Mary Robinson tells it like it is

prinz wrote: »

Yes because instead of saving etc, you put the money back into the economy that was built on an unsustainable boom across all sectors. Throwing fuel on the fire. Spending the money you DO have is great as long as you keep having the same amount of money if you want to enjoy the same lifestyle.

And maybe people who spent money they had, also saved?

Pace2008 wrote: »

I've spent the last 5 years of gainful employment living in a self-built house of wattle and daub, leading an entirely self-sufficient, ascetic life in isolation from humanity, all the while squirreling my money away in a hole I dug in the ground with a log shaped a bit like a spade.

Am I absolved from blame?

In fairness, you are - but only you mind you! However, if you enjoyed the odd cookie from M&S, or bought the odd CD... hang your head in shame, economy wrecker! :mad:

drkpower wrote: »

I disagree; every one of us who spent too much on a house, or too much on anything for that matter, or demanded too much in wages or social welfare, helped to inflate a rapidly inflating market.
That deserves a portion of the blame.

Well at least you're moving away from the "We are ALL to blame" bollocks and being a bit more specific.

For those of you who think, 'its nothing to do with me; i bought my €7 pints, and my holidays, and my shoes, out of my money that i earned'; consider that it was that attitude which got us politicians that ran the country as they did; we should have been telling them to stop; we didnt. This is all going to happen again unless those of you who cant see that simple fact open your eyes.

How exactly could we have told politicians to stop, other than not voting for them in the election and voicing our objections which wouldn't have worked anyway?
If you were greedy with the fees you charged, don't blame others. That seems to be what this laughable charade is about tbh... That or that very Irish phenomenon of self flagellation, as pointed out by Lumen and Cavehill Red.

And really, I can't see how a person who is in full-time employment (and no job has EVER been guaranteed) and took out a mortgage for a modest house (even if highly priced - all properties were, relatively speaking) was being greedy. Taking a risk maybe, but not necessarily greedy.

drkpower wrote: »

By telling them to their faces.
By protesting against excessive expenditure, benchmarking, SW rises, tax decreases, SSIAs and all of the other things they did. Did you do any of that?

So what if I didn't? Would it have made a difference? Of course it wouldn't, as you well know. So now you're resorting to blaming people who weren't flash idiots with money for not seeing into the future.

FFS, dont you see the point? We were ALL 'greedy with the fees we charged'.... you were too, even if you didnt have the ability as i did to set your own fees, you did have the opportunity to negotiate your own salary which is precisely the same thing. It feeds the same monster. You were and are being paid too much. Face it.

Um... "Face" what? You... have access to my payslips? I'm on a crap wage. Oh but it's higher than a crap wage in Spain so I'm contributing to the greed, or something. What you're effectively saying is that I, because of living here, have a role to play. That's utter sh1t, and you know it. If a person is getting well paid, is it greedy of them to not say to their employer "Boss, give me a pay-cut"? And I never negotiated my salary, so your point being?
You can blame plenty of ordinary Irish people for this mess, plenty of them. Blaming every Irish person though is pretty abhorrent.

prinz wrote: »

Not my experience tbh. Discussing it with friends recently and I was the only one with any sort of significant savings put by.

So what if it's not your experience? People did save.

Basically we all spent too much on stuff, because it was all completely over-valued.

So we just stop buying essentials because it's over-priced? This sh1t is gold.

Instead of calling a halt, people called for more, more more.

Yes, some people did. Not me.

More government spending, more out of town centre shopping arcades, built by developers btw, but don't let that stop the weekend trips to Dundrum etc.

Eh... yeah. For some people. You're still with the using specific stuff that only applies to certain people... to blame everyone.

Self-flaggelation, yeah of course that's it. It's not at all because I had some cop on and can face up to it all.

Earlier on, you said you were also to blame, despite living a frugal lifestyle - that's what I meant by self-flagellation.
I am fully faced up to it, I'm just not going to unfairly point the finger at people who aren't in any way responsible - or take it up the arse and accept blame myself, when I didn't live beyond my means, and didn't live greedily even within my means.

drkpower wrote: »

You were and are being paid too much. Face it.

I am earning more than in the boom! How do you like them apples?

Although I would admit I am not in Ireland. In any case what people earn is something between themselves and their employer. It was not the cause of the bubble, although increasing real living standards did contribute to the nice and real boom we had during the 90's.

Enough of the hair shirt bollocks, it is economically illiterate. Paying for food, and drink, and cars did not cause the bubble to crash. What caused the crash was the failure of the developers. I already posted that. Anglo's collapse was the fulcrum, and Anglo is not a retail bank.

