David McWilliams - In Search of the Pope's Children

[DrMoriarty]

I thought Liam Fay's review in the Culture section of the Sunday Chimes was pretty good. I don't think I'd particularly like Fay if I met him, but he does a great line in 'scathing'...

Rarely before has a commentator probed so deeply in the proverbial mine of useless information.

 

[annR]

Watched last night, had missed the first one.
b) talking about Johnstown near Navan, in self important tones, "Take a good look at it, because in 20 years time this is what Ireland will be like" (or words to that effect). But there was no conclusion. So David, is it a good thing or a bad thing? Does it mean Meath will dominate Lenister football again or will it be joyriding on the back roads of Meath??
.

I didn't really take this in a condescending way. Indeed whatever way he said it, I think he's basically right - we should always have a good look around us and thinking about fact that this is the world/suburb/environment our kids will come out of.

I also think he is right not to offer a conclusion. The aim is to be thought provoking so it's better left open. No one knows all the answers anyway not even David.

I thought the foreign investment bit was good with the Irish developer building this massive 5 star resort in Bulgaria and bussing over Irish people to invest. Is it really as crazy as he made it look?

 

[Betsy Og]

I suppose my point is that without conclusion or insight then is it merely statements of the obvious?

So we learn that many people live in Navan, dunno about you but I'd gathered that anyway. So what does that mean to me/the country?

Not that David gave any comment but I'd guess its a necessity due to house prices in Dublin and it can/does lead to commuter chaos and reduced quality of life to those who must work in Dublin. I can pick up a paper any day to tell me that.

 

[Art]

His main points that he repeats over and over are to do with comparisons with Japan and boom-bust cycles.

I clearly remember listening to him on the Late Late back in early 2001 around the time I bought a house that has since nearly tripled in value. At that stage he was comparing Ireland to Massachusetts and predicting a similar property crash for Ireland as had happened there. I note that there has been no mention of Massachusetts in his two programmes so far and that he has now moved onto Japan.

If McWilliams was right about the crash in 2001 and is right again now then house prices would have to fall significantly below their 2001 levels.

 

[Markjbloggs]

His main points that he repeats over and over are to do with comparisons with Japan and boom-bust cycles. quote]

I clearly remember listening to him on the Late Late back in early 2001 around the time I bought a house that has since nearly tripled in value. At that stage he was comparing Ireland to Massachusetts and predicting a similar property crash for Ireland as had happened there. I note that there has been no mention of Massachusetts in his two programmes so far and that he has now moved onto Japan.

If McWilliams was right about the crash in 2001 and is right again now then house prices would have to fall significantly below their 2001 levels.

His prediction in 2001 was based on data available at the time. What he was not to know was that 1. Ireland would see 2% interest rates in the post-9/11 environment and 2) the massive influx of East Europeans due to EU expansion. Both these factors contributed greatly to the price boom - without them, ireland would have been much more exposed to the dot.com bubble burst.

In a sense, he was blindsided by these events, but his theses (ie property bust) still holds true. IT WILL HAPPEN. The uncertainty is in the timing.

M

 

[davidoco]

However, people do need reminding of what has and can happen in places like Japan. It is really staggering to think that 20 years ago Japan was predicted to overtake the US but ended up in mess you couldn't believe possible for an advanced economy what with years and years of deflation, property crash, 0% interest rates, banks collapsing etc. etc. I mean, what makes Ireland so special that it can't happen here?

Economies can and do recover. I remember being in Hawaii in 2004 and there was a shopping centre exclusively reserved for Japanese only!

http://www.economist.com/theworldin/asia/displayStory.cfm?story_id=5133348&d=2006

PS Decklander had a beautiful deck, large back garden, and a stream running through his garden – there are no semi-ds on Daft like that.

 

[Art]

In a sense, he was blindsided by these events, but his theses (ie property bust) still holds true. IT WILL HAPPEN. The uncertainty is in the timing.

M

I accept that. However why has he not acknowledged that he was wrong back then due to factors he could not have foreseen. Why has he also stopped referring to Massachusetts if it was such a valid basis for comparison in 2001? Also are you saying that you agree with him that prices will fall below 2001 levels?

 

[CharlieC]

Slightly off-topic- anyone know where the Norman castle featured in programme was. Had a bet that it is in West Limerick

 

[Markjbloggs]

I accept that. However why has he not acknowledged that he was wrong back then due to factors he could not have foreseen. Why has he also stopped referring to Massachusetts if it was such a valid basis for comparison in 2001? Also are you saying that you agree with him that prices will fall below 2001 levels?

The US real estate market got the same impetus (ie low interest rates) as Ireland, so I can see why he stopped using Mass. as an example of what can go wrong. The bubble has already burst in parts of the US, so this example may come back into use!!

I do not know enough about price levels in Ireland to be able to comment as to what represents value here. It would seem reasonable that once the bubble factors are removed, that prices would revert to something close to where they were when it started.

