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I am convinced that Ireland is in Serious trouble

1…34689…24

Comments

  • #152
    BeerWolf
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,122 ✭✭✭BeerWolf


    Come to Ashbourne... road works 24/7 for the past decade - it's a tourist attraction! Keeping jobs going for those workers it is.


  • #153
    andrew
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 3,373 Mod ✭✭✭✭andrew


    Just a little Samba wrote: »
    Comparing medical science to soft "science" like economics, that's a terrible metaphor.

    It would be more accurate to say I trust economists about as much as I trust the lad down the road who says he can tell a storm is coming because his knee acts up.

    I wasn't really making that comparison. My point is that educated professionals make mistakes all the time - even in medicine, which as you point out is a hard science. But that doesn't mean we completely ignore everything doctors have to say, because we recognise that diagnoising human diseases is very hard, and diagnosing economic ones even harder. To suggest ratings agencies should've rated Ireland's debt as anything other than A in 2007, is to suggest that they be able to predict the future to a very unrealistic extent. At the same time, we can take this limited predictive ability on board and still recognise that their opinions aren't based on nothing, and a good rating isn't picked out of thin air.


  • #154
    keithclancy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,157 ✭✭✭keithclancy


    KomradeBishop wrote: »
    If you claim the 24 people per job vacancy stat is misleading, it's up to you to prove it - you're just throwing out a claim there.

    Found it:

    http://www.nerinstitute.net/blog/2014/09/02/latest-data-on-the-vacancy-rate/
    The current rate in Ireland is 24 people for every job vacancy available. This suggests the economy is still struggling to provide a sufficient number of jobs;

    But
    however, the rate is a notable improvement on the second half of 2013 when there were 28.5 people available for work for each vacancy

    That looks like improvement to me.

    Although they have no source on where the figures came from.


  • #155
    KomradeBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,981 ✭✭✭KomradeBishop


    Just a little Samba wrote: »
    Comparing medical science to soft "science" like economics, that's a terrible metaphor.

    It would be more accurate to say I trust economists about as much as I trust the lad down the road who says he can tell a storm is coming because his knee acts up.
    Ya, and all economists had to do to see a major crisis coming, was to look at 'private debt vs GDP' - virtually the entire profession, bar a very small number, utterly failed to see something so simple.

    Virtually all economics courses teach a variant of neoclassical economics - which has been largely debunked and shown as not being representative of how economies actually work in reality; this is why there is a growing student movement across the world, including in Ireland/Trinity, protesting the flawed nature of economics courses, and calling for reform.

    The economics profession, is so backwards, that for 70-80 years economics courses have been getting wrong, something as basic as how bank lending works - a minority of economists have known all that time, that banks create money from nothing (without reserves being the ultimate limit) when they make loans, yet for 70-80 years people/economists were taught that banks lend from savings/deposits.

    That means economists have been describing Banks, and by extension Debt and Money, wrong for the best part of a century - a big part of why so few saw the crisis coming.
    It's a completely bonkers profession, where most economists don't even have half a clue, of all the things they were taught that are wrong - few of them even know that what they have been taught, is neoclassical economics, because they've never been taught anything else.


  • #156
    KomradeBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,981 ✭✭✭KomradeBishop


    andrew wrote: »
    I wasn't really making that comparison. My point is that educated professionals make mistakes all the time - even in medicine, which as you point out is a hard science. But that doesn't mean we completely ignore everything doctors have to say, because we recognise that diagnoising human diseases is very hard, and diagnosing economic ones even harder. To suggest ratings agencies should've rated Ireland's debt as anything other than A in 2007, is to suggest that they be able to predict the future to a very unrealistic extent. At the same time, we can take this limited predictive ability on board and still recognise that their opinions aren't based on nothing, and a good rating isn't picked out of thin air.
    Economists are largely mis-educated though, into neoclassical economic views. Diagnosing economic problems like the 2007-8 crisis was piss easy: You just had to look at 'private debt vs GDP', and not be using a theory/model of economies, that ignores Banks, Debt and Money.

