bertie is gone

[gt94]

snap soc

[Marie]

Wow, first Fidel Castro steps down, now Bertie Ahern!!! What is the world coming too, two great socialist leaders under severe pressure forced to step down. Now Fidel served a very long time but Bertie was cut short. I am not a Bertie voter but I am a Bertie supporter. Pat Rabbite said he ''was lucky to serve at a time of great change in our country'' one word Pat, BULL!!! He instigated and maintained that great period of change, both economically and politically, get over yourself Pat and just bloody accept that Bertie was a great leader and the public are not in any way happy with the bully-boy tactics of the opposition and the media, ye all make me sick. My sentiments will be echoed in the next general election when the people make it clear that Bertie was pushed before we wanted to lose him!

[soc]

Pat Rabbite said he ''was lucky to serve at a time of great change in our country'' one word Pat, BULL!!! He instigated and maintained that great period of change, both economically and politically, get over yourself Pat and just bloody accept that Bertie was a great leader and the public are not in any way happy with the bully-boy tactics of the opposition and the media, ye all make me sick. My sentiments will be echoed in the next general election when the people make it clear that Bertie was pushed before we wanted to lose him!

Don't take this the wrong way but comments like this just demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of our current situation, how we came to be here and were we are heading over the coming 18 - 24 months.

1) People are more indebted than ever before - credit card debt is obnoxiously high mortgage debt is unsustainably high.

2) Our property market, on the back of which people are massively in debt, is on the brink of a serious downturn - already almost 30% of FTBs over the past 2 years are in negative equity and there is now rumour of a large percentage of these already in arrears on mortgage repayments. And as we have no control over interest rates we cannot relieve the pressure on home owners as they have done in the states. So when rates start to rise (as they will to combat EU inflation) many more people will suffer.

3) US multinationals have started to reconsider their position (case in point DELL) as the cost of Irish labour has increased to uneconomical levels

4) Exports are under threat with the rising Euro against the dollar and this will start to bite soon enough - not to mention a potential reduction in tourism revenue as a result of Americans not visiting.

5) Our public services are severely lacking or at best disjointed despite 10 years of abundant wealth - now this wealth is dissapating (already 600m down on tax receipts this year) we see a raft of cutbacks on government spending (e.g. schools, health care) so there won't be scope for the required investment in infrastructure. This alread impacts our productivity - imagine this one of the Polish guys who works for me assures me that public transport and general public amenities are superior in Poland desite the relative lack of wealth.

6) The ISEQ index has lost olmost 50% of its value in the past 12 months (from a hight of over 10,000 in May '07) - so becuase Irish fund managers invest primarily in Irish stocks its bye, bye pension fund gains from the 90s. I wouldn't like to be retiring any time soon if my pension fund consisted of a large % of irish stocks!

7) The credit which allowed all the stupid people in Ireland live well beyond their means is coming to an end - the credit crunch is coming 100% mortgages are gone and most banks are reverting to the old formula of X times your gross annual income - currently this appears to be 4.5x - given the average wage in Ireland is only 35k there will be a big disconnect between available credit and house prices, i.e. max a joint couple on average wage will be able to borrow is 315 and they will need an 8% deposit as well - how many houses can you realistically by for that kind of money?

Even those with VIs (vested interests) are starting to downgrade forcasts for economic growth over the coming year. That's pretty telling in itself given these are the very people who would strive to maintain an illusion that there is nothing wrong and so maintain over-inflated property prices.

I could go on and on.....

This is a direct result of mismanagement by our government - this government wasted money on poorly thought out and poorly managed infrastructure projects (2 x luas lines, port tunnel, current program of road upgrades - M50, tara bypass). They mismangaged the property sector and allowed it heat up beyond belief - 750k for a 3-bed semi anyone? Instead of regulation land prices and controlling credit they allowed a free-for-all which will now result in many people living with negative equity, large mortgage repayments, monster commutes to work, areas with little or no available amenities... do I really need to go on???

Unfortunately the one thing they were very successful at is spin and giving insignificant amounts of money away in the form of lower income tax was a genius move. And it's these people (developpers and VIs aside) who were too blind/stupid/uninterested (delete where appropriate) to see that these tax breaks don't even come close to offsetting the increase of other costs that voted this government back in.....

If Irleand was a privately owned company the directors (i.e. government) would already be in big trouble!

[Bernard]

3) US multinationals have started to reconsider their position (case in point DELL) as the cost of Irish labour has increased to uneconomical levels

Worrying times indeed, both myself and the missus work in Dell.
That said even with new new polish plant open I've never seen it so busy and I'm there nearly 12 years.
We've been doing near constant OT for a year now.