Recession - How bad is it

WalterMitty · 13-04-2011 02:51AM

F1ngers wrote: »

Actually, it's not that bad for me.
Mortgage nearly paid off (four more repayments to go), nice job, pays well.
Nice little bonus in a couple of weeks.
I would have to say... what recession?
Happy days for me.:D:D:D

Carefull who you tell or some trade unionist will be knocking to your door asking you to "share the burden" with him and the bearded brethern

WalterMitty · 13-04-2011 02:55AM

Even those on welfare here have it better than 90% of the planet . I was watching a documentary about India where the economy is booming but the poor in slums were catching rats to cook as a protein source! There havent been truly hard times here since the famine :pac:

Saila · 13-04-2011 03:29AM

bad enough, could be worse though. If you didnt buy a house in the boom and money isnt the be all and end all of your lifes worth its ok, the boom gave a false sense of what normality was for everyone under 20-25 or so
so theres a whole generation who are feeling that sudden shock, if you didnt live a life of riley during the boom you are more insulated from the slump and can psychologically better deal with the changes coming your way.

Also emigration is mostly for graduates the places they are going generally only take qualified people in, its a brain drain on the country but it reduces the numbers and cost of SW benefits paid by the state so its a double edged sword.

the groutch · 13-04-2011 09:03AM

the depth of a recession isnt something you can generalise imo, it's all about individual circumstances.
for every 10 people who are out of a job, in negative equity, and struggling to pay the bills, there might be someone else who has been saving and has gotten a new house on the cheap, or runs a business which is doing better during the recession (debt collection as an example).

Vicxas · 13-04-2011 09:06AM

Well look, its bad, but look at the 80's.... and we pulled out of that.

TheZohanS · 13-04-2011 09:31AM

Vicxas wrote: »

Well look, its bad, but look at the 80's.... and we pulled out of that.

For Ireland this is worse than the 80's. We were sold out by the last government and the present government are a bunch of spineless liars. I give the current government 1 /12 years max before another election.

Mr Benevolent · 13-04-2011 09:45AM

It's not bad for me. Lowish rent, debt paid off ages ago, shop in Lidl, can afford a car, insurance etc. Negatives are that it's beginning to look possible that my job won't exist in 6-12 months as they're starting to outsource some of our work to India. I wouldn't mind, but I work for an outsourcing company anyway...

stovelid · 13-04-2011 09:54AM

I'm in I'm Alright Jack until I lose my job and then it will be serious.

admiralofthefleet · 13-04-2011 10:01AM

i was talking to my future father in law about it on sunday. he was saying he has lived through 3 before this (the late 50's. the 70's and the 80's) but was saying this is the most severe he has seen and reckons it will last for another few years and the recklessness will continue for a couple of generations

Wibbs · 13-04-2011 10:01AM

andrew wrote: »

As far as recessions go, it's a bad one. But this 'we're fucked for generations stuff' seems a bit excessive. The Irish economy has come through some really, really crap times since independance, and it'll come through again.

Vicxas wrote: »

Well look, its bad, but look at the 80's.... and we pulled out of that.

I lived through the 80's and yes it was bad. Most of my expensively educated mates legged it out of here, money was thin on the ground, but so too was expectation. This time around the expectation is very much higher and people are used to a standard and that standard is slipping. I think psychologically this one will be harder on many.

Economically? Yes we were dirt poor at various times since the foundation of the state. We didn't have much, but we didn't owe that much either. For a long time we were like a low income family struggling at times to pay for luxuries, with some of said luxuries on the higher purchase. Now we're like the middle income family who went batshít on the credit card, who didn't cut their cloth to their measure and have zero hope of ever paying off the huge credit bill, just maintaining it and not even that. While I think we'll get through it, these are very different times IMHO.

mari2222 · 13-04-2011 10:06AM

On the current expenditure side /day-to-day :

1. The 1.8m working pay most of the government's "income" of 40 billion.
2. The government pays out 60 billion, directly to recipients of schemes, to employees, to suppliers or to the various agencies like HSE.

There is a shortage of 20 billion for the year, just in day-to-day spending.!

