as "normal", I'd be pretty pissed. But it wasn't normal, and the reason everything is so messed up now is directly related to how cheap everything became back then. And now, most of the people who were worrying about the value of their home and if they could pay the mortgage are doing better and now I'm the one who's worried that I won't be able to pay my rent.

So maybe that could be one explanation for how people "feel"? Feelings don't change figures though.

Yea, during the celtic tiger I warned a young friend about all the money he was wasting 'partying' and he now quotes it back to me as he tries to buy a house, even scrape together a deposit.
It was never easy for young peopleto buy a house, but they are unreasonable now to expect the government to throw money at them.
My friend enjoyed the boom and should've been in a position to buy cheap houses

growleaves

quokula wrote: »

The thing is that stats are based on reality, not some isolated anecdotes and misery junky stories shared on social media by perpetual moaners.

To give some more real figures - SIMI stats show new car sales in Jan 2020 were up by over 50% from 2012. That's 50% more families who have enough disposable income to buy themselves a car that couldn't do that 8 years ago.

You don't know who has seen an increase in disposable income and who went into debt to buy a new car. Commuters have to have vehicles of a certain age to meet insurance requirements - its non-negotiable for many people.

To take another stat, in 2011 Dublin Airport carried 18 million passengers while in 2019 it carried 32 million. That's some combination of a hell of a lot more people who can afford holidays, mixed with a lot more people being attracted to visit here from abroad too.

There is a tourist boom obviously but that doesn't mean a rise in wages in the hospitality sector.



You're looking at statistics and interpreting them according to your assumptions.

quokula

growleaves wrote: »

You don't know who has seen an increase in disposable income and who went into debt to buy a new car. Commuters have to have vehicles of a certain age to meet insurance requirements - its non-negotiable for many people.




There is a tourist boom obviously but that doesn't mean a rise in wages in the hospitality sector.



You're looking at statistics and interpreting them according to your assumptions.

All the statistics across every sector line up in the same direction. You have to be willing to make some wild leaps of faith to try and interpret them differently.

Regarding car sales for example, you're saying people are going into more debt. You don't know that, but even if they are it implies that people have more confidence to commit to a payment schedule, which still all points to them being in a much better position.

You're also assuming 100% of extra passengers in Dublin are foreign tourists, that seems unlikely. And even if it were true, all the money those tourists spend doesn't disappear into thin air. If hospitality workers aren't earning more (I have no stats to say whether they are or aren't), then there's a lot more people in jobs and fewer unemployed thanks to the expansion of the sector, and that matters.

jd1983

quokula wrote: »

There's still a good chance that brexit will result in a hard border, yet I don't blame Simon Coveney and FG for the basket case that's UK politics.

It's similarly ridiculous to give FG credit for the UK and US (our 2 largest trading partners) exiting recession earlier than euro zone countries which benefited Ireland more than the other euro zone countries.
The UK and US were Ireland largest trading partners well before Kenny became taoiseach.

Shefwedfan

So how is Mary Lou getting on with forming a government?

FrancieBrady

Shefwedfan wrote: »

So how is Mary Lou getting on with forming a government?

According to the news there, 'parties are still meeting with SF.'

Wanderer78

Shefwedfan wrote:

So how is Mary Lou getting on with forming a government?

SF more than likely won't be in government, ffg will see to that

Brendan Bendar

Wanderer78 wrote: »

SF more than likely won't be in government, ffg will see to that

Whoooooy?

Apparently there has been a huge vote for ‘change’.....:eek:

Wanderer78

Brendan Bendar wrote: »

Whoooooy?

Apparently there has been a huge vote for ‘change’.....:eek:

ffg wont allow that, normal service will resume soon

Brendan Bendar

Wanderer78 wrote: »

ffg wont allow that, normal service will resume soon

What!!!

Stability....!!!!

Aaah heeeyur.... we have enough of that..

Wanderer78

Brendan Bendar wrote: »

What!!!

Stability....!!!!

Aaah heeeyur.... we have enough of that..

we may have stability, but we also have stagnation for some of our most critical of issues

lawrencesummers

Brendan Bendar wrote: »

Whoooooy?

Apparently there has been a huge vote for ‘change’.....:eek:

Out of interest bren, is there anything about a FFG that you don’t like?

Shefwedfan

Wanderer78 wrote: »

SF more than likely won't be in government, ffg will see to that

Hahahahahahaha

Shefwedfan

lawrencesummers wrote: »

Out of interest bren, is there anything about a FFG that you don’t like?

Better question, what do you like?

GreeBo

storker wrote: »

I'd want to see evidence of how it was done; evidence of the process. You seem to think the the outcome is sufficient evidence in itself - incidentally, this is not unlike how creationists argue.