Who knows what is around the corner - who ever thought we would see 2% interest rates? Just 2 things to bear in mind -

1. For a bubble to happen (stocks, real estate, tulips etc) , one of the key ingredients is the complicity of authorities - be they the Minister for Finance, the Federal Reserve, The Central Bank etc.
2. Many bubbles are also characterised by leverage, easy access to large amounts of money, which is then used by ordinary people to inflate asset prices.

Now, ask yourself, are these two characteristics at play here in Ireland?????

 

[TarfHead]

I totally concur with what Liam Collins said about McWilliams in yesterday's Sunday Independent.

I eventually found that article on unison, thanks to a link on Wikipedia.

Wow, saucer of milk for Liam Collins

"There is an old maxim in journalism (and business) that you should never knock another man's racket" .. but I'm going to give him a good kicking anyway ..

 

[Art]

Now, ask yourself, are these two characteristics at play here in Ireland?????

I do accept that there will be a correction in Irish house prices. I am just not so sure that there will be a crash.

What I am questioning is the credibility of David McWilliams given

1)that he has been so wrong before,
2)that he has failed to point out that his earlier predictons were incorrect
3) that he has not acknowledged that no matter what happens, prices will not crash below their 2001 levels. If he is correct prices should revert to what they were in 1995

 

[ubiquitous]

... no matter what happens, prices will not crash below their 2001 levels.

This eventuality may be highly unlikely but is surely not impossible?

 

[Markjbloggs]

This eventuality may be highly unlikely but is surely not impossible?

Exactly. Anything can happen.

 

[homeowner]

1. For a bubble to happen (stocks, real estate, tulips etc) , one of the key ingredients is the complicity of authorities - be they the Minister for Finance, the Federal Reserve, The Central Bank etc.
2. Many bubbles are also characterised by leverage, easy access to large amounts of money, which is then used by ordinary people to inflate asset prices.

Now, ask yourself, are these two characteristics at play here in Ireland?????

I dont think anyone here is saying that the property market will continue to grow at the rate it has in the past 8 years or that there will not be some sort of slowing down or soft landing or whatever you want to call it.

I think the point is that McWilliams, for all his commentary on the subject seems to be only talking about what has happened and the fact that Ireland is just folllowing predictable economic trends that have occured in other countries. But anyone with knowledge of economics can tell you that.

I would be more interested in him expanding on why he thinks there will be a crash and when he thinks it will happen. Anything he has said on that subject to date has been wrong because he has been saying it for years. Like another poster said, I would have more respect for him if he admitted he got it wrong 6 years ago as he couldnt predict interest rates etc.....

 

[Art]

This eventuality may be highly unlikely but is surely not impossible?

Of course nothing is impossible - it is also not impossible that house prices will continue to increase as they have since 2001.

Therefore you are quite right that a crash to 1995 levels is highly unlikely. It is also highly unlikely that prices will keep going up as they have since 2001.

Either way it is highly likely that Mc Williams was incorrect in 2001 when he said that properties would crash from the levels they were at then and return to their 1995 pre boom levels.

 

[edo]

I dont think anyone here is saying that the property market will continue to grow at the rate it has in the past 8 years or that there will not be some sort of slowing down or soft landing or whatever you want to call it.

I think the point is that McWilliams, for all his commentary on the subject seems to be only talking about what has happened and the fact that Ireland is just folllowing predictable economic trends that have occured in other countries. But anyone with knowledge of economics can tell you that.

I would be more interested in him expanding on why he thinks there will be a crash and when he thinks it will happen. Anything he has said on that subject to date has been wrong because he has been saying it for years. Like another poster said, I would have more respect for him if he admitted he got it wrong 6 years ago as he couldnt predict interest rates etc.....

For all the self appointed expert economists on the thread:

heres McWilliams mea culpa - go knock yourselves out

[broken link removed]

 

[ludermor]

This is taken from his online chat

Tom Power: How many times during the past decade did you forecast the imminent collapse of house prices?
David: Hi Tom. You're absolutely spot on. I have been wrong on this since 2000 odd. I didn't expect Germany to stay in a recession so long and therefore didn't expect our interest rates to stay so low for so long.

 

[Wilkes]

Had my attention drawn to this, the very close similarities between Bobo in Paradise published several years before In Search of the Popes Children. For those of us who rated David Mcwilliams as an original thinker this comes as a shock but maybe he'll explain. EDO seems to know the author quite well. This is a review on Amazon;

"Remarkably similar to David Brooks's 2000 study, Bobos in Paradise -- The New Upper Class And How They Got There. In fact, a recent article in Ireland on Sunday went so far as to quesion whether McWilliams is the new copycat of the Celtic Tiger!

