Nation in denial

T

Teatime

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It seems to me that we as a nation are completely in denial.
It was our own fault that we got into this financial mess and I mean the massive Budget deficit. We are all to blame some more than others.
The government did not help matters and some of the bankers should be jailed but it is our own fault at the end of the day.
In the last 10 years we have become unfriendly, ignorant and irresponsible money grabbers...
Nobody forced us to elect the same bunch for 10 years+
Nobody forced the opposition to be so poor and to criticise expansive budgets for not going further.
Nobody forced us to build houses with more than 3 bathrooms
Nobody made us build houses greater than 3000 sq foot for 4/5 people max. 2000 sq ft even.
Nobody forced us to buy brand new 4WD jeeps and people carrier gas guzzlers and develop our ability for ultra-impatient 'road rage'
Nobody forces us to talk about money money money and house prices and salaries constantly
Everybody encouraged everybody else to buy into the great pyramid scheme
Where are those people who screamed at those that tried to warn us - I was bitterly accused of 'talking down the economy' a year ago when
I started to fear the worst. All for the Greedier good.
Nobody forced us to treat the eastern european workers badly to increase profits.
Nobody forced us to buy badly built semi-detached houses in obscure parts of the country for 300k+
Nobody forced us to buy second homes, third homes,....
Nobody forced us to take foreign holidays 2/3 times a year
We were too cocky and voted No to Lisbon - next time we will be all over Lisbon like a rash and begging for more EU grants...

And so 120,000 marched. I am not sure why they did exactly - What is the alternative solution? Its everyone for themselves now and the unions
know that better than anyone. We need to come with a solution fast or it will changes from marches to riots. 1980s, 1950s will seem like a blip in
comparison.

Facts are; 40% of our economy was based on a pyramid scheme in construction. That's now gone. We need to cut public spending costs
in line with that. Stark but simple and we will all suffer. We also need to reclaim our souls along the way.
 
I'd have agreed 100% up to a couple of weeks ago. We were all a little bit foolish and greedy.

Where I'd differ, however, is that I believe most of us were honest in our jobs and do not now deserve to be footing the bill for hundreds of millions of euros arising from very suspect banking deals
 
Agree totally with DerKaiser. Most ordinary working people feel that they will now be left to foot the bill of others. Many people did not but into what Teatime has outlined.
 
It was our own fault that we got into this financial mess and I mean the massive Budget deficit. We are all to blame some more than others.
The government did not help matters and some of the bankers should be jailed but it is our own fault at the end of the day.
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We were certainly encouraged by the government and media to do various things in the above list.
Why did the government provide section 23 and other tax breaks at the peak of a property bubble for example? The media was full of examples of lovely property, the value of which would only increase. Why did the government swell the size of the public sector, create useless quangos and award huge pay increases? They certainly added fuel to the fire.

I would say the government are largely to blame for the mess we are now in. Oh, and I didn't elect them. I didn't vote for them so I'm not to blame.
 
DerKaiser said:
most of us were honest in our jobs and do not now deserve to be footing the bill for hundreds of millions of euros arising from very suspect banking deals
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tosh100 said:
Most ordinary working people feel that they will now be left to foot the bill of others
Click to expand...

I think this is where the denial is creeping in. It is true that very few people are red-handedly 'to blame' for the current crisis. But pretty much everybody has benefited in some way from the things that caused the crisis. More than they should have been - salaries were increased, taxes were reduced and social welfare payments were increased. What now needs to be done (amongst many other things...) is an unwinding of these benefits that none of us should have had in the first place. And while it is unpalatable because nobody wants a reduction in income/standard of living, people need to ask themselves honestly 'where would I be/what would my income/standard of living be if some of the 'bad stuff, nothing to do with me, bankers/developers run amok' things had NOT happened. If the government had kept a firm hand on things, if banks didn't lend to developers etc etc - what would your net income be today? If it would be lower, you are part of the problem if you refuse to be flexible in sharing the pain.

I find the stubborn 'nothing to do with me but I'm not handing back what I gained' attitude really troubling - because if we can't get past that, it is difficult to see a way out of this without either a very prolonged recession or external management of our economy.
 
orka said:
I think this is where the denial is creeping in. It is true that very few people are red-handedly 'to blame' for the current crisis. But pretty much everybody has benefited in some way from the things that caused the crisis. More than they should have been - salaries were increased, taxes were reduced and social welfare payments were increased. What now needs to be done (amongst many other things...) is an unwinding of these benefits that none of us should have had in the first place. And while it is unpalatable because nobody wants a reduction in income/standard of living, people need to ask themselves honestly 'where would I be/what would my income/standard of living be if some of the 'bad stuff, nothing to do with me, bankers/developers run amok' things had NOT happened. If the government had kept a firm hand on things, if banks didn't lend to developers etc etc - what would your net income be today? If it would be lower, you are part of the problem if you refuse to be flexible in sharing the pain.

