Is there a "secret" recession happening?

Still waters · 03-05-2019 06:10PM

....... wrote: »

He does and health issues and at this stage he is in his 70s so he is not going to be getting another job.

But some on here will tell you he should up skill into IT and go work for google

Atlantic Dawn · 03-05-2019 06:11PM

It's well under way, have a look at the retail sector on its knees.

Assetbacked · 03-05-2019 06:11PM

....... wrote: »

Thats why I called it a secret recession, I didnt mean a recession in normal terms. I dont know what to call it but all around me I see people struggling in a way I never did before - even during the "real" recession.

I think a lot of it is down to the housing market. But not all of it.

If you are renting in Ireland the last few years, you are struggling and it has been getting worse, which would indicate that things have not been good the past few years.

caff · 03-05-2019 06:18PM

Not a recession, however it could be a signal to indicate a risk of one soon. If the cost of living absorbs enough of peoples wages to the extent that their disposable incomes plummets this will quickly hurt the real economy and lead to a spiral of jobs losses and recession.

Tacklebox · 03-05-2019 06:30PM

caff wrote: »

Not a recession, however it could be a signal to indicate a risk of one soon. If the cost of living absorbs enough of peoples wages to the extent that their disposable incomes plummets this will quickly hurt the real economy and lead to a spiral of jobs losses and recession.

That's a good response.

I can see it trickling through already, it won't necessarily hurt the people who got through the last recession such as barbers, hairdressers, public sector workers, fast food employees, you know the type of jobs that some people think are for knobs...

Im public sector myself and took a pay freeze for a few years but am climbing up again.

But I seen the devastation during the last recession, it was tough on a lot of people.

Ashleigh1986 · 03-05-2019 06:41PM

There is the Dublin economy , and than the rest .
122 tower cranes in Dublin at the moment , 2 in galway .
Some restaurants in galway are feeling the vat increase , as in the drop in customers .
Bookings in galway for tours this year so far is behind last year .
I think with the elections coming up a somewhat of a positive is been portrayed around the country .
I think the elephant in the room ( brexit) is causing a lot of anxiety in people's spending .

vicwatson · 03-05-2019 06:46PM

A champagne thread has been opened in bargain alerts so we must still be booming and awash with cash

For Forks Sake · 03-05-2019 06:50PM

sk8erboii wrote: »

A burger meal is now 25 euros. I remember 10 years ago when it was 12eu. But wages have stayed the same

Even minimum wage is over 13% higher than ten years ago.

rgodard80a · 03-05-2019 06:57PM

....... wrote: »

He does and health issues and at this stage he is in his 70s so he is not going to be getting another job.

Sorry but if someone has debt in their 70s then they didn't plan their retirement properly at all and probably had no private pension expecting the state to pay for
everything after 65.

If you don't properly plan your life, have funds in place, a little savings for a rainy day etc, as a grown adult you have to take responsibility for your own actions.
It's a Nanny state at times, but not a Mammy or Daddy state.

Ash.J.Williams · 03-05-2019 06:59PM

I heard from a source selling specific construction equipment that they had the best April in record. Their records began before the celtic tiger.

sk8erboii · 03-05-2019 07:08PM

For Forks Sake wrote: »

Even minimum wage is over 13% higher than ten years ago.

Accounting for inflation and real dollar value, its lower unfortunately

Zorya · 03-05-2019 07:46PM

rgodard80a wrote: »

Sorry but if someone has debt in their 70s then they didn't plan their retirement properly at all and probably had no private pension expecting the state to pay for
everything after 65.

If you don't properly plan your life, have funds in place, a little savings for a rainy day etc, as a grown adult you have to take responsibility for your own actions.
It's a Nanny state at times, but not a Mammy or Daddy state.

Ugh. I'm guessing you presume that the sun will always shine for you. My Dad started working fulltime at 14 in the 50s. The 1980s recession wiped him out. He worked and worked thereafter, too hard, but died poor. Terribly sick and poor.
You have no compassion if you presume that the very best laid plans do not go awry, because they do, for many people.
I hate this quality of resenting people the pittance they might get off a pension or the social welfare net.
Do you not realise that everything you depend on now - your roads, your water, your infrastructure - was provided for you by someone else - your doctor's education was vastly subsidised, your food is cheap because of massive intervention and artificial trade mechanisms and the sweat and blood of subsistence labourers in countries and circumstances you could never survive. Ditto your furniture and technology and petrol.
You are wholly connected to and interdependent with other people some of whom live or have in the far past lived short desperate lives just so you can be so arrogant and cocksure now about people taking responsibility for themselves.

VinLieger · 03-05-2019 07:50PM

Going by the literal definition of the word no there is not

ednwireland · 03-05-2019 07:52PM

For Forks Sake wrote: »

Even minimum wage is over 13% higher than ten years ago.

my wages aren't, about 7 % higher in 10 years and that's one pay rise. Well under the average pay.

Pkiernan · 03-05-2019 07:58PM

Crippling taxes to support the non working class are the root cause of this unseen recession.