For example:
McWilliams writes of a new social class he calls HiCos, Hibernian Cosmopolitans disappointed that the social revolutions they supported in the 1970s, '80s and '90s led to mass consumerism rather than radical political change.
The Bobos -- Bourgeois Bohemians -- (from Brooks's book) fret about the same things as the HiCos. Both are seeking new spiritual paths, rejecting Judaeo-Christian worship and looking instead for New Age solutions to fill the aching void that rampant materialism has corroded into their souls, and each is appalled by the vulgarity of the class below. For the Bobo, that is Patio Man; for the HiCo, it is DIY Declan, a citizen of Deckland, McWilliams's catch-all name for anonymous satellite towns where garden decking is the ultimate sign you have arrived.
DIY Declan sees Woodie's as his temple -- which makes him a very close cousin of Patio Man, who feels the same about Home Depot.
And they are aspirational in very similar ways. For Brooks, that means they crave monstrous refrigerators and 'slate shower stalls'; for McWilliams, it means they crave monstrous refrigerators and 'slate wet-rooms'
In leafy US suburbs, Brooks found that so many blue delivery bags containing the New York Times lay on suburban lawns that the bags were visible from outer space. McWilliams decides that, along with the Great Wall of China, Christmas decorations in Celbridge gardens are the only things that can be seen with the naked eye from space.
It goes on. For Brooks, lifestyle magazines like Conde Nast Traveler are the new pornography. For McWilliams, The Irish Times Thursday supplement is 'property porn'.

Both are amused by the language of recruitment advertising; by the way that we have all embraced artisan breads; by how we drink machiatos and lattes instead of just 'coffee'.

They offer new names for the bars we have raised on our own expectations -- Brooks has an Achieveatron, while McWilliams invents an Attainometer.
And both love the wedding announcement pages. Brooks talks of The New York Times, where 'a Duke MBA who works at NationsBank marries a Michigan law grad who works at Winston and Strawn'. McWilliams, in the Irish Times, finds that 'lawyer beds down with doctor, AIB marries Anglo-Irish' etc -- and both guffaw at the fact that the engagement announcements are known among the monied classes as the Mergers and Acquisitions Page. The similarities in the two books are astounding. The only significant difference is that Brooks's book was published in 2000 while McWilliams published his book in 2005.

 

[homeowner]

Had my attention drawn to this, the very close similarities between Bobo in Paradise published several years before In Search of the Popes Children. For those of us who rated David Mcwilliams as an original thinker this comes as a shock but maybe he'll explain. EDO seems to know the author quite well.

Brilliant! Patio Man. BoBo. Home Depot.
I'll never read DMcW's articles in the same light again. What a rip-off.

 

[legend99]

Thats from Diarmuid Doyles article in the Tribune last Sunday. He manages to make McWilliams look like a bit of a cogger!

Had my attention drawn to this, the very close similarities between Bobo in Paradise published several years before In Search of the Popes Children. For those of us who rated David Mcwilliams as an original thinker this comes as a shock but maybe he'll explain. EDO seems to know the author quite well. This is a review on Amazon;

"Remarkably similar to David Brooks's 2000 study, Bobos in Paradise -- The New Upper Class And How They Got There. In fact, a recent article in Ireland on Sunday went so far as to quesion whether McWilliams is the new copycat of the Celtic Tiger!

For example:
McWilliams writes of a new social class he calls HiCos, Hibernian Cosmopolitans disappointed that the social revolutions they supported in the 1970s, '80s and '90s led to mass consumerism rather than radical political change.
The Bobos -- Bourgeois Bohemians -- (from Brooks's book) fret about the same things as the HiCos. Both are seeking new spiritual paths, rejecting Judaeo-Christian worship and looking instead for New Age solutions to fill the aching void that rampant materialism has corroded into their souls, and each is appalled by the vulgarity of the class below. For the Bobo, that is Patio Man; for the HiCo, it is DIY Declan, a citizen of Deckland, McWilliams's catch-all name for anonymous satellite towns where garden decking is the ultimate sign you have arrived.
DIY Declan sees Woodie's as his temple -- which makes him a very close cousin of Patio Man, who feels the same about Home Depot.
And they are aspirational in very similar ways. For Brooks, that means they crave monstrous refrigerators and 'slate shower stalls'; for McWilliams, it means they crave monstrous refrigerators and 'slate wet-rooms'
In leafy US suburbs, Brooks found that so many blue delivery bags containing the New York Times lay on suburban lawns that the bags were visible from outer space. McWilliams decides that, along with the Great Wall of China, Christmas decorations in Celbridge gardens are the only things that can be seen with the naked eye from space.
It goes on. For Brooks, lifestyle magazines like Conde Nast Traveler are the new pornography. For McWilliams, The Irish Times Thursday supplement is 'property porn'.

Both are amused by the language of recruitment advertising; by the way that we have all embraced artisan breads; by how we drink machiatos and lattes instead of just 'coffee'.

They offer new names for the bars we have raised on our own expectations -- Brooks has an Achieveatron, while McWilliams invents an Attainometer.
And both love the wedding announcement pages. Brooks talks of The New York Times, where 'a Duke MBA who works at NationsBank marries a Michigan law grad who works at Winston and Strawn'. McWilliams, in the Irish Times, finds that 'lawyer beds down with doctor, AIB marries Anglo-Irish' etc -- and both guffaw at the fact that the engagement announcements are known among the monied classes as the Mergers and Acquisitions Page. The similarities in the two books are astounding. The only significant difference is that Brooks's book was published in 2000 while McWilliams published his book in 2005.