Agricola · 13-04-2011 10:08AM

If things pan out the way I think they will, i.e all this debt stays on the state finances and we end up repaying it (or just the interest alone) throughout our own lives, the lives of our kids and then their kids, then yes, I think we are completely fcúked.
Im not an economist, but I put my faith in the people who foretold this mess years ago. If they say this is entirely unsustainable, its a scary place to be.
The best we can hope for is armageddon in the eurozone. Portugal has already folded. If this much sought after debt forgiveness scenario can relieve a significant portion of the burden there may be hope.

the groutch · 13-04-2011 10:08AM

agree with Wibbs' sentiment, it's a case of the higher you climbed in the boom, the bigger the fall now

admiralofthefleet · 13-04-2011 10:09AM

TheZohan wrote: »

For Ireland this is worse than the 80's. We were sold out by the last government and the present government are a bunch of spineless liars. I give the current government 1 /12 years max before another election.

i think they will only last a few months. it will go like the shift in the early 80's, haughey>fitzgerald. fitzgerald>haughey and so on

myflipflops · 13-04-2011 10:09AM

The thing is, we will struggle to know a lot of the impact that this financial meltdown will have until we see it.

It's 10 years time, when there has been a decade of cutbacks in education, health, public infrastructure and the rest, that we will look back and really be annoyed at all the money the government and the people p*ssed up against a wall of half completed apartments in Rathnew.

Right now, it's individuals who are suffering the brunt. In the future, we'll see the country suffer.

Ouchette · 13-04-2011 10:10AM

Simona1986 wrote: »

plus the huge number of people who are looking for work but who aren't entitled to any benefits due to being below a certain age or because of their parents incomes.

Plus the people who lost their job and decided to stay home and look after the kids and rely on one income instead of 2.

Plus the people who went back into education/stayed on longer than they would have because they couldn't find a job

Plus the people who lost their jobs and took early retirement, knowing they'd be pension age anyway before finding a new job.

...

Numbers of people (not %) in full time work in Ireland this year v 2008ish would be interesting to see.

Wibbs · 13-04-2011 10:21AM

the groutch wrote: »

agree with Wibbs' sentiment, it's a case of the higher you climbed in the boom, the bigger the fall now

True, the problem is now that those who didn't fly high are having to bail out the high flyers and the daft who did.

mari2222 · 13-04-2011 10:23AM

Ouchette wrote: »

Numbers of people (not %) in full time work in Ireland this year v 2008ish would be interesting to see.

Numbers at work per CSO:

1999 1521700
2001 1663600
2003 1721500
2005 1867100
2007 2030000
2008 2029800
2009 1872500

kfallon · 13-04-2011 10:31AM

I was too young to be aware of the recession in the 80's but I'd like to ask anyone on here he does remember it, which do they think is worse?

I suppose your view on it will be swayed by personal experience, i.e. you had a job in the 80's recession, lost a job in current recession so obviously you'd say it's worse now!

Still be interested in views/thoughts on it!

admiralofthefleet · 13-04-2011 10:34AM

kfallon wrote: »

I was too young to be aware of the recession in the 80's but I'd like to ask anyone on here he does remember it, which do they think is worse?

I suppose your view on it will be swayed by personal experience, i.e. you had a job in the 80's recession, lost a job in current recession so obviously you'd say it's worse now!

Still be interested in views/thoughts on it!

i grew up during the 80's so cant really say much but at least then the banks had money

enda1 · 13-04-2011 10:41AM

Debt is not that big an issue. You can be a very prosperous and healthy country while still managing a large debt.

The key word is managing.

At the moment our debt is spiralling out of control, but it will stabilise and when jobs grow, expenditure gets properly cropped and costs come down, the economy will pick up again. At this point yes, we will have a very large debt but we should be well able to manage it. However the current real issue is the rate of increase of our debt.

We are lucky somehow in the sense that we as a people do not have a huge expectation of handouts from the government and are a capitalist minded people so we will take the necessary cuts easier that other similarly affected economies and so hopefully can manage to stabilise our debt ratio sooner than could otherwise be the case.

To put things in perspective, Germany only last year I think, finished paying back its Versailles Treaty (1919!) induced debt. Id managed this debt while at the same time growing into the fiscal and industrial powerhouse that it is. Some say that this large burden of debt and history of mistakes encouraged fiscal prudence and a sense of having to do the right thing in ensuring it was paid back and would not need to be increased, as a reason for the countries slow and steady growth and healthy management of expenditure and unemployment.

thirtythirty · 13-04-2011 10:46AM

What's Ireland's debt per individual does anyone know?

The US's is $45,000 per citizen, and $128,000 per tax payer - are we worse than that? Cuz they seem to be getting along just fine!

