Relaxation of Restrictions, Part III - **Read OP for Mod Warnings**

seamus wrote: »

I remember people saying this in 2009 as well. There was no end of people back then willing to bet the farm that the Irish would be eating bread and water for the next two decades.

This is an exceptional event, there's fvck all really we can do about the fact that we went into this with huge national debt.

If we don't borrow money to carry us through, then we're going to have to dump hundreds of thousands of people into actual poverty virtually overnight. This will kick off social and legal problems that will persist for decades.

Why people think that's the preferred option is beyond me. National debt is less of a concern, it spreads the burden over multiples of decades in a way that it barely impacts the life of the individual.

Like I say, the fact that we went into this with a huge debt is beyond our control. If we would have borrowed because we had no debt, then we should borrow now.

People and politicians can always find good reasons to borrow. It puts off having to actually make any tough decisions.

What will will do when the next crisis hits (hello Brexit!) - let me guess, borrow?

What about the one after that and the one after that?

I mean, that might all be fine if we took money out of the economy during the boom times and used it to service debt but there is no political appetite to ever do that.


Saddling future generations with our debt burdens is not the answer just because we're hooked on credit we can't be arsed living within our means.

KrustyUCC wrote: »

Only thing they achieved was three more weeks of pent up demand and now more people will be able to travel legally to IKEA

IKEA wouldn't have been the chaos you think it would have been

Look at the queues for mc Donald’s, do you really think Ikea would not have been difficult for traffic management? The smaller hardware stores that are struggling throughout towns will hopefully benefit by people shopping more local as opposed to everyone flocking to Ikea over the next few weeks.

frillyleaf wrote: »

Look at the queues for mc Donald’s, do you really think Ikea would not have been difficult for traffic management? The smaller hardware stores that are struggling throughout towns will hopefully benefit by people shopping more local as opposed to everyone flocking to Ikea over the next few weeks.

Well by your rationale, some of those queuing outside woodies and b&q would instead have gone to ikea. Open up homestore and others too, and you have an even bigger spread of shoppers. Less traffic issues.

frillyleaf wrote: »

Look at the queues for mc Donald’s, do you really think Ikea would not have been difficult for traffic management? The smaller hardware stores that are struggling throughout towns will hopefully benefit by people shopping more local as opposed to everyone flocking to Ikea over the next few weeks.

That’s how supply and demand works, if you take away a service that was previously utilised by the public, there will be a demand for it when it returns.
The longer we are without supply, the bigger the demand will be when it returns.
Keeping IKEA shut for another few weeks will just increase the demand when it does reopen.

Deleted User wrote: »

All modern economic thinking tells you to borrow and spend in a crisis and save during good times.

Okay but our savings didnt even last social welfare payments until June this year without more borrowings. What have we saved over the last 8 years? 5 of those years GDP grew 8 - 10% per year... a rainy day fund with 1.5bn??

Reality is, from 2008 recession, a public servant will pay 58-62% effective tax on income earned above 37,500...... (10% pension levy for income over 30k and obv 40% for income over 37.5k and then our friends USC and PRSI start to contribute 3-4% each)

We cant tax our workers much further now (unless you discriminate against private sector), we cant increase our corporation tax rate or tons of companies will likely re consider their plans and our social welfare spending has just increased dramatically for the LONG TERM because of OUR actions of being overprotective for 5 months.

We will be very lucky avoiding asking IMF for a bit of help in the next 2-3 years.

We are literally leaving only 1 choice on how to deal with our debt and thats get more debt... any suggestions on repayment strategy much welcomed. Only viable strategy is to lift restrictions much quicker than currently planned or that 30bn deficit could get to 40bn before we know it

frillyleaf wrote: »

There is nothing wrong with people queuing up for something they want. If that’s what they want to do of course they can. My point was the traffic and resources it would take to control these scenarios if they were all across the country. Some shops needed to be closed purely from traffic control point of view over the last few weeks as the congestion they were causing was too dense in an area that couldn’t manage the traffic. This isn’t applicable to the above as its on a dual carriageway but if this was happening in smaller towns front it would be hard to manage

Which shops did they close over the last few weeks for traffic congestion? Just out of interest - hadn’t come across anything about that..

evidence from places like Czechia and similar is that reversing the lockdown still meant their curves dropping, which would question the logic of the lockdown in the fist place if opposite things happen at the same point. The case for speeding things up is mounting

silverharp wrote: »

evidence from places like Czechia and similar is that reversing the lockdown still meant their curves dropping, which would question the logic of the lockdown in the fist place if opposite things happen at the same point. The case for speeding things up is mounting

Just to point out - factual evidence. Not "models" or "estimates".

AdamD wrote: »

Yes its ridiculous that 50 cars are queuing for McDonald's drive through

But is it actually harming anyone? No. Country has gone a bit hysterical tbh

Aside from respiratory damage from the pollution. But no-one gets hysterical about that.

Stark wrote: »

Aside from respiratory damage from the pollution. But no-one gets hysterical about that.

If you want changes to society with regards to a healthier environment there’s no problem, most reasonable people do.

Piggybacking on punitive restrictions however is disgraceful opportunism.

McDonald's in that video looks no different to people queuing hours for a box of krispy kreme donuts to post a picture of them on their social media. There was no virus then - just the way things are here.

The irony of people scrambling for their MIckey D's with the link between obesity levels and Covid-19 fatalities.

In principle I don't care if people want to queue up for that swill, but it provides the likes of Holohan and Govt. with more ammunition in their on-going campaign of treating the Irish public like naughty children.