Irish economy exceeding capacity to provide infrastructure , time to slow down?

Re Amazon no jobs were lost when we're already at full employment. The issue behind them moving elsewhere though is a serious concern and that's the lack of capacity in our grid. ESBN are really struggling to keep up with demand. Hopefully more and more renewable projects come online in the next 24 months along with the interconnector to France because the constraints are having are serious impact on projects around the country.

The lack of power is one of the most critical challenges the state is facing and is partially responsible for the housing crisis which you mentioned.

There are many very good articles now, on how poorly ffg have been managing the economy and how reckless it is. Which is fact. Sign up to the sunday business post. The other wasters in the Dail will be as bad if not worse. If the **** hits the fan again and all the proper analysis starts pouring in, many will see this reckless last few years, as even more inexcusable than the celtic tiger...

This time however, that cohort of waffling wasters ffg have been in bed together. No more excuses, it's delicious...

As for housing, it's so so complex. Notice dublin just still littered with low rise new builds...

You say you're not confused but don't actually address that you're not talking about an overheated economy, you're talking about an undersupplied housing market. These are not the same thing.

Regardless, ending immigration is not a solution for an overheated economy, it is the opposite, as it will increase the problem.

To cool the economy the government would need to reduce the amount of money in circulation, by increasing taxes, encouraging savings, driving wages down, etc. I don't think you want any of these things do you?

He is an incorrigible blowhard, with an immense welcome for himself and for his own voice. And the one time a Minister of Finance listened to him, ie Brian Lenihan in 2008, a bad situation was made worse.

Right now, there is no obvious strategy. Only contingency. And contingency is what we heard from the government during the week.

A) There will be a reasonable US trade deal and we will be able to carry on, with a tariff rate of 10 or 15% naturally cooling things as we settle into a new paradigm.

Or B) There will be no trade deal and a trade war begins with 30 to 200% tariffs and the EU goes into recession, especially the likes of Germany. In which case, the stimulus of the NDP's €275 Billion will be well needed, to be metered out over the next 10 years, washing through the economy like a cool beer, employing tens of thousands in building and manufacturing, returning 60% of all investment in VAT, PAYE and corporation taxes.

The housing crisis is not a monetary or an economic crisis. And its definitely not linked to what happens between the US and EU. What it is, is a crisis of politics and of strategy.

Successive governments have failed to face down meddling vested interests, whether objectors or lawyers or planners or judges.

They have failed to put a large scale overarching ideology in place, which will see housing expanded in bad times, not stopped.

Which would provide for fair effort rewarded with fair profit for developers, not incentivised with free exchequer top-ups.

Which would see the State build 1 out of every 3 homes and keep them in ownership of the state in perpetuity for the benefit of those who will never have the resources to put down €150,000 of a deposit on a gaff, or who are economically disadvantaged through illness or advanced age.

David McWilliams will never have the answers, because he doesn't exist enough in the real world, but rather in the world of the textbook and the desktop exercise.

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Infrastructure will never be planned though. Governments work in 4/5 year cycles - what matters is getting voted in, not doing the right job.

You would need a government full of people who are actively looking towards the next 50 years not just the next few years. That will never happen to due to human nature prioritising short term greed/survival over actually planning for the future.

Whilst immigration, housing and infrastructure are all linked - a simple bit of foresight and future planning would have fixed all of these issues had the governments in power from 1990-2010 been looking towards the 2020's and onwards.

In a word, no. Anyone issued a visa comes here to contribute to the economy, they're a net profit. The vast majority who cannot be housed here are reliant on those arriving to provide the tax to do so.

This isn't rocket science, so as mentioned above I would wonder if it's just an anti immigration stance. And yes McWilliams is a waffler, plenty foresaw the crash before he claimed he was the first.

Option D (what should have been started 20/30 years ago): Plan ahead for the increased immigration and growing population accordingly via expanding infrastructure (Elec/Water) and the amount of housing.

However option D is a bit too late unfortunatly. However your options ideally never should have been needed.

Ireland slow down building infrastructure? The Chinese build more in an hour than we build in a decade. Most of our infrastructure like railways, harbours, lighthouses, historic buildings / public buildings of architectural merit, canals, etc were built by the British, and most of our motorways built by the EEC / EU. We have littered the countryside with bungalow bliss and have decaying town and village centers, and our brightest leaving for foreign shores like Australia.

mcwilliams is whats called a heterodox economist, hes a serial critic of mainstream economics, i.e. neoclassical, which is whats mainly thought in academia, and the fundamental basis of policy thinking, and surprise surprise, it fails time and time again, its not our reality at all, as one of my favorite economist says, 'its neat, plausible, but actually wrong'!

its extremely disturbing to think a finance minister would consult such a person, effectively a journalist, in the midst of one of the most serious economic crisis, i.e. lenihan had lost faith in his advisors, and turned to mcwilliams, which is beyond disturbing to realise, as most economic advisors are primarily neoclassically trained, and still is the case. lenihan was thrown under the bus, and by his own party, the pressure rapidly accelerated his illness, and ultimately lead to his death, so thats the kinna lads you re dealing with in parties such as ff!

people such as mcwilliams have spent their lives heavily criticising the mainstream, which in itself is far removed from reality, it is just all theory, but is radically and dangerously wrong, but successive governments after governments keep defaulting to its thinking, on both the left and right, we re basically now fcuked from such thinking, and its not changing, even after one of the most serious global crashes in human history, and it has become deeply embedded in our critical institutions, which are refusing to change.

mcwilliams was actually one of the first irish commentators to speak about how the previous boom was just a scam, and was gonna pop, no his was not the first person on the planet to speak up and realise so, but he was one of the first irish commentators to call it out, he was clearly right, and nothing has changed since, here we are again, in yet another property bubble, but in a far worse state!

our governments and our major state bodies are simply out of ideas, the ideologies that have been embraced globally, for the last few decades, are now rapidly failing, yet we dont seem to be able to realise this, and pivot, our governments seem to think, its business as usual, but its not, theyre quickly losing the people, and their faith in resolving this critical issues, we re going rogue, its not gonna be pretty!

yes, increasing state involvement in critical sectors such as housing is actually the only way to try resolve such issues, but its not gonna happen, and for a very long time, as this is fundamental no no under modern political and economic ideology, preferring more fire sector, financialised approaches, which only yields hyper inflated prices, chronic supply problems and extreme market dysfunction, our policy makers are still hardwired to think, it ll eventually work, but it wont!

funnily enough, we were actually starting to experience supply issues during the height of the previous crash, when we were all talking of ghost estates, i.e. the houses were in the wrong places, dublin was starting to experience supply shortages at the time, another failure of the financialised model, whereby the priority becomes wealth extraction, i.e. rent seeking, rather than actually whats needed, in this case, houses where theyre actually needed, its a major failure, and our governments and states are not equipped to deal with it at all, and in fact, keep exasperating the problem

theyve also been waiting for a major housing crash, which has yet to happen, nobody has a real understanding of such dynamics, what truly causes such situations, as its simply extremely complex, but we certainly have a better understanding of why, particularly since 08

I don't think anyone is talking about stopping immigration altogether, certainly not McWilliams who has said that immigration is needed.

What is needed is a refocusing of immigration policy towards the needs of the people rather than against the needs of the people. This may mean a significant reduction in overall numbers, but this reduction would also make the country more attractive for those specific immigrants the country needs to come here.

I don't think anyone, either, is asking to deport those already permanently resident in the country.