I find the stubborn 'nothing to do with me but I'm not handing back what I gained' attitude really troubling - because if we can't get past that, it is difficult to see a way out of this without either a very prolonged recession or external management of our economy.
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I agree completely with that.
 
what scares me most is this agenda to put as much blame on the bankers & the property developers, and i am neither.

yes some bankers broke the law, yes huge loans were given out, yes property developers made millions, but lets stop for a second and think who is responsible for monitoring the financial industry in this country....

The financial regulator. thats where the buck should stop...but what happens he gets a payoff.

If we had proper corporate governance & proper regulation of the financial industry the bankers would never have been in a position to create any of the mess they did.
 
orka said:
I think this is where the denial is creeping in. It is true that very few people are red-handedly 'to blame' for the current crisis. But pretty much everybody has benefited in some way from the things that caused the crisis. More than they should have been - salaries were increased, taxes were reduced and social welfare payments were increased. What now needs to be done (amongst many other things...) is an unwinding of these benefits that none of us should have had in the first place. And while it is unpalatable because nobody wants a reduction in income/standard of living, people need to ask themselves honestly 'where would I be/what would my income/standard of living be if some of the 'bad stuff, nothing to do with me, bankers/developers run amok' things had NOT happened. If the government had kept a firm hand on things, if banks didn't lend to developers etc etc - what would your net income be today? If it would be lower, you are part of the problem if you refuse to be flexible in sharing the pain.

I find the stubborn 'nothing to do with me but I'm not handing back what I gained' attitude really troubling - because if we can't get past that, it is difficult to see a way out of this without either a very prolonged recession or external management of our economy.
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Agree 100%. Well said.
 
bamboozle said:
what scares me most is this agenda to put as much blame on the bankers & the property developers, and i am neither.

yes some bankers broke the law, yes huge loans were given out, yes property developers made millions, but lets stop for a second and think who is responsible for monitoring the financial industry in this country....

The financial regulator. thats where the buck should stop...but what happens he gets a payoff.

If we had proper corporate governance & proper regulation of the financial industry the bankers would never have been in a position to create any of the mess they did.
Click to expand...

Agreed and I think the EU will impose regulations so that this never happens again but I dont think we can continue to blamestorm - we need to act now (today) to save the economy and hope that the financial 'criminals' get the justice they deserve . I am not sure what power the regulator has and even if he got guillotined tomorrow morning, we'd still be in the same financial mess.

We need to look to the future rather than criticise the past.
 
We are all to blame some more than others.
The government did not help matters and some of the bankers should be jailed but it is our own fault at the end of the day.
In the last 10 years we have become unfriendly, ignorant and irresponsible money grabbers...

Speak for yourself please!!
 
orka said:
I think this is where the denial is creeping in. It is true that very few people are red-handedly 'to blame' for the current crisis
But pretty much everybody has benefited in some way from the things that caused the crisis.
Click to expand...

As a nation we currently spend €20bn a year more than we raise in taxes. This is the big item we have to deal with and it will ultimately involve reduced wages and services as well as higher taxes. Having run up massive personal debts to maintain an unsustainable lifestyle is no excuse for people not to face up to the situtaion.

However, we are now being saddled with a probable €5bn deficit from Anglo. A few very corrupt people have made the situation we are in a lot more severe than it should be. People can say this corruption was just a product of the society we live in so we are all responsible, in the same way we are responsible for each and every gangland muder and each road death. Ultimately some are a lot more reponsible than others and to say otherwise is simply denial of the number of things in our lives that aren't directly under our control.


orka said:
salaries were increased, taxes were reduced and social welfare payments were increased. What now needs to be done (amongst many other things...) is an unwinding of these benefits that none of us should have had in the first place. And while it is unpalatable because nobody wants a reduction in income/standard of living, people need to ask themselves honestly 'where would I be/what would my income/standard of living be if some of the 'bad stuff, nothing to do with me, bankers/developers run amok' things had NOT happened. If the government had kept a firm hand on things, if banks didn't lend to developers etc etc - what would your net income be today? If it would be lower, you are part of the problem if you refuse to be flexible in sharing the pain.
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Agreed, there was no long term sustainability of high wages and lowincome taxes. In fact the short term wage and tax levels have contributed to a squandering of money we needed to ride out the recession

orka said:
I find the stubborn 'nothing to do with me but I'm not handing back what I gained' attitude really troubling - because if we can't get past that, it is difficult to see a way out of this without either a very prolonged recession or external management of our economy.
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For me this is the heart of the matter and I too think that such attitudes only serve to make the situation worse.
 
orka said:
I find the stubborn 'nothing to do with me but I'm not handing back what I gained' attitude really troubling - because if we can't get past that, it is difficult to see a way out of this without either a very prolonged recession or external management of our economy.
Click to expand...