RobbingBandit · 03-05-2019 08:02PM

Pkiernan wrote: »

Crippling taxes to support the non working class are the root cause of this unseen recession.

crippling taxes to support banking crisis era debt and massive pension fund for former political numptys

Still waters · 03-05-2019 08:05PM

rgodard80a wrote: »

Sorry but if someone has debt in their 70s then they didn't plan their retirement properly at all and probably had no private pension expecting the state to pay for
everything after 65.

If you don't properly plan your life, have funds in place, a little savings for a rainy day etc, as a grown adult you have to take responsibility for your own actions.
It's a Nanny state at times, but not a Mammy or Daddy state.

And I'll be willing to bet you've never had the cahones to set up a business or stick your neck out for something you believe in to succeed only to see it fail, in an ideal world we would all be teachers, doctors and civil servants, but without the likes of your employer and people willing to take a risk the country would sink in a month

03-05-2019 08:08PM

Pkiernan wrote: »

Crippling taxes to support the non working class are the root cause of this unseen recession.

The recession isn't seen because it isn't happening.

People seem to use the word 'recession' for all kinds of strange phenomena -- personal financial security, a general feeling of wealth permeating their personal lives, or whatever.

Whatever you think of how it's measured, it clearly is not happening. It isn't a secret, simply non-existent.

Like most people, I can remember very well the last boom, and the widespread cries of how difficult it was to make ends meet. What was usually happening, was that people were watching how their neighbours were living (or, how we suspected our neighbours were living, perhaps), and anxious that we weren't enjoying the same quality of life. It was also a commonly-used tool for seeking higher salaries, sometimes unjustifiably so.

Apart from the difficulty in buying and renting property, which is truly a crisis, I see very little evidence of anyone who is in work and truly struggling. In that sense, the economic security of most households doesn't seem to be declining. But that's anecdotal and unreliable.

What we do reliably know is that we are not in recession.

lawred2 · 03-05-2019 08:14PM

Both myself and the wife are professionals in Dublin. Six figure pre tax household income whittled away in tax.

Salary comes in. Mortgage and Creche fees go out and we're broke. Struggling to add a few hundred quid a month to our savings..

Rinse and repeat every month.

Letter this week to inform us creche fees to go up 5% for the second year in a row.

Nothing really tying us to Dublin. Would give serious thought to somewhere else if the numbers stacked up.

Ash.J.Williams · 03-05-2019 08:16PM

Zorya wrote: »

Ugh. I'm guessing you presume that the sun will always shine for you. My Dad started working fulltime at 14 in the 50s. The 1980s recession wiped him out. He worked and worked thereafter, too hard, but died poor. Terribly sick and poor.
You have no compassion if you presume that the very best laid plans do not go awry, because they do, for many people.
I hate this quality of resenting people the pittance they might get off a pension or the social welfare net.
Do you not realise that everything you depend on now - your roads, your water, your infrastructure - was provided for you by someone else - your doctor's education was vastly subsidised, your food is cheap because of massive intervention and artificial trade mechanisms and the sweat and blood of subsistence labourers in countries and circumstances you could never survive. Ditto your furniture and technology and petrol.
You are wholly connected to and interdependent with other people some of whom live or have in the far past lived short desperate lives just so you can be so arrogant and cocksure now about people taking responsibility for themselves.

Thanks for this... Great response

rgodard80a · 03-05-2019 08:18PM

Still waters wrote: »

And I'll be willing to bet you've never had the cahones to set up a business or stick your neck out for something you believe in to succeed only to see it fail, in an ideal world we would all be teachers, doctors and civil servants, but without the likes of your employer and people willing to take a risk the country would sink in a month

Not sure where the hell that came from...
Sounds like you tried something and utterly failed at it.
But the taxman (funded by the rest of us) allows you to write off that loss in future taxable incomes.

The government/EU funded my degree and since then I've never in my entire life claimed a single dole payment and been a huge net contributor to the taxman. (20+ years)

Going back to the OP, their idea of "recession" is that people keep doing the same thing and expecting wage inflation to cover their expenses.

That's not recession, that says that they can't keep up.

rgodard80a · 03-05-2019 08:39PM

Zorya wrote: »

Ugh. I'm guessing you presume that the sun will always shine for you. My Dad started working fulltime at 14 in the 50s. The 1980s recession wiped him out. He worked and worked thereafter, too hard, but died poor. Terribly sick and poor.

So your Dad worked for 30 years... did he have a private pension scheme ?
That's a very valid question. Or did he blindly rely on the state pension to continue to subsidize his lifestyle?

Zorya wrote: »

You have no compassion if you presume that the very best laid plans do not go awry, because they do, for many people.
I hate this quality of resenting people the pittance they might get off a pension or the social welfare net.
Do you not realise that everything you depend on now - your roads, your water, your infrastructure - was provided for you by someone else

And that's what the state pension pays for.
But if you don't plan it properly, or have proper life, health or mortgage insurance to protect you from "the best laid plans" then you roll the dice on luck.

Zorya wrote: »

- your doctor's education was vastly subsidised, your food is cheap because of massive intervention and artificial trade mechanisms and the sweat and blood of subsistence labourers in countries and circumstances you could never survive. Ditto your furniture and technology and petrol.

