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Why it is in YOUR OWN INTEREST not to strike or protest at this time (mid May 2010).
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DeVore, Thanks again for creating another interesting discussion.
I read your OP when you first created the thread and I don't think I understood it as much as I do now. You had an aweful lot in your message and, having read it again, I spotted more stuff I think I understand.
<tldr>
Anyway, let's get this bit out of the way because it's like a sore thumb on this thread. I think your discussions would go bit easier if you just embraced that you founded boards.ie and that you're the face at the moment. You first moved the thread to this board and have edited at least one users post. You're not posting as a regular user and until you are a regular user, you just won't be. No matter what you said, people think of you as the face of boards.ie right now. Simple as.
Onwards to the actual topic. I've seen you get involved in some very interesting threads recently and even got involved in some of them. This thread has got me thinking and it's based on what you have posted.
So, you say it would be best to avoid the attention of the people who make money on a country defaulting. That they come in droves once our default in on the line. I guess this makes sense as I'm not 100% sure what happens to us if we default. Do you have any idea of how bad the country would get if we default? Please share your opinion if you do.
Next up, do you still think we will not default? The posts you made in back in May sound like that and you have not said you have changed your mind. If we are not going to default, do you have any idea of how bad the country will end up? I see that Lenihan has said we are in for a pretty harsh budget and I was wondering where you think our austerity measures might be heading.
Finally, I've been reading Ireland has cancelled the rest of it's bond auctions for 2010. Some discussions on other websites suggests that the markets might read into this and think Ireland is not doing well. Some have even said that it might lead to a lot of international money leaving Irish banks. The main worry seems to be that it's a sign that we are gonna have some kind of default. What do you think of that?
</tldr>
(Hmmmm, maybe I should've started this post with Dear Auntie DeV
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Firstly I didn't sticky this, one of the mods did and without consultation with me. I don't even know who did. Personally I don't think people read stickies as much as regular threads in fact ...
Secondly I wanted to open a discussion at the time because some crazy sh!t was being bandied about and a few loonies had just attacked the gardai at the gate the day before, the Greeks were in full riot and denial.
The institutional speculators were attacking the Greek bond markets and were on the prowl (have you noticed we don't hear so much about them now? And that Merkel basically banned them from trying it on with Germany??
Now things are calmer , if you exclude Joe the property developer and his over abundance of cement mixers, so the biggest danger which I outlined then may be passed. The dial has been in recess since then anyway so fleck all has changed and now I would say peaceful protest is advisable if you so wish. Strikes IMHO are cutting off your nose to spite your face basically.
People seem to think I'm some sort of apologist for the banks and the government! I'm certainly not... Google last years SSF comedy night to see my routine on what I think should be done with the banks and the bankers and the bail out.
My concern is for us, the schmucks getting screwed (cos either way, we're in the smelly stuff) and how we minimize how much pain we're in for. That's it. Making things worse WITH NO CLEAR UPSIDE, is nothing but self mutilation for the sake of anger.
Vent all you like but don't drag me with you....
I'd like to hear two answers from those suggesting direct action...
1.who fared better so far in this disaster, the Irish or the Greeks??? We have a bigger problem then they did but who has come out of this so far in better shape??
2.can you describe for me, in prose or whatever, a believable, potential scenario arising from direct action at this time which will make one jot of difference??
Bear in mind that when the old folk protested the government responded because they wanted to protect their reputation and were thinking about the next election. This government won't respond like that because they have nothing to lose, they know they are in for a hiding come the next GE so they simply don't care what you do outside the dial..... That's why they have cops out there!! So what I'm genuinely asking is for someone to describe the events in a popsicle future where direct action has a POSITIVE effect on our situation..... Paint me a picture of future events I can believe in and get behind rather then socialist rhetoric.
DeV.
Ps, this was written on an iPad and it makes quoting and editing hard, I'll respond to the well made points above when'll, I get home.... 0 -
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Slydice wrote:So, you say it would be best to avoid the attention of the people who make money on a country defaulting. That they come in droves once our default in on the line. I guess this makes sense as I'm not 100% sure what happens to us if we default. Do you have any idea of how bad the country would get if we default? Please share your opinion if you do.