    Diagnosing how to solve the crisis is no more difficult than that either - except economists are still largely following the same debunked economic theory.


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  • #157
    RecordStraight
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,292 ✭✭✭RecordStraight


    KomradeBishop wrote: »
    It's a completely bonkers profession, where most economists don't even have half a clue, of all the things they were taught that are wrong - few of them even know that what they have been taught, is neoclassical economics, because they've never been taught anything else.
    Ah Jaysus, not this horseshight again.

    You got destroyed on the other thread peddling this nonsense, will you ever learn?


  • #158
    El_Duderino 09
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 21,471 ✭✭✭✭El_Duderino 09


    KomradeBishop wrote: »
    Yes well done ignoring the points made, to cheer on your imaginary 'recovery' - I'll repeat again:
    When QE fails, all of Europe is going to hit deflation again, and then you can forget having any recovery.

    People are fond of making simplistic extrapolations about our 'recovery', based on present growth rates, while being incapable of looking beyond the end of their own nose, to see the roadblock we'll be running into.

    And there was me, thinking more jobs was a good thing.

    What makes you think QE will fail and what will happen once it does? You really sound like you can't wait for that to happen BTW.


  • #159
    KomradeBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,981 ✭✭✭KomradeBishop


    keithclancy wrote: »
    Found it:

    http://www.nerinstitute.net/blog/2014/09/02/latest-data-on-the-vacancy-rate/



    But



    That looks like improvement to me.

    Although they have no source on where the figures came from.
    Right so no dispute of the figure: We have 24 people per job vacancy, i.e. there are not enough jobs for all of the unemployed.


  • #160
    KomradeBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,981 ✭✭✭KomradeBishop


    RecordStraight wrote: »
    Ah Jaysus, not this horseshight again.

    You got destroyed on the other thread peddling this nonsense, will you ever learn?
    Not a single poster was able to come up with a substantive challenge to any of my arguments on that topic - just condescension/sneering, and in your case, accusing me of using duplicate accounts. You're not going to sneer me out of blasting the flaws in neoclassical economics.

    That line of discussion ended on that thread, when another poster started backing my points criticising neoclassical economics - your and others attempts at criticisms stopped fairly sharpish, when you saw my views weren't singular.


  • #161
    RecordStraight
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,292 ✭✭✭RecordStraight


    KomradeBishop wrote: »
    Not a single poster was able to come up with a substantive challenge to any of my arguments on that topic - just condescension/sneering, and in your case, accusing me of using duplicate accounts. You're not going to sneer me out of blasting the flaws in neoclassical economics.
    Ok, so I'll repeat the question I asked that you never answered on the other thread.

    You say that Economics is fatally flawed because it is based on principles that have exceptions.

    What principles WITH NO EXCEPTIONS are you basing your improved understanding of Economics on?

    (by the way, I gave up on the other thread because it was clear you were not going to answer any questions)


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  • #162
    KomradeBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,981 ✭✭✭KomradeBishop


    El_Duderino 09 wrote: »
    And there was me, thinking more jobs was a good thing.

    What makes you think QE will fail and what will happen once it does? You really sound like you can't wait for that to happen BTW.
    What makes you think QE is going to work for any extended time?

    There's little dispute among people, that QE fails to put money into the real economy - that it puts lots of money in banks reserves, but that banks can't lend much of that money out due to private debt levels being so high - that instead the money goes into assets instead, boosting asset prices, which primarily benefit the finance industry and wealth (effectively a subsidy to the wealthy).

    I'd like nothing better than to see Europe engage in proper recovery policies - rather than head down this path towards long-term stagnation that we're on.


  • #163
    El_Duderino 09
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 21,471 ✭✭✭✭El_Duderino 09


    KomradeBishop wrote: »
    Right so no dispute of the figure: We have 24 people per job vacancy, i.e. there are not enough jobs for all of the unemployed.

