41–50 of 80 posts
One of the few positive things to have come out of the financial crisis of 2008 is that it has probably killed any prospect of Scotland becoming independent - we used to be promised that we could share in the same kinds of success as Ireland and Iceland if only we had the courage to go it alone! I doubt if many people have the appetite for being stuck in a small country with a financial monster like RBS or HBOS. [NB…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're advocating unrest? The government has disbanded and elections have been called. They're in for a kicking, which although short of full-on political reform, is something several hundred people had to die for in Egypt. Would it satisfy you if we burned a few cars? Where do you live? I'll meet up with you later and we can tear your street to shreds if you like.
Not much of a comparison between Ireland and Egypt obviously. That's why the comparison to France is more appropriate: where the people were actually unwilling to take it lying down - as they are doing in Ireland. It doesn't matter that a general election has been called. With the poverty of leadership in Irish politics at the moment, Ireland is in for more of the same incompetence that led to the current disaster fr…
Anger is certainly an appropriate reaction in circumstances like this, but I find articles like this really gloss over the nature of the shared responsibility for what happened. Yes, banks and governments (including the US! - we just haven't felt the full brunt of it yet) engaged in many unsustainable and downright fraudulent practices. Asset bubbles are breeding grounds for such things. On the other hand, no one for…
Most of these are high street banks (equivalent to S+L) that were making housing loans. You want to tell pensioners that their life savings are gone and the government is not going to do anything?
It might work - but it also means people will stop putting their money into banks, which means no credit cards, no business loans, no mortgages, no saving, no insurance. So everybody will only deal in cash which means no taxes.
Admittedly ireland is probably closer to a 12th century barter economy than the rest of europe - but I don't think it really wants to go there.
The bank bailouts made very little sense, the biggest toxic bank, Anglo Irish Bank, was not a retail bank. They specialised in property financing. Letting them go under would not have resulted in the Irish Government having to cover huge amounts of deposits. The current majority party (Fianna Fail) has a history of connections to property developers and this connection is what a lot of people though spurred the savin…
I'm in Berlin now and it appears the Germans feel these so called bailouts are rescuing countries that don't have their affairs in order. I think these bailouts are mostly to prop up German and French banks. Banks in Europe and the U.S. have finally figured a way to socialize their losses and privatize their gains. Big bonuses are still the norm at American banks even though it was their bad bets that led the U.S. to…
I agree wholeheartedly, but there are _so_ many people who readily (and hastily) blame "dumb and poor" people who shouldn't have gotten mortgages, Fannie and Freddie (US loan guarantors) who backed those mortgages, and one rogue liberal US representative (Barney Frank) who somehow bullied the entire 500-member legislative branch and then President Bush into allowing more mortgages to be handed out to poor people, thus causing the worldwide financial crisis.
Seriously, that's what people actually believe. What can be done to convince them that it's way, WAY more complicated than that?
One fundamental problem we have in Ireland is the way in which we elect our Dáil (parliament). There's a 4 minute section in this video (43m45s onwards ) http://www.rte.ie/player/#v=1090239 which explains better than I can, but here goes: In short: 1. There are multiple seats (often with a few candidates running from the same party) per constituency. 2. It doesn't take many votes to get elected (Any more than 8,000 v…
He said he had two maps on his wall, one of the eastern bloc enemy and a bigger one of his minister's constituency - a crisis (eg a pothole) in the constituency was the priority.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm in Berlin now and it appears the Germans feel these so called bailouts are rescuing countries that don't have their affairs in order. I think these bailouts are mostly to prop up German and French banks. Banks in Europe and the U.S. have finally figured a way to socialize their losses and privatize their gains. Big bonuses are still the norm at American banks even though it was their bad bets that led the U.S. to…
"Big bonuses are still the norm at American banks even though it was their bad bets that led the U.S. to its current economic mess." I agree wholeheartedly, but there are _so_ many people who readily (and hastily) blame "dumb and poor" people who shouldn't have gotten mortgages, Fannie and Freddie (US loan guarantors) who backed those mortgages, and one rogue liberal US representative (Barney Frank) who somehow bulli…
It's easy and natural for one to want to collapse a complicated issue into something manageable and understandable. Even if there is no evidence for it.
One fundamental problem we have in Ireland is the way in which we elect our Dáil (parliament). There's a 4 minute section in this video (43m45s onwards ) http://www.rte.ie/player/#v=1090239 which explains better than I can, but here goes: In short: 1. There are multiple seats (often with a few candidates running from the same party) per constituency. 2. It doesn't take many votes to get elected (Any more than 8,000 v…
There's a great book written by a civil servant in Ireland's foreign ministry in the 80s. He said he had two maps on his wall, one of the eastern bloc enemy and a bigger one of his minister's constituency - a crisis (eg a pothole) in the constituency was the priority.
There is an appetite to reform this stuff now, but it's hard to imagine the winners of the game when played by those rules deciding to change it dramatically.
Pardon if I deviate a bit from the main topic. I live in Ireland, and it was quite disheartening when the last budget cuts appeared. Taxes were increased across the board. If you were earning 25,000 Euros a year, you would pay an extra 1000 Euros in tax (and surprisingly enough, this low earner class was the worst beaten income group by hike in tax in percentage terms - 4+% more tax!). Since its general consensus tha…
There is no limit to how much government's can spend, however they get the money!