Seriously? Is that a trick question? I'd start by looking for specific policies or specific budget adjustments that were intended to create more economic activity, and then look at the economic indicators that one might expect to see increase as a result of each policy to make a judgement about its efficacy, and them amalgamate the changes brought by all these policies to see if they come anywhere near accounting for the increase in growth that was shown in the statistics.



Unless you are prepared to present some evidence to support your claim, it would seem that you're just being credulous and happy to believe something simply on the basis that someone you want to believe has told you it's true.

All we have is a claim that economic growth happened because of FG; that FG was the miracle ingredient without which the growth couldn't have occurred. All I'm asking is, how did they do it? It's a simple enough question, but it's one I've never had an answer to. The response is usually a bit of bluster about this or that, followed by a sound not unlike blowing tumbleweed.

It's no surprise to me that you don't have the answer, because FG don't appear to have it either. I have no doubt that if they did, they'd have been proclaiming it loudly, and they weren't. Perhaps it's a secret... :eek:

But how can you prove that the policy caused the result?
Or is it only FG who you deny this logic?

Btw I don't think anyone said fg were a magical ingredient or that it couldn't have happened without them. The fact however is that it happened with and under their government.
Can you give any example of what could have caused Ireland to outperform the euro zone other than fg policy?

Brendan Bendar

lawrencesummers wrote: »

Out of interest bren, is there anything about a FFG that you don’t like?

Plenty L..... plenty.

Shefwedfan

SF has been part of power sharing in Northern Ireland for how long now and how is the economy going for them?

It’s a f**king basket case last time I looked, at the moment if they wanted Ireland to join we can’t afford to take on the mess SF have made of the north

Brendan Bendar

Shefwedfan wrote: »

SF has been part of power sharing in Northern Ireland for how long now and how is the economy going for them?

It’s a f**king basket case last time I looked, at the moment if they wanted Ireland to join we can’t afford to take on the mess SF have made of the north

Correct... hand out already for the Brits shilling.

Total mess, and these clowns are agitating for a border poll!!

Incredible.

Mr. teddywinkles

lawrencesummers wrote: »

Housing needs to be nationalized to be resolved. The private sector is never going to fix the problem because they only want to profit from building.


It’s not complicated. For the government to solve the housing problem they need to build public housing on public land. Not Sell the land off cheap to have a developer do it where they release enough units at a time to the market that keeps the price high and gifts 10% of the houses to the state.


FFG are buddy buddy with developers, this will never change. They would sooner rent hotel rooms and pay private landlords millions through HAP than build a stock of houses that they own because the people that will lose the most are builders and developers.

It's kinda hilarious when people say builders should build for charity or something along those lines. Does the pharma sector work for the good of people. Or the tech industry.

storker

GreeBo wrote: »

But how can you prove that the policy caused the result?
Or is it only FG who you deny this logic?

No, I would treat all such claims with equal skepticism where someone claims to have achieved something without offering up any explanation as to how they did it.

Btw I don't think anyone said fg were a magical ingredient or that it couldn't have happened without them.

I don't think you've been paying attention.

The fact however is that it happened with and under their government.

Which proves nothing with Ireland being such a small open economy subject to outside events.

Can you give any example of what could have caused Ireland to outperform the euro zone other than fg policy?

Someone already has earlier in the thread, by pointing out that Ireland has more trade with the UK and US, both of which exited recession before the EU. Now, I'm not the one to judge whther that's right or wrong, but just in itself it's more credible by several orders of magnitude than "FG did it by...er...er...they just did it OK?". But, again, it's for people making the claim to back up the claim...or admit that they can't, and are just happy to believe whatever they're told.

growleaves

Mr. teddywinkles wrote: »

It's kinda hilarious when people say builders should build for charity or something along those lines. Does the pharma sector work for the good of people. Or the tech industry.

Er, nationalisation isn't building for charity. Do doctors on the NHS work for no wages? Think again.

Shefwedfan

Mr. teddywinkles wrote: »

It's kinda hilarious when people say builders should build for charity or something along those lines. Does the pharma sector work for the good of people. Or the tech industry.

I wouldn’t worry, it was already pointed out to that poster how ludicrous his idea was, but sure what can you do

Wanderer78

Shefwedfan wrote: »

Hahahahahahaha

oh laugh away

Shefwedfan

Wanderer78 wrote: »

oh laugh away

I will, first off because it shows a vote for SF is a wasted vote as they don’t want to go into government, better off hiding and throwing mud

Wanderer78

Shefwedfan wrote: »

I will, first off because it shows a vote for SF is a wasted vote as they don’t want to go into government, better off hiding and throwing mud

the numbers arent there for an sf lead government, and again, ffg simply wont allow one