When will people get the message I wonder? We nearly need to beg the govt to increase taxes and cut spending at this point.

I know couples who are not affected by the crisis at all yet i.e. still have high salaries in safe jobs, high savings etc. They are cutting spending in a huge way e.g. no social life, making lunch rather than buying, bargain hunting constantly, so that they "can ride out the storm" - but surely if these people dont keep up their normal level of spening it only makes the downturn worse with less taxes to govt and more unemployment ?
 
I just wonder why the goverment ever cut the taxes in the first place, had they left them at higher levels people wouldn't have been so reckless with the extra money that they had in their pockets. Better put them back in place and cut public spending asap.
 
PaddyW said:
I just wonder why the goverment ever cut the taxes in the first place...
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Because the electorate kept voting for parties that promised to cut taxes.

I think we might have reached a point where tax-cutting was not as high a priority as it had been for most people, but many politicians failed to notice that.
 
Yeah, kinda guessed it was to do with their election promises. For me, if they had left them as they were it would have been no problem, what you never had you never missed and all that. Could've held off some of the obscene spending that we've seen in the past few years if they had kept the taxes high and people had less in their pockets to squander.
 
Increasing taxes? Are you guys seriously? You seriously believe that raising taxes will help?

In a country where savings these days yield no or minimal return and that minimal return than is taxed with 23% and possible also eaten by inflation, how can you expect people to prepare themselves for bad times. Now you want to raise that tax even higher?

The couple that Teatime talks about reduced their spending because they are worried and our govement is doing nothing to calm the situation. So they save money and don't spend and you are complaining about that, now you raise the taxes so they have less to spend (possible even less than they have now) and hence they will make further cutbacks or even find legal loopholes to pay less taxes.

So instead of raising taxes you must give a break on DIRT to encourage saving and find a way to get them spending again by for example lowering the VAT and making them feel that the storm is over.

I have only made minor cutbacks up to now (grab a bus instead of taxi, shop at tesco instead of superquinn, downgrade my Sky subscription) but if the taxes are going up than I will have to make further cutbacks which will directly effect the jobmarket.

I will do my own cleaning at home more often which means I cut the time the cleaning lady comes in half resulting in her sooner or later being out of a job.

I will do the same with my garden and that company is already near to going out of the business anyhow so I might be the last straw.

I stop going out regulary and eat at home more often which means that there are less restaurant staff and VAT. And that is a hard one for me because I love going out for food.

I will up my contribution to my pension fund because I feel that I want to lower my tax burden while doing something good for myself. And rather me having it in my older years than a uncontrollable tax man now.

I will finaly hire an accountant to ensure that I get all tax benefits I can get rather than just accepting the PAYE way.

Put even more money into the savings account because I feel that if this continues I will be out of job. And use a large part that I would usualy spend to pay for a bill protector which gives me additional funds if I become umployed.

Now what does hiking taxes bring you, more people that feel the storm is too big to handle and which cut off spending resulting in more umemployed.

What you want is me continuing to get services done for which I am too lazy (Cleaning/garden) or which I enjoy (going out for food) while encouraging savings (by getting ride of DIRT or lowering it).

But that is only my personal situation.
 
That's your budget. The country also has a budget and it is running up debts of €20bn a year on behalf of all of us. Like it or not this cost will ultimately be bourne by all of us.

There is naturally a vicious circle of higher taxes not leading to proportionately higher tax takes as disposable incomes fall. This is why public spending will utimately be slashed with the most vulnerable suffering (given that the bulk of spending is on health, education and social welfare).
 
DerKaiser said:
This is why public spending will utimately be slashed with the most vulnerable suffering (given that the bulk of spending is on health, education and social welfare).
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But why not cut back the 113 local authority organisations or the small hospitals or one person garda stations?

It is time we dragged public services into the 21st century.
 
cork said:
But why not cut back the 113 local authority organisations or the small hospitals or one person garda stations?

It is time we dragged public services into the 21st century.
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Because these measures alone will not save €20bn.

Cutting the dole by €50 pw would save less than €1bn per annum.

Adding a flat 5% tax on gross incomes will raise barely €4bn before taking account of the resulting loss of VAT etc from reduced consumption.

We're gone well beyond the point where efficiencies and minor tinkering will balance the books.

Schools will be severely underfunded, Hospitals will close, social welfare will be cut and taxes will be increased significantly.

We will look back in a couple of years time and the lunacy of someone on €50k a year protesting at losing €50pw from their net pay will appear ridiculous.

If someone doesn't understand that a 5 - 6% cut in net pay will pale into insignificance in terms of what is to come they have no right to criticise government policy
 
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