    And the situation is ..... improving!


  • #164
    KomradeBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,981 ✭✭✭KomradeBishop


    RecordStraight wrote: »
    Ok, so I'll repeat the question I asked that you never answered on the other thread.

    You say that Economics is fatally flawed because it is based on principles that have exceptions.

    What principles WITH NO EXCEPTIONS are you basing your improved understanding of Economics on?
    I never claimed that there are principles with no exceptions, so you can keep on batting that straw-man all you like - you'll just be batting down an argument you made up.


  • #165
    Duffy the Vampire Slayer
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,384 ✭✭✭Duffy the Vampire Slayer


    Tony EH wrote: »
    And yet you'll have some gombeens trying to tell you that we're the fastest growing economy in Europe.

    :pac:

    Bear in mind Colombia has the fastest growing economy in Latin America, despite hosting extreme poverty. Having the fastest growing economy does not mean its the best nor that the people in that country will be the wealthiest. For example, the average Argentine is wealthier than the average Colombian but their economy is a disaster and is rapidly going backwards.


  • #166
    keithclancy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,157 ✭✭✭keithclancy


    KomradeBishop wrote: »
    Right so no dispute of the figure: We have 24 people per job vacancy, i.e. there are not enough jobs for all of the unemployed.

    I guess you must be a Christian as well :pac:


  • #167
    El_Duderino 09
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 21,471 ✭✭✭✭El_Duderino 09


    KomradeBishop wrote: »
    What makes you think QE is going to work for any extended time?

    There's little dispute among people, that QE fails to put money into the real economy - that it puts lots of money in banks reserves, but that banks can't lend much of that money out due to private debt levels being so high - that instead the money goes into assets instead, boosting asset prices, which primarily benefit the finance industry and wealth (effectively a subsidy to the wealthy).

    I'd like nothing better than to see Europe engage in proper recovery policies - rather than head down this path towards long-term stagnation that we're on.

    What would that look like?


  • #168
    KomradeBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,981 ✭✭✭KomradeBishop


    El_Duderino 09 wrote: »
    And the situation is ..... improving!
    And when QE fails we get deflation again and then the situation gets worse.


  • #169
    RecordStraight
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,292 ✭✭✭RecordStraight


    KomradeBishop wrote: »
    I never claimed that there are principles with no exceptions, so you can keep on batting that straw-man all you like - you'll just be batting down an argument you made up.
    Ok, so this is where you stand:

    1. Most professional Economists are fools because their understanding of Economics is based on principles that have exceptions.

    2. Your understanding of Economics (if it is based on anything at all) is also based on principles with exceptions.

    Is that about right? :confused:


  • #170
    KomradeBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,981 ✭✭✭KomradeBishop


    RecordStraight wrote: »
    Ok, so this is where you stand:

    1. Most professional Economists are fools because their understanding of Economics is based on principles that have exceptions.

    2. Your understanding of Economics is (if it is based on anything at all) also based on principles with exceptions.

    Is that about right? :confused:
    No - you're setting up and batting more straw-men; don't pretend your arguing against me here, you're arguing with your own made up arguments.


  • #171
    RecordStraight
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,292 ✭✭✭RecordStraight


    KomradeBishop wrote: »
    No - you're setting up and batting more straw-men; don't pretend your arguing against me here, you're arguing with your own made up arguments.
    Ok, do we have to go to first principles again to get back to that crux?

    Right. What is wrong the the analysis of most professional Economists today, that makes your analysis better?


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  • #172
    Motley Crue
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,382 ✭✭✭Motley Crue


    I left eight years ago and sometimes I regret it, sometimes I am thankful to have a unique opportunity where I am at that time, I guess that is just life. It's what you make it.

    Do I feel a strong urge to come back to the country where I was born and start paying Irish taxes??...not particularly...but likewise do I feel a strong urgency to set up roots anywhere in particular???....no....