You are wholly connected to and interdependent with other people some of whom live or have in the far past lived short desperate lives just so you can be so arrogant and cocksure now about people taking responsibility for themselves.

Where the hell has my doctors education come from ?
They're either educated in Ireland, or we poach them from another country whose taxpayers paid for their education.
Same with food prices... we import from other countries...

Completely bizarre and uneducated rant about global economics and globalisation.

Just because you're born or "allowed" in Ireland, doesn't mean everyone else picks up the tab for your perceived expectation of quality of life in the area you expect to live in.

hatrickpatrick · 03-05-2019 08:43PM

Stagflation has been the cause of most of the West's economic and social ills since the 1970s, to be honest - but you won't hear much about it because it would require extremely radical policy and paradigm changes to address it, which would hit the pockets of those who pay for the political party (pun intended)

LirW · 03-05-2019 08:47PM

The streets are full with new Dacia Dusters and every goblin and their mother are building ginormous back- and side extensions to their houses, we're doing just fine.

Pkiernan · 03-05-2019 08:50PM

LirW wrote: »

The streets are full with new Dacia Dusters and every goblin and their mother are building ginormous back- and side extensions to their houses, we're doing just fine.

Doles going up and up and up

Still waters · 03-05-2019 08:59PM

rgodard80a wrote: »

Not sure where the hell that came from...
Sounds like you tried something and utterly failed at it.
But the taxman (funded by the rest of us) allows you to write off that loss in future taxable incomes.

The government/EU funded my degree and since then I've never in my entire life claimed a single dole payment and been a huge net contributor to the taxman. (20+ years)

Going back to the OP, their idea of "recession" is that people keep doing the same thing and expecting wage inflation to cover their expenses.

That's not recession, that says that they can't keep up.

It came from your ridiculous previous post which proves that university degrees whilst showing a high level of schooling can also reveal a low level of life experience. Your attitude towards failure is naive, which further illustrates your immaturity.
When someone fails in business it means they tried, that's something not to be scoffed at, the average age of a successful startup in America is 46, do you think success is a one time chance or would you say its repetitive failures ending in success
Like yourself I've never been on the dole and probably wouldn't get it as I'm self employed, good on you for being a HUGE net contributor to the Irish economy as you yourself put it, the fact you could draw dole must be a huge comfort to you should anything ever happen that you needed it.

Larbre34 · 03-05-2019 09:08PM

Theres no such thing as a 'secret' recession. The economy is either growing or it isn't and we know in fact it is, strongly.

What there is, is a high cost of living and a narrow tax base. Those aren't new, but there is some wage inflation especially in tight markets so that is adding to costs, international uncertainty and volatile oil prices both add a burden to the consumer, so all in all it still feels like a pretty tight equation for households.

On the question of the housing market though, away from starter homes and the social and rental markets, prices are softening off considerally in the middle to upper price range, so be very canny about paying current prices in that segment.

vkus6mt3y8zg2q · 03-05-2019 09:11PM

lawred2 wrote: »

Both myself and the wife are professionals in Dublin. Six figure pre tax household income whittled away in tax.

Salary comes in. Mortgage and Creche fees go out and we're broke. Struggling to add a few hundred quid a month to our savings..

Rinse and repeat every month.

Letter this week to inform us creche fees to go up 5% for the second year in a row.

Nothing really tying us to Dublin. Would give serious thought to somewhere else if the numbers stacked up.

Ye'll be missed

KikiLaRue · 03-05-2019 09:28PM

Pkiernan wrote: »

Doles going up and up and up

That's not true. It's lower now than it was in 2009.

rgodard80a wrote: »

Not sure where the hell that came from...
Sounds like you tried something and utterly failed at it.
But the taxman (funded by the rest of us) allows you to write off that loss in future taxable incomes.

The government/EU funded my degree and since then I've never in my entire life claimed a single dole payment and been a huge net contributor to the taxman. (20+ years)

Going back to the OP, their idea of "recession" is that people keep doing the same thing and expecting wage inflation to cover their expenses.

That's not recession, that says that they can't keep up.

How many months savings have you got put by in case you unexpectedly got the sack...?

LirW · 03-05-2019 09:28PM

lawred2 wrote: »

Both myself and the wife are professionals in Dublin. Six figure pre tax household income whittled away in tax.

Salary comes in. Mortgage and Creche fees go out and we're broke. Struggling to add a few hundred quid a month to our savings..

Rinse and repeat every month.

Letter this week to inform us creche fees to go up 5% for the second year in a row.

Nothing really tying us to Dublin. Would give serious thought to somewhere else if the numbers stacked up.

Okay, I'm being genuinely curious now, you're doing 6 figures, in theory this leaves you with around 6k a month net.
I understand crèche in Dublin is sore and I don't know where you live that your mortgage is crazy high but if my husband and I would be remotely in that sort of income we'd move back to Dublin straight away.
Are you sure there aren't car loans missing, health insurance and a few other nice things you like to include in your life since you're in the top 10% with your household income?
Not trying to p1ss you off there but for me it doesn't exactly add up, but I don't know your circumstances.

Is there a "secret" recession happening?

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