Ouchette · 13-04-2011 10:52AM

mari2222 wrote: »

Numbers at work per CSO:

1999 1521700
2001 1663600
2003 1721500
2005 1867100
2007 2030000
2008 2029800
2009 1872500

So if it continued to fall at the 8% rate from between 2008 and 2009, that's 21.5% fewer people in work now than before the recession. 1 job in 5 lost, near enough. Sounds bad to me.

Edit: And that's still ignoring people going from full time to part time.

gbee · 13-04-2011 11:01AM

I'm doing the confirmation circuit currently, it's always a barometer of the state of the people.

This year, for the first time people are not buying the photos they ordered at the church. Usually, once you turned up at the door you'd get your money or most of it, not this year.

We've been forced to suspend COD which is sad and it will probably be the end of this business, as in previous years it was both a revenue generator and promotion for new business.

Studios too are in dire straights and I will pick up a small amount of work assisting studios in a mobile capacity as clients are not calling into the fixed studios.

This is not an ordinary recession, it's effects are permanent. A recession last three months and recovery follows in the following two years, we are three years in recession, savings gone, spirit gone, no significant work for another five years and don't expect the Irish to have first pick when the jobs slowly return.

Ireland is broken, the Irish are broken and recovery inventory is either sold off or rusting and useless.

As one waits for the Bishop at these Confirmations, people just spill their innards and it's not pleasant.

Archeron · 13-04-2011 11:15AM

My tumbleweed manufacturing plant is thriving.

mickydoomsux · 13-04-2011 11:25AM

gbee wrote: »

I'm doing the confirmation circuit currently, it's always a barometer of the state of the people.

This year, for the first time people are not buying the photos they ordered at the church. Usually, once you turned up at the door you'd get your money or most of it, not this year.

We've been forced to suspend COD which is sad and it will probably be the end of this business, as in previous years it was both a revenue generator and promotion for new business.

Studios too are in dire straights and I will pick up a small amount of work assisting studios in a mobile capacity as clients are not calling into the fixed studios.

This is not an ordinary recession, it's effects are permanent. A recession last three months and recovery follows in the following two years, we are three years in recession, savings gone, spirit gone, no significant work for another five years and don't expect the Irish to have first pick when the jobs slowly return.

Ireland is broken, the Irish are broken and recovery inventory is either sold off or rusting and useless.

As one waits for the Bishop at these Confirmations, people just spill their innards and it's not pleasant.

Not meaning to sound cruel but your industry is a pure Celtic Tiger business. These are the kind of businesses that are failing because technically they were not needed in the first place.

People cut discretionary spending first.

Rabidlamb · 13-04-2011 11:41AM

gbee wrote: »

As one waits for the Bishop at these Confirmations, people just spill their innards and it's not pleasant.

T'was all going well 'til you got all waffly at the end, pity.
Good piece besides that.

Morrisseeee · 13-04-2011 11:51AM

Imagine Ireland as a company,
we're paying back our (huge) dept at 6%
we're growing at 0.5%
we need to be growing at 9% to service our depts !!!!!!!!
our depts are 125% of GDP
unemployment is only getting worse

Its UNSUSTAINABLE..............

:eek:

Meanwhile (in related news) the 'fat cats/tigers' that got us in this mess are licking the cream off their whiskers and swishing their tails on some beach in the CostaDelFatCatLand. :mad:

siniman · 13-04-2011 12:02PM

admiralofthefleet wrote: »

i grew up during the 80's so cant really say much but at least then the banks had money

But mortgage interest was about 14% - this is not the first generation to have mortgage payment take up a huge chunk of income. The main difference is in the length of the mortgages. Credit in the 80s was nearly impossible to get - you would have to bow down before the bloody bank manager to get even the smallest od. it had the result however of nearly forcing you to leave within your means and therefore the gap as such between the have and had nots (excluding the really well off) was probably not as great.

Donal Og O Baelach · 13-04-2011 12:16PM

Another often ignored difference between the 80's recession and now is the contrast of peoples expectations.

Society in the 80's - you're talking about MTUSA, Who shot JR, ford cortinas, (Ford Sierras had the WOW factor), etc

Now - Sky+++, Jimmy- choos, Sex and the City, etc

Back then your neighhbour might be better off than you but not usually dramatically so. Now people look across the street at the 4x4's and the lush communion parties and feel real resentment.

This is a far more divided society than it was then.

Recession - How bad is it

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