    I used to think when going through University that Ireland would one day hold a job for me. But when I graduated I was given the choice of joining the dole queue or going to Edinburgh and working in a HMV.

    Granted, there were reasons I went to Edinburgh and not anywhere else, but still...there wasn't even the chance of a job in Dublin working behind a shop counter. And I had a fancy piece of paper etc.


  • #173
    Schecter01
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 153 ✭✭Schecter01


    I don't agree, I bit you can't make such statements from 'driving through towns' pubs and nightclubs are not essential to society, I'm glad they are on the way out, yet family restaurants and small producers are thriving, people are finally fetting their priorities straight


  • #174
    Egginacup
    Site Banned Posts: 2,922 ✭✭✭Egginacup


    ancapailldorcha wrote: »
    This in a big way.

    In the UK, most towns are near to at least one large city and serve as commuter towns. In Ireland a lot of towns, especially in the north-west and west are little more than a chapel, a handful of pubs and a corner shop. They're almost completely pointless.

    You'd want to see some of the cities in England that have basically lost their reason to exist. Places like Rochdale, Huddersfield, Scunthorpe, Hull, Grimsby. These places are just wretched. They have nothing but a pedestrianised "commercial" centre that is soul-destroying. Various retail outlets and gangs of ferral youths roaming around. Outside of the centre are estates where the general activity is drinking and fornicating. Utopia if you have no other goal in life but dreadful places nonetheless.


  • #175
    Schecter01
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 153 ✭✭Schecter01


    Sounds like Roscommon


  • #176
    andrew
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 3,373 Mod ✭✭✭✭andrew


    KomradeBishop wrote: »
    Economists are largely mis-educated though, into neoclassical economic views. Diagnosing economic problems like the 2007-8 crisis was piss easy: You just had to look at 'private debt vs GDP', and not be using a theory/model of economies, that ignores Banks, Debt and Money.

    Diagnosing how to solve the crisis is no more difficult than that either - except economists are still largely following the same debunked economic theory.

    I disagree. Criticisms of Economics, like that 'debunking economics' stuff are as far as I can tell bourne of complete and utter ignorance of what is actually taught and why it's taught. The "Students of trinity for economic pluralism" had an article in the University Times recently, which was crap and full of demonstrably false assertions. That it was written by current, ostibsubly smart, 4th year undergrads is just depressing. Saying they should be taught more empirics, yet ignoring there are modules in Econometrics and Quants and applied economics which do just that. Lamenting a lack of 'keynesian' economics when they're taught IS-LM in first or second year. Attacking the use of simplifying assumptions in models, but only the 'unrealistic' ones :rolleyes:. Claiming that the solution to all this is to start looking at already discredited, less scientific approaches whose only contributions have already been incorporated into the Economics canon. Asserting that the only economics taught it 'neoclassical' economics, even though modern economics takes a pluralistic approach and is as much a method as anything else. Completely ignoring microeconomics. I could go on. Jesus wept.

    /rant.

    And in response to your point that the prediction was 'piss easy' and private debt/GDP is all that matters, if that's the case and you only need that variable to predict when a massive recession is going to happen, then go collect your Nobel because you've just obviated the need for business cycle theory.


  • #177
    Idbatterim
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,691 ✭✭✭✭Idbatterim


    I always find these threads amusing. Full of anecdotal evidence from people that are too ordinary to get up and do anything useful only moan and complain. Their solution is to push a left wing government so they can be given hand outs of the successful peoples' money and continue to lie about and moan and whinge.
    The thing is, its those working with kids I feel the most sorry for, outrageous childcare and housing costs and the marginal rate of tax, its a total disgrace. What are these people getting out of the system for all of their effort?
    I honestly can see Ireland defaulting in a few years. One year of 4.5% growth, proves nothing given the structural imbalances.
    if you take car sales for example, they have shot up, is that from people who have recently become employed and are now splashing the cash? I doubt it. The fear and threat of falling prices and hoarding money amongst those that had it and also in anticipation of deflation on primarily housing etc, meant that a lot of people who had money, simply kept it in their bank accounts or under the mattress... I think the tide has now turned for a lot of people and this will in turn benefit others, currently in employment and seeking it...