The rest of the "we as a society" malarky is about feeling morally superior to the largest amount of people possible, if you blame the actual culprits then you would only feel smug about a few thousand developers, realtors , regulators and politicians.

drkpower wrote: »

Of course you negotiated your salary; when you took your job!!! A 'crap wage' is relative; you are paid too much - there is no reason why you should be paid significantly higher than someone who does your job in Spain. The reason you are is because we all took pay increases, which led to increases in the cost of the economy, which led to further pay rises, which partly caused inflation of house rpices, which was all caused by cheap credit. And no-one yelled stop. Until you realise that you, yes you, and me, and all of us, have a duty to yell stop the next time this happens (like no doubt our German friends would), we are destined to repeat our failures.

lol. Um, no. Firstly there are differences across the world in wages. If Ireland is paid more than Spain it could be that Ireland is more productive than Spain. Germany is also paid more than Spain. Looking at the Irish private sector it is in fact, very productive, per capita. The wages of people in that sector are none of your business and didnt cause the crash.

Secondly the main factor influencing house prices was cheap credit, not wage increases. House price increases are not - it pains me to point out this obvious fact - in the interest of first time buyers. As we can now quite clearly see. Nor, to state another obvious fact, are rent increases useful to renters.

You are blaming the victims here. The people getting ripped off, by house prices, food prices, bad regulation are being blamed for this, for not travelling 100 miles a week to shop ( or something).

The real transfer of money in the bubble was from FTBs to the generation which managed to sell with their mortgage paid off after 20-30 years. It was one of the greatest intergenerational tranfers of wealth in history.

drkpower wrote: »

Unfortunately this is the short-sightedness that will see us in this place again sometime soon; this was history repeating itself, you know?!

Nah, people being flash fuk-wits with money will land us in this place again sometime soon, you know?! Plenty of people voiced their objections, they fell on deaf ears. Plenty of people weren't stupid with money (like me) yet we're being punished now - and worse still, blamed.

Of course you negotiated your salary; when you took your job!!! A 'crap wage' is relative; you are paid too much - there is no reason why you should be paid significantly higher than someone who does your job in Spain. The reason you are is because we all took pay increases, which led to increases in the cost of the economy, which led to further pay rises, which partly caused inflation of house rpices, which was all caused by cheap credit. And no-one yelled stop. Until you realise that you, yes you, and me, and all of us, have a duty to yell stop the next time this happens (like no doubt our German friends would), we are destined to repeat our failures.

Your back-up to apportion some of the blame to me is becomingly increasingly abstract - and to the point of "If you bought a carton of milk here, you contributed". It's utterly ludicrous and bizarre. Maybe just try to blame people who were actually irresponsible with money? I'm paid not much more than minimum wage btw. Again, you are saying that because I lived and worked and spent here and nothing more, I have a part to play. So wages were high across the board during the boom - as was the cost of living. And are you saying people should have said "Oh no, that's too much pay, I want a pay-cut"? You're taking being human out of this entirely.

Oh btw, is my 93-year-old grandmother to blame, seeing as "everyone" was?

And now she's coming back here to run her climate change organisation.......ffs, that's all we need is another green telling us what to do and taxing us for the pleasure, she can fcuk off and stick her green ideals where the sun doesn't shine!

drkpower wrote: »

We need to learn the lessons of our own behaviour.

What behaviour? Living and working here and yes, socialising and spending but doing absolutely nothing flash is the only behaviour I'm guilty of... Is maybe living like an Albanian peasant farmer who can see into the future what I should have been doing?

Rabble Rabble wrote: »

You are blaming the victims here. The people getting ripped off, by house prices, food prices, bad regulation are being blamed for this, for not travelling 100 miles a week to shop ( or something).

Spot-on.

LordSutch wrote: »

Two 4X4s in the dirveway + a BMW saloon for getting to the beauty salon, (all on credit), the House/Mansion is/was worth €One Million (obviously with a 100% mortgage), two/three annual holidays to the Bahamas or some such place + a trip at Christmas to Lapland for the kids to see Santa! (Maybe a quick New York shopping trip too)! A helicopter trip or stretch Limo for the kids first communion, Harvey Nicks on a Saturday to buy some nice expensive designer clothes, M&S food shopping for the week, 50" Top end Plazma TV, obviously with top satellite package from Sky + top end surround sound system (all on plastic) - nothing above is actually paid for.

A hell of a lot of irish people have been leading the life of Riley over recent years, maybe that's what our Ex President is refering to?

who had that? no one in my neck of the woods thats for sure :rolleyes:


ahh mary robinson, one of ireland's greatest people.....

To varying levels, most people are somewhat resonsible for this mess. Government mainly, yes.