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Why Ireland's housing bubble burst

worksinprogress.co

111–120 of 161 posts

Re: Why Ireland's housing bubble burst

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The prices are raising due to fundamental cost. The cost of making your Big Mac or frozen burrito are increased. Thus, BigCorpFood has to manage price (too expensive and less consumers buy their products) and cost (too much cost means no profit). BigCorpFood would really like to sell you a hundred frozen burritos at $0.99 that cost them $0.09. That would be ideal. Less ideal but realistic would be selling you frozen…

The money goes around in a big circle. The big mac is pricier because the price of beef went up, for example. So the farmer is making more money. Or perhaps the supplier of feed to the farmer. Somewhere, someone is making more money; it’s not like there’s a link in the supply chain where all the do is set money on fire. Also: sales is recorded on the income statement , no-one claimed that sales = income.

Right, the income statement does include revenue.

Re: Why Ireland's housing bubble burst

#112
post #43
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The markets absolutely soared. The markets are not invididuals, if we're talking about stock markets. And in Europe they don't represent most of the population as asset holders or anything like that. Case in point for France: "There was an 8.3% decrease in France’s economy in 2020, and the country has not seen a recession to this extent since World War II. For example, France’s travel and tourism sector’s contribut…

Careful, the French measure of “poverty” is a percentage of the median income. It’s more an indicator of inequality than anything else And the 200k people laid off from the tourism and other sectors were paid 80% of their previous income by the state.

>areful, the French measure of “poverty” is a percentage of the median income. It’s more an indicator of inequality than anything else

It does say "below the 1,063-euros-per-month poverty line in France" which whether it was calculated with the median income in mind or not, it's quite fine as a poverty measure, not just inequality (that's like making less than $12K/year, or if we adjust for cosr of life, less than $18K/year or so).

Re: Why Ireland's housing bubble burst

#113
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The markets absolutely soared. The markets are not invididuals, if we're talking about stock markets. And in Europe they don't represent most of the population as asset holders or anything like that. Case in point for France: "There was an 8.3% decrease in France’s economy in 2020, and the country has not seen a recession to this extent since World War II. For example, France’s travel and tourism sector’s contribut…

If the class of people who buy houses (people with assets and deposits) get wealthier then house prices go up. As you say, people who aren't buying houses anyway not getting richer doesn't have any impact on the price of houses.

I guess so, but it makes sense to be surprised when house prices (and rent) goes up, in 2 years when most people get fucked over financially.

Re: Why Ireland's housing bubble burst

#114
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Munich is crazy. You would have to be a very upper middle class to afford children and a house there. Unless you inherited one, of course.

House or an apartment?

A house. Let us say 160 sqm with 800 sqm garden. You can buy such property very cheaply somewhere in rural Thüringen, but for Munich, you would have to be a millionaire or close to that status.

Re: Why Ireland's housing bubble burst

#115
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A house in Prague will cost you about 600k USD, but the average salary after tax is something like 21k USD. Welcome to Europe :)

Lol exactly. I don’t wanna tout who has the most expensive houses but Prague and Brno win with the average wage / price ratio. I’m already remote for US company and still cannot a flat here due to abysmal central bank rules.

"Weeee are the champions, my friend!"

At least in something.

Re: Why Ireland's housing bubble burst

#116
post #38
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because tons of professions, small business, workers laid off, etc suffered from the lockdowns, so there was not exactly clear that "people had more money to spend".

In France? Not really. There was a massive injection of public money. Anyone furloughed was paid 80% to stay at home.

That's still 20% less than what they were making before. Not exactly something to start them buying houses...

Re: Why Ireland's housing bubble burst

#117
post #11

Because that's the nature of bubbles? Though bubbles are a bad analogy: actual bubbles burst, economic bubbles deflate - not because of a puncture, but because they were continuously filled with air from a source that at some point can't provide it anymore.

> actual bubbles burst [...] not because of a puncture, but because they were continuously filled with air from a source that at some point can't provide it anymore. Don't they burst because the source doesn't stop before the bubble gets larger than what it can be? The source stopping would just lead to a deflation where it slowly gets smaller if the air hole is still open, or remain the same size until tiny leaks ma…

>*Don't they burst because the source doesn't stop before the bubble gets larger than what it can be? (...) The source stopping would just lead to a deflation where it slowly gets smaller if the air hole is still open

To continue my analogy, I prefer to visualize them as flying uncontrollably while shrinking very quickly (but not immediately as a puncture would), propelled by their own deflation discharges...

So, this kind of thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CTnTi1Lq60

Re: Why Ireland's housing bubble burst

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the fact that you've been pointed to firm evidence of bribes, yet call the developer's actions "lobbying" says a lot about your good faith here. In case you're actually reachable though - just because a government fails to stand up for its people does not excuse the complicit parties who "lobby" them to fleece normal people by the millions.

It's simply an ineffective way of looking at the world. The government is the one that sets policies, not the developers. To me a government official that accepts a bribe and makes far reaching policies in response to one is much more culpable and to blame than somebody making the bribe. It's like if a company hired a lot of unqualified people and then blamed those people when it failed, rather than their system of c…

I’m curious - in what other contexts do you apply this "logic" ?

If the guy who robbed your house and cleared out your bank account bribed the judge to go free, would you then feel that the robber played the system well?

Would you be arguing that he doesn’t need to go to jail, only the judge? Because "democracy"??

... I fucking doubt it.

And I imagine you'd feel even worse when you find out that the burglar and the judge have worked together to clear out entire neighborhoods.

So why excuse theft on a national (even international) scale?

Re: Why Ireland's housing bubble burst

#119
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Careful, the French measure of “poverty” is a percentage of the median income. It’s more an indicator of inequality than anything else And the 200k people laid off from the tourism and other sectors were paid 80% of their previous income by the state.

> areful, the French measure of “poverty” is a percentage of the median income. It’s more an indicator of inequality than anything else It does say "below the 1,063-euros-per-month poverty line in France" which whether it was calculated with the median income in mind or not, it's quite fine as a poverty measure, not just inequality (that's like making less than $12K/year, or if we adjust for cosr of life, less than $…

Two things:

1) being a fixed percentage of a median, any variation in the median will change the “poverty rate” without it necessarily meaning anything. If the minimum wage increases by 100 euros, the poverty rate will actually increase because the median income will go up and more people will come under X% of it

2) you can’t really compare income across countries. 1000 euros a month means you will receive social housing or subsidies for private rental. It means neither yourself nor your children will pay for any state services (school, school meals, health, swimming pool etc, public transport etc). I’d far far prefer to be on 1k in France than 2k in the US

Re: Why Ireland's housing bubble burst

#120
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In France? Not really. There was a massive injection of public money. Anyone furloughed was paid 80% to stay at home.

That's still 20% less than what they were making before. Not exactly something to start them buying houses...

Except that they’re not driving to work, they’re not eating at the cantine/restaurant at lunchtime, they’re not going on holiday, they’re not going out in the evening…
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