The capital market speculation seems to have died down for now. I'm afraid I dont know what would happen if we defaulted, I doubt many do. I presume we wouldnt be loaned money again which would be very very bad for us, and truely fatal for Europe. I suspect that that wouldnt be allowed to happen by the ECB, we'd get a kicking but they have more to lose then we have and something would happen, probably the IMF would arrive which might be no bad thing long term but its bitter medicine as I understand it.
So in the end I think Ireland has rather ironically ALSO attained that mythical status: "Too Big To Fail".Next up, do you still think we will not default? The posts you made in back in May sound like that and you have not said you have changed your mind. If we are not going to default, do you have any idea of how bad the country will end up? I see that Lenihan has said we are in for a pretty harsh budget and I was wondering where you think our austerity measures might be heading.
I dunno if I said we wouldnt default, I dont know what I sounded like in your head but its always been a possibility. It would have been less possible when it was 22 Bn now at 39Bn it wouldnt seem beyond the realms by any means EXCEPT considering what I wrote above.
I'm no guru and I have no crystal ball, what my opinion is is very much irrelevant. My first post was based on facts as I understand them and they havent been contested. Those facts matter, my opinion ... doesnt.Finally, I've been reading Ireland has cancelled the rest of it's bond auctions for 2010. Some discussions on other websites suggests that the markets might read into this and think Ireland is not doing well. Some have even said that it might lead to a lot of international money leaving Irish banks. The main worry seems to be that it's a sign that we are gonna have some kind of default. What do you think of that?
This could be one of a few things.
1. We might not want to ask and be told "feck off". That looks awful and precipitates bad things.
2. We might have some agreement in the wings with Auntie Merkel
3. We might not consider that we need the money at that exorbitant price for the rest of the year (we DID just raise a fair bundle).
4. If we were going to default in 2010, it would be obvious by now and we wouldnt have been able to raise bond capital. So I doubt its that.
5. I am not a financial advisor, I'm using logic, experience of banking systems and my communication skills to try to educate people about the best course of action FOR US ALL and to hell with the politicians, developers, bankers and cronies. If I could reverse NAMA and let Anglo fail, I probably would. If I was back a year ago, I wouldnt have considered bailing out the banks. Capitalism is based on risk reward and survival of the fittest, there should be no place for socialised losses and privatised profits.
The words "at this time" in the subject should not be ignored, they are very pertinent and people keep putting words in my mouth.
When I saw the soft budget of 2009 I genuinely went into the Boards office and said "we're fecked, they didnt cut deep enough or far ranging enough". A year later we have spent our way into a big hole with a budget deficit far worse and scarier than the property collapse.
I dont think its time to smash open each others heads and feast on the goo inside JUST yet though...
DeV.0 -
Screw the government, they are dead at the next election. I'm out for us now and I want to explain to you why our best option right now is to sit tight and ride this out.
But you need to understand what an "institutional speculator" is to understand. I'll do my best to keep this simple and amusing, but its important you DO understand.
A speculator is basically a glorified gambler. But a gambler backs a horse and his horse either wins or loses. Not so for the speculators. In their world the game plays like this:
They pick a horse (country) they dont like the look of and they bet AGAINST it. That is, they buy a sort of insurance that says "if the country goes broke, the holder is covered". Now, imagine all the countries are lined up in the starting blocks aaaaand... they're off....
Suddenly Greece is miles behind and Ireland, Spain and Portugal are bringing up the rear too.
Now, the speculators who bought this special kind of "insurance" against the bankruptcy of those countries, well.... they find themselves in possesion of a (suddenly) very valuable and sought after piece of paper eh??
I mean, wouldnt you like a "get out of jail free card" if you were heavily invested in the Greek government bonds?? Sure you would!
So the speculators sell their insurance and make a profit. (they arent stupid, they never had anything in vested in those countries in the first place, they just speculated that insurance for those countries might be very handy to someone soon.
Greece didnt need to go bankrupt for them to win, it just had to go down the tubes a bit from where it started. The speculators guessed right that it would, bought insurance cheap when the coutnry was kinda ok and sold it when it was looking dodgy. Nice chunk of change.