  • #178
    KomradeBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,981 ✭✭✭KomradeBishop


    RecordStraight wrote: »
    Ok, do we have to go to first principles again to get back to that crux?

    Right. What is wrong the the analysis of most professional Economists today, that makes your analysis better?
    Go back to my post that you dismissed, where I explain a large part of what's wrong with current economic teaching:
    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=94411500&postcount=155


  • #179
    SpaceTime
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,085 ✭✭✭SpaceTime


    Dublin and Cork and probably Galway seem to be quite boomy again. Tralee and Killarney looked to be thriving too.

    There's a bit of an issue in the way some rural areas "boomed" on the basis of nothing though. A lot of activity was just house building. There was no real economic activity other than businesses serving that. Once the house building stopped, so did the economic activity in a lot of small places especially in the Midlands and parts of the West

    In reality, they borrowed money to build houses that there was absolutely no demand for and experienced a short lived bubble economy.

    You have to build sustainable economic activity - that's not going to be based on construction of buildings that serve no purpose.

    The cities, larger more vibrant towns and rural areas with strong tourism or agribusiness are recovering rapidly.

    We need to get real about planning and development though. You cannot really have high tech industry and service sector companies everywhere. They need pools of people and that usually means proximity to very large, reputable universities and access to cities essentially.

    These places that are seeking economic activity need to start growing sustainable businesses - areas like food and drink sector agribusiness and tourism are most likely to be winners for smaller towns.

    Good broadband for micro businesses is handy too and should be available in every small town and village. It just takes a VDSL cabinet and some fibre to it.

    I just think we need to be realistic. Some towns and villages are not capable oof sustaining employment levels that were seen during the construction bubble because it was not real economic activity. A lot of these places have a long history of very little economic activity too. We're seeing reality set in, not a depression.


  • #180
    RecordStraight
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,292 ✭✭✭RecordStraight


    KomradeBishop wrote: »
    Go back to my post that you dismissed, where I explain a large part of what's wrong with current economic teaching:
    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=94411500&postcount=155
    Yes, we went in big circles then where I asked you which basic principles are wrong, and you cited the law of marginal utility as being 'wrong' because there were exceptions. I pointed out that the exceptions are taught even in secondary school, as with all the other basic principles that have exceptions.

    You then leaped from principles that have exceptions to 'neoclassical economics is all rubbish, and is the only thing taught'. I pointed out that, even in the Leaving Cert (never mind 3rd level) students are introduced to everything from Thomas Aquinas and Mercantilism all the way to Monetarism - at least 6 different schools of thought.

    I'm still hoping to discover how you have a better understanding of Economics than that of even an LC student that does not rely on basic principles such as the Laws of Supply and Demand or the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility.


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  • #181
    chrysagon
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,813 ✭✭✭chrysagon


    our ministers seem to think we are well on our way,
    In total, 27 ministers are travelling to 21 countries worldwide where they are due to take place in more than 100 political and business meetings. Other ministers are travelling to China, Australia, New Zealand and India.

    Tanaiste Joan Burton will visit Boston, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, while Transport Minister Paschal Donohoe will fly to San Francisco, Silicon Valley and San Jose.

    Government Chief Whip Paul Kehoe will travel to Houston and Savannah, while Junior Minister Michael Ring will visit Phoenix and Los Angeles.
    .

    Environment Minister Alan Kelly will visit China and Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald will fly to Indonesia and Singapore.

    Foreign Affair Minister Charlie Flanagan, who is travelling to New York and Canada, said the value of the St Patrick’s Day visits “cannot be overestimated"

    i bet it cant
    i bet it cant!!


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