Now comes the interesting bit. The EU heads have actually done something clever. They put a big big BIG sack of money on the table in the middle of Europe and said to the markets "wherever you go to speculate, we'll prop up that government by letting them borrow money from this here big pile of dosh!".
Well, thats death to the speculators. Firstly their money could well be tied up in insurance that isnt going to pay off as described above because the target country wont be allowed to fail and everyone knows it so the value of any insurance is eroded!
Secondly, money invested in the stock market that doesnt return any profit is in fact making a loss because it could easily have been banked and made a few percent. Thats bad for the speculators, their bosses will see that as a LOSS.
Thirdly the country might even benefit from access to these new funds and then its AWFUL news for the speculators the country would become MORE secure and the insurance becomes LESS valuable... now they have made the cardinal sin of actually LOSING money. Bad bad bad. No bicuit.
So, there is significant risk of significant loss for them and the EU is standing there with a 1 trillion Euro budget ready to fight with. No institution wants to take that on. Its just too scary, they could get burned badly. Money is tight remember, even for banks!
So we're all good then?! Protest away?? Well no. If the speculators get a single strong signal that a country is internally going nuts, then EN MASSE they will attack. One or two of them would be no problem, but like pirahna the problem is when they all attack in a group.
What they NEED is a single kick off point, kind of like a shotgun start at a golf course, everyone gets a clear GO GO GO signal. For Greece it was the strikes which led to the IMF.
In every trading floor room I have ever been on there were constant displays of world news, SKy News, BBC, ABC, CNN etc on LCD tvs. We do NOT want to be on those screens. Ever.
What we need to be doing now is saying "nothing to see here, move along to someone else, we're gold".
Going out and protesting right now is NOT going to change anything, I'm sorry but do you really think it will? Has it ever before??
But what it will do is bring the dog-pack here en masse.
Save your anger for the election, contact your TD and wear his ear off, but to go on the streets and riot or appear to be supporting riots is lunacy.
If you are in the Public sector, you DO NOT WANT to see the IMF come here, they dont care about you and they arent elected so they dont care if you dont like their measures, they will simply take control of the government coffers and issue your bosses less payroll. It wont be a "cut" as such, they just simply wont pay you.
If you are in private sector, you might think "wooo, that sounds like fun, lets f*ck the PS again. Come on IMF". You are also nuts. Reaming the PS just means a whole pile of stoppages and our country, your country, gets trashed. Good luck selling your goods, or helping your boss sell his goods when no one can move in the cities and no one has any money to spend. Some of your customers are Public Sector remember...
So what do we do? Lie back and think of Ireland? Well, ironically, yes. We take this shafting because we have no choice, we havent had since NAMA. But we should remember this and when the time of reckoning comes (its called an election ) we screw these bastards to the wall.
Right to the motherf*cking wall.
But we dont screw ourselves. Not now... cos we are the only ones looking after us now. Think clearly, think with your heads.
DeV.
I have to say I disagree with asking the Irish not to protest. The Irish are so passive in this respect already it is not right to give them any more reasons not to protest.
If the government thought a street protest, about a particular issue, would badly harm the country, maybe the threat of a protest would achieve something and the government might take action on said issue and do something about it.
Its a bit of a moral hazard, before long the government realises they can keep people off the streets by using a bit if scaremongering and spin. (or even better the public do this to themselves).
The real problem is with our finances, that problem is so glaring and bad it kind of dwarfs street protests.
A protest can achieve something - before it gets to the stage of actually protesting.
Like this recent example.0 -
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Fr0G the time to protest was in that very narrow window between when NAMA was announced and when it was enacted. That was LONG before May when I wrote this.
Exactly. But it is only when people begin to feel the pain in their back pocket they feel any motivation to get off their ass and demonstrate. That kind of "I'm alright Jack" self-interested mentality is what has led this country down the path of ruination, many a time.
A lot of the anger is justified, but a large chunk of it is just people who put themselves into massive debt and are getting less government goodie bags. If more people were genuinely interested in society as a whole being better off, then far more of these protests would've happened probably even years ago, as many of our problems far preceded this crisis. The sad reality is most people will shut up once their slice of